Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Everything You Want To Know About Hunting – Luke Johnson – Tyto Knives
211 Plays23 days ago
This week Drew has Luke Johnson on the Tricer Podcast. Luke is the owner and founder of Tyto Knives. Tyto Knives was the company that put replaceable blade knives on the radar for hunters. Luke talks about the start up company and growing it to what it is today. Aside from talking about knives, Drew and Luke talk about lots of topics related to hunting. From tactics for chasing elk to breaking down and animal in the field. This is a great podcast loaded with information for hunters
TYTO KNIVES
Website - https://tytoknives.com/shop
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tytoblades/
TRICER USA
Website – https://tricerusa.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tricerusa/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tricerusa/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@tricer6985
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Tricer Podcast
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, I have an exciting
Meet Luke Johnson of Taito Knives
00:00:24
Speaker
one. Knives, knives, knives. I have Luke Johnson, the owner and founder of Taito Knives on today.
00:00:30
Speaker
to talk about hunting, what's your big game hunting, whitetail hunting, and knives. So Luke, how you doing, man? Good. Good, good. Dude, so me and Luke did some product trading. It's one of the cool things about like the industry is a lot of guys will trade products, you know? And I'm a big replaceable blade guy. Honestly, I use a halveline for a
Fixed vs. Replaceable Blade Knives
00:00:53
Speaker
long time. And I carry like a light fixed blade knife. And I tell Luke that. And he sends me a kit.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I'm like, I need never need to carry another knife again. Like he sent me like a fixed blade and a replaceable blade knife. And I was like, this this does everything I need to do. Like I'm very simple with my stuff. And I also carry, we can get it later when I carry, but I also carry a multi-tool. But like those two knives are so light and they're perfect for what I need. Like I carry, a I do most of my work with a replaceable blade, right? Most of it. But then like when I get in the joints and stuff, like we say rear ball joint on a deer, I really like to use a ah fixed blade just because you just,
00:01:28
Speaker
You break them, right? You had to break the knives off or do on the neck, right? Trying to get the, take the head off. I'd like to use a fixed blade to get in there and do that, right? There's a certain areas where a fixed blade is nicer and better. And I feel like this kit you sent me like is perfect. Yeah. I mean, that was the idea of it. There's a.
00:01:45
Speaker
You know, there's a place for a replaceable blade knife, and there's a place for a fixed blade knife. Just like you explained, you get into prying of any kind, so you're gonna pop a ball joint out or something like that. You definitely aren't gonna be doing that with a replaceable blade. I mean, and just to be in the woods to have a fixed blade knife is a good idea, right? There's gonna be a lot of things you can use that for that you're not gonna be able to use the replaceable blade knife for.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. i mean Honestly, on a deer, you can you kind of can get away with a replaceable blade knife. You are going to break it, though. Like on an elk, dude, forget about it. You start getting those joints on an elk, like especially with how much meat is there between the freaking, you know the the I don't know how you saw it, the top of the butt to the ball joint, you're going to get in there. like like yeah much There's almost too much leverage and weight when you're trying to do that. wherere just snap playdes in yeah A fixed blade knife is necessary to have in your pack at all times. Agreed. Like you said though, with with deer, i mean ah what I've been doing obviously out west and where it's legal, some places you can't actually do it like in Minnesota. but i
00:02:52
Speaker
At the end of the day, I debone everything in the field, and with a deer, all I use is a ref replaceable blade knife. I debone it 100%, get the head off, cape it if I'm going to do that. I can do all of it with a replaceable blade knife. And surprisingly, I can deal with one or two blades.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's me too. I'm like two blades now. ah It is pretty shocking when you do make that switch to blade number two and you're like, oh, that's so nice. those plays are really These blades are really cheap. Why am I not doing this? You know you start hitting hair and bone and make it dull pretty quick, but nice to have a quick, easy change. And then you got another razor sharp blade right there. but Yeah, once obviously I started, we started Tito in 2016, and since then, I mean, the replaceable blades have been just phenomenal. I mean, that's all I use. Is it Tito, not Tito?
00:03:49
Speaker
Uh, originally it's Tito. Uh, everybody says Taito. Everyone says Taito. Okay, so I'm not the only one. And that's fine. So whatever you, whatever you want to call it, Tito Taito, I'm good with it. Just buy knives. You don't care what you call them. Why don't you buy the damn knife?
