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Max Trizuto
138 Plays2 years ago
Today Drew is Joined by max Trizuto. Max is an avid hunter who has been on a lot really great guided hunts everything from bison to moose. He has been working hard for years to get his first public land DIY buck and this year he finally pulled it off.
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Prayer
00:00:06
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.
Guest Introduction: Max Trisudo
00:00:31
Speaker
All right, here's another episode of the Tricer Podcast. My guest today is Max Trisudo. Max is a California guy who I always want to show love to because we do like to kill stuff out here despite popular belief. And not only Max from California, he's also from the Bay Area. So he is in the heart of I guess what we would call anti-hunting. So Max just killed a buck and I was like, come on, tell the story. So Max, tell me about you. Who are you? Who's Max?
Max's Background and Early Hunting Experiences
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I was born down here in the Bay Area, come from kind of a mixed background. My dad did a little construction when he was growing up, but mainly pharmaceuticals. So we bounced around, lived in Boston for a few years and then lived up in Seattle for about 15 years. So I did a little hunting up there with my dad. And then, yeah, when I graduated school, I moved back down here and I got in the Plumbers Union in San Francisco. So I've been doing plumbing for about 10 years now.
00:01:18
Speaker
and I've done a few guided hunts, but I've been wanting to get out there and do a public land hunt, even though there's so much negative stuff about it and success rate, I think it's 13 or 15% for black-tailed deer. So yeah, I was just really excited to check it out and did a lot of research. And yeah, I was able to be successful on the second day, so pretty stoked. So tell me, before I get too much into the deer story, I want to hear the deer story.
00:01:39
Speaker
I want to hear about, cause you're what, 30 years old now? How old are you? 36. 36. Okay. You're 36. So you were hunting when you were a kid, you just killed your first buck at 36. You used to be hunting with your dad, with your dad when you were a kid, you guys never killed a deer.
Family Hunting History and Relocation
00:01:54
Speaker
No. So I don't want to blame my dad a hundred percent, but so he grew up.
00:01:58
Speaker
in Berlin game and his dad was a war veteran. And as a lot of World War II veterans, they went and took on to hunting in the sixties and seventies. And so he took my dad out and a couple of his other siblings, they used to hunt up in Cloverdale, which is about two hours north of San Francisco. And they had some family friends with some public land.
00:02:16
Speaker
I'm sorry, some private land and they were able to pretty much get a deer every year. And then unfortunately that family connection was lost. I think they
Exploring Hunting Preferences and Plans
00:02:24
Speaker
sold the parcel of land. So moving around a few different times, mainly growing up in Seattle, my dad was pretty much just trying to get his ear to the ground and talk around with locals and friends and trying to find some hunting spots up in Washington. And I know there's a lot of spots, but I was probably 10 years old when we moved there and finally just went out wherever my dad would take me and there was some warehouse or the paper
00:02:43
Speaker
company had a bunch of clear cut land that public access and we could go up there and we hunted a lot, you know, probably five or six, seven times for deer. And then we did some black bear hunts and you know, we saw a lot of sign a lot of other hunters and pretty much it. So then hiking with a gun.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, which is great. You know, my dad, real outdoorsman taught me a lot of stuff. You know, it was a lot of fun growing up, going outside a lot. So, and he are all during this time, he would go on guided hunts, being from California, you know, not having a ton of success. He would go to these, I think it was like, I don't know if it was a gun show or trade shows that he would go to at the cow palace, San Francisco.
00:03:19
Speaker
and he found out about outfitters and guides and they had all these different spots. And he ended up going to Newfoundland, Canada four times and all four times he got a bull moose. So I grew up eating moose meat and among other game, he'd go and do an elk hunt in Colorado with a cousin of his. So yeah, I got really hooked on wild game meat and always liked the idea of going hunting. But of course, when we would go hunting, it would always just be public land and not a lot of success. So when I...
00:03:46
Speaker
any sort of like bird hunting at all too or no? Just a big game. No, I've never done any bird hunting. We've done like a little small game hunting, you know, like small little rabbit and stuff like that. And that's pretty much just opportunistic. But yeah, really no bird hunting. My dad just doesn't, he's not really into bird hunting. I've never owned a shotgun or anything
Dream Hunts and Preparations
00:04:06
Speaker
until recently I'm trying to get tapped into. My coworker is trying to get me, take me out on some duck and maybe some upland bird hunts. But yeah, I don't have any kind of doing that stuff.
00:04:14
Speaker
You guys have some really good waterfowl hunting up there. You're kind of riding that flyway and they've been standing up there. So I mean, there's some good hunting up there, especially like Sacramento Valley. I mean, we've had that major drought going and that's just been killing everything, all the rice fields and Newsom kind of sucks when it comes to water. So these guys are losing all their fields and that really stinks, but there's some really good waterfowl up there, man. It's fun to do. It's a great way to get out there and just have some fun and shoot. So I say, I highly recommend going out and do some waterfowl hunting or chasing some quail, doing that kind of stuff.
