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Gear Fool – Brady Harang & Forest Pike
198 Plays1 year ago
This week Drew has Brady and Forest from Gear Fool on the Tricer Podcast. As you can expect, they talk about gear. The folks at Gear Fool are passionate about answering the beckoning call to adventure, exploring remote wildernesses, and living amongst the wild creatures that roam there. They understand that personal grit helps get you out there, and quality gear enhances the experience. It is their mission to offer modern gear solutions that are vetted by the Gear Fool team of professionals - The Experts - so that others may enjoy grand adventures of their own. Gear Fool…Equip for the Outdoors
GEAR FOOL
Website – https://www.gearfool.com
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@gearfool
Instagram - @gearfool_official
TRICER USA
Website – https://tricerusa.com/
Instagram - @tricerusa
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricerusa/
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Transcript
Introduction to Tricer Podcast and Guests
00:00:01
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. I'm excited today to have the boys from Gearful
00:00:29
Speaker
on the podcast. I got Brady and Forrest from Gearful. How are you guys doing? It's another big day. It's finally turning into spring. Sun's coming out in a real way and leaves are turning green, so it's nice. Yeah, when the temps hit 60 here in the spring, that's a big deal in southern Utah. It ain't sunny in 80 like down there in your region. Yeah, yeah. You guys are in Cedar City, yeah? Yep. Yep.
Hunting in Southern Utah and Logistics
00:00:55
Speaker
So you guys kind of like, I was talking to somebody else, that's a pretty sweet area to live for like a jump off point for hunting, because you really could, you can kind of jump, you jump in Nevada, you can jump right into Arizona right there, you can jump over to Colorado, New Mexico. It's kind of a good little hub for some really good hunting. I mean, within, you know, I don't know, six to 10 hours, you've got four states like at your fingertips. Nah, you nailed it. Utah in general, but then Southern Utah specifically, yeah, it's a hub.
00:01:24
Speaker
It's a launching pad. So if you play the non-resident game in various states, you can pretty much reach any of those states and most species for most hunts in a day's drive, you know, seven, eight hours, you know, to kind of give a guesstimate there. But you don't, you're not traveling 16 hours to get from Arizona to Montana, for example. Yeah. Yeah. Or San Diego to anywhere. We are in the, uh, San Diego on that one.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah. I'm starting to actually look into flying on like some of my hunts. I am driving to Montana for, I'm going up there. I'm going to go to the total orchard challenge. I'm going to go do some fly fishing or I'm not spinning real fishing with the new familiar foundation. Then I'm going to go over and do a total challenge, ride dirt bikes with Cody Rich and then do lampers. He's doing like a Western hunting summit. So I'm going to drive that and it's kind of
00:02:19
Speaker
But I mean getting up there, it's like an 18 hour drive. I go straight through. So I'm just going to bring the canvas cutter and just, you know, dump off probably, you know, maybe I'll stop buying to you guys. You're kind of a little bit out of the way I go. I guess you're on the, you guys are off the 15 though, honk is not off 15. You, I would go past you, huh? Yeah, we're right on 15 there. You're on the 15. Yeah, but you'll probably take a route a little north of us. A little north of you on a head north. Yeah. So I'm going to drive up there and do that. But like, I've got a, um,
00:02:47
Speaker
Antelope hunt in September, well, I should, as long as I don't get freaking crept like every other tag that I've been applying for. And I'm just going to fly. I'm going to fly to Wyoming and rent a car and go hunt them. Cause it's like, it's just a drive. I don't know. I hate flying for hunts. There's so much stuff you got to pack and then you got to, how are you, like you got to ship the animal back or figure out what to do with the meat. There's so many, I don't know. I feel like with an Antelope though, like I could bring a guy, like one of those Yeti soft backpacks.
00:03:16
Speaker
I could de-bun an antelope into that. I could freak out. Fire with it? Yeah, fire with it. Just carry it on. Carry it on the plane with me. Dude, right off the bat, we've got some common ground. I've killed Audad in West Texas and flown back with the back straps with carry-on luggage. Yeah, I've carried ducks. I've gone and done it for, like, up in Sacramento. We had some pretty good duck hunting up there on that flyway. And I'll fly back with ducks.
00:03:46
Speaker
You can't bring ice. So what I'll do is like go through and
Simplifying and Choosing Hunting Gear
00:03:50
Speaker
then I'll go to like whatever Panda express and then be like, Hey, give me some ice and I'll fill the cooler up. Cause you can't bring ice through, but you know, especially like, I think I'm, I'm thinking I'm hunting with Dylan Hyde or I should be hunting with Dylan Hyde in Wyoming. So hopefully we can freeze it, right? If we kill, kill an antelope, freeze it as put in the backpack, it'll be good. It's only a four or five hour flight, you know? And one nice thing I can say, like I do get like, it is hard to bring all your stuff with you, but when you limit yourself to a backpack,
00:04:16
Speaker
It's life is so much easier, right? Like I bring, like if I go hunting by myself, it's like a backpack. Like I can live for 10 days with a backpack, a tent, some, you know, whatever peaks or mountain house, whatever. But then I go and take my father-in-law and my two boys and we go on an elk hunt. And like, you can't even, you can't fit another thing in the truck. Like it's like, it's stacked up and we got a rack on the back of the truck. And it's just like a freaking, you're just like, how is this possible? You know, so there's something you said about the simplicity of flying on a hunt.
00:04:46
Speaker
But I do get driving, so I like driving. I don't mind it. It's just my goal this year is to hunt at least two weeks a month. So in September, it'll probably be a lot more. I better draw this really bitch in elk tag in Colorado. I never killed a bull with my bow. So I'm really excited for that. And that's like a 21-day season, so I'm going to hunt that as long as I can.
00:05:12
Speaker
I'll drive to that hunt because that's one thing flying for an elk is like, that's next level. Getting that back is going to suck. But I'll drive for that one and then hopefully get back and then just fly up to Wyoming. You know what I mean? Because coming from San Diego, it could add another three days to your hunt because typically what I'll do is I'll drive and then I'll pull off. I don't like to stay in hotels because I just feel like tweakers are going to steal all my stuff. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you guys are the gear fool, right?
00:05:40
Speaker
You ever look at your backpack and realize that you have like 20 grand in your backpack? Yeah. Every time I hunt with my brother, we look at that and we talk. It went into slow day. Yeah. We'll talk about the investment we've got lying on the ground or the mountainside beside us. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. I was out last year and I actually posted a little reel or video. It was like on my storage or something. I was sitting there glassing with my kids and I was glassing through a BTX.
00:06:10
Speaker
with a pair of EO ranges on my chest and a pair of 15 by 56 SLCs laying next to me. And I was just like, I just want to tell my wife, get your nails done. I'm sorry. You know what I mean? My wife would be like, hey, I just hope it's okay. I bought this shirt at Target. And I'm like, yeah, I guess it's all right. And then here comes freaking
00:06:35
Speaker
Dude, I have the biggest, especially now at Tricer, I have the biggest problem with optics. I have so many optics. It's just a good obsession. I love gear, dude. That's what's cool. I'm talking to you guys. I love gear. I love tents. I love trying gear. I love trying different things. I do have a system in place that I like because I don't like to change too much stuff. I've used the same backpack for eight years and I made a switch
00:07:02
Speaker
Dang. Yeah. And, uh, we'll same brand. I've actually same brand. So I've, I've, I've, I've used the XO, the, the K two, and then I went to the K three. Yeah. It has to be like, yeah, 2016. Um, and this year I'm, I'm switching over to the Eberly stock just for not cause I don't like the XO. I love the XO. Just, I just want to try something new and I've, I kid used it. There's some things about the mod, the modest and I really like, um, I'm just trying it out. What's that? Have you used them before?
00:07:31
Speaker
That really stuck? I have. My kid has one. You used it last year. And I love their, like the modularity of it. I really do. And I actually really like their frame. The main frame? Yeah. I really like that frame. Like I know it seems like it's so like, I don't want to say it's barbaric, but it's just like, it's just a freaking frame and it just works, man. And it's just like, it's nice. And I actually really like.
00:07:58
Speaker
their rifles scabbard. Like I'm in love with that. So I've been like, I've been like strapping out to the side of my exo for a few seasons now and just doesn't fit right. I was actually gonna sew it on there. And this year I was like, you know what, my kid ran it, I'm gonna try it. So I bought the like their whatever their 5000 paper and
00:08:17
Speaker
I bought all kinds of crap from them. I bought their bat wings too, because the bat wings are really slick. Today I went scouting. I did some scouting videos and I just brought just the bat wings. It's really neat to be able to move this up around. I thought that it was gimmicky until I started using it. This is a really neat piece of gear. I love their accessories, but I'd be surprised if you don't
00:08:41
Speaker
end up going back to the Exo simply for comfort. I feel like every time I've used their packs and been excited about it, it feels like they're just biting your shoulders after a few hours. Really? Yeah, but see what you think. We'll see, man. I'm going to run it. I'm going to run it and try it. My whole point of that is like, I'm not going to go and switch that up every weekend, right? I do like to try like one or two different things.
00:09:01
Speaker
here and there and try gear, you know what I mean? I like to try and refine my kit. When I go on hunts, I'll typically not try 10 different things, but maybe I'll bring a different jacket for this hunt, right? Or I'll try a different piece for this hunt. I have an obsession with tents. I love, I love tents. Yeah, that's a, what's a little bit unusual. So what tent were you using last year, out of curiosity?
00:09:28
Speaker
man i was using the seek silver tip for a while and then i went to the hillenburg and i really love the hillenburg like the um anion oh yeah what's the what's the weight on that i don't recall off the top of my head four pounds all in four pounds all in okay all in yeah i've got some like big agnes stuff too but um i have the kuyu the kuyu mountain star that's a cool tent as well
00:09:54
Speaker
But right now, my favorite tent, hands down, is that Hillenburg. It's just comfortable, and it just works, man. I got stuck out in San Diego, believe it or not, opening week in a deer. We had 60 mile per hour winds, rain, storm. And my kid and one of my best friends were in my teepee.
00:10:16
Speaker
And it just ripped open on them. You have to like, TPs are like an art and you have to really like put some time into like, especially when you put some rocks on it. Like there's things like I don't want to deal with.
00:10:29
Speaker
Like my buddy said he wakes up and he's just getting pelted with water. And he looks over at my son and the teepee is like up in the air. And my kid just looks at him, puts a sleep bag over his head and rolls back in. So my buddy's out in the rain by himself, just like staking that thing back down. But the whole point of that is like, I was in that Hillenburg and it was like nothing, you know? They're just built for it, you know? There's a reason why Hillenburg is known as the tent.
00:10:55
Speaker
maker, I think is their brand. If you look at some of their historical footage, like they'll, they'll legitimately stand up their tents in the development phases in like a wind tunnel, or a high volume fan, if you will, like 70 mile an hour sustained winds.
