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Colorado Smoking
158 Plays2 years ago
This week Drew is joined by Brent Vogler. Brent is a hunting products sales rep out of Texas that has been bitten hard by the western hunting bug. Brent shot a great Colorado buck this year with his muzzle loader and he shares many more stories of the ups and downs of hunting.
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Transcript
Introduction & 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: Brent Vogler
00:00:31
Speaker
Brent Vogler, welcome to the Tricer Podcast. How you doing, man? I'm doing great, Drew. Thanks for having me on. I feel pretty special. Guest number three here, huh? Oh, yeah. You're definitely on the top of the list here. Tell me by yourself, who are you? Who's Brent Vogler? Yeah, so I am a independent sales rep in Texas in the outdoor hunting and shooting industry. I'm a Christian, I'm a husband, I'm a small group leader, salesman, outdoorsman.
00:01:00
Speaker
Thankful to be able to work in an industry that that I'm really passionate
Journey from Ministry to Entrepreneurship
00:01:04
Speaker
about. So yeah, that's a little bit about me I'm 31 I've been working in this industry for nine eight years now and it's pretty fun so I get to meet a lot of cool people like yourself and and You know go on a few cool trips every now and again and and sell some really cool products in the meantime So yeah, that's that's a little bit about me
00:01:25
Speaker
That's awesome. I have led the same small group for 16 years this year.
00:01:31
Speaker
Good for you, man. So I've had the same Bible study. I did a year of Bible college coming out of high school and I was planning on going to ministry and then I decided I wanted to do business. I like entrepreneurship too much. I still kick around going into ministry at some point in my life full time, but my wife and I are definitely ministries, you know, three days, four days a week, youth groups.
Hunting as a Ministry Tool
00:01:52
Speaker
I do a high school group. She does a junior high group. Then we do all the camps and then we also have our Bible study bed forever.
00:01:58
Speaker
So yeah, we love the Lord. I'm stoked to have you on here and talk about it. That's one thing I like about hunting industry. It's a very like-minded people, right?
00:02:05
Speaker
It is. I think that the outdoors is a fantastic way to share that ministry. I was talking to one of my coworkers. I just got back from a high country mule deer hunt last week. You're standing at the top of a 13,000 foot mountain looking out at the beauty. It's like, how can you not be a believer seeing all this? There's a greater power at work here.
00:02:28
Speaker
I think that it's a great avenue to introduce people not only to the outdoors but to the lord so it's it's it's cool those two work hand in hand.
Sales Career & Product Lines
00:02:37
Speaker
That's awesome man.
00:02:38
Speaker
So you are in the outdoor industry. You are on the inside, you're an insider. So what do you, like, what you're, you own a hunting company or what do you do? You rep companies? What is it you guys do? Yeah. So I'm a manufacturer sales rep. I'm an independent sales rep. So, you know, I have a specific territory that I work within, which is North Texas. And I work with accounts, dealers, box stores, farm and fleet stores.
00:03:05
Speaker
And you know it's like you go into any gun store any grocery store you go into a different hospital and those businesses have certain products that they like and that they sell and. You know i'm the guy that goes in and tries to foster those relationships and sell products for manufacturers to those stores so that it's a very relationship driven industry.
00:03:26
Speaker
And so you know my job is to go and see these mom and pop shops or these box stores on a daily weekly basis monthly basis and try to take up self space and i'm wearing my browning polo right now as you can see so i am browning is one of the brands that i sell for currently i've like i said earlier i've been in the industry for.
00:03:47
Speaker
About eight years now and i've sold everything from solar panels to socks to boots to guns you name it so that's that's one of the cool things about being independent if i'm passionate about the product and i'm a believer in the product and can foster a relationship with that company then you know i can go sell for and i work on a commission only basis so you know i get up every morning and go sell the pay electric bill so that's kinda what i
In-depth: Browning Rifles & Other Brands
00:04:13
Speaker
do.
00:04:13
Speaker
So, Browning, I'll tell you what, man, I got my kid one of those Hell's Cannon rifles. It's a .308, and I have some pretty expensive, high-end, like, custom-built rifles. I love the feel of that Hell's Cannon. It has a McMillen stock on it, and it's, like, over-bolted. It is just a great shooting. It's not super light. It's, like, probably that seven-pound range. I feel like it's the perfect backcountry rifle. I love that rifle.