00:04:42
Speaker
It's just something's fun to do and it's not as much of a beating as like going out for a couple of days and not seeing a deer or not getting a deer. You don't really, you don't stress out as much when you miss a duck, you know, because there's always another duck behind it generally, right? It's a really slow day. So it's like, oh, I'll shoot the next one, right? It's more of like you're laughing when you miss and not crying.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'm definitely used to crying. Yeah, you're kind of doing it backwards, I think, for most people. Most people kind of start out with the small game and the birds, and they go, dude, your family's just killing moose and elk, and that's pretty cool. That's really cool. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I've always wanted to do the birds, and I'm going to get out there. I actually have a couple connections, and we're going to get out.
00:05:20
Speaker
Soon I'm going to do a turkey hunt later this fall. And then, yeah, I'll get out and do some duck hunting. And my dream is to do a pheasant
Guided Hunts and Challenges
00:05:28
Speaker
hunt. And I just got a connection through my father-in-law. His friend is a member of a club up near winter, somewhere up in the Chico area. And he's going to take me out. He's in a club and he's got a 20 bird card. So I have a Benelli Ethos 12 gauge that I bought last year. And I've been shooting a lot of clay, a lot of trap shooting. I bought a little electric thrower.
00:05:48
Speaker
And I'm just nailing them. So I think we'll do pretty well if we go out there. So I'm excited for that. So I've shot the clubs a few times for Pheasant. Do you know how they do that? You never heard about tumbling birds? Yeah. So they're farm birds, right? They're pen raised. And then they basically release them for you.
00:06:03
Speaker
Well, no, they tumble them and make them all dizzy or you spin them, right? You kind of like, you spin them, you know, and they get dizzy and then you tuck their head under their wing. You like put them under like, you know, if you, if there's, if they have like workers, they'll put it out for you. You know, you basically walk up and half the time you got to kick the dang bird up and shoot them, but it's a good time. It's just like, I don't know, it's a fun time. We were out there one time doing it and the dog picked it up.
00:06:26
Speaker
I mean, it may be a little more wild than that. I don't know. This isn't my experience. It's right down here doing the same kind of thing in San Diego. We've done it a couple of times. They let us tumble them ourselves, and we tumbled them too much. So the dog would pick the bird up before it was shot, before it even... So he'd just pick the bird up. He'd be like, ah. No, he wouldn't kill it. We'd have to, like, grab it from him and then throw it in the air. Everybody would shoot it, you know? Oh, my God.
00:06:48
Speaker
It's a good time. Who cares? It's a good time. Who cares if it is? Like I said, bird hunting is fun, dude. I mean, it's like you're going out there. It's just like shooting trap or clay shooting a club. Like they're going to shoot some of these. Oh, who cares? It's a good time,
Successful Hunts and Processing
00:07:02
Speaker
man. No shame in my game. It doesn't taste delicious, man. It's so good.
00:07:08
Speaker
They let them out. A lot of times what we do down here is we'll hunt around the clubs and hunt the ditches and kick them out of ditches because sometimes they fly away, they get missed. Then they start around those clubs, start working. We hunt down here like the Imperial Valley in the desert is where the pheasant are. We'll hunt around the clubs and we'll kick some dirt out of the ditches.
00:07:29
Speaker
I shot my first desert when I was probably like, I don't know, 11 or 12 or something. I wanted to shoot one so bad. California, you know, the rules, you can't shoot them until like, I think it's like 7 30 or 8 a.m. It's later in the morning. You can't shoot them at sunrise. It's like 7 or 8 a.m. or something like that.
00:07:44
Speaker
We hunted all day for these. We killed limited on doves. My dad's friend who got me into hunting, he's the only one to take me out. That's why I bird hunted for so long. I bird hunted for like 10 years before I ever picked up a rifle. He shot one, a pheasant, honestly, before shooting light because I remember him telling me, don't tell anybody. I mean, I was 12 years old. He shot this pheasant. We either drive it all over the Imperial Valley and we just could not kick up a pheasant for me for the life of us.
00:08:08
Speaker
We were getting ready to get back on the highway. I swear to you, this rooster flew over the highway and landed in this dirt field and bedded up in a tumbleweed. I had to be 12. I walked up there, kicked that thing up, and I put a full 20 gauge in his butt and hammered him.
00:08:26
Speaker
And it was like, I was just doing backflips and I was so happy. I got that register and came home and I plucked it myself and cooked him up and had it cooked for my family. You know, it was my first like, I saw a big game. That was my first like big animal, right? To eat, right? Versus shooting doves, you know, and quail, like shooting a big pheasant. It's cool. And they got the big old long tails on them. So you cut their tails off.
00:08:47
Speaker
I hang the tail of my garage. I have it like up on the wall there until the dog gets up or something happens. But yeah, you're going to have a blast. That's cool. You're going to really enjoy that. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. This guy's got two German short hairs too, so it's going to be cool, man. Yeah, good dogs are the best. That's another thing too. There's people who have dogs and people who have good dogs, right? So if he's hunting all the time, he's got good dogs. That's awesome. And then you grab somebody who doesn't have a good dog and the whole time they're just screaming.