00:11:13
Speaker
There is some credibility to that in my opinion. 100%. I mean, I own a Hilleberg Nalo GT2. Heavy side. But if, if, if I'm running with my wife specifically, you know, she wants a floor shelter or something, I'll bring it. But yeah, back to Hilleberg. They are definitely a quality. Yeah. I have the namaj as well. Like, and that's their, I think it's whatever. What is their, not the black, it's like they're red, right? So I have the onion I have is, is, um,
00:11:44
Speaker
Not Anyon, you said Anyon. It's Anyon. I have a yellow one, two person that I really love. I feel like it's Anyon.
00:11:55
Speaker
And then I have the namaj as well, and that's a three person, like heavy duty if I go into Alaska and stuff, right? So I'm going to fly in, that's what I'm going to bring. I actually packed that tent on an Oregon hunt two seasons ago because it was just storming and I wanted the space and it was, it's nice. It's not terrible. If you're splitting the weight between two people, you know, a good shelter is worth it. My biggest thing with a hunting tent is I want to have a good vegetable.
00:12:21
Speaker
Like I want to put some gear outside of the tent, right? Like everyone gets so caught up in weight on this stuff. And it's like, dude, like, yeah, you can go get a tiger wall tent that weighs nothing. But as soon as you can, you wind or rain, it's going to be coming in the side of that thing. You know, you might be able to like be in a camp and have a little bit of rain, but it's just not built for hunters, right? It's not built for the situations where you're up at tool belts, foot elevation. The last thing you want to have happen is your shelter go out on you, you know? So yeah, I do want to try that. Go ahead.
00:12:51
Speaker
I was going to say, yeah, that can actually be life threatening. And there was a few instances last fall from, uh, I mean, we'll just call them, uh, industry players or influencers. Yeah. Bad circumstances in Colorado. Uh, if I recall, I heard that, I heard that podcast with him. That was pretty gnarly, definitely gnarly. I do want to try, like I'm not out on the teepees altogether. There's something about like.
00:13:17
Speaker
I love being able to have the floor of the system. I love how big they are. Dude, you get so freaky. When you're sleeping out somewhere for eight days, you get so dirty in a teepee. There's no way around it. You're just going to get dirty. You know what I mean? I know it's cool, but I haven't done the stove things. I am thinking about getting a peak teepee and trying that out as well. The solid teepee. Yeah, the peak teepee, getting a stove and running that.
00:13:44
Speaker
But yeah, man, so I love gear.
Gearful Introduction and Quality Gear
00:13:47
Speaker
You guys are gear fools. Tell me about gearful. What are you guys about? When you guys spun out of hunting fool and you guys have been selling some awesome gear now. Yeah. So we are our standalone entity from hunting fool, but we're so closely affiliated. It's almost like we're, you know, shoulder to shoulder. We share the same building, for example. So you can't have one without the other to some extent, but as far as gear specifically,
00:14:12
Speaker
We got a lot of players on the team that is hunting full and gear full. We spent a lot of time in the field and we have for many years. We understand that quality gear can make or break the experience as we get further ahead in time where it's harder and harder to acquire tags. Every moment we spend on the mountain or in pursuit with that tag truly matters. You know, when we get older and we look back, they say, when you look back on your life, you want to look and see, you know, am I
00:14:38
Speaker
with what I did when I was looking forward from age eight or back from age 80 and if so, then you did it right. But then you come in full circle again, it's gear that makes that possible. I'm sure you yourself, I know I have Brady too. Those outings where the weather rolls in or something and you didn't have something that was, you know, I'm not saying that you have to have top tier gear to get out there, but it does help, you know what I mean? Especially if you know it. Especially if you know it. Once you know it and you've been exposed to it,
00:15:09
Speaker
You know, it's like you and your optic fetish there, Drew. You just, you know. I can't say I always go back to Swarovski.
00:15:20
Speaker
Oh wow, surprise, surprise. I try it all now. I have a ton of stuff. So I actually, you know, I liked, I like to try, try them, but yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. So you guys are getting gear and you're doing gear specifically for hunters, right? So, but not necessarily only hunting gear, like it could be gear from the outdoor space that, that ties into hunting, correct? Yeah, that's correct. There's a lot of crossover gear, right? Between the backcountry hunting community or
00:15:50
Speaker
or even just the general hunting community that crosses over with the backpacking culture, like general recreation backpacking. I mean, yeah, they have some like uber light equipment on that side, but it won't hold up for us. But on the opposite, you know, flip that. If people that are into backpacking and they care about like durability and robustness and quality and craftsmanship, in all honesty, they should look to the backcountry hunters because
00:16:17
Speaker
I mean, we'll put 110 pounds or more on those type frames from time to time, you know? Yeah. And when the weather gets bad, we're not pulling out. We're not, you know, bound for the trailhead. For example, we're going to stick it out and wait for the clearing in the weather because often that's prime time. So we try to be respectful of both sides, certainly.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah. And we sell headlamps and peak meals and all the stuff that people come in here all the time. Peak refuel meals, jet boil, platypus. I mean, the main staple brands in the space that is backpacking, like I said, it crosses over. Yeah, for sure. And the good stuff really does make the difference, right? I always talk about
00:17:01
Speaker
You have ultralight backpackers, right? And they're trying to get down to like whatever, 20 pounds. We run some of the lightest gear out there for hunting, but there's no way to cut it. We're going at 50 pounds no matter what. More than likely 60. Like there's just no way to get around it when you throw a bow or a rifle, optics, kill kits. You know, a lot of times we're bringing in, you know, especially for me where I hunt, I'm bringing in, you know, three gallons of water. You know, I have 25 pounds of water on my back sometimes just to kind of, you know, make it through a few days.
00:17:31
Speaker
Yeah. Down there in the Southwest. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we pack water in store water up here a lot in San Diego, but yeah. So the light gear, it is very important to us because no matter what, how we cut it, like you're going to be carrying a rifle and you're going to have ammo and you're going to have binoculars and tripods and all that stuff. Weight is just part of the game for us, but that doesn't mean that we don't scrutinize it. You know, ounces matter. Everyone knows that.
00:17:59
Speaker
but sometimes you shed weight in areas where you shouldn't. So it's a game of balance, I suppose. Yeah, that's kind of like where I was going with that tent thing is like I've kind of just come to a point, like there's certain things like my sleep system.
00:18:13
Speaker
where I would rather be comfortable than ultralight on certain things, you know what I mean? Like, even my pad now, like, I do, I have to find the same extherm forever. I do want to cut it open, but it finally pops. I want to cut it open because I blow inside of it. I want to do the whole bag thing. Like, it's got to be so disgusting inside of it. This thing just, it hasn't popped. Like, it's like the best, that Thermorex extherm pad, maybe I just have a special one, is just the best thing I've ever owned.
00:18:41
Speaker
hundreds of nights on it, never had a hole. And I do have like their whatever their yellow one, but I switched over to like a four inch thick big Agnes this year.
00:18:53
Speaker
that is like a square one and it's just so comfortable for sleeping and you know, it's just nice. And I bought one of those little like very warm was talking about those little pumps, you know, that I thought were like a bit for gear. And then like once you use one of those little pumps and you can like blow your pad up and you're not like sucking wind, you know, especially elevation, it's pretty awesome. So I carry that heavier pad now, a nice tent. I do use a really light quilt. I use in the light and equipment quilts, the lighter stuff.
00:19:20
Speaker
But yeah, you just got to kind of figure out what works for you. And I like what you said, know your gear as well too. I definitely don't want to go start running this Everly stock and then get an elk down and not know how to tie an elk to it.
00:19:34
Speaker
Like it's like so many guys get out there and they've never used their pack, you know, to like, let's think of my exo. Like I'm not like, Oh, I'm a killer, but I don't even know how many animals I packed on my exo tons of them. Like I know the system to do it. So like using a new pack, like, you know, I really need to kind of figure it out before I go. Like, how does this work? And you know, watch the videos and figure it out. Cause you don't want to go out there and get caught, you know, not knowing how to use something. Yeah, for sure. I think the one most people make the mistake on is tense, at least
00:20:02
Speaker
from what I've seen like this so many times that I'll be with someone or myself, have a brand new tent. He's like, all right, we'll set this up before we go. And it's, you know, scrambled before you leave and you get there and it's dark and you're sitting there like, all right, let's figure this out. Yeah, not cool. I agree with you 100% Drew, especially with the expansion of a meat shelf for a given pack, especially if it's a pack where all the webbing straps and buckles and fabric are all jet black.
00:20:31
Speaker
By the time you get done breaking down an animal, it's the dead of night. And it's like, well, shoot, if I have to detach this buckle, where the heck does this strap go? And vice versa. You know, preparation beforehand, even with a pack you've used for years before, shoot, breaking it out in the summer before the opening day or the opening trip, it can make the difference. Sometimes you're fatigued. You know that.
00:20:55
Speaker
You get fatigued just day X on a hunt and you got to try and figure out a meat shell. Sometimes your mind isn't firing on all cylinders. The end result is your brother making front of you because you're riding caddy wampus on the trail back to the truck, you know? Oh man. Yeah. I mean, there's no, like talking about being fatigued, like there's no amount of training. I'm convinced that can kind of like prepare you, prepare you for what we do. I mean, it's just, you get into it, you know, the latter days of a hunt.
00:21:23
Speaker
especially like an elk hunt where they just live in hell and you're just pounding ridges and going hard. You kill an elk and it takes you two or three hours just to process. You're exhausted by the time you process a thing. Put it on your pack and carry it out. Especially if it's solo trying to flip it to the alternate side. Oh my gosh, dude. You know the trick I do is trekking pulls. It's all acts of trekking pulls to hold the leg up.
00:21:48
Speaker
Even with them, even when I'm with someone, I'll do that. So like just holding up that hindquarter to get the trekking pole underneath it. But yeah, they always seem to die on a hill where you try and flip them and then they just don't flip right. And flipping an elk sucks. It does suck. They're so heavy. It seems like they always die on a slope, at least for my family anyway. Yeah. It's very rarely on the flat land where you can just work it freely. I don't think I've ever seen an elk dead on something flat.
00:22:17
Speaker
That's part of the fun though. I killed my first bull right next to a drinker as it will drive up to it. And we put it into a truck. It was only elk I saw until day sick. I didn't see a cow. I see nothing. I hunted like one of the limited units over in Arizona.
00:22:36
Speaker
And, uh, and it was literally the only elk I saw. And, um, some old dudes like rolled by road hunting and like looked, looked over at us and then drove by. We were, we sat at ground blind. It's the last night we were exhausted. We were just going to ground blind, whatever, you know, and all of a sudden this bull like manifested out of nowhere and I killed it. And, uh, they came back and it turns out, I mean, they were just ecstatic. And these were, when I say old guys, we're talking these, this is like a elk camp that they have like a trailer. They'd be going to for like 40 years, like 10 old dudes. They were so excited. We killed a bull.
00:23:06
Speaker
So he let me throw it in my truck and we drove her to the house and they winched it up into a tree with a winch. It was freaking, you couldn't have asked for like a better situation for killing your first bull, you know. They had a sell-all, they had the whole nine, you know. No, that's, it don't always work out that way. No, never. I haven't had one since like that at all and killed a few, but so, gear full. You guys are your own entity over there at Cedar City. You guys, when you guys start up?