00:04:40
Speaker
I'm glad to hit it. We're proud of that rifle. So the Hells Canyon was a camo pattern actually for us for a long time, kind of a brand in and of itself. So that's since gone away. We've introduced the Ovex camo pattern and the Oric camo pattern. So our waterfowl camo pattern is the Oric and then the vintage tan, which is
00:05:01
Speaker
we can't keep those guns in stock and then the ovix is kind of our big game pattern and the speed series which which you're talking about kind of replace the hills canyon about two years ago is a barn burner of a gun for us we can't keep the gun in stock they shoot lights out for the money you know they retail for
00:05:20
Speaker
They're a little over a thousand, a little less than $1,100. I think 1059 or so is retail on them. You can find them, you know, street priced for around a thousand bucks. But in that price point, it is one of the best bangs for your buck in the industry. You know, we came out with the 6.8 Western a couple of years ago. That's been a fantastic caliber for us and super, super popular. So yeah, I'm glad to hear that you're a fan of the Hell's Canyon. That speed rifle is a fantastic gun for us.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, his has got a black and blue and some flames on it stock. I think it's an older model, but I got it from a gun shop and it's just trick, man. It's just a really cool gun. When I first started buying rifles, I was like, I'm buying these $400 rifles. Then you quickly realize that if you just spend a little bit more, but you don't have to go buy the super high end rifles, but some of these production rifles like from Browning and some other companies in that $1,000 range,
00:06:13
Speaker
are just great shooting rifles. I mean, for what we're doing in hunting situations, I mean, he shot a mule deer 400 yards a couple years ago at 13 years old. Yep. One shot, one shot, one killed down and just dialed him in and pulled the trigger, you know, and he killed it. It's just a really good guy. Proud dad moment for you, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. After that week, I'm going to add him on the podcast. I got to post that up. But I mean, after that week of just misery and having him kill that buck, it was it was pretty awesome. It was definitely a proud dad moment. That's for sure.
00:06:41
Speaker
So besides Browning you sell, like TreasureCon, who else do you sell? So I rep for EOTech. I work for Promethius Group, which is Browning Trail Cameras. So they're a licensee partner for us. I do Slow Glow. Down here in Texas, we have a huge hog problem. They make the best hog lights for feeders. They make some great solar panels and trail camera mounts. I do Discrete Ballistics, which is a fantastic, supercellus, subsonic.
00:07:10
Speaker
ammunition. I do, let's see, what other products do I rep? So I'll be honest with you, Drew, it kind of changes in and out. Like I said, it's a relationship driven business, but Browning and EOTech are definitely big ones. Slowglow, I do Tekto knives. That's a new one for us. Tekto knives is awesome. It's super fast, kind of automatic out the front knife. They make some flippers as well. So yeah, right now I've got five brands that I represent in my territory. And I've had up to
00:07:40
Speaker
Twenty at a time so it's it kind of comes and goes as they say gotcha Yeah, the eotech stuff is pretty slick. It's kind of more tactical driven correct a little bit more higher power scopes Yeah, we specialize in in what's called holographic weapon sites H
00:07:55
Speaker
So there's a lot of confusion in the industry around a red dot versus what we actually are, which is a hologram. The best way I can describe it is Star Wars technology. You see Obi-Wan Kenobi floating out there in front of you.
00:08:10
Speaker
in the radical and we have that you can actually break the glass in a new tech and it'll still function you know they're there issued across military platforms around the world trusted by law enforcement agencies they're kind of bulletproof type of bill that bulletproof type design and we got into the long range optics kinda p r s tactical sniper type shooting optics a few years ago with the voodoo line and most of the optics are higher magnification.
00:08:40
Speaker
they're built a little heavier but man they're bulletproof too. They kind of don't fail, they're fantastic optics but hunting in the backcountry kind of doing what you and I do, we do have a couple of options that fulfill those gaps but it leans more towards the tactical side and that's kind of nice about what I do as an independent rep is,
00:09:02
Speaker
I can call on the standard mom and pop shops and sell them browning, and then I can go call on the tactical type shops and sell them EOTech. Having a diverse portfolio like I do, I can go call on multiple types of stores and increase my revenue stream.