00:09:12
Speaker
Buck, come here! Come here, Buck! Buck, get back! Buck, come! Buck, come! Buck, come! You know, I've been up to so much where you're just like, oh, man. Yeah, why do you bring this guy? Why do we bring this dog? It's like, it's just charging, you know? And you go with a good, there's nothing better than hunting over a good dog, man. A good dog is just something, something beautiful about it, especially with those German Shorthairs, man. At their point in the birds, you got to get up on them and, you know, shoo them up and it's just to flush them. Yeah, that's exciting.
00:09:37
Speaker
There's something majestic about that man. It's really cool. So you're gonna you're gonna have a blast the whole situation Yeah, you're gonna love it. I'm stoked you're getting to do that. So yeah me too You shot you've been hunting seems like you're on your whole life before we get into your buck You just shot you've killed like you've killed elk and bison and stuff or what else? Tell me about what guide tell me about guided
Benefits of Guided Hunts
00:09:58
Speaker
hunting. What is that like for you?
00:09:59
Speaker
So I grew up, like I said, I grew up, my dad always going on these guided hunts. So we always had a freezer full of just killer meat and these killer stories. And one of these Newfoundland guys that he used to get to move from and they had like jet helicopters. And it was like, they had this cool cabin and there's a chef and all this stuff. It's like, man, it sounds awesome. And I always asked my dad, maybe I could come on one of these and yeah, maybe, maybe.
00:10:22
Speaker
And so yeah, when I started doing this plumbing thing and started making some money and finally out on my own and I said, hey Pops, let's get out on one of these guided hunts. Let's go do a moose hunt. And he goes, all right, let's do it. So we looked into it and my dad's not super savvy with the internet. And I didn't really know who to look through and just start Googling guide services and outfitters. And so he found the
00:10:44
Speaker
I think the daughter of the original guy that he used to go with who was retired at that time. So this lady has an outdoor service up in Newfoundland and we signed up. I think it was about 4,000 a piece plus 1,000 in flights and then flying on the airplane with rifles. It was a big ordeal. And you got on a series of smaller and smaller planes until...
00:11:04
Speaker
Eventually, we're on this de Havilland Beaver float plane. We land into this little pond. There's no roads, no cars, no ATVs, the small little cabin. And yeah, we get there and it's supposed to be a two-on-one, two-by-one guided hunt. So it was four of us, supposed to have two guides. And it turns out there's only one guide. It's like, okay, this is kind of weird. And they say, oh no, we're going to bring more guides in.
00:11:23
Speaker
ended up never having another guide. So the first day, there's four of us plus the guide, traipping through the forest, making all sorts of noise, probably scared all the moose away. And the second day, and from there on now, we say, hey, man, let's split up, you know, because this is ridiculous. So we ended up hunting real hard every day, six days from, you know, right before sun up to right after sundown.
00:11:40
Speaker
And we saw a couple of cows the first day and some calves, no bulls. And then we had, I guess it was at the time, I think it was 2017, there was a big hurricane that just came through down south and it came all the way up the East coast, up into Canada. And it wasn't really a hurricane at the time, but it was a big rainstorm. And I think all the moose just kind of hunkered down and the rest of the trip, we didn't see anything. So it was really brutal, spending all this money and having almost a guaranteed hunt and then ending up
00:12:08
Speaker
not getting one so we were kind of pissed about that but you know I we do also do realize it's hunting so after that my dad said hey you know how about to make it up to you we go on another hunt but it's kind of more of a high
Public Land Hunting Challenges
00:12:20
Speaker
fence kind of hunt so he looked into this bison thing the North Dakota called the bison ranch
00:12:25
Speaker
really great spot if you ever want to check it out. I think it was about 3,500 bucks. We went out there and fully outfitted and nice cabin and everything. Just my pops and I having a good time, you know? And it was just a one day hunt. We went out, dude's expedition, and he's got like a couple thousand acres and drove around for a while and found his herd of bison. And there
00:12:44
Speaker
I guess he buys them when they're small calves and then raises them up, but they're not fed with anything where they eat traditional local native grass, you know, buffalo grass and everything. And yeah, so that was my first real kill. What did you shoot that with? I used my dad's 300 wind mag as a browning A bolt.
00:13:02
Speaker
And yeah, this guy, Kelsey guy that runs the spot, he is really adamant about getting a really instant clean kill because of the meat quality. And you know, they're probably like his kids, right? So he wanted basically right behind the skull neck shot. So that is just real instant. And got me into about 80 yards and I shot off the hood of this guy's truck, basically.
00:13:23
Speaker
and yeah it was just an instant kill and you know the scope just goes everywhere and I don't know what I'm trying to relocate him in the scope you know instead of just looking and I hear him go great shot you know and I look and finally just looking he's upside down with his legs twitching and it was a huge relief you know and we spent the whole next day processing it in in the guy's place he's got this beautiful processing center and ground it all and it was a really cool experience and not to mention just hanging with my pops you know the whole time and yeah so that was it. So what did you what did you got did you make a rug out of it or anything?
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I have a cool rug and I forget how much meat there was, was over 300 pounds of boneless meat. And it was just incredible stuff. Really, really good meat. It's not like the bison you get at the store, which is farm raised and just like a cow, basically they got hormones and they feed them, you know, whatever grain and stuff.