00:23:35
Speaker
We launched our website, Halloween of 2022. So we're about in the realm of a year and a half running now. Okay. And what do you guys sell? You guys sell Optics? You sell some bitchin' tripods. I know that. Oh, yeah. Now, we pretty much sell, we sell everything minus weapons currently. We do have an FFL through the relationship with Hunt & Fool.
00:24:01
Speaker
Um, but we haven't, we haven't grown into that capacity just yet, but whether it's backpacks, footwear, clothing, I mean, you name it. If you're, you know, even remotely into the hunting world, hunting industry or, or the, uh, that country specifically, that's the gear that we carry and we're, we're always looking to expand too. I think something to mention too, is that we try to carry gear while we try to hit price point as well, but
00:24:28
Speaker
Primarily we try and carry gear that we've used and believe in. So, you know, obviously we haven't used everything in the store, but you can kind of tell after you've done enough stuff with enough, enough equipment, what's going to hold up, what's not, et cetera. True. We try not to have junk on our, on our website. You know, it's, we try to keep it fairly streamlined.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, we are respectful of one's budget because you shouldn't go into debt necessarily to go hunting. But if the budget suits, then there's options to be had, you know, quality standards and the like. And you said one thing I like, do you guys try and keep as like, you know, two or three brands for each kind of category? We try to. Yeah, just for for the sake of simplicity and authenticity, in all honesty. I like that.
00:25:15
Speaker
Take a given subcategory of gear. There's probably three brands that would round it out pretty thoroughly. Yeah, you could go all the way down a rabbit hole and get 12 brands deep into a subcategory of gear, but at the end of the day,
00:25:32
Speaker
it would be very difficult for us to use all that gear, one, and then secondly, to actually be able to speak to it thereafter, it wouldn't even be feasible. So when we get calls for dudes like from hunting full and hunting full adventures, and they're going on whatever dream hunt they've been waiting on so long for, or even if it's just a routine annual hunt, in this capacity of offering three brands per sub category, we can honestly say, A, we've used this and it's going to serve you well when you get in the field this fall. Gotcha. I like that.
00:26:03
Speaker
What are you guys doing for boots? Curious.
Boots and Footwear Preferences
00:26:06
Speaker
Uh, we currently have a crispy Honwag and Kennetrek is what we're running with currently. Okay. Okay. I tried the Honwags. They kind of did fit my foot, right? I got the Kennetreks and I'm in love. I love the Kennetreks. Yeah. I love the, I don't know what it was that Honwags were a little tight on my foot. I, people love them. Like, I don't know what it was. The toe box is a little tight, but I ended up going to the,
00:26:32
Speaker
mountain extremes, the 400s. And then I've got the, uh, hard scrabbles, not insulated. And I almost wish I would have gotten on insulated mountain extremes because I just love the mountain extreme so much. Hey, we sell them. You can get them. Yeah. I just, I feel like those mountain extremes really, cause I have issues with like, I'll get like heel lift. Uh, and I feel like in the mountain streams, I don't get that.
00:26:55
Speaker
especially side-hilling. Anyone can wear boots on the flats and wear them around, but when you start side-hilling and start picking up a thousand foot elevation, going up a hill, that's not a trail. That's when you really start to feel it. I love both pairs of boots. Honestly, I bought some cheap inserts off Amazon this year for 40 bucks. I had no foot problems running those things. That was a game-changer for me.
00:27:23
Speaker
Oh, that's a big win. Yeah. The Kenneth Trek Mountain extremes, non-insulated. I've had them for a long time now. Even though they're non-insulated, I don't like wearing them in the early season because they're a little heavier than they're heavy. My preference being a lot of Krispies at the same time when it, when it, when it chills off. Yeah. I'll roll with that Kenneth Trek Mountain extreme non-insulated, even when most people.
00:27:48
Speaker
would kind of get in the realm of a 200, 400-gram thinsulate option. They're just for me, but they're quality boots for sure. Yeah, they're awesome. What Krispies are you running? I've got the Brixall Mountains from last year, and then I'm a big fan of the Laponias. I have yet to get my foot into the Laponia 3 this year, though. Yeah, it seems like everyone loves that Laponia. I need to try it out. I know that the Grady guys are super into that Krispy Laponia.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's where a lot of the following came thereafter. But if you get your foot and then it feels right on on moment one, it's probably going to feel right, you know, every day thereafter. It's a it's a light and fast boot. There's no other way around it. And with this new variant that came out with the more aggressive tread pattern, it's going to be a good product, man.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah. Brad Hunt was on and he was telling me he wore through like three pairs of those last season. That's how many hundreds of miles those guys hike. It's crazy. In what capacity? Like the tread or the tread? Yeah. He just bore, I mean, but he putting on, you know, 400 miles. You know what I mean? Just hundreds of miles on those boots because he just, he's hike so much. And it's like you said, it's not flat land. It's all, you know, he loves them. He loves those boots. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
But the new ones should hold up better, right? That was there. Yeah, it's got the Mega Grip outsole. They outsole that Crispy worked hand in hand with Vibram to produce. It's probably the most common outsole they have on other models, but yeah, they tied it into the Crispy LaPonia 3 this year.
00:29:18
Speaker
Really? I might have to check them out. Right now, the thing is, like you said, things that work, right? So like my heart scabbles and my mountain extremes work. So it's like, I'm afraid to make that switch because finding a good boot, like I tried to sneeze out and didn't have the greatest experience of great boots. This wasn't for me. And then I ran like, I tried a synthetic boot. I went to synthetic
00:29:40
Speaker
Scarpas and I wanted to love them, but I just didn't. Um, I, I really like a leather boot. I like a stiffer, a little bit stiffer boot, something kind of, especially, you know, some of the places I go, I just, I need a stiffer boot. Uh, I tend to roll my ankles a little bit, uh, especially when I get tired, especially if you have an elk on your back or a lot of weight on your back shifting, you know, it's just, I
Rifle Choices and Ethics of Hunting
00:30:02
Speaker
really feel like it is something about those contracts that just, you know, I know they're 400 bucks or 500 bucks, but it's like, man,
00:30:09
Speaker
You're gonna be using those more than any piece of gear in your pack, that's for sure. Your boots are, you're gonna run those things more than any tripod or optic or rifle, you know, especially the rifle. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a, have you guys seen what I'm doing this year for rifle? All your 30 out of six posts? Yeah. So I'm going to a, I got a Browning 30 out of six Woodstock. I got it right here, hold on. Dude, I have not seen this. No. He has my attention.
00:30:39
Speaker
So I had a few bad experiences last year with some like quote unquote, long range hunters that were just slinging lead and just, you know, no shooting where they shouldn't be shooting. Missing, you know, if it would have hit it, they probably couldn't got down to it, right? Shooting over us. We're down in this Canyon guys shooting off the top of the ridge, going back to the truck for more ammo. And I just said, you know what? I'm going to get a Woodstock 30 out six.
00:31:04
Speaker
I'm going to get a Brownings that they had a left handed one for me. It's hard to find a Woodstock anymore. Nobody, especially left handed. And I'm going to shoot a 30 out of six for every animal this year. So antelope, hopefully not elk. Hopefully I shouldn't bow for elk.
00:31:21
Speaker
I'm bringing to Mexico for Q's deer, locally for deer, and I'm just going to do that because I feel like people get so caught up on the rifle and all these calibers. The .30-06 is a great caliber, man. It's a 500-yard gun all day long with modern-day ammo and hand loading and doing it. I don't think you really have much business shooting past that. It's like my personal pet peeve. I have the guns that can and I'm capable. I'll go shoot 1,200 yards all day long and go do that stuff and have fun.
00:31:52
Speaker
But in real world hunting situations, I feel like once you get past that quarter mile mark, that, you know, 420 yards, 400 yards, things really started getting a little, you know, Western. And so that's why I decided to shoot a 30 out of six this year for every animal. Yeah, there's a lot of variables present and shooting long distance. Um, it's certainly not for everyone. I think it's not, you know, a personal choosing, but you go into a 30 out of six and a wood grain stock.
00:32:17
Speaker
and left-handed. That's going to be interesting. Honestly, I want to see the Instagram posts for sure. Honestly, take a look. So part of it behind it as well with going Woodstock was I feel like everyone is shooting these big, you know, crazy rifles now, these PRCs and these chassis rifles. It's almost not even it doesn't catch your eye anymore.
00:32:42
Speaker
Go check out my Instagram right now on this Woodstock. I've got like 50 comments on it from last night.
00:32:48
Speaker
on this Woodstock .30-06. It's funny, because this is more taboo than the MBT chassis rifle now, right? Because everyone's shooting the chassis rifle. So it actually gets more popularity than the other ones. So I was like, man, you know what would look really good in the pictures, too, is just having a Woodstock rifle on our tripods versus a crazy stock. And I am. I'm building a nasty freaking PRS rifle right now. A six dasher. Got the crazy, whacked-out stock coming. It's going to weigh 15, 20 pounds.
00:33:16
Speaker
I'm going to start building PRS tripods, full disclosure, everybody. I'm going into it head first. But yeah, man, I just said, I'm going to get a .30-06, and I'll probably get this thing shooting three-quarter groups, I'm hoping. And that's more than adequate. That's 400 yards for me, you know? What kind of glass are you going to throw on that? Are you looking at like a 3 to 9, or what are you going to roll? No, I went with the Maven RS1. It's like the 2.5 to 16, I think.
00:33:43
Speaker
Oh, you're going to have a full range of magnification there. Okay. Yeah. I like low, I like low power scopes, honestly. So I like being in that, like, you know, that three range. I, you know, I don't, you're never going to see me get like a six to 24 on my gun. So that the RS one really kind of checks those boxes a little heavier. I think it's like 22 ounces. It's not terrible. And it's like I said, two and a half to, I think 15. Okay. Might be 18 title. I'll Google this right now. We're talking. I don't want to throw Maven on the bus or something.
00:34:14
Speaker
But yeah, 30 out of six with turrets or what's your expectation there? Life a not, I suppose. No, I don't have turrets. Gotcha. It'll have a turret on there. I want to be ethical about it. It's two and a half to 15. Yeah, I don't, I don't see an issue with having turrets on it. It achieves greater accuracy. I don't see any issue with that. Yeah, I don't see an issue. I don't want, I don't want to like do it and be like, I'm going to hold over. Cause that's what, you know,
00:34:40
Speaker
Jack O'Connor did, you know what I mean? I'm still going to have turrets on it. I'm still going to do my best to load a good round for it, right? I'm going to shoot 175-grade EL... Not EL-DEX, I'm sorry. I'm going to shoot 175-grade LRXs out of it, the Barnes bullets, the copper bullets. We have to shoot that copper, don't you? Yeah, we have to shoot it in California, and honestly, I just like it. It works. For me, I want a heavy... I'm a heavy for caliber guy. I don't like light for caliber bullets. I know everyone's in this like,
00:35:09
Speaker
really light, fast kind of thing right now, especially with the copper. A lot of guys are going for, let's shoot a 140 grain bolt out of our wind mag going 34 feet per second. For me, I'd rather shoot it. There's something you said about kinetic energy that everyone's missing now. Everyone wants to know about velocity, velocity of expansion. I like it heavier for caliber bullet.