Importance of Orange Gear
00:04:03
Speaker
There you go. Another thing that's cool is you all sent me orange. You asked, what color do you want? And I was like, orange, orange, orange. Cause I'm like, I don't know what happens when I put an animal on the ground, but somehow I just like.
00:04:13
Speaker
lose knives. Everything in my pack is orange. All my small stuff, it has to be orange, right? My lighters, my knives. Because when you're doing an animal and you set something down on a rock, you just can't remember where it was. And you make a full orange line up, but that was pretty sweet. Yeah, no. Orange is obviously the top seller. I mean, everybody wants orange. We've done bright green, which I like too. Bright green is cool. That still gets lost a little bit. A neon pink is also really good.
00:04:41
Speaker
don't lose that. So we've done a few runs of those before. But yeah, you get an animal on the ground, you're already excited. Everything comes out of your pack, you start working on it. And next thing you know, you lose everything. We've all done it before. I mean, a big thing that I do too is like, I have big plans to take a bunch of pictures of knives and get them used and whatever you get all excited, you take some pictures, field photos of your animal and then you walk away and you're like,
00:05:10
Speaker
I didn't take any pictures. I didn't do anything I wanted to do, but everybody gets excited. It gets chaotic and definitely lose stuff in those situations.
Capturing Content While Hunting
00:05:20
Speaker
Dude, content is king. I started bringing a filmer on most of my hunts now to just to film and get content for me because like what I try and do, if I'm hunting,
00:05:28
Speaker
It's all over. like I filmed my kid's hunt this year, and it's actually not pretty good. I filmed the whole thing myself. I really enjoyed it. I actually kind of enjoy photography. I'm learning that by myself. like i I kind of enjoy it. But having someone there just be like, hey, your job is to get content of all this stuff, not in a difference. like Because they're they're there to do it. you know And I'm like there to like find an animal. like Was I going to kill mode or find mode? like I don't want to be sitting there like, hey, let me set my tripod to film myself. like I know Remy and those guys used to do like the solo hunter stuff. And I'm like, du I don't know how you did that.
00:05:57
Speaker
I mean, I mean, I'm the exact same way I got into photography quite a bit myself, I don't know, probably five, six years ago. And some of those first hunts, I was like, had all my camera stuff in my pack, I'd be hunting for myself, trying to take pictures, trying to do all that. And that's just tough. And once you get like you said, you get locked in, you get a goal, like, I want to put all that stuff away and focus on what I'm doing. The nice The nicest part, the most fun I've had doing that is after I get an animal down and I can just go help other people hunt, then the camera comes out. Yeah. it's Yeah. A hundred percent. I actually really enjoy it. I need to take some classes though, because I feel like being around guys like you and like Schneider and look using these guys, you guys are so good at picture. Like you sent me a picture last night. I was like, dude, like that looks so freaking good. Like I need to like take a class and like figure this out. like i mean The apertures get me, man. Like the apertures up like that. But.
00:06:56
Speaker
I got it. Like I said, I took a deep dive into it and I listened to podcasts for years and just messed around with it. And it's kind of like It seems to me like once you kind of understand what your style is and then you can get some settings like and just adjust them a little bit for how light it is out. If you got snow on the ground and that kind of thing, then you can kind of kind of roll. But yeah, there's a lot. It's it's like anything. It's like archery. You just start diving down the rabbit hole and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, there's a lot that goes into this. A lot more than it looks like on the surface. You're not just snapping photos, that's for sure.
00:07:35
Speaker
I just picked up PRS because I'm starting to build PRS and NRL like shooting tripods and stuff and coyote tripods. I've been in the range four days this week. and like I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to shoot my bow again. like How am I going to shoot my bow when I'm doing how to practice it? It's just like one of those things where you get into it and it just takes you away. um I do kind of want to hear about Tito. ah tito sorry i won't hear about Tito and how it started. but um I kind of want to hear you talk about deboning it out. Like you get a deer on the ground. I want to hear your process. I know my process. I want to hear you got them on the ground. De-bone that thing out. I'm doing it now in like probably 20 to 30 minutes. getting um animal yeah not
Deboning Techniques for Deer and Elk
00:08:13
Speaker
Not deboned, but animal apart. Like, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I just lay it on one side, go straight from the base of the skull down to the tail.