Personal Hunting Evolution
00:09:19
Speaker
Great. How did you get into hunting? What's your background in hunting?
00:09:23
Speaker
So I grew up in West Texas, hunting deer blinds, deer feeders. It's not a challenge. And so as I got a little bit older, I started getting into archery hunting, hanging tree stands at a property that we had, and really fell in love with kind of the challenge of the hunt. I had lots of failures getting into archery as a kid. I picked up a bow when I was 14.
00:09:45
Speaker
I was obsessed with hunting as a kid. I still am obsessed with the outdoors. I fly fish. I love saltwater fishing. I love wing shooting. I've got a German short hair pointer. So we do a lot of bird hunting. But where I really dove into hunting and found your product and really kind of found a passion for Western style hunting is when my wife and I started dating in college. I joke that
00:10:10
Speaker
I married into a family my father-in-law is kind of like my professional guide by marriage per se so my wife and her family are from colorado and he is a huge big game hunter he's he shot multiple bighorn sheep mountain goats you know doing it the right way to public land diy putting in for tags
00:10:30
Speaker
and you know plenty of mule deer plenty of big elk and so when we started dating and you know he figured out that she was gonna keep me around more than just a temporary boyfriend he started getting me to put in for some tags with him and i got my first dose just over the counter second season rifle with him probably you know nine or ten years ago and just fell in love with it i shot my first elk
00:10:55
Speaker
Four years ago it was a cow and with a muzzleloader had a fantastic time got bit by the mountain bug and took my first bull two years ago i shot a few prawn horn since then and a few mule deer and so.
00:11:10
Speaker
You know, the reason I work out, I joke with everybody at my gym doing CrossFit is that, you know, the only reason I'm here is to stay in shape for Colorado every year. So that's kind of how I got into the hunting that I'm at now is marrying into
Western Big Game Hunting
00:11:25
Speaker
it. So I felt pretty blessed to marry into that.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah. I think when people go Western big game hunting, they either love it or they hate it. Right. So I've never done the sit over a feeder thing, which is real popular in Texas. I'm not knocking it. I would do it. Like if somebody, if I want to go to Texas and go hunt a feeder, I'd go do it. Sure. Why not? But some people like that. They want to be in a nice cozy cabin, get up and be in a warm truck, drive to the blind, sit in the blind with a little buddy heater going, you know, and some coffee. Right. And then other guys, you know, like me just want to be miserable.
00:11:57
Speaker
Wow, that's what we do. Have that experience. Exactly. We joked about that last week. There's an episode on King of the Hill where a guy says no agony, no bragony.
00:12:11
Speaker
It's just so much more rewarding when you suffer a little bit. It seems like that bell curve, risk versus reward is so much higher when the conditions are a little tougher and it kind of sucks a little bit. I'm not going to lie to you, Drew, last week was kind of miserable. It rained for five days and I don't think I had a dry pair of underwear by the end of the week.
00:12:33
Speaker
Oh, man. I've actually heard, were you running that browning rain gear? I was, man. I was running the backpack. I've heard it. Yeah. So it's Gore-Tex. It's top of the line stuff. It works great. I learned a lot on that hunt. And PSA, for all you people out there that have rain gear, you have to treat your rain gear. If you wash it and you dry it, you need to retreat it with DWR because it will get wet eventually.
00:12:59
Speaker
but yeah it held up it did great i was more than happy with you know there's nothing better than being a user of the product and walking away and meeting all of your expectations that's that's what makes what i do really fun
00:13:14
Speaker
I have never washed my rain gear. I just pressure wash that thing off when I get home and throw it in my hunting box. That's it, I've never washed it. Even washing my, even like my puppies and stuff, I don't really, I'll hand wash them maybe once a season, twice a season. I just try, everything's so delicate, you know?
00:13:31
Speaker
It is, it is. A lot of people got into the scent killer type game years ago, and so I think I've got some scent killer laundry wash that I always come home with blood stains on my jacket or whatever else, and so I'll throw it in the wash with that stuff. But yeah, re-treating your rain gear is very important, people. Make sure that you get you some DWR or Nubuck or whatever and re-treat that stuff.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't really done the sense because when you're hunting out west, it really doesn't matter. You just play in the wind, right? Because it's just like you're going to sweat and stink within, you know, 15 minutes leaving the truck. But one thing I do for my stuff is for blood, I can use hydrogen peroxide a little bit. That'll pull it out. And then also, I love using the oxy clean.