00:35:33
Speaker
It's just, you know, you, you get those BCs, you know, you retain, retain energy down range. It's not about hitting an elk with 1500 pounds of energy, you know, I'd rather an elk with 1500 pounds of energy than 2,200 foot of speed, you know. Yeah. You got to hit that sweet spot of velocity mass, I suppose. Right. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I'm thinking that I can get these all our exes out of this gun around 2,800.
00:35:56
Speaker
which for me is going to give me 1500 pounds of energy out to like 500 yards, which I don't want to shoot that far anyways. So yeah, it'll be great. You know, hopefully I'm not kicking myself when I got a Coos beer, you know, record Coos beer at 600 yards in Mexico.
00:36:09
Speaker
You're going to get up on it where you've got a 2000 foot descent between you and a 2000 foot ascent on the other side. And your current range to target is 675 or whatever it comes to be, right? Yeah. And I have the guns to do it, right? I just, I don't know, man. It's like, if I can't kill it with a 30-06 and I probably shouldn't have killed it. And that's my thing, right? And I kind of want to make that point. Like,
00:36:33
Speaker
You know, and I feel like the gun really is, I don't want to say it's the least important part. It's probably the most popular part of our kits, right? People, especially for new hunters, they love rifles, right? And they want to know what caliber shoe, what gun to shoot, what, you know, and they go all in on their rifle. And odds are, there's a 30% chance you're going to use that rifle, right? Because it's maybe 30% success rate in your unit. And you're probably going to pull the trigger once, I hope, but maybe four or five times. Who knows? You know, so.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's just, I don't know, man, it's just something I want to do this year. I think I can do it. I mean, if I can kill someone with a bow, I can kill someone with a 30-06, you know what I mean? And I don't know why it's become this like taboo cartridge, because it really isn't. It's very practical and does everything you need to do, you know, especially for if you know, if you want to, you know, whatever, a 300 PRC, which is a bitching cartridge, I'm going to build one of those up as well.
00:37:23
Speaker
you're gonna have the same velocities at maybe seven or 800 yards as you have that 30 out of six at four or 500 yards. And I guarantee if you talk to most of these guys who are killing a lot of stuff, the majority of the animals they're killing are gonna be between two and 400 yards. I know for me it is. And I know a lot of times when you have an animal at 700 yards, like as close as I could get, that's probably not true. You probably could get closer, and there's something sporting about it for me getting closer and trying to get in on the animal and get in there and do it and not descend.
00:37:52
Speaker
A lot can go wrong, man. These turrets are pretty bitchin', right? And Strelok's bitchin', and it's where you can pretty much always get your elevation right. It's the wind that gets you, you know? You get guys out there, and I take them out to the desert, and be like, hey, shoot that deer at 600 yards. I have deer targets. And their neck's shootin' it, and gut's shootin' it. You know, elevation's there. You know, it's like goin' to shootin', like I just shot a 3D match this weekend. You know, yeah, I could shoot 80 yards, 90 yards with my bow, but a lot can go wrong.
00:38:21
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. A lot can go wrong, especially on a moving animal or, you know, with wind and in a mountain situation, a lot can go wrong, you know? Yeah, there's no denying that.
00:38:33
Speaker
Man, honestly, when my brother hears this podcast, when Tradd Archery was picking up some steam a couple of years back, he's like, dude, we got to get into Tradd lever action rifles. Yeah, dude. Pumped the brakes, younger brother, like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, dude, let's get a lever action 30-30 open sight and let's wear a flannel and ring the blue jeans. And I'm like, dude, I just bought all this prime gear. Like, I want to use this gear.
00:38:58
Speaker
But at the same time, every time a season comes around, I look back with my brother and I'm like, Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. You know, it'd be fun. It'd be a challenge. I'm not sure about the flannel and jeans. I got it. I got something for you guys on that. But yeah, no, I always I've been joking around that I'm a trad. It's funny that 30 out six is like it's equated to flannel and jeans now, right? But I'm a trad. I'm a trad rifle hunter now right with my rifle.
00:39:21
Speaker
Did I, I think Ben, you know, Ben Dinamati is going to shoot his grandpa's 270 this year, Woodstock 270. I mean, there's no reason why you can't. Actually I've got grandma's Woodstock 270 in my, uh, well, I'll just say, we'll just say I have it. You know, so now it's, I don't know. There's a lot to be said there. Actually, I always look at it as well. Shoot. If I, if I roll out with that 30 30, then I'm going to see something I want to, you know, for you and
00:39:50
Speaker
Maybe I'll have them at two 50 or three 50 on the yardage and shoot my hand. I, the 30 30 is a tough one for me. Cause here's one thing with third 30 is like, that's a phenomenal gun for the East coast. Right. And being in, you know, trees, trees, sub a hundred yards. That's where that gun really cut his teeth and did
Rifle Preferences and Hunting Gear Trends
00:40:11
Speaker
awesome. Right. I feel like out here, it would be more, um,
00:40:16
Speaker
era correct to shoot a 270 or a 30 out six, or even a 300 wet mag, right? But I mean, but I think a 270 or 30 out six would be more correct for that, for being out West, right? I think it's going to go, we're looking at black and white photographs from whatever family legacy, right? If that picture of grandpa or great grandpa had a lever action, you just hopped off the D9 dozer from pulling logs, then yeah, you know, a family is going to want to roll 30-30 lever action, or
00:40:44
Speaker
To your point, you know, maybe it is, uh, one of those early weather bees in a 270 chain or something, you know, it could be anything. That's just fun to think about along those lines because yeah, those custom long range rifles, uh, they've been out for a minute. They're still impressive. Don't let me water that down, but they've been out for a minute, you know, I don't know. I feel like the long range rifle game comes alongside the trophy pursuit game.
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, you see that big bull, you want every chance you can get to get out. Yeah. But that's why guys are buying these long range rifles is because they don't want to miss that opportunity. And in my opinion, there's a lot of things, a lot of fun that is wasted.
00:41:24
Speaker
in that pursuit and sure there's advantages if that's the game you're trying to play go for it but i i think it's like i'd rather shoot a smaller animal at closer range just because it's more fun to get there unless you are on a true dream hunt if you're just hunting to you know as a hobby
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, so it's all based on the person, right? What's minimum success criteria? Are you in it for the experience? That is, you know, stepping foot from the trailhead to getting back to the tailgate, or is it truly downing a trophy class animal? Does the rifle really determine that? I guess you want to have the best tools available, right? You want the best tools available to you. But I mean, half those, I mean,
00:42:08
Speaker
It's like it's like the side I work who you I have I have everyone's gear. It's like the side by side for four dudes wearing coo you right? Like yeah, you've got the gun works rifle, but if you don't get off the trail like what does it matter?
00:42:22
Speaker
right? But like, but gear is fun. I mean, that's, that's the thing, right? Gear, I love gear. I'm always, like I said, I'm always tweaking the system and trying stuff out. That's my whole thing with this this year. So on the, so one thing with Tricer is like, I don't know if you've seen that we have this like Tricer camo pattern coming out for our, it's gonna be for our tripod cases for the JC. It's like a really bitchin like,
00:42:41
Speaker
Kind of like, I like bringing like a SoCal, like, I don't know if you noticed like our stuff that we try and try and bring like a SoCal surfer feel to our designs. And we kind of like make hunting a little more modern, right? We don't want to have just like a deer skull on our stuff. So dude, I always joke around like partners. I'm like, dude, it would be sick if we made like modern day hunting clothes with the flannel pattern. So like, why not have like the bitch in synthetic jacket, but in the red flannel?
00:43:12
Speaker
Like, why is that to be flannel? Like, dude, that's, I don't know how popular it would be if it would take off or not, but like, I don't know, if someone would probably take the idea now and run with it, but why not, dude?
00:43:21
Speaker
That's out of the bag now. That's out of the bag, but I don't really want to get into the clothing industry, but dude, if I was Stone Glacier, I'd drop a line of freaking, just like a one run of some red flannel jackets, you know? It'd be kind of slick. I'd be stuck to run one. Stone could probably pull that off, especially if it was like true Hunt clothing. I mean, they just launched their everyday line.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah. Which isn't necessarily intended to be used for, call it hunting, you know, so much as it is here in the office, in all honesty. Right. But if there was a brand out there that could pull it off, Stone could probably do that. I think I'm gonna have him on the podcast, one of those guys, Lyle, up there. So I'm gonna throw that man, I'm like, dude, make me like a red flannel, but like in like a synthetic, like modern hunting jacket, you know, like why not? Like you could.
00:44:13
Speaker
Be kind of cool. Wear that thing around. I don't really wear any camo at all, honestly, because my closet is so mudded up. I've got Stone, I've got Kuyu, I've got Sitka, I've got First Light. I mean, there's just all kinds of... And it's all in green and some brown, so that way I can just interchange between them. I was joking. We were at an archery shoot this weekend. I think I had four different brands on, walking around.
00:44:40
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with that, honestly. We did a whole podcast on that. Yeah, we did. Yeah. I like the solids because you can kind of interchange. There's certain things I like from first light that I don't like. I think that's something that gets people in trouble when you're like, I'm a first light guy. Okay. I am a stone glacier guy. Okay. You don't have to be just because the guy you're following online who's sponsored by him, which I'm not knocking it is,
00:45:05
Speaker
You have to use all that stuff because I'm telling you right now like dude like I love the kuya zip off base layers I really do. I haven't tried those ones. Those are great. Dude in their synthetic whatever their synthetic line is I've had to say I have three pairs of them and I've had them for five seasons now I've never bought new base layers like I've just used these things forever whatever it's not their merino whatever their whatever they call their stuff pellets in or something I don't know Pelton's the bike thing. I don't know what they call it. Maybe it's a pelton. I don't know what they call it. Whatever it's their synthetic line
00:45:34
Speaker
Like I love those, right? And then like, I was running, this is his ION pants, the Prana's ION pants forever. And then now like I'm super in love with the Stone Glacier pants. Oh, which one? The, I don't know, the one with the zipper on the side of them.
00:45:52
Speaker
Uh, like the mid-weight one or the, or the, uh, both I had their lightweight one and then I had their cold weather one and the cold weather one. I swear I could run that pant. You don't feel like you have a pants on and I don't have to wear any base layers with it and I don't eat up.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, the Havlin. Havlin, the Havlin, that's the pant, yeah. The Havlin, I don't wear any base layers beneath that. Yeah. To straight up zero in single digits at least. Dude, that pant is rad. And you can wear it in 60 degrees or you can wear it in, I wouldn't, I mean, I'm not throwing it on for that hunt, but, or you can wear it when it's freaking 10 degrees and you almost never have to wear base layers and you can unzip it. Like, dude, that pant, they just, you know, it's a good pant because everyone else coming out of the pants that look like it now.