00:08:28
Speaker
And then what I've been doing is make another cut in the skin, like halfway down the body. So it separates into two. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a good idea. Skin it as far back as you can. Obviously, if you're going to try to cape an animal out, you got to be super careful towards the fronts. And what I've been doing with that is I'll cut like a circle at the knee.
00:08:52
Speaker
on the skin and just like, but sleeve it out and not even make those cuts up the back. So I'll do that, get the skin off of one side and then I just separate in the muscles and just find those separations and just like start chunking off like roast sized pieces.
00:09:15
Speaker
Oh, while the legs are on the deer, you're not pulling the legs off the deer. It's nice when you have somebody else. When you have somebody else, excuse me, it helps a lot because they can lift that leg straight up and then you just have that meat hanging there and you can work on it. Really? Just get to the bone. Like the backs, I think the backs are a little bit easier. It's hard to work around, you know, the very back, you know, by the anal cavity because it gets a little tight back there. but You get that leg straight up. If you can have somebody else lift it, and you can just chunk off like roast sized pieces. If you can find all those muscles and and then I just, yeah, I've been cutting it off straight off the bone and leave the bone on and you can do a pretty dang good job. Get, I got to the point where I get all the meat without taking that leg off and then get the front quarter done, get the back quarter done and then get that back strap out on one side.
00:10:15
Speaker
and then flip the whole deer. You're grabbing the gabbvin the ah you're going and bone this right the right it behind the spine and grabbing out the... Tender line. Tender line. I do that after everything's done. Okay. So after all the rest of the meat's done, it just seems like it opens up some more space in there where you can kind of move the dice around and they're not pushing up against it. So yeah, do that on one side, get that back strap off, flip it over, do the same thing on the other side.
00:10:44
Speaker
Then I go for the tender lines, just try to push those guts down so you don't poke them and get those. Cause if you do that, it's all over for those tender lines. Get those out and then just go up to the head and skin that head all the way up as far as you can, like even to the back of the ears.
00:11:07
Speaker
and then I just find that separation in the first piece of that spinal column and you can wedge a knife in there and just wiggle that head around and wedge a knife in there and then. Spin it a couple times, give it a couple spins. Sometimes you don't have to if you do it real well and off you go. So i and then whatever, keep some of that if you're gonna keep the cape, keep the cape on or just cut off whatever you have to and off you go.
00:11:33
Speaker
That's pretty slick, man. You know what um I would recommend too, maybe, is ah you probably could take a tripod and hold that leg up if you have to, if no one's there with you. Yeah. I do elk with um two trekking poles. like if it's just like like yeah Even with two dudes, just doing an elk is just a workout. You feel like you just did CrossFit. like I'll do two trekking poles, i get like XM, like wrap the wrap the handles, you know like old school like shooting sticks. I'll put the leg underneath that to get up in there and kind of hold it up a little bit. But yeah, having a partner makes it so much better.
00:12:02
Speaker
Oh yeah, we had, last year I went, Wyoming elk hunt, rifle elk hunt and killed a nice bull out there, but we had three guys working on it and we had two of us skinning and quartering and then our third guy just had a tarp on the ground and we'd get a quarter off, throw it on the tarp and then he'd start working on it on the tarp.
00:12:23
Speaker
I don't know how we did that, but yeah, trying to manhandle an elk with one person. I think you'd want to cut that quarter off maybe and get it somewhere else before you start working on it. But yeah for a deer, I mean, you can you can do it. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. I mean, I did like.
00:12:41
Speaker
eight of them this year and never did it like that. like I feel impressed like how fast I can get them apart now. Yeah. But like that sounds really cool. Do it like that. Are you? I mean, if you're, if you're going to pack it out and you don't have to pack the bones out, whatever your regulations are there.
00:12:55
Speaker
It's nice to just have the meat in your pack. Yeah. I have de-boned, but I've always taken it off and de-boned. So I always have like a um ah contractor's trash bag in my backpack. um I'll use it like if I'm backpack hunting, I put all my gear in it outside the tent, but if I get an animal down, I'll slice it and lay it out into a tarp. And then I'll use that to put my stuff on.