00:14:08
Speaker
These are a little more wild, I guess. But I didn't really want the idea that it wasn't a fair chase hunt. And it was great. It was a great first time for something big game. And the meat was great. And the rug's cool. And I got the Euro mount skull and the fireplace. So it's really cool. But I told him, I said, hey, man, I want to do a fair chase. I want to do a real hunt. So the next hunt we did was cow elk. Guy did cow elk in Eastern Oregon. And that was a successful hunt. We both got cows. And that was a really cool, really cool experience.
00:14:37
Speaker
That's awesome. So for one, like I tell people all the time when they're getting into like big game hunting, like go on a guided hunt, go do one of those high fence hunts. Just to get like, you need to start getting some like kills under your belt, right? And like understand you're going to be with the guide and you're going to learn how to, even though it's a freaking bison, you're going to learn how to gut an animal or process an animal, how to pull the front shoulder off, pull hindquarter off, learn where the ball joint is in that hindquarter. You know what I mean? Like there's stuff you're going to learn doing that. And it's, I tell people all the time in California just to go on a pig hunt.
00:15:07
Speaker
So we have we have pigs we have pigs down here and I was a going to guide a pig hunt and just get out there and get the experience You know what I mean? And then there's there's no shame in it, man Honestly, I kind of want a number of the guy you did the bison with because Yeah, I want to get my father-in-law He's we're going cowell cut in next week public land DIY doing the whole wall tent the whole nine of the boys gonna be awesome But I mean I I've been he wants to kill a bison and honestly him his chances ever drawn that tag is pretty much impossible
00:15:37
Speaker
It's a real hard time to draw, but if we could go to that hunt with him, I think it'd be great to go out there and do it. He's 73 years old, go out there and shoot a bison and have that meat and just have the experience. You're still sitting in the cab and you're still hanging out with like-minded people. It's a good time. It's a great experience and it'd be fun to get him out there to do that.
00:15:56
Speaker
So after I'm planning on running him into the ground on this elk hunt, so we're going to have a good time. I was just on exiting spots. I'm like, okay, this spot, we can drive all the way up to the top and camp. That one, we're going to have to hike up a thousand foot. So, but I'm still going to be, it's going to be, anytime you're doing public land, even if it's cows, I mean, it's going to be a lot of work for him and it's going to be fun. But yeah, those bison, that's a good time, man. I'm stoked you got to do that.
00:16:17
Speaker
So you guys killed some cows? I'll have to get the number from you for that guy. So you guys killed some cow elk? Yeah, the cow elk was I think it was about 2,500 bucks. We're actually going back at the end of October for a bull elk for the second rifle season, which I guess is a post rut hunt. So I'm really excited for that. And we didn't want to spend all the money, especially after our Newfoundland experience, until we kind of saw the operation. So we figured, well, let's do cows first. We'll see what kind of guys these are, what kind of land it is. It's 100,000 acres of private land.
00:16:45
Speaker
man, it's like all these guys work so hard to help you. And you know, it's just a great place. Not to mention there's just hundreds of elk running around and they just know where they're at. You know, they, they know their habits. They've been doing it for 30 years. They also do mule deer, like apparently like trophy, you know, 200 plus inch mule deer hunts, which are like crazy money, like $20,000. Yeah. Hunts have gone through the roof lately. So every hunt, when you were saying, Oh, four or five grand for new Finland, I'm like, Oh, that's cheap. I think it's
00:17:12
Speaker
It goes up a thousand bucks every couple years. Even six is chief compared to what things are right now. I'm trying to put five kids through school right now so I don't do many of these two guided hunts too much. It's great to go to public hunts. There's no reason to do it you know.
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, we kill stuff sometimes, but a lot of times you don't. But it's great to go out and get that experience. There's no shame in going out there and learning, especially going out and chasing elk. Like there's such a learning curve to figure those things out. And you could be with a guy who's killing 20 or 30 of them a season, right? You know, an operation like that where you're going to be learning a lot, you know?
00:17:47
Speaker
a lot more than you are, but going out on your own and you're living in
Overcoming Hunting Obstacles
00:17:50
Speaker
San Francisco. So I guess you have some kind of near you, but you're not going to draw that tag maybe once in your life. So you get to go out and do this guided hunt and you're going to get that experience. You're going to learn about it. And then, you know, next year you can go and get that, get a DIY public land, Colorado over the counter tag, and then go, you know, get your back kicked and chase public land bulls. Yeah, definitely. Learn it.
00:18:10
Speaker
All right, so tell me, so now you are a public land DIY hunter because you just killed your first buck and you shot it with a rifle or bow? Rifle. Rifle, yeah. Rifle, yeah. You're hunting A-zone, yeah? Yes. A-zone. So California has like zones. So like I'm in D16 down here in San Diego. There's like a 17 X and A, but there's one zone called the A-zone and it's like basically from LA or Ventura all the way up to like NorCal. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
This big giant zone and it's a super long season, not a high success rate. A lot of the successes are on private land. There are some good bucks on private land in these big, big ranches, but it's not a high success rate hunt, but you found a way. So tell me about that. What did that look like for you? Yeah. So, I mean, I knew from the beginning that the public land hunt just in general is going to be tough, especially A-zone. A-zone. I mean, most of the hunters that I talked to around here, they're saying, I don't even buy A-zone tags. Too hot.