00:14:13
Speaker
I'll put it in the cooler or a bucket. I use oxygen for my game bags, so I don't use bleach. Our game bags are orange too, by the way, so you use Oxy Clean on it. But you put your stuff, like your bloody pants, into a five gallon bucket or a cooler with a scoop of Oxy Clean, and I swear it pulls all the blood out of it. You just rinse it by hand and then wash it, throw in the washer real quick, and you're done.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah. Octoclean. Octoclean is a great way to get the blood out. So tell me about like, like, what's your first time? Do you have some of your buck fever issues?
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, I suffer from
The Thrill of the Hunt: Stories & Challenges
00:14:47
Speaker
the bug fever bug bad. I've never been able to get over it. And you hear people say all the time, you lose that. And it's just not as fun anymore. And fortunately, I've never lost that. And I don't know where it comes from. I've had it ever since I was a little kid. I think my dad and mom have stories about setting a deer blind with me. And I'm shaking so bad. I shoot the feeder instead of the deer, like three or four feet high.
00:15:13
Speaker
I shot my first deer when I was seven years old, I believe. We had a fantastic deer lease. It's your typical Texas deer lease. You've got feeders and deer blinds. Back then, you had the game cameras with a Kodak film that you actually had to go get developed. It was like Christmas morning every time you went to Walgreens or CVS to go pick up your game camera photos. Half the time, it's just pictures of weeds. You're going through, it's the brush, setting the sensor off.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah so i grew up hunting you know is it is a young kid sleeping in the deer blind at the feet of my dad or my mom is we hunted we would always a white tail hunt i grew up well hunting grew up dog hunting and so you know i would i've always been an outdoor i was very blessed and very fortunate to grow up on on a farmer you know a piece of property and.
00:16:02
Speaker
my very first gun actually when i was a kid was browning bl twenty two that my mom and dad gave my brother and i for christmas when we were kids and i still have it today i've shot probably thousands of birds with that little short stroke you know twenty two is a fantastic gun i love it and yeah you know introduced.
00:16:21
Speaker
to hunting is a really early age and yeah, buck fever, man. It's real. I still get it today, 20-something years later. When I shot my mule deer last week, my buddy, he was joking because I was shaking so bad, I couldn't get my rod back in the rod holder. It was muzzle. You're muzzled. I can't speak. I was. I was, yeah.
00:16:44
Speaker
I still archery hunt, I love archery hunting. Muzzle loading though, it just seems to be the areas that we hunt in Colorado, it seems to line up a little bit better with the elk rut. I've kind of got it down where I can draw every third year a tag. I'll draw an antelope tag one year and then I'll draw a mule deer tag the next year and then I'll draw a elk tag the next year. It's pretty cool because I can
00:17:10
Speaker
Kind of count on a tag every every second or third year with muzzleloader whereas you know as a non-resident of colorado if i were to be rifle hunting, even archery hunting in some areas you can take me you know five six seven years to draw tag so, muscle loading is still one of those kind of really cool or deals where i can get a tag within a few years and have some pretty good areas and you know have an opportunity to some some good animals.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, no kidding, man. I had seven, they got me with the, they reduced the tag limits in an area because of all the winter kill, but I had seven points. I'm sure I was going to draw a rifle tag and it just didn't happen. How about muzzleloader shameless plug for my buddy, Jeff Clemens. He owns muzzleloaders.com. Okay. And so, I mean, they are like one of the largest online retailers for muzzleloaders, anything muzzleloaders you want. And there's a great company owned by conservatives up there, Oregon, great dudes. What are you shooting for muzzleloader?
00:18:02
Speaker
I'm shooting an old CVA, so the company that I rep through, one of the guys used to rep CVA back in the day. He had a gun that he held onto. He got out of muzzle loading hunting several years ago, but I shoot a CVA Acura. To be honest, it's probably...