00:13:14
Speaker
i yeah like I feel like a contractor's bag like is so invaluable like in the hills. like I found so many ways to use it. It just comes in handy. I really like it outside the tent. like this All the gear that's in your backpack that you don't need to bring in the tent with you is from the contractor's bag and throw it outside. And then it doesn't get rained on or snowed on, whatever. It's just in that contractor's bag. And then for doing an animal, I'll just slice that sucker. and Yeah, that's a good idea. yeah Use it for a tarp. but I usually have those contractor bags with me or a piece of Tyvek or something. Yeah. Throw in my kill kit. So yeah that works great. you So I always have like in my kit, a fixed blade. I have three knives in theory, because I have a multi tool. I have a fixed blade.
00:13:56
Speaker
ah really lightfi bla a a replaceable blade, and then I have my multi-tool. And I carry like the heaviest, like the Leatherman Wave, because it has like the I have the little toolkit for it. I can put all the hexes, the freaking star wrenches, everything on it to work on anything in the field. And one of the most valuable things for me, a multi-tool must have a saw.
00:14:16
Speaker
that saw I use that saw all the time. but What I do now is like my kids like to take the heart out, my wife likes the liver, um i'll pop the I'll just cut a hole in the rib cage and dig in and grab the heart out like that and just pop to pop two two or three ribs and just break those things out of there and just go in that way rather than having to go in through. It's one of the hard things about going, I used to go gutless and I'd be like, oh, I got to get the heart and I'm freaking not going gutless anymore because I'm digging into this thing to grab the heart out. I started cutting a hole right in the side of that thing and grabbing the heart out of there.
00:14:42
Speaker
that's ah That's a pretty slick way to do it because I've always just made a cut in the diaphragm and then go in that way and still don't gut it, but then you end up with two hands in a cavity with a knife and that's just a recipe for disaster. Dude, it's so easy to do it that way because you can actually like, once they're like done, like you could go and just you cut like literally you go two ribs, like two rows, maybe three, and you just break those things off. You get them right right along this right along the back strap, right?
00:15:10
Speaker
cut that cut back and they cut through cut so quick with the multi-tool and just break those suckers and you can just dig in there and grab the heart out. I think it's it's pretty nice. You almost could pull it out and cut it outside the deer sometimes. yeah Like it's like and you don't get all bloody and diamond dug in there. I mean the worst is doing an elk. You're basically like sleeping in the thing to get it hard out of there from the diaphragm. You're gonna be shoulder deep up in there.
00:15:32
Speaker
like Dude, I've had, and especially shooting with a rifle, it's just full of blood. I mean, like sometimes you go in for this. I like to sometimes just turn them upside down with the blood drain out of them. Cause it's just before I even get in there, cause it's like, there's, you know, especially you get heart. I mean, it's like a gallon of blood in there. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a, that's a good move. Um, I guess switching gears kind of a little bit, but on that topic, um, that's one thing we are working on too. So a pretty cool saw. Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
I don't know if it's gonna be a saw blade that necessarily fits on our our knives, but we have a few different designs for field saws that would be.
Development of a New Saw Product
00:16:08
Speaker
good for a saw at camp or a bone saw. Yeah, because I'm starting to carry a little folding saw. If I bring up my stove, which I never even brought it here because I got two titanium stoves this year, two back hot tents, never used the hot tents at once because it was 90 degrees on every one of my hunts this year up until my last time that you brought my trailer on.
00:16:30
Speaker
But I'm gonna carry like a like, you know a folding Home Depot saw which yeah a lot of guys do because do you cut stuff down to do that and like ah To some sort of a skeletonized version of that would be so nice and not like the saw you buy on Like that like no, I'm not gonna have a one they make a saw like a bone saw like not That's not a saw I want like I want something that's gonna be able to at least get through some would not break on me You know what I mean? Yeah, so yeah, this is we have a couple a couple cool designs I mean, I don't want to give out too much but Yeah, it would be something that would be pretty substantial that you'd be able to saw wood with and um to collect wood for like a hot tent and you'd be able to use it as a bull and saw too.