00:19:03
Speaker
California mismanages, the season's too early, blah, blah, blah. And definitely a lot of it is very true, but people say it's impossible and it's obviously not because most of my experience is either unsuccessful public land hunts, or we didn't even get close, and guided, which obviously I can't take any credit for finding the animals because we're just following the guides. So all this was by myself.
00:19:27
Speaker
I did a little research online, a lot of on-ex, a lot of satellite images, and it was really cool to just kind of look at some land and just say, well, I feel like they would probably hang out in this area and then actually have that be true, you know, because it's kind of just, you're just guessing, really. So yeah, so I went and bought my tag and the guy at Sportsman's Warehouse is going A-Zone. You're buying A-Zone tag? He goes, oh, private land? He said, no, public, and he starts laughing. Oh, well, good luck, you know? Basically, like, there's no way.
00:19:54
Speaker
Did some research, found a couple of different spots. I wanted to do a backpack hunt. So a buddy of mine who's also kind of new to the hunting public land scene, he's actually new to hunting altogether. We decided to do it together. And I heard from somebody to check out this place called the Cache Creek Wilderness Area. And it was like, you know, two miles off the road, start looking for camping spots. It's a nice trail there. So we went in the day before opening day and we camped.
00:20:19
Speaker
And then the morning of opening day, we got in position where we thought was going to be a nice glassing knob. And of course there's 10 other headlamps there and it's like ridiculous. And I think we had a good spot. Great. Because some guy must have just swooped in right underneath us. We heard the bushes rustling right underneath. That's where we were looking at the bottom of the canyon. And we're like, man, what's that down there?
00:20:40
Speaker
and all of a sudden we heard a shot go off and the guys down there dressing the deer that you know we might have been able to take a look at so it was annoying and it was really hot so we just said man it's like 9 a.m and it's already 90 degrees like maybe we should just get out of here so we packed up hiked out of there i've never had a 50 pound pack on my back but
00:20:58
Speaker
It was pretty brutal, plus the weather, plus everything, you know. There was some water there, but we would have had to hike another three miles away from the car to get to the water and then filter it. And you know, people are saying, oh, there's mercury in this creek and maybe you don't want to drink it. And I'm not really familiar with for filters and stuff like that. So I'm saying, well, maybe we should just bounce. So we took off.
00:21:19
Speaker
And that was it. We had about four or five hours of hunting. And then a couple of weeks later, my buddy, the same buddy. So real quick, on the water thing, something we do down here is we pack in gallons of water. So we'll pack in, I don't know how legal it has. I mean, I don't think, probably not legal because it's for littering, I guess.
00:21:37
Speaker
I'll pack in like six gallons of water and I'll stash it in like some rocks and then I'll pin it so it's there. Oh, yeah, like before. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, before season. I don't think it's a big deal. I mean, people do it all the time. So you'll pack it in and you'll store it like under some bushes or up in a rock pile. Then you have water in there if you don't want to filter. That's really smart.
00:21:59
Speaker
A lot of the reason we're doing that is because we're hiking up, so the water's down below, so you're hiking up. It sucks. If you carry in three gallons, that's 24 pounds right there, right, or something like that, 26 pounds. Yeah, it's 8.3 pounds per gallon. Yeah, so you just carry that in and do that a couple times, scouting, and just pin it and leave it there. Then you have that water there, and it's bailing me out a couple times, ripping out hunting and ripping out water. It's like, oh, I got a stash over here. We'll go grab a couple gallons, and you got water. We might have stayed if we had more water.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, on the filter stuff, I have like an MSR pump that I like. I always have in my pack, I always have the tablets, no matter what, because sometimes I'm just lazy and I just want to throw some water in there and throw some tablets in. Yeah. No matter what. And it's just like a just in case of the brakes, but I've really been liking the gravity filters.
00:22:45
Speaker
So they have like a ketitin one, but I have one, it's an NSR, and I use the Dromelite bags. So I have like six liter Dromelite bags, two of those, and one four liter NSR, and you have, you put 10 liters of water in this thing, hang it up, and it filters the water for you, and then you have six liters of water right there, right? So you're probably gonna drink.
00:23:02
Speaker
Typically, I'm going to go through at least three liters of water in a day, especially when it's that hot. So it's nice. And you need to set the thing up, especially if you're near water, it can't be near water. You set it up and lay back. About 15 minutes later, your thing's full or 10 minutes later, it's full. So check out those, the Dromelite bags for that. And they even make like, I'm using like a cheaper filter. They even make like a more expensive filter. It's like 200 bucks. It does more, takes more stuff out of it, but I don't know. I've never gotten sick using the one that I got. And it was like,
00:23:26
Speaker
I think the whole system's like 180, but if you buy the special filter, it might be another 100 bucks or something to get the custom. Yeah. Well, it's worth it to have peace of mind too, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have drink it's a pretty nasty water. I mean, I, you know, I've drinking out of drinkers and some pretty gross stuff, but I don't know. Everyone has their limits and I don't know. My standards are pretty low.