00:18:19
Speaker
10 years old, but it works fantastically. I shoot it pretty well. If you ask my father-in-law, he might say differently, but I think I shoot it pretty well. For me going just once a year, pulling it out of the safe once a year and shooting it, it does just great. The states that we're muzzle loading in are primitive states, so you're not allowed to have optics. You've got to have open sights. You can't have Sabbats. It works out perfect, man. Dump the powder in, put your power belt in, and
00:18:48
Speaker
You know, put the old iron iron sights on it and and hopefully when the smoke clears, you got a down animal. Yeah, so I'm running the same gun. Okay.
00:18:59
Speaker
And then I'm running, I think I took a stainless one, it's like 500 bucks, some 400, 500 bucks. And then I got the globe site. Have you ran the globe sites yet? Yeah. So I'm using the, I'm using the Williams and... Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The crosshair in the front. Yep. Yeah. That's slick, man. And it has the height measurements. And then for my bullets, my same guy who owns muzzlelovers.com also owns store bullets and they're a non-save owed copper bullet. Correct. They are super accurate.
00:19:26
Speaker
And they are a great bullet. So they're looking for a good bullet, man. Those store bullets are awesome. And they have a cavity, so they self-expand to pressurize. So you don't need a Sabo. And then they just are very, very accurate. Yep. So you check those out, too. My buddy was shooting Thor this year, so I didn't order mine in time to get mine in. But yes, he was running
00:19:50
Speaker
the Thor's this year and really liked them. He found that they were, you know, a little bit more inherently accurate than some of the other bullets out there and was really happy with the performance. So, you know, non shameless plug to Thor bullets as well. Yeah. And then are you running? I'm running the white hot pellets. Are you running pellets or are you running powder? Powder. I'm running powder.
00:20:10
Speaker
like with a black or what are you running well so that's i tried to switch the black horn this year some shooting winchester triple seven and it's a pretty dirty powder i've i hate having to clean my gun every you know every other shot
00:20:26
Speaker
I never realized until I shot a muzzleloader how dirty those dang things get. Dude, and I feel like I need to go get my lungs checked after I shoot it, after all the white smoke clears. My buddy started, he got a muzzleloader. He's actually my coworker. He covers South Texas, Garin. He was shooting Thor bullets and he was shooting black horn powder. I was amazed at how much
00:20:49
Speaker
cleaner his gun was when we were shooting it and so I ordered some black horn and unfortunately my breach is too long and my little cone in it where you know you put your primer it's they don't make a breach or I couldn't find one if that would that was short enough and allowed that powder to set close enough to the primer for it to go off and so yeah man I couldn't shoot the black horn out of my muzzleloader so I'm still shooting the triple seven
00:21:18
Speaker
But yeah, Blackhorn is probably the cleanest powder out there that I've found. So the white hot pellets are awesome. Okay. I mean, you just dropped two of them in there and you're done. Two pellets done. I don't know if I can use pellets in Colorado, though.
00:21:33
Speaker
You got to look and see if you can or not. I don't know the rules on that. I was wondering that myself this year because I was looking at doing a Muzzler tag. Something to look at, but those white hot pellets, man, they are just... It's so simple. With the Thorbolt, the white hot pellets, I use a Winchester primer for the thing together and go shoot. Winchester shotgun primer. Yeah, really handy. You shake a lot when you shoot stuff, so keep going on this.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, this is a great segue to jump into my elk tag two seasons ago. I'll never get to live this down. So, you know, took me three or four points to draw the tag and drew a trophy unit tag as they define it in Colorado. There's some really good bulls in this unit. My father-in-law, you know, takes me up there and like I said, I kind of married a professional guy or into a professional guy, which is kind of cool.
00:22:25
Speaker
He's hunted this unit for 30 years. He pulls out this like tattered old topography map and everywhere he's ever found a wallow, anytime anybody's ever killed an elk or anytime anybody's ever killed a deer that's kind of in his close circle, it's marked on the map. And so this tattered old
00:22:43
Speaker
topography map is just littered with E's and D's and W's for, for, you know, the prospective wallows or animals that they've harvested in this unit. And, and you can almost see a pattern in it, which is kind of cool. And so we get out there and start hunting this unit and, and the first couple of days, we didn't have much luck doing any calling or bugling or cow calls.