00:46:37
Speaker
Exactly. They got that extended length zipper and then they got that stratum layering system with the zipper too. So like if you have an M5 rain gear or rain pan on and you can kind of just, you can dump heat through multiple layers of pants is what I'm doing. I don't have any other rain gear. I have that. I have one of their like
00:46:59
Speaker
other jackets as well that I really like but man that pant though it's just I love I mean like I have to like zip them up because all the time they're getting getting content I'm like showing a bunch of skin you know what I mean that pants zip down you got like it's 80 degrees where you are right now yeah yeah I have their thin one as well yeah I hunted with Paul when I first got those Havillands
00:47:19
Speaker
We had it up in Oregon together and it was cold, but you'd be hiking and I, you'd be sweating. So I'd unzip him and he'd be like, that's not fair. Knock it. You can't, I'm like, dude, gotta buy the pants, bro. Shoot. Everyone in the, a lot of guys in the office have the de Havillins, the de Havilland lights and the two Oh sixes. And I don't think anyone on the team has torn anything. Oh gosh. No.
00:47:45
Speaker
I will say that the, uh, I'm a huge fan of stone pants. Um, they are a little bit on the noisy side. Perhaps that's because of their nylon composition. Um, I won't go with my lab coat on at the moment, but they are a little bit noisier, but I mean, the last three bulls I killed the last three were all sub 20 yards and bow in hand. And that didn't make a difference. And that was in a hunt solid color too. You know what I mean? So you were.
00:48:14
Speaker
It might matter, but most I would argue it probably doesn't matter. Are you wearing solid uppers when you're bow hunting as well? I am. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that's my thing this year. I'll probably be wearing, I don't really have any camo and I've never archery hunted elk.
00:48:31
Speaker
I've really never really been into archery hunting because I've just never had time because I've been running my other business. And now I'm like shooting my bow every day. I'm going to go hunt. I'm going to bow on a lot this year. I'm going to go hunt the Sierras in August. California's got a season. You guys should be, I know you guys probably know that from hunting the full, but we can start hunting in July out here. So I'm going to go and do an August Sierras hunt. And then I've got that archery hunt over there in Arizona or not Arizona, Colorado.
00:48:58
Speaker
but I'm not gonna wear a camo. I mean, I don't really think it's necessary. I've never seen an elk that was camouflage. So I'm like, I've been around him enough. I've hunted him a lot, just never rode the bow. Yeah, elk attract other elk in some extent. I don't know, there's a huge shift in the industry towards hunt solids, you know, being who we are, talking to the brands more closely. Yeah, there's a big shift towards hunt solids, getting away from being so dominant with the camo patterns. The reason being is the technical clothing is expensive.
00:49:28
Speaker
It works. It can make the difference on a hunt. There's no doubt about it. But then when that hunts over, maybe you don't want to wear camo in the office or around town or the church on Sunday, you know, running with solids gives you a lot of flexibility 365 all year long. Yeah, exactly. And it's just, like I said, I like to interchange them too. And I feel like once you get like, I don't care. Like, I mean, I have, like I said, I have stuff that's eight years old that I really like. But like when you're wearing, like, let's say you've got coos
00:49:58
Speaker
four patterns to go pattern on.
00:50:00
Speaker
You kind of get pigeonholed into it. And I get why these industry, I'm not knocking other brands, but I get why they change their patterns up, right? Because then you're like, oh man, I have to have the new pattern. You start seeing that, it makes you want to do it. But when you go solid, you could rock the same solid thing for a long time. You know what, a brand I run too, I do a lot of Amazon stuff is Marywool. You can get some good merino, it's called Marywool on Amazon. You can get a good 250 Marywool long sleeve shirt for 75 bucks.
00:50:30
Speaker
You don't necessarily have to buy like the top tier stuff for the hunting stuff. Well, that's what we've mentioned on some of our, we've done a couple of videos on YouTube that are like, you know, if you had a thousand bucks, what sector would you buy? For example, that one gained a lot of traction. Uh, and I think it's indicative of how many people are budget conscious when they're purchasing equipment and gear. And, and one of the things I said in that was like, man, if you can't afford this certain base layer, like go to your thrift store and pick up a fleece.
00:51:00
Speaker
It won't work as well, but it's still adequate. Just work on that kit one piece at a time. You don't need to get the top of the line. Dude, go on freaking eBay. The Prana Zions are phenomenal pants. I have four or five pairs. I still wear them. I still pull them out all the time and wear them, especially locally.
00:51:20
Speaker
You run those in the base layer, you're solid, you're good to go. Q will make some good pants as well. You can go on eBay and find all these things for like 30 bucks. You don't have to buy it new. Like there's so much gear where you get so caught up in like even like some of my tents, like I'll buy them used on like Backcountry Hunters and Gear. That's an awesome forum on Facebook called Backcountry Hunters and Gear and you post your gear up and I'll buy stuff on there. You don't have to buy new stuff.
00:51:47
Speaker
What was that? Uh, back country, hunters in gear, back country, hunters in gear. It's good. People like you can go out and you get some good deals. Like I got my one Hillenburg, I think for 400 bucks. Nice.
00:51:59
Speaker
So I think I bought, I think I bought a, a seek outside on there for like 200 bucks too. So it sounded like I love tents, but it's like hard to justify, you know what I mean? It's been that kind of money on tents. Like I did, I did buy the one Hillenburg brand new. We were going to Alaska. I was all excited about all this gear and then our hunt got canceled. So yeah,
Challenges in Hunting Trips and Opportunities
00:52:21
Speaker
total bummer. We were in one of the closure units. So they kept our money and never go back to us and basically don't return emails now. So
00:52:29
Speaker
caribou hunt, dude. Yeah. So yeah, we were going to fly out of Kotzebue. I don't want to go into the Outfitters name, but we asked them, we're like, Hey, it's always going to be closures. Like, no, it's never happened. Don't worry about it. Uh, you know, don't worry about it. It's fine. It never happens. And we all send them like $2,000 a piece and the closures happen. And they're like, Oh no, active God. We need our money back. No, active God. So basically we're on perpetual
00:52:57
Speaker
hunt every year for the rest of our lives. That was Biden. That wasn't God, that was Biden. Yeah, dude, it's frustrating on that one. And it's like, you're trying to get ahold of them. You're like, can't we do something else? Like, you know, can we do Blackberry? Can we do another unit, right? Can we go anywhere else? And they just won't even, they're like, nope, you're out, you know? So we basically lost our money. By one buddy, there was four of us. By one buddy did it on a credit card and he canceled his credit card and got his money back.
00:53:27
Speaker
We did it by check because like a lot of world do you do by check you you you know, you don't lose like 4% or something like that you credit cards like 4% and Man, I wish I did credit card now because I thought like oh, you know, they'll work with us and it's like no man They've just been and they're a reputable. I mean you go on rock slide or there are we did a lot of research and you don't go to you don't go to freakin the North Pole and
00:53:49
Speaker
without finding a good reputable outfitter and they're a reputable outfitter and freaking just like ghosted us now. Hey man, it's hard to make a living in Kotzebue. There ain't much to do there. I've been walking around. Dude, I don't know. It's a bummer, man. I'm just like, dude, seriously? I don't know. Whatever. I guess it is what it is. I feel bad for them. They got screwed. They got fleeced and now they can't make money.
00:54:14
Speaker
It definitely took our money and definitely are not going to do anything about trying to find us a hunt at all. And to call it an act of God and never even let us go hunting is kind of lame. I don't know how to put it. That's lame. There's no way around it. That's a bummer. Yeah, it was an act of God. It was freaking just, yeah, like you said, Biden, whatever. I don't think it was Biden though, but it was just, it just sucked. I can blame Biden for everything, I guess. You sparked my curiosity when you said hunting in California
00:54:44
Speaker
What do you know, what's your experience with Black Bear there? There's some big ones rolling around the Sierras. There's some really big ones rolling around. I've never killed a Black Bear because I've never had time to put focus on him. I'll definitely have a Black Bear tag in my pocket on that hunt. When I hunted the Sierras last time in the same unit, I had a monster Black Bear night before season.
00:55:06
Speaker
The day before season right in front of me, I mean, 100 yards. Could have killed him for an hour. Maybe an hour, but 15, 20 minutes. We could have killed this bear. We obviously didn't do it. It was one of those devil on your shoulder things. I cannot believe this is tomorrow's the season, but we let him walk. Never saw him again.
00:55:28
Speaker
I have a lot of friends who kill bears on the western side of the Sierras as well, on the D8, D7, D9 side. On the eastern side, there's a lot of bears, not as many. It's more open country, but there are bears. Yeah. I know there's some really good bear hunting up in the Shasta area. If I wanted to target bears specifically, that would be right below, above writing, above Sacramento, right below Oregon. There's some beautiful country up there.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yeah, man. We never fill our quotas. Come hunt black bears here. Yeah, for sure. My brother and I were talking about that. It'd be interesting to a hunt in California, perhaps. And if so, I'd probably put black bear on the list. Yeah. We're coming up on black bear season here in the spring. Most dudes in the office are going to venture northward myself included to hit Idaho or Montana or both. And then I don't know. I'm just curious. Change it up, man.
00:56:26
Speaker
They don't, we don't have a spring season going north. I don't like going to California, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see you one day. We don't have a spring season. I wouldn't come over to the Sierras target black bear. You're not going to see as many as you're thinking. Like if you want to see a lot of bears, like you're not going to knock me like Idaho, but if you went to like up the chassis area, there's more bears up there. It'd be a cool hunt. It really is. I mean, and the Sierras are beautiful. Like I said, so we're going to go hunt that hunt in August.
00:56:54
Speaker
I think it's opened up like August 14th and you're hunting basically right outside of Yosemite National Park. So it's beautiful, you know, you're up at 10 to 12,000 foot elevation, giant cascades, giant, you know, you got the rock formations. It's just, it's, it's incredible. It's John, the John Muir trail, you know, so we'll be up there hunting those and we'll be hunting, you know, deer in August. And then if you wanted to, we have our biggest unit over here is called the A zone. Okay. And you can start hunting the A zone for deer in July.
00:57:23
Speaker
Dang, it's early for what we're accustomed to. Yeah. Again, I guess you'd drive from there. You can come in here and go hunt deer for four or five days with your bow. Now, you don't be planning on hunting. This year has been more like what you guys are used to over there. A zone is going to be a little bit different. It's not going to be as much public land as you see over with you guys, but why not? Why not come over here in August and go hunt
00:57:49
Speaker
hunt deer, right? The thing with California is too, is we don't, like residents and non-residents get the same, it's a true bonus point state. So you guys get the same odds we do, right? So I mean, there's a bunch of tags you could draw in August with no points. I don't know if you're as busy in August as you have been this spring. I don't know, man. That's part of the decision making. And I'm sure, you know, people listening to the podcast can relate. When August rolls around, followed by September, if you've got your, you know,
00:58:20
Speaker
your long desired or your honey whole weeks, we'll call it. It's hard to break the mold and say, well, let's venture to California. Basically just to suit my curiosity. I haven't yet bid the bullet, but maybe one day. Yeah. I mean, again, you can do it in July too. I mean, whatever. I mean, also go hunt Hawaii too, which would be awesome for access to you. I mean, so like if you're, you've done it, man, go ahead. You've done it.