Lessons Learned and Reflections
00:23:45
Speaker
My standards are pretty low. I mean, I filter it, but it's like, uh, it is really hard. Like especially in your Elkan and you know, you got things pissing and you know, wallows and water and you try to
00:23:53
Speaker
And that's pretty gross. So it's definitely there's some downsides to filtering water sometimes. But yeah, I find those those MSR gravity filters really awesome. All right, so you pack out. Yeah, we bailed out. And so when we first looked at spots, there was two different spots that I found online. And the original spot was actually the spot that I ended up getting my butt. So we had two different options. And the first option was in the Mendocino National Forest. And after talking around with some people, I found out that
00:24:21
Speaker
It's like, dude, you're going to get in there. There's going to be trucks all over the place. ATVs, dirt bikes, not a good backpacking place, because you're going to backpack in three, four miles. And then all of a sudden, some guy on a dirt bike is just going to pull up and pass you. So that's when I heard about the Cache Creek wilderness area, which is where we had our bad experience. So after that, my buddy said, well, I'm going to go back to that other area and see how that is. And we won't have to backpack. I'll just park my truck and maybe hunt a couple of miles out of there.
00:24:46
Speaker
So so be it so he ended up getting his buck first buck his first year of hunting ever I think he's pretty comfortable with guns But he's never hunted before and self-taught all YouTube and you know online stuff Give him a lot of credit and he got a nice little 3x2 looks like a 2x2 just like mine But the one of the antlers just has a tiny little extra time on it. So yeah, so he got one so I'm in
00:25:07
Speaker
I better check that area out because that's kind of the first spot that I was looking at and everyone told me not to go there But maybe it is a good area He said he saw all sorts of does and said it saw a couple different bucks way out there And so I said I'll just go and yeah ended up going by myself Just kind of looked at satellite imagery and I set a pin on on X I did the offland offline maps thing and I set a pin basically on this forest road right where it becomes national forest land because before that there's little spots that are kind of private and I didn't want to
00:25:34
Speaker
I didn't want to mess with that, especially if I don't have any service. I didn't want to be looking around at maps. So I made my mark and drove up there. And it's kind of embarrassing that I sold my F-150 last year. So I've been driving, commuting my wife's BMW three series. And I brought that. I ended up putting a buck in the trunk of that. So it's pretty funny. So I'm driving up to gravel roads about seven miles up.
00:25:56
Speaker
and going real slow and man before the sun is even up I already saw a doe jump across the road right in front of me and I'm like okay cool this looks like a good land and there's a big sign saying that there was a burn here last year and I'm like okay this is this is promising and I get up to the top of the ridgeline and the sun's just barely starting to come up so I parked my car and start walking down the road checked a couple different spots out and then it says you know
00:26:18
Speaker
Let me check out this little ridge right here, sat down, just sat on this ridge basically in the shade sun behind me and just waiting for the sun to kind of reach the other hillside in front of me. And I was there for about two hours, a lot of glassing, love the tripod, the AD, by the way, LP, pan head, that's killer tripod, super light. The last time when I forgot to mention when I did that backpacking hunt, I had never had a tripod glassing before. And after watching Meat Eater and you know, all this stuff like, man,
00:26:45
Speaker
I think a tripod would be cool to have. I brought my photography Manfrotto tripod. It's probably seven pounds. I didn't see any deer, but I love glassing it because you could just set it still and just stare at a spot and really analyze every little area. That's when I decided to get a nice tripod. I spent two, three hours just glassing up a
00:27:05
Speaker
ton of deer. I didn't see any bugs, but I saw at least another four does and two fawns. And they're all just feeding and it was just great. I'm saying, man, this area is really good. And then it was around 9 a.m. Sun finally got on me. I couldn't get a decent spot that was going to have shade all day. So the sun got on me. I started getting real hot. I think it was 95 that day and it was probably already 80. So I said, well, let me just pack up and go find another spot. Maybe start heading back towards the car. Because at this point I was probably
00:27:31
Speaker
two, two and a half miles from the car and yeah so I said I'll start heading back towards the car and look for a nice shady spot and maybe I'll do some glassing and look for some bedded ducks because I figured right now they're probably not moving around anymore it's you know it's nine it's almost 10 a.m probably gonna start bedding down it's pretty hot so I found a nice little top of ridge line with a big tree and I sat underneath it I had this little folding chair that I set up kind of like the one that I saw you using
00:27:54
Speaker
That's the old little REI chair that my wife gave me. And yeah, so I'm glassing, glassing, and I don't see anything. I say, well, I'll just drink some water and chill because I'm kind of hot and start eating my peanut butter jelly sandwich. And I'm looking straight down at this hill that has all the shaded trees on it. And I'm not seeing anything and I'm eating. And then all of a sudden I hear about 15 feet directly to my right, which is an area that I was not even thinking about because the wind was going right in that direction.
00:28:20
Speaker
Not to mention, there was no shade there. So I figured, well, I'll just look this way. And all of a sudden I heard a stick break and I turned my head and literally 15 feet from me, there's this little buck just staring at me. And we had a little stare down for probably at least a minute, you know, and it felt like an hour. And I figured, dude, I can't move. If I move, this buck's going to spook. He's going to run. I can't reach for my rifle. I got my freaking peanut butter jelly sandwich in one hand and I'm staring at my phone in my other hand.