00:23:06
Speaker
And then it was like the third or fourth day we were there. Everything, the stars lined up, the elk are bugling, you're laying in camp, you can hear them. I mean, everything's just hot at that moment. And so that next day we hike in and
00:23:22
Speaker
Set up on a water hole or a wallow and did a little bit of calling and it wasn't probably ten or fifteen minutes later a Nice fool comes in. He wasn't a giant, you know, probably you know He comes in it's it's probably about eighty or a hundred yards and
00:23:41
Speaker
And I shoot and we never found blood. We never found any sign like it was. It was like it. It was like I never shot the animal. We couldn't fight. So not sure if I missed the animal. If I hit it like high back or what it was.
00:23:59
Speaker
but we looked for two or three days and we decided not to punch my tag is we couldn't found no sign no birds nothing so after we search and search for like alright let's go try to find another ball. The very next day when we started hunting again it was mid afternoon and my father-in-law's working this ball down in this canyon and he's he's coming up this canyon to us.
00:24:23
Speaker
And we're in the dark timber. You can hear him crashing. He's at 200 yards. He's at 150. He's at 100 yards. You can start to see him moving through the dark timber and I get set up on this tree. I'm standing up. I got my gun rested on this branch on this tree on the trail, but I think he's going to come the line and he's screaming his head off. And my father-in-law's behind me working this bull and all of a sudden
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'll never forget this as long as I live. It's the most bone chilling experience I've ever had, but a bull screams right behind us. I mean, he had to be less than 50 yards. And so that bull, the bull that we called in was probably a satellite bull or solo bull. And the bull that came into him screaming to kind of challenge him ended up what we thought to be was the herd bull. I mean, he was
00:25:13
Speaker
probably a 300 plus inch bull giant, comes in screaming right behind us. And my father-in-law, I hear him say, shoot the one behind us. And so I have to take my muzzleloader off of the limb, kind of pull it up and spin around to try to shoot this bull. And he's standing at probably 20 paces.
00:25:36
Speaker
And he's, he's right at us. And so I, you know, I put it center mass and I thought what I pulled the trigger. I was like, man, this pulls down right there. And yeah, come to find out, man, I was shaking so bad. I was so nervous and so wound up. He's standing between two trees and I literally shot the tree.
00:25:54
Speaker
that he was standing in between. The bull takes off
Wildlife Behavior & Future Plans
00:26:00
Speaker
running. My father-in-law is telling me to reload. I'm shaking so bad, this buck fever, that I'm shooting 100 grains of powder. I maybe got 40 grains of powder in the gun. It's just going everywhere. He hands me his gun. He's got a tag as well. We take off after this bull.
00:26:18
Speaker
We're looking for sign, we're looking for blood and lo and behold, we go back to the spot where I shot and we see that there is a 50 cal muzzleloader bullet just right in that tree, man. And so yeah, my trophy picture for that year was me standing next to the tree.
00:26:36
Speaker
you know we ended up going home we we we also had mule deer tags so covid kind of mess that year up in terms of my kind of every third year drawn a tag so i actually drew a muzzleloader mule deer and a muzzleloader elk tag at the same time and so we spent the last two days chasing mule deer and my father-in-law shot a really good mule deer up on the peaks and then i was a little discouraged i got a pretty good little father-in-law speech about you know it's
00:27:04
Speaker
it's the fourth quarter there's two minutes left in the ball game you know pick up the attitude go score touchdown let's go get let's go get a deer and so i ended up being able to get a deer on that trip so i i brought meat which was pretty great but yeah i i missed out on on that big bull on two big bulls actually three technically and and yeah i blame it all on the buck fever man my my father-in-law says he's he's never seen a a guy shake so bad so
00:27:32
Speaker
That's what makes it exciting though. I can't get that feeling doing anything else in life, so I keep going back. I can say when they're screaming that close to you though, it's like nothing else. You can feel it inside your bones. It does get you worked up. It does. It's so cool to ... Turkey hunting is a little bit that way in a sense, but it's so cool to be able to actually
00:27:57
Speaker
Interact with with the wildlife and be able to you know, call them in and have that close interaction It's it's just there's not a lot of animals that you get to hunt out there especially big game animals that that act like elk that get so fired up and You know, they've screaming their head off It's just it's an experience unlike any other that I've that I've ever got to do it So yeah, I mean I've gotten bit by the bug bad
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a year at all time, but I mean, if you got to have sex one month a year, I guess you'd just go crazy. I don't know. That's exactly right, man. I mean, imagine if all of our testosterone was pent up for a year, so you're exactly right. You got 11 months. It's the craziest thing is, like, they're best friends. Like, they heard up together. The bachelor group, same thing with deer, bucks. I mean, they're all friends. And all of a sudden, like, that rut kicks off, and they just want to kill each other.