00:17:12
Speaker
Are you taking, like I'll just say it on, I don't care. Like I don't take my rib meat off my deers. They just, there's just not enough there for me. Uh, are you taking rib meat? I mean, it's, that's a lot, that's a lot of work for, uh, a little bit. You can get it off. I'll take the flank meat. When I get done with my deer, it looks like there's nothing there, but the rib meat, I was trying to try and cut it. I'm like, there's nothing here. By the time you get it off and it stretches back, it's like three eighths of an inch wide. What am I going to do with this? We've done it. We've taken full racks off the deer. I've done that.
00:17:46
Speaker
like in in Wisconsin where we white tail hunt a little bit, me and a couple of my buddies and done racks of ribs and that was really good. But again, you get a whole rack of rib off a deer, like you're really not getting hardly any meat. I mean, yeah at the end of the day, I don't think it's worth it. Neck meat, obviously there's quite a bit there that's that's worth it to grind and whatever you're going to do. But no, I have, I don't generally take the rib meat. Yeah, I don't do the rib meat. I do the hard way. It's a lot of effort for a little pay off.
00:18:15
Speaker
I took a liver out of a couple of them this year. Probably livers, you got to kind of go in like to the cavity again, right? Yeah. Because my wife and all these hens at the church are all into like liver capsules and stuff right now. We're good, blah, blah, blah. But I'm just like, yeah. Half the time, I'm like, I don't want to deal with it. Yeah, I don't generally take the liver. I do take the heart. I mean, that's good good meat there. Yeah, the heart's great. I love doing the heart, man. I don't know what your heart recipe is, but like my heart recipe is always I'll, you know, I'll fillet the sucker out and then I'll dice it up real small. And I'll do like some onions and either jalapenos or bell peppers, depending on who I'm cooking it for. And just cook that up, dude. It's good. Oh yeah, it's really good. I've done tacos with them before. They're really good. Yeah, that'd be good. It's like perfect for that. Just the, I don't know.
00:19:01
Speaker
the dense grain of the meat, it's just unique and I really like it myself. Honestly, you can just throw it in the grind pile too and no one will ever know. so yeah It's worth taking. It's meat there. you know it's a big It's a big chunk of meat, pound and a half. I have eight and well, my daughter just turned 11, but it seems like burgers are the big thing around around us. so I usually take steaks, make a couple of good roasts and the rest of it ends up with burger, but it's something that we eat every single day. so Yeah. My wife's the same way. She likes the the grind, right? So she likes doing the tacos or whatever, or casseroles or whatever she's making, you know, she's the grind or burgers, right? But a lot of spaghetti's and stuff like that. So she likes the burger meat. So we do a lot of burger meat. I don't do, are you processing your own stuff?
00:19:49
Speaker
I mean, I have in the past. I'm to the point now where I just debone it, clean it, wrap it, and then generally I will come like January, February when all of the meat processing places are slow. I'll just bring a bunch of grind meat and that kind of stuff in and have them make either grind it or make sticks or or whatever. so But the the days of bringing a whole animal in that I did that a few times when I was younger and it's just a mess. like You don't even know if you get your own deer back. Yeah, yeah it's such a mess. you know You can imagine Minnesota deer opener and those meat lockers, it's just like, who knows what you're getting back and they don't take care of it as good as I do. so
00:20:37
Speaker
I try to control it as much as I can. Like I said, de-bone it, clean it all up, wrap it, throw it in the freezer, and then I'll just bring, you know, 15 pounds in or whatever and have them make it into burger or sticks or whatever I want to do, summer sausage. Yeah. So I was like 50-50 this year on doing it myself and and bringing it in. I have a lady here in town, depends like I was just traveling so much. and Sometimes I'm just like,
00:20:59
Speaker
it's it's a bre It's a good half a day to do for me to go process. Just setting everything up, cleaning everything up, just making the mess. But I do make my boys, my 18 and 16 year old, they did all my stuff for me this year ah that i that I did at home. So I'm like, hey, set it up. do I paid for the hunt. You go do it. So he's actually in my office. My office used to be in a granny flat. So we have a kitchen and I'll bring in some tables. If it doesn't look like some professional, I'd be embarrassed to show pictures of how we're doing our meat. But we set the grinder up and they just go to town and grind it up. and but put the, put it in the tubes and do that thing. and But it is nice, man. Like lady in town, there's something you said about dropping your meat off and like, she gets it done for me a couple of days, come back and it's all done. It's like, oh, that was so nice. And it's like, whatever. yeah I think a cruise deer is like a hundred bucks and a meal deer is like 200 bucks or something. You know, I'm like 200 bucks and I'm just done. Pretty nice. If you can find somebody that you trust, like I said, yeah it's controlled and you know, you have your clean meat that's going in there. And, uh, like I said, my concern would be,
00:21:55
Speaker
getting somebody else's need or having them not take care of it like you'd want to. I mean, I'm pretty particular cutting. all the silver skin and crap off and get nice clean stuff and not just throwing a bunch of chunks of fat and junk in the grinder and getting that out. you know Dude, i got we killed um two antelope opening day of antelope season in Wyoming and we go to the processor and I kid you not, it's like you back up, there's hooks, there the hooks roll outside, you put your whole
Game Processing and Transport Methods
00:22:23
Speaker
antelope in. If you bring it in, if you bring you bring the hair on, they want it that way. If you bring it in in pieces, they charge you more.