00:28:44
Speaker
and i'm like man you screwed up you know you're gonna there's no way you're gonna get this book and then all of a sudden he let out this crazy like barking sound jumped up he ran just started running so i dropped everything grabbed my rifle and as soon as i put it to my shoulder i chambered around because i never run with the chambered round chambered around and put it to my shoulder and as soon as the scope hits my eye it's already right on this guy's shoulder and he's literally stopped and turned broadside and i just squeezed one off right behind the shoulder
00:29:09
Speaker
I have a 300 wind mag. That's a big game rifle. I don't have a deer rifle. Way too much rifle for this small little deer. I just destroyed his ribs. But yeah, he went right down and I went over there and found him and he's just sitting there. And yeah, that's kind of when you realize like you're totally alone and you better, you know, cut the animal out and do it all correctly. And I've never done it before by myself. You know, I've always helped my dad or helped guides. I think you kind of know what you're doing until you're totally by yourself. And then yeah,
00:29:33
Speaker
So I figured it out, you know and cut it out tried to get it in the shade as soon as possible and I had to drag it about 250 yards up to the road and it was through this real thick stage brush and buck brush and And it was brutal. It's really hot I couldn't find any shade and I was dragging around 50 feet at a time and had to stop to take a break and drink water And feel like I'm gonna get heat stroke
00:29:53
Speaker
and I'm starting to get worried. I don't know if I can get this guy up to the road. I've been seeing trucks drive by all day, of course thinking, take the easy way out and maybe if I see a truck, maybe have somebody help me. I didn't see any trucks and ended up just dragging him up, finally got him up there. Man, I swear I was pretty close to getting some heat stroke. It was just so hot and I'm just not used to hunting in hot weather. All these hunts that I've been on before in Washington state, it's usually cold, wet.
00:30:19
Speaker
It's 100 degrees and you're wearing all this gear. I got really good merino gear, but it's still hot. I finally dragged them up to the road and then I got to go get my car that's at least a mile down the road. I started walking and starting to get real hot. I had to take a couple of breaks in the shade, drink water. Then I finally got to my car, drove it back and had to lug them up into the trunk, which is pretty tough.
00:30:40
Speaker
Your wife's car? Yeah, it's mine now, but I don't consider it mine. He still hides on. He still has a cape on, yeah? Yeah, so all I did was gut him and I wanted to drag him, so I didn't want to take the hide off or anything, even though I know that it would help drop temperatures quick on the meat.
00:30:56
Speaker
I figured if I had him in the trunk of the car, I had a big cooler with a couple really big ice bags in the trunk. I figured if I had him in the trunk with the ice bags in the cavity in less than an hour, it'd be okay. As long as I got the guts out real quick, that was my main concern because that drops the temperature quick. I haven't received the meat yet, but I don't think that there's going to be any spoilage, but it was a concern.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was a concern, especially being by myself and worrying about heat stroke and all this and that. It was pretty intense, a lot of work, hard work. You got to look into doing the gutless method. Yeah. I can go gutless and get a deer apart in like 20 minutes now. It's pretty quick, man. You're just right behind the skull cap and I just run that knife right all the way down the back.
00:31:38
Speaker
start peeling that thing back, do one side of the deer, pull the back straps, front quarter, rear quarter, any of the flank meat I want to get, the neck meat, put that sucker over, neck side, and then just throw it in game bags and bring them out. On the big hunt somewhere out there real deep, we'll just go boneless, so we'll pull it off the bone too. But when it's that hot, I'm taking it out bone in and just getting it out of there as soon as I can, getting it back to ice, like you're saying. Even then, dragging a deer sucks, but packing a deer sucks too. It's 100 degrees.
00:32:07
Speaker
No matter what you do, you're dragging it or everything sucks. It's part of the experience, right? It's got there and do it. And I don't think that 300 Wind Mag, don't let anybody tell you it's too much rival for a deer. That's a beautiful deer cartridge, man. I mean, you can't kill them too dead. You can't kill them too dead. I lost a lot of meat in the ribs. I lost a lot of meat. That wasn't because it's 300 Wind Mag. It wasn't because it's 300 Wind Mag. It wasn't because it's 300 Wind Mag, though. I mean, my kids shoot 308. It's the same bullet. You know what I mean? It's not like you're going to get...
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, you know what are you shooting a copper like a TTS X out of it TTS X 180 and I I want to like to have some some 150s or 160s But I just none of them group well in my rifle and the only thing that groups well is the 180s and I shot a quarter Yeah, I mean it wasn't the bullet. It's just you where you hit them You know, I mean you should know what the 260 or you know, it sticks like three more in the wrong spot same things gonna happen You can't kill him too dead
00:32:59
Speaker
My kids shoot a 168TTSX, which is like in a .308, so it's like one step down from that bullet. And it's not going as fast, but I mean, it just kills them, you know? It's a great cartridge. Don't talk yourself into going to buy a cream or you need a small rifle. You have a rifle that works, use it and kill stuff, and then go on more hunts. I tell people all the time, like,
00:33:21
Speaker
take what you got and go on more hunts. Don't let people duke you into thinking you need to change it up. 300 Women is an incredible interior. I don't want to spend the money anyway. I spent so much money just building this rifle up. Buy some better binoculars. 300 Women is a great, great rifle, man. It really is.