00:28:48
Speaker
They do. They are just trying to kill each other and they do kill each other. And then everything winds down mid-October and, hey man, sorry, let's go hide in this hole back here. They're all back together. They're all back together again. I don't know what came over me. Sorry about that. Yeah, I guess we can learn a thing from wildlife. Don't hold grudges. So it's kind of cool to see them all get back together in those bachelor groups at the end of the season.
00:29:13
Speaker
Awesome. Okay, so kind of wrapping it up. What do you got coming up? You got anything cool? Any kind of big hunts coming up or? So this year, that's pretty much it. My high country mule deer hunt last week was kind of my big tag for the year. I'm going to do a lot of wide tail hunting this year. I've got some quail hunts and some waterfowl hunts that are coming up. I'm actually going to go dove hunting this weekend, get my dog out, you know,
00:29:37
Speaker
I try to stay busy in the outdoors during the fall. Unfortunately, working in this industry, one of the downfalls is that when the stores are the busiest is when I'm the busiest. We're in stores trying to get reorders, trying to get fill-ins. I spend a lot of my time in the fall actually working. I got to pick up some fishing and stuff during the summer, during the slower times.
00:30:02
Speaker
But yeah, I'll keep myself busy with some whitetail hunts and some coil hunts and dove hunts throughout the fall. Do you have anything planned like any kind of more adventures planned? Like those kind of like hunts? No, so we've got Alaska hopefully next year. Listening to your last podcast episode, it sounds like you and your previous guest had a similar experience. We kind of got burned. We had a hunt planned in Alaska for 2020. COVID happened. They shut the unit down. The Outfitter actually
00:30:31
Speaker
quote-unquote went out of business and said thanks for all the money that you paid us see you later and fortunately Another company bought them out and reached out to us Earlier this year and said that we were do some we were do either our money back or the hunt And so we were able to go this year if we wanted to to a different unit
00:30:51
Speaker
And we opted to let somebody else be the first group to go out. And so we're going to go next year. We're really excited about it. That's an Alaska caribou hunt. We've been trying to get planned for the past four years now. So fingers crossed that all comes together. I hope it all works out. I really do. But that's going to be the next big, big adventure.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, I can't wait to go. I definitely feel burned and a little bitter about the whole situation because like we said, we didn't get our money back. And at least your guys can take you to a different unit. We're not even, they won't even really return our phone calls at all. So it's just, yeah, the whole thing's kind of, we got lots of sour taste in my mouth. We were so excited to go to Alaska. You know, you save so long and you plan so long and you finally put it together. And then I understand the thing shutting down, but just the lack of response and corporate, you know,
00:31:41
Speaker
They're not cooperating at all. It's just basically, oh, sorry, you gotta look and you can't have your money back. Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't want to knock the industry or any outfitters at all, but I think that unfortunately there's a lot of outfitters that don't necessarily run their business like a business and cashflow is hard for them sometimes. You get some questionable individuals in the industry and they don't make the best decisions that
00:32:06
Speaker
A good outlook on our industry or what they do for a living and so you know we had a very similar experience but hopefully this guy that the bottom out will you know do a little better job and fulfill our wishes so you know again fingers crossed it happens next year what are your plans and what kind of cat are you gonna run up there you get a fly in right playing a job yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to fly in man. To be honest, I got, I got some gear I got to get, you know, I've, I've once our hunt kind of got postponed and then got canceled. I put off getting a lot of, of the gear that I wanted. So it is a drop camp. So they're supposed to be giving us and providing us with some of the gear there. Yeah. So I think that they provide, we're a lot at 60 pounds per person of our gear. And then they provide the cots and the tents, you know, and they drop us off. We got to set them all up. But I believe that they are.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's set on their website, and he may have different equipment by the time we get there, but I think it was just the Cabela's six-man outfit or tent. You know, two people per tent, so a little bit more room than, you know, like a Nemo or anything like that. Yeah, I'm planning on running a Hillenburg-Namahaj, like a three-person.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah. Those Hillenburg tents are just, I have two of them now. I've got an onion and a namage and they are just incredible tents, man. I love them. Everything about them, you just stay dry. I've been in this ripping winds and rain and snow and just wake up feeling great. So they're, Hillenburg is a great tent if you've got to buy one and I recommend it. I want to go out there, I'm going to do this caribou hunt and I really want to go up there and do a float trip. I want to go up there and do a float trip for Moose really bad. It's high on my list. So that's like the adventure I really want to do before I get, I mean,
00:33:40
Speaker
I'm not old by any means, I'm 37, but I would love to go and go up there and fill my boys and just float and hunt moose and try and get one. Sounds incredible. It's the adventure for me, right? That's what we're about me out about Alaska is I think it's going that adventure. I didn't get to go up there and have the grizzly bears encounters. I didn't get to go up there and be stuck out in the middle of nowhere for eight days. I wanted that so
The Joy of Sharing Outdoor Experiences
00:34:04
Speaker
bad.