00:58:46
Speaker
I'm getting ready to. My wife and I go and do a Maui on May 1st to chase some axis deer. Okay. Yeah, I've got an open invitation to go hunt with some guys over there and do it.
00:58:59
Speaker
And I haven't done it yet. So I want to go over there and do that. I went over to the big island. Uh, I didn't get to hunt. We were there for two weeks and I ended up getting like, I was going to hunt for a few days. I got super sick and I was just in with the family. I was like, I'm not going to hunt whatever, but there was a bunch of opportunity over there to go hunt. I mean, pretty much year round for access to your or goats. You can do goats. You can do pigs. I mean, you can even do wild cow. I think the wild cows kind of going way down the big island, but you can go on public land, move along sheep and stuff over on the big island.
00:59:29
Speaker
And that's a freaking backpackers, glassers dream. Some of that stuff up there in the high country. Yeah. My wife and I, we've been married for 19 years now. I think I should have thought more closely on that before I threw that number out. We got married in 2006. When did you get married? Oh, five. Oh five. Yeah. So tell me, is it 18 for you? 18 for me and in June, June 10th.
00:59:53
Speaker
Good woman. 19 years later, I still owe her a legit honeymoon. Oh my gosh. I know. Well, I spent a lot of time traveling and doing that stuff. That stuff. Yeah. So we're going to get over there to Maui first week of May and give it a go. She's excited. I'm excited. Full focus will be on her. Tell me Drew, should I bring some of the Tricer products that I normally run? I think they are going to work in Hawaii. 100%. Yeah.
01:00:21
Speaker
Yeah, man looking into that a little bit and trying to get educated on the on the landscape, dude, that's an arid environment. Oh, yeah. Are you guys in public land? Are you going to a ranch? We are going to be with I believe it's Maui hunting safaris, if I'm not mistaken. So you're going to be on a lot of deer. You're going to be on a lot of animal. Are you archery hunting or rifle rifle? Yeah, you're going to kill some deer. You probably be able to kill two deer if you want to.
01:00:49
Speaker
I'd have to verify I should verify that she's gonna she's the priority shooter I mean, you know, you know, it's like with kids man that she don't get on the mountain as often as she'd like to so this is all about her and then you've got I would just make sure like it was me like I don't push my stuff too much but uh Definitely bring that GC gun clamp for I already got it dude that GC that GC gun clamp on AD with
01:01:15
Speaker
either the BP or the LP is like, it's money, man. Like we killed so many animals off of that. My friends, I say that because my prototype came back all red from the red dirt over there because they went to Hawaii and killed four axes off of it. Standing prone. We killed a lot of animals off those things last year. And that's something that never leaves my pack now is that GC gun clamp.
01:01:36
Speaker
I actually even, I really do like the FG as well for me, but for like my kids or like my wife, if my wife was hunting, that GC's is so hard to go away from just to put the lock that rifle in there and have them shoot off of it. It just makes it so simple. Yeah, gotta have it. My daughter turned 13 last fall. So last fall she went on her first deer hunt, killed her first deer. Your GC wasn't out at the time. So I had a similar system with me. It worked, got the job done. This year she'll have the GC though.
01:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's the GC is just it's just a well thought out piece of gear, right? Like, you know, this, like, I'm very much perfectionist.
Innovation in Hunting Gear
01:02:12
Speaker
And like, I really like to, I don't want to over engineer, but overthink things. Like with that thing, like, it's like people like, Oh, you copied whatever tri-clops. I'm like, No, man, like, I just made it better. Right? Like you look at that, it's smaller. The arch of rails built into the whole thing. I've had issues where like, you know, the other ones were like, they start spinning on you.
01:02:30
Speaker
It's not too big. It's just a really nice piece of gear. And it just works. It's phenomenal. Like I love that gun clamp. Yeah. I do like the advantage of the one, call it tensioning adjustment on the GC as opposed to the other product already said where it had two clamps to cam over it to set their adjustment for spread before they can over.
01:02:56
Speaker
It's just one more step. And what I saw last fall with my daughter was, you know, she's in the heat of the moment. Her hands are a little chilly, right? She's very warm. I'm trying to keep her focused. Every moment, just like every ounce matters. And the GC simplifies that, especially for someone like me with a wife and daughter, you know?
01:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, I've looked at some of the cam lock stuff. I'm actually working on another panhead right now called the Tricer DZ and it's going to use a cam lock style for locking into ARCA. There's something you said about the spinning knob for locking ARCA in that is just you know it's going to work.
01:03:35
Speaker
you know with the cams you got to make sure the tension is just right and we had this experience recently right where sometimes archives are a little bit different or things are a little bit different or maybe you go and throw someone else's rifle in there and it's not set up so then you're in the heat of moment you're trying to adjust those cams and do it stuff it's just something said about just turning that knob and just lock it in you know couldn't agree more so
01:03:54
Speaker
simple. Keep it simple, stupid. It's something that goes a far ways in hunting, that's for sure. You're going to run out of lettuce here soon? I've got, oh my gosh, I've got another tripod prototype to show up my house right now that I'm working on and I'm like, what am I going to call this?
01:04:13
Speaker
I don't think it's going to replace the AD in BC. I think it's going to be like a new, like a next level type, this like crazy, it's going to be sick. I don't want to get too much into it because I mean, literally I'm just beginning stages of this tripod. I'm like, man, like I'm running out of stuff. I really want to have, because we have like the BC before Christ, the JC Jesus Christ, the AD after death. I really wanted to have like the FG for Father God, but I used FG for the
01:04:39
Speaker
for my freaking shooting rest. So I'm like, what can I call this one? Maybe the HS for Holy Spirit. Maybe I'll have like a Tricer HS. I don't know. A lot of the names, like the new Tricer DZ is for freaking D's nuts. So it's just like.
01:04:52
Speaker
Like I just want I want the industry to know that this stuff comes me so easily that I'm making jokes about my local references to these nuts. Yeah, dude, you got to do it. So that one came out of deer camp this year because some of them are fun, dude, like some of them are named after friends. Some of them are some of them are, you know, have a meeting to them. You know what I mean? BP really means big Pam.
01:05:14
Speaker
What's that? I hadn't picked up on that with your, uh, your, your, your use of letters and your product naming. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, you'll see it because the JC hasn't come out yet. Right. So you'll have, you'll have BC JC AD.
01:05:27
Speaker
And then maybe HS or I guess maybe GF got the father. I don't know. So you're in the tripod line. So it's just, yeah, I have fun with that stuff, man. Like some of them are just fun. Some of them have meaning to me, you know, and some of them are just mean like the FG fixed gun rest or field goal. Cause it looks like a field goal, right? It's Y shapes, RG rotating gun rest, GC gun clamp. Yeah, that was my mind was orienting, you know?
01:05:53
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. Can you say it? What's your anticipated release timeframe for the JC? I'm thinking probably June. It will be in June for sure. I made a couple of tweaks to finish it out with a weighted inserts. I made my spikes a little bit longer.
01:06:15
Speaker
That's a crazy tripod. That tripod is going to change the game when it comes to glassing. Like you will not run a BTX or big eyes or 95 millimeter spot without having that tripod. Like it's like, it's just the way it is. It's just, it's that good. It's, it's rad. It's a game changer. I'm sure the burgers are going to like it too, photographers, but I don't know about those guys yet. So I got to get like a whole different, like whole division for birding. Cause I don't understand it.
01:06:44
Speaker
I like looking at things and not shooting them. I don't understand it, but they buy a lot of Swarovski. I'll tell you that much. I'm sure they buy a lot of my stuff.
01:06:52
Speaker
Did you see that AI that integrated into one of the latest Bino models from tomorrow? Yeah, it's sick, dude. It's super cool. The species you're looking at, I was like, dang. That's kind of cool, man. So here's my thing.
Technology's Role in Hunting
01:07:05
Speaker
I'm wondering, because I'm wondering, because now that I have this JC coming out, and it's got all this whole micro address head, I'm like, man, I easily could incorporate some sort of
01:07:16
Speaker
motor into this thing, drinking glass for you, right? And you can look at your phone and like look and have it do it. I'm like, man, at what point is it like too much technology, right? Like, I'm sure we're going to have, there's already apps out there where you can put your phone on there and it'll show you the animals moving. Have you seen this? There's like, I can't remember the name of it. There's an app where you can put your phone, your spotter, and it'll actually show you the animals. So like, it tracks movement.
01:07:42
Speaker
So how does it differentiate between, say, moving limbs in a breeze? I don't know. It just works. I don't know. It's almost like infrared, right? So you see the stuff Swarovski is doing right now with these new binos, and you're like, man, we're not far off to where everything goes digital, right? You look at these mirrorless cameras and stuff. I really feel like we're going to go away from spotting scopes at some point. It'll all be a digital-type camera, because it's just so clear and so crisp. Imagine being able to look like,
01:08:09
Speaker
you know, 8K through your spotting scope and it's all digital right there, right? Like why wouldn't we do that? Why can't we do that? You know, and I feel like that's where it's going to go. It has to. The quality will not be there compared to what your eye can see. And the biggest obstacle is still going to be your glass, right? The lens that you're looking through. So you'd be talking about getting a $15,000 lens that weighs eight to 10 pounds and like to get that optical clarity.
01:08:37
Speaker
Maybe I just saw a meme the other day and it had this guy. He had like a typewriter, a calculator, all this different stuff around him is like, this is all in your pocket now. But the dude, like maybe, you know what I mean? Like, but the optical challenge is far greater than that. And if you want to go to the next step there, it is then thermals and different
01:09:00
Speaker
types of viewing, not just taking a photo. And obviously there's laws against that in those cases. That's my point with the AI thing is you know the next step would be for there to be some sort of AI for finding animals. And that's where I think we're going. And it's like, I almost think you need to get ahead of that because I don't think I like that. I'm not out here when they took
01:09:30
Speaker
scopes off muzzle loaders, I wasn't like, no, I was like, good, right? Like, especially with the way tags are going, like, I would rather it be like, dude, I would nevermind. I don't want to go into like long range stuff, but I would somehow putting, if they could find a way to like put a limit on like how far you can shoot animals, I would probably support that. So there'd be, gives me more opportunity, right? More animals living, more animals making it because we're, Americans are freaking awesome. And we find a way to push the limits of everything, right?
01:09:58
Speaker
Yeah. Right? Like we find a way to like, oh, you know, muzzle litters? Okay, cool. Next thing you know, we have single shot 600 yard rifles. You know what I mean? And even without that, where you have freaking single shot 500 rifles with open sides of some of these muzzle litters now. But you almost want to get ahead of it. You know what I mean? Like, how do we get ahead of
01:10:18
Speaker
technology in optics and finding animals and having it pick things up. If I could somehow have AI pick up an ear flick from a coozed ear, that's my thing, my jam is coozed ear. I'm telling you, I look at a hillside for six hours and all of a sudden a deer stands up and you're like, where have you been all day? You know what I mean? And if there's somehow technology that's going to catch that movement somehow or catch that animal,
01:10:44
Speaker
You can't tell me that's far away. They have a freaking binocular that tells you what birds are. It depends. It depends on whether or not I suppose you want to run a CCD. That technology we know, it exists. It's infrared. The company FLIR, for example, you can determine whether or not something's there, even if it's masked by terrain to some extent, or at least vegetation.