00:33:37
Speaker
that's awesome dude so you got your you got your first the first public landeer 36 years old a zone which is awesome and that's rad dude thanks for sharing the story i'm i'm stoked i'm not biased on this i mean like i had a guy on yesterday and he shot a 200 inch buck and i have you on you shot your first buck like i i just like hunting stories you know
00:33:55
Speaker
That's what I want to hear. My kid was all talking about his spike that he shot. So it's just hunting stories, man. We're all out there doing it. And any deer you get on public land, especially in California, man, that's a trophy. And you put the effort in, you put the work in, figured it out, you got where they were, and you got it done. You put it in your wife's freaking beamer, which is a sick story in itself. That's awesome.
00:34:15
Speaker
Yeah, I had a bunch of blood dripping down the trunk and I had to wash it off before
Conclusion and Gear Promotion
00:34:19
Speaker
I hit the road. Yeah, you should have went to like the car wash or washed the blood out of your trunk and just look at people. Yeah, exactly. You know, there's blood in here, you know, driving to the road, people are probably freaking out. Cool, dude. Do you want anybody to find you? Are you public on Instagram or anything? No.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, I'm on, actually I'm not public, I'm private. But yeah, I'm on Instagram, I'm just, I don't know, I don't have a reason for being private, but I just, that's how it is. Oh, do you want me to follow you or no? I don't have any material on there. I actually don't, I don't put any hunting kill stuff on my social media because I'm in the Bay Area, dude. And you know, most of my friends and family and you know, I don't want to make anybody angry and you know, you know how people are, you're not going to change anybody's mind. So I got my buddies that I share stuff with and you know,
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, I get it, man. My perspective with all this stuff is, like, they're going to shove their stuff down your throats, and I'm not going to be ashamed of what I do, you know, going out hunting. And I'm not going to be like, like, my sister-in-law, I love her to death. She's going to come on the podcast, but she's a bleeding, bleeding liberal, environmental scientist, vegetarian. I'm not sending her, like, gripping grins, right? Like, hey, check out what I killed. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to force you down her throat, but I'm going to share my stuff and talk about it because it's what I do. And there's no shame in going out there and putting meat on the table for your family. You have kids? You have kids, too, or no?
00:35:29
Speaker
I do, yeah, a year and a half ago, my first. So you're feeding your kid the deer you shot. That's beautiful, man. There's no shame in that. Good for you. Yeah, I want to withdraw game meat and being comfortable with it. It's so funny how people are. Vegetarians, vegans, you can't really... There's not much you could say to them because most of the people that talk crap about hunting, they're eating meat and they're buying meat at the store, but somehow they don't see that it's any... They see that it's way worse that you're killing the animal yourself and whatever.
00:35:55
Speaker
I just like to just do my own thing and I'm so sick of having arguments with the brick wall, you know what I mean? So I just do my own thing and, you know, I have my own community and friends that support what I do and that's all I need, you know, I don't do it for anyone else besides me, but the whole public land thing.
00:36:11
Speaker
I just wanted to do it just because I've done all these guided hunts and stuff. I hear a lot of stuff from other guys. They roll their eyes when they hear about guided hunting stuff. They feel that it takes all the skill out of it. Anyone can go and do it. I was starting to think, man, maybe I should just see if I could do this by myself and prove it to myself. I am a good hunter. That's why I did it. It feels really good. I'm really proud. It's a tiny little two by two. I just boiled it yesterday and hung it. My wife let me hang it in the laundry room. I'm pretty excited about that. I'm pretty proud of that other guy, man.
00:36:40
Speaker
That's awesome. So you know, do you know that the rule for hanging balance with your wife? No. So you always start with like, I'm going to put this over our bed and then you always start like, you always start extreme. Yeah. Like if you start with like, Oh, what do you think about like, no, like start with over the bed and then you'll get the fireplace. You know what I mean? Like you always start with like something extreme. Like, Oh man, I'm putting this in the kitchen. This is a great, this is a great in the kitchen. And then then you start compromising from there. You know, it's like any kind of negotiation. You always start on like extreme end of it.
00:37:07
Speaker
But yeah, and no shame of freaking going on guided hunts. That's awesome you're doing that, man. Screw that. Those guys are buying their meat down at freaking Albertsons in the grocery store, you know, and you're out there hunting and getting animals, you know, put it in the freezer for your family. Don't let anybody put you to shame for that. That's awesome, man. These guys need to make a living anyway.
00:37:22
Speaker
It was basically just for myself, you know, my own reasons. Now that I've done this, I want to go on some more guided hunts and I have no guilt about it. You know, I just, I wanted to prove it to myself that I, you know, it wasn't because of anyone else that I was getting these animals, you know, this, this one, I did it all by myself in the spot that nobody can get to your quote unquote, you know, and real low success rate and blah, blah, blah. But you know, I went and got it done. I mean, the guy came out of the bushes. I don't know if the peanut butter sandwich brought him in or what, but whatever it was, you know, it was due to me and nobody else. Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
Well good for you dude, thanks for coming on and I will talk to you soon. Sounds good man, nice to meet you. 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.