00:34:04
Speaker
I hope it'll happen at some point. I'm going to make it happen if I have to go pay for another one to go do a different area, I guess. Hopefully, that one comes through because it stinks. Those moose, man, those are cool animals. Last week, we actually got to help pack out my father-in-law's, one of his best friends, Colorado Shire's moose. He drew a tag. It took him right at 30 years of putting in as a resident. There's not very many people that can say they got to pack out of Colorado moose.
00:34:33
Speaker
I got an experience with a moose last week, but man, they are nowhere near the size of the Alaska moose. We've got a buddy, Darren and I, that went on a float trip and two guys, one of them tagged out and got a moose and he sent us a picture of him sitting on top of it. And man, you look at that and it's like, man, it'd take all those two of you to pack out a hand on one of those things.
00:34:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah, over 100 pounds. Yeah. That says a lot about you, man. A lot of people would get a phone call and they'd probably send that guy to voicemail if they knew he had a moose tag because that's a fun pack out. So, good on you. It was a cool experience, man. And again, like I said, being able to share the outdoors with others is part of the whole experience, man. When you get out there with
00:35:20
Speaker
with a good group of friends, family, whatever it is. You get to see God's beauty, you get to see God's creation, and everybody's got a good attitude and suffering through it together. It just makes it that much more enjoyable. It makes you want to go back next year.
Conclusion & Promotions
00:35:35
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:35:36
Speaker
Well, with that said, great podcast. Where can we find you at? Do you want people to find you? Yeah, sure. I'm not crazy active on social media, but I am on social media. Look me up on Instagram, Brent Vogler, B-R-E-N-T, B-O-G-L-E-R. If you add me on Facebook, I probably won't accept your friend request, but you can follow me on Instagram if you want. I post some hunting stories and pictures every now and again.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, more importantly, man, follow Drew at Tricer. They make the best tripods. We found some big deer last week using a Tricer, man. I'll tell you what, you reinvented the most obvious wheel ever with the tripod game. You think about it, a pyramid, the big sections on bottom. That's where all the weight's at. Every tripod you look at on the market, you've got the skinny legs on the bottom, and that's not how they should be. You make a fantastic, lightweight, stable tripod.
00:36:27
Speaker
Thanks for being an awesome manufacturer and making a great product. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, it's nice having guys like you say that, you know. I can say it to my face from the blue, but the great thing is all you guys out there hunting deer and elk and caribou and all this stuff and they're using this stuff and everyone's seeing it. And when you do hold it, it's kind of selling itself now. All organic sales have just been through the roof the last couple of months because everyone's really starting to get out in the field and they're putting their photography tripod next to their buddy who has a tricer. They're just like, I got to go buy a tricer.
00:36:57
Speaker
That's awesome, man. That's awesome. It's cool. Yeah, in 2024, we got some really cool stuff coming out, too. So I'm excited for that. So we're just getting started with Tricer. I can't wait, man. I'll be a consumer. You make a great product. Awesome. Thanks, Brent, man. What a great podcast. Awesome. Thanks for having me on. God bless. Thanks for listening, guys.
00:37:21
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.