01:11:05
Speaker
but to just look at a standard image and be able to say locate animals. That's a tough one, but like he said, he's saying it, you know, could be possible in the next five years. Yeah. I went to Carl's Jr. The other day, they raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour for restaurants in California. I went to Carl's Jr. And it was all the whole thing was AI. I mean, like, hello, sir. What would you like? And I'm like, I want a famous star with cheese. Okay. What do you want? And I'm done.
01:11:35
Speaker
How was the customer service through AI? Was it favorable? I don't know, dude. How's the customer service through Carl's Jr? Favorable? That's my point. It wasn't bad. It freaking all worked out. It was great. It wasn't bad. I don't know. Things are moving so quickly right now. I don't want to go into this whole crazy AI podcast, but I just see there's going to be things coming to the industry. You look at some of these scopes now where you just push a button and it's ranging for you.
01:12:04
Speaker
Yeah. So these moroscopes, these bird scopes, like should that be legal? Right? Should that be legal? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't, I don't think we should have scopes like that. I think we should, I think it's dangerous because I think you have people who think that now they're more capable than they are. They're not practicing.
01:12:21
Speaker
But at the same time, should we ban turrets? No. I think they make it more ethical. So I don't know. I guess it's like, I don't know where I stand on that. Like I support some things I don't support other things. I don't know. It's a tough one, man. It really is. I don't know. Like when you're talking about a spotting game, it's like, it's pretty simple, I think.
01:12:39
Speaker
Um, because they're being a challenge, obviously. Right. Difficult to spot, but in terms of like, what shouldn't be allowed, it's the argument between, should you outlaw Binos or thermals? Like obviously thermals should not be allowed. That's an unfair advantage is good glass and unfair advantage. Sure. But at some points, like this is where we go out of line. I mean, hunting with thermals, like when you can see every animal out there, it's not that fun. It's fun for a second. And then you're like, okay, there's nothing here. Move on.
01:13:07
Speaker
I'm biased. I've hunted two legged creatures with thermals, so believe it or not. Yeah. At the same time, though, a lot of guys don't have that same mindset. They just want to kill something, right? A lot of guys go out hunting aren't out there because they want... I mean, they love the experience, but they want to kill something, right? So if you give somebody the opportunity to like, hey, I could increase your odds by this much.
01:13:31
Speaker
They're going to take it. They're going to do it. Well, there's the end of the day that mindset is the problem, right? Or the problem of the ethical argument. You could argue it for sure. Not that it's wrong, but... I don't know what the right answer is, to be quite honest. It's like you said, if you wanted to limit the range, right? So your max effective range with that 36 is going to differ from mine. It could go one way or another, but at some point you have to
01:13:59
Speaker
We'll say pass and establish regulations. It's just, I don't mind being the people that are involved in that so closely. I would regulate long range shooting. I would do it by energy. And that would be how I did it. And that would just, I would kind of like take these cream or guys in these PRC guys out of it. You know what I mean? Like.
01:14:26
Speaker
And the six fives, I mean, obviously, I don't, I mean, I've killed no good six five, like full disclosure. It works. I did it. Took four shots. Definitely wouldn't do it again. I've seen it. Well, my wife killed the one with the six five one shot. It's just, you know, it depends. It would have died. It would have died with all four. I just got excited. But anyways, it would have died. In hindsight, it was like, it was dead on his feet, but they just, they just, you shoot them till they die, till they fall down. That's a no, you know.
01:14:53
Speaker
But if you were to say like a six, five Creedmoor, if you were to say four elk, you must have at least 1500 pounds of energy. And that's the range you can hunt at. But I don't know how you police that then. But it would force guys to use a bigger caliber. How could you ever effectively enforce that? Or like you said, police it. It would force guys into a bigger caliber though. I mean, you guys know it well enough that
01:15:24
Speaker
There's no replaceable displacement that comes with shooting a bull. Like you shoot a bigger 30 caliber, it's a better round. I watched a video this year of a guy shooting a PRC, a six by PRC at 550 yards at an elk shooting ELDXs and he shot the bull eight times. Good. Really good. I mean like you watch him and it's going in the pump house and this bull is just absorbing him and just not dying.
01:15:53
Speaker
If it would have been a 30, 300 PRC, different story, guaranteed. That bull would be on his feet. Yeah. Like I said, man, it's a difficult one to really.
01:16:06
Speaker
to hash out accurately. You know how you do it? You start by shooting a wood stock 30.6 and talk about it. Because you run optic accessories so light you can accept a wood stock, right? Dude, they're not freaking heavy, dude. I don't know. I carry my normal hunting rifle. I like an eight to nine pound rifle, honestly. I'm not a big six pound guy, especially if you're long range. If you're a long range shooter, dude, get a nine pound gun.
01:16:33
Speaker
You just shoot more accurately. I mean, you can't tell me they don't, you know, you go try and shoot a six and a half pound rifle at 600 yards. You know, there's a human variable there, right? 100%. Yeah, absolutely. There is. You're going to have a dude that can shoot more accurately than a six and a half pound gun than someone that could just say shoot that nine pound gun. Yeah. There is a variable present. How to quantify it. I'm not even proposing that we talk about it. Yeah. I don't know where to draw the line in the sand.
01:17:02
Speaker
You know, quite honestly. Should we ban six, should we ban six fives for elk? Why? Cause freaking people injured elk all the time with them. My wife killed one with one shot. I kill one too. I feel like people, I feel like given the option, why wouldn't you, I guess it's the only rifle you have. Shoot it.
01:17:22
Speaker
I don't know. I have children, people that are going to make better shot with a rifle that they are less afraid of the recoil. Yeah, that's right there. You know, I said about that too. 100%. I agree with that. And I do shoot a 260, which is a basically which is a six five. I mean, but I only shoot it for deer, deer, antelope, coyotes, whatever. I love the cartridge. I just wouldn't be the one I'm pulling out for.
01:17:48
Speaker
other animals, bigger animals. If I'm going to go on a caribou hunt, it's going to be a seven millimeter or a 30 caliber. I've just seen a 30 caliber. I've seen seven rim mags take an elk down and it's a lot more effective.
01:18:04
Speaker
How do you get more effective than a one-shot and a dead elk? No, you're right. I saw someone, full disclosure, I saw someone shoot a moose, one shot of the Creedmoor, I saw the video, died. One shot of the, he forgot his, like he had like a 300 wind mag or something, and I can't remember what happened, like his scope fell off or something, so the only rifle he had was a 6.5 Creedmoor, and he went over to Utah and he killed a freaking bull moose with a 6.5 Creedmoor,
01:18:33
Speaker
200 yards, one shot, one kill, then went 30 yards and died. Coming full circle back to what I was trying to suggest is I really don't know how to quantify that and I don't necessarily have a suggestion to propose. It's a difficult one, man. It's easier to talk about gear such as tripods or boots or synthetic versus down insulation.
Concluding Thoughts and Personal Stories
01:18:58
Speaker
When you get into weaponry, yeah.
01:19:00
Speaker
You could chat that until the sun comes up tomorrow. At the end of that discussion, I don't know. Sometimes there's not ground made. It's difficult. I feel like you could maybe get away with... Same thing can be said for archery. We kill him with a stick and string, then we're going to limit creep wars. I think a creep war is way more effective than a bow.
01:19:27
Speaker
It comes back to the human variable, but like maybe we say, Hey, you need to use, and maybe this is my personal appearance. This is my experiences. Like, I feel like we're in this stage where everyone wants to use like, um, match bullets that explode. Right. Versus using like a more solid core bullet. That's going to penetrate and go deeper.
01:19:48
Speaker
Maybe, you know, but again, I don't like, I don't like government regulation either. So I don't know. Like I don't want to tell people they have to use a Acubond or use a ELDX or a copper bullet because it's going to penetrate more than using a ELDM. But I don't know why you're ever going to pick an ELDM up over a ELDX, right? I feel like those availability, there's going to be a social influence thing instead of a law.
01:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, socially, it's like getting pushed by so many of these companies like, oh yeah, we should match great bullets at 800, you know, 1200 yards, you know, and these guys are going out there and doing it and you're injuring animals. Right. You know, you're, you're not getting the penetration. I mean, there's something to be said about shooting a solid core bullet. It's going to go through that animal, you know, and do damage, not explode in the shoulder. Indrum. I don't know. Yeah. Flip flight is Jared's Neil deer hunt. He shot at 200 yards with it.
01:20:43
Speaker
saw them cold bowl straight through the deer and the deer ran for another hour. Yeah. And then he made a shot, right? Like just right near the heart. It didn't hit the heart, but he was just too close. I think the velocity was too high. We're not entirely sure. What was he shooting? I think it was a 300 PRC. 300 PRC. 300 up there? I thought so. That would be one from Sig. I forget what caliber that was. I don't know. Anyways.
01:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's like 28 nozzlers. People were in that problem a lot too, right? It's just almost too fast, right? And then you're ripping right through them and you're, you know, you're not getting an expansion. Um, so, or your bullets exploding too. You know, if you're shooting like an ELDM and you're just going that fast, it's not even going to penetrate all. It's just going to explode on almost an impact. So you almost want to have that, like that goes guns are made for shooting past 300 yards. You know, I mean, those things are flying. So I don't know.
01:21:39
Speaker
I think the only known constant in what we're kind of beating around the bush is that for the majority, people look to the weapon system and the technology they're in to solve their problems as an individual shooter. Hit the range, get the range time in, get the reps, get the iterations, get the proficiency. And as we live busier and busier lives, either they just don't want to or in some cases they really can't.
01:22:06
Speaker
Unfortunately, higher priorities, you know, for providing and such. But again, as we get further and further to the right in time, people look to technology to compensate for their inadequacies, right? In this case, shooter proficiency. And then they want to roll out on a hunt. And some of those variables we just discussed may not matter because the dude or the gal at hand can't hit the target to begin with, you know? Yeah.
01:22:34
Speaker
And, uh, and, uh, you know, wind drift brings that bullet on, on target. Well, then it's probably a bad hit and we're getting into the realm of what we're beating around the Bush out of, you know, um, impact, you know, and how effective a given caliber and a given bullet they're in might be. Yeah. These are the things that get.
01:22:56
Speaker
I don't know what you do in San Diego. Can you guys get out and shoot often? I bet you probably could, BLM land and such, right? Yeah, we have BLM. What I would do here to shoot long range is I would drop down in the desert. Yeah. We can shoot out to freaking 1,500 yards. I got some spots down there on Onyx. Just go down there and shoot. We have some local mountains we can shoot. Other than that, 100 yard ranges. We have a couple outdoor ranges, like 300 yards.
01:23:20
Speaker
They really shut down all the public land to shooting. You can't shoot on any of the public land, only on the BLM land. The BLM stuff even shuts down come probably June. I think it shuts down because we have so many fires out here in California. No, I can understand that. We're out here in Southern Utah. We can go shoot 1,000 yards and a 15-minute drive or less from the office. I would argue, to your point,
01:23:50
Speaker
the vast majority of dudes going out in the field, a lot of them are just picking up their freaking rifle before they go. That's the same thing with archery. Same thing with archery, picking up their bow and they have them shooting their bow. I mean, I try and shoot a dozen to 20 arrows a day is my goal, right? And again, like I said, I haven't killed a bow.
01:24:09
Speaker
but I will this year. But I know that when I get to that point, it's not going to be, I don't want to miss because I just, you know, I went out and bought the $2,500 Botac and it's expected it to hit the Hulk. You know what I mean? The dudes, you know, the one in the end that's going to make it happen. Yeah. A lot of people just look to technology to solve problems that could be solved otherwise.
01:24:33
Speaker
Let's end with a hunting story. Who wants to tell me a good hunting story? I have a kids versus parents soccer game here in 30 minutes, so I got to get out of here. You better start scratching right now, old man. I hiked this morning, went to the gym. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm planning on laying some kids out. I'm planning on bringing the pain to these 10-year-olds, so they're about to get it. They're about to get gut. You got to learn somehow. Life's tough.
01:25:03
Speaker
I mean, it's a girl sport anyways. I probably wear a dress. I don't know. Soccer. I mean, come on. I don't know how my wife talked me to let my kid play that sport. Whatever. They have fun. That was funny. You got any good memories from filming the, uh, hunting full crew? Is there anything that stands out? Not so much this year. This year was a bunch of tears and sadness. What about yourself? No.
01:25:33
Speaker
Everything's pretty straightforward. I mean Brady knows me pretty well. I'm kind of a Boring guy. I'm all business when I'm on the mountain. I'm Rather calculated more so than just winging it and being calculated by nature doesn't always create the best stories That's very true. You know, I mean, but I would I'd venture to say there was something to be seen with Isaiah in the least. Yeah Last year. Yeah
01:26:01
Speaker
No, that was fun. It was, uh, let's see, it was Isaiah's, Isaiah, Jonah, and his brother, Caleb. Um, Caleb's down in Tucson and they flew up to Iliamina is where we flew into finally, and then got dropped off on a lake north of there via Alaska. Yes. Okay. We got there and Isaiah had communicated with a couple of guys and done a lot of e-scouting himself, uh, cause we weren't going guided or anything.
01:26:30
Speaker
And we're thinking, all right, with where this lake is located, it's going to be pristine. No one around. We fly over. And we're about an hour away from where the float plane took off from. And he's hitting that half tank on fuel. It's like, all right, man, you're either going here or you're going somewhere between here and home. And we see, I think, one camp.
01:26:56
Speaker
one cabin and a float trip guy. And you think you're going full remote. Oh yeah, 100%. Because all the lakes we passed coming up there were like empty. And we realized that the camp was an old cabin. The cabin had someone in it. And then the float trip guy was going down the river. So we're like, you know what, we'll do it. There's only one other guy that's going to be sharing the lake with us. We land, blow up our boat.
01:27:19
Speaker
spend a day cruising around kind of exploring, see no moose sign and hear like 15 airplanes flying overhead. And it was like that every day. And we later learned that that was a main thoroughfare between the west side of the Alaska range. It was southern Alaska range, basically in Anchorage. So they're running all the outfitters that are over there flying out of Anchorage. There's just planes flying through all the time.
01:27:45
Speaker
People land on the lake. So it was all the air traffic hunter based. Uh-huh. Oh, guys would circle. And, uh, I mean, we assume this lodges out past us. I can only imagine Isaiah was getting upset. Oh, come day four, he's on the inner each talking about what it costs to get relocated. Cause we're sitting, we found this nice little knob to sit on, but moose hunting is not quite what we thought it'd be.
01:28:11
Speaker
We couldn't get our boat up or down the inlet or outlet rivers. So you guys are just literally sat on a knob and looked over a little swamp for 10 days. And that 10 days yielded to beautiful moose by the grace of God. How big was Gemmers?
01:28:29
Speaker
I think it was 67, I think, right? And it had that little... Oh, it sucks. It was 65, his brother was 67. Oh, Caleb was 67, right? The owners had that little drop-tying kind of formation on the one paddle. Yeah, yeah. And it was a killer moose, man. Oh, it was sweet. That was the last day, too. Oh, so... But that morning we woke up, I told you earlier, this year was full of tears.
01:28:52
Speaker
Jared, our CEO, his father passed away, and we wake up to that inReach message on the last day of our hunt, day 10 or 11, I think. Arizona? No, no. Is this Arizona elk? No, no, we're still up there in Alaska. Oh, my bad. Yeah, Isaiah gets the inReach.
01:29:11
Speaker
And Isaiah was close with him. So, you know, that morning we're all crying a little bit. It's frosty, beautiful, calm. And we go up to sit on our last day. Isaiah thinks he's about to go home without a moose on the hunt that he's dreamt about for his lifetime, you know? And sure enough, come about 10 o'clock in the morning, this big old bruiser of a bull comes walking out the opposite shoreline. For some reason, he walked out into the lake.
01:29:37
Speaker
And we ran down full throttle, like just ripping across the beach. It's foggy. You can't see the moose. You were talking about long range weapons. He's shooting. Well, I guess this is an example of when the right
01:29:53
Speaker
equipment matters. And when long range shooting, there is no other option to get closer. This moose is on the opposite side of the lake. And it's foggy out. He can't get a range on it. This is the last day. Like there's no other option. We're either killing this moose or we're going out of there empty handed. It's up on the beach and tries to get anything guesses it takes a shot. And it's low takes another shot and it's high takes a fair shot and drills and I think it's like
01:30:23
Speaker
750 yards or something. Oh, geez. There's a long ways, but I mean, he made great shots. It was just dead calm, no wind. Moose turns around, starts going back, and he eventually drops him right in three and a half feet of water. Oh, I'm sure that's a challenge. And all of this, we still don't know exactly what the Moose is. So you were saying it's got to drop time. We didn't know that at the time. We saw him. We were like, okay, he's legal. He's over 50 inches. We're going. And
01:30:52
Speaker
Had to run through a bunch of brush down the beach, et cetera. We get up there with the boat, a little dinghy, and you see the smaller end of a paddle sticking up out of the water. And first off, if it's under 50 inches wide, it's not legal. And we're second guessing ourselves a little bit. We're like, no, no, we, we, that was for sure the same moves it had to be. It was, it was for sure wide enough. You know, it's, there's only so much you can do before the shot. And we had done our due diligence.
01:31:22
Speaker
Isaiah gets in the water and slowly pulls up the rack and all of a sudden it's just like these gnarly old tines come sticking open as it comes up. You see the drop time coming down. Yeah, that was, that was probably the highlight of the whole year. On the last day? Last day. Yeah. We literally, weather was coming in. So we hooked the moose up to the boat. Uh, Isaiah and his brother both had chest weighters on. So they're helping drag it. I got that little.
01:31:49
Speaker
I think it was a 15 horse. Child worth. Just cranked, trying to drag this moose across the shallow lake back to our camp, which is, I don't know, a quarter mile or something. Maybe not quite. Drag it up onto the beach, which was an incredible struggle with three guys, one full-size soap and wet moose. Butcher it, get it all cut up into game bags.
01:32:12
Speaker
By the time we were done, the beaver had landed because he's like, hey man, we need to get you out now. Weather's coming in. It's going to be days before we can get you out again. We're out of food. So the beaver lands, takes the moose, goes back, comes back for us. Two hours later, we got camp packed up. It's like a foot and a half chop, probably. No, so Caleb and I are holding the plane.
01:32:38
Speaker
off of the shore because it's rocky and Jonah's just ripping trips back and forth. And you just see the wind coming out of the, out of the canyon ahead of us. And the water is getting darker and darker and darker. And, uh, Isaiah was the last one holding the plane. He fired up the engine, the pilot did. And Isaiah's in the water still while the engine's running.
01:33:00
Speaker
Pilot puts it under power, and Isaiah then climbs up onto the float, and he said for some reason he wasn't expecting it to be windy. Yeah, a prop on an aircraft. Oh, yeah. He's pushing into sustained 20 mile an hour winds, and Isaiah's only on the outside of the plane just trying to get into the co-pilot seat. I bet he didn't even care, though. You got Moose in your future there, Drew? Dude, Moose is high on the list. I want to go bad. I want to do a float trip for him.
01:33:32
Speaker
Now that I'm going full time Tricer, I'm going to have the time to do some of these hunts that I've wanted to do. So yeah, he's going to figure it out, man. It's on the list for sure. Maybe, maybe in 2025, for sure. Give us a call because a lot of the guys in the office have done just about every type of moose hunt there is. Yeah. Three dudes on the team killed three moose in Alaska, three different places last year. Jeez. Yeah. I want to do it, man. There's a few of them on the list.
01:33:59
Speaker
I definitely want to get the elk in my bow this year. It's definitely high on the list. I mean, coming from San Diego, we don't have... If I want to kill an elk, I got to go far. We don't have elk. You know what I mean? We have some very crappy deer hunting in San Diego. We have a 6% success rate or something like that in San Diego, and that includes private land. It's a tough hunt to kill over here. We're just figuring it out. I've got elk on the list for sure this year.
01:34:23
Speaker
I'm playing everywhere. Um, we, I should be in New Mexico this year for a muzzleloader deer hunt. I'm pretty sure on that one, hopefully my kids draw a tag over there as well. Hopefully I get lucky in New Mexico on, you know, an Oryx or something. That'd be cool too. I'm definitely going to Sonora. Uh, I'll definitely be hunting archery in Arizona. Oh, that'd be good. Yeah. So I got a lot of stuff on things, dude, but, uh, that was an awesome podcast, man. We ran along. We were only going an hour. You guys went an hour and a half. I guess double the people, double the podcast.
01:34:52
Speaker
Give me the spiel for hunting for where we find you guys, where we get our gear at. We're gearful, I'm sorry.
01:34:59
Speaker
Yeah. So if you got any questions pertaining to gear, uh, I mean, check us out gearful.com contacting us through the page there. We got a small team, Brady, myself, and really one other. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's a personal effort to try and take care of anyone who reaches out, um, getting them the right gear for the trip at hand. Cause tags are hard to get, man. Most of every opportunity you get when you're in the field. So yeah, gearful.com and check out our YouTube channel too.
01:35:26
Speaker
same gear for YouTube, but we're working on some pretty awesome comparisons coming this spring. So there'll be some good content coming out. Sweet. All right. Thanks guys. Let's do it again. All right, brother. See you. Thank you.
01:35:40
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Tricer Podcast. Do us a favor and like and subscribe on whatever platform you are listening on. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at TricerUSA and go and check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.