00:22:28
Speaker
So they wanted heroin. So it's the person that ever dumped an animal off. Like you literally just gutted it in the field and drove it down there. And you walk in that freezer and it it is wall to wall of antelopes. I got my antelope back in two days and I'm like, there's no way this is my antelope, but whatever. It's cool. I'm just like, I'm good. Just go. But it was like, we flew in. I put it into, um, I use these things called kill bags. I don't know if you've seen those. My buddy owns this company called Kill Bags. In California, we do a lot of offshore fishing and we use these like fishing bags. I mean like 150 quart fishing bags, right? and Their foam, but they hold ice like a Yeti. You got to get these in into the hunting space. You're seeing a ton of guys in the hunting space use them.
00:23:06
Speaker
um So like I had on that one, I had like my 36 inch wide by six kill bag, and I just got a process through it in there and brought it home. Are you looking up kill bags right now? Yeah. They're phenomenal, dude. You'll never go back to a cooler again. So I run their 60 inch kill bags on like my deer hunts. I can put like two mule deer in one. I can put ah a full elk into a 60 inch kill bag. And then the cool thing is, is like, I don't know about you, but a lot of times I don't kill animals on my hunts. They don't have a giant cooler the whole time running around. I just have this kill bag coming back in my truck.
00:23:35
Speaker
And if I need it, I pull it out. And the cool thing about a kill bag is it actually molds to your animal, right? It's where, like, if you have a square cooler, it's a square cooler. With a kill bag, you can kind of fit it in all the corners and everything, nooks and crannies. And then it fits in your truck better. It's not a square box.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's, uh, I'm looking at it right now there. That's a great idea there. You get a whatever 120 Yeti 120 in the back of your truck and it can ruin your day of trying to move that thing. Oh dude, the kill bag weighs, they weigh nothing. So like when I flew to say me and Brad Hunt flew to, uh, Hawaii this year to hunt access. to I brought two kill bags. I brought two sixties with me. Um, so we actually put our stuff in the kill bag when we flew as like, so one carry on, right? yeah one And then when we came back, we each put a hundred pounds in each kill bag. So you can bring a hundred pounds, paid the 75 bucks or whatever. And we brought our meat back with us like that done. But the kill bag weighs nothing. So if you're flying with a cooler, okay, Yeti is going to weigh over 150 pounds, 150 quart Yeti weighs more than 50 pounds. You can't figure out that. A 150 quart kill bag weighs like three pounds.
00:24:38
Speaker
So you're not losing all that cooler weight when you fly. So it's like, so I've actually been getting him, like, I don't want to take credit for it, but I think like 20% of their sales, 25% of their sales now is in the hunting space because I've just been pushing them so much and everyone's catching on to it, right? Like, I think like Shed Crazy's using them. I think Gritty's using them now. Like ah Brian Barney's using them. Like, it's just like, uh, like if you're not using a killback for hunting, like you need to, it's so worth it. Yeah, that's a, that's an awesome idea.
00:25:03
Speaker
Like you said, then you don't have that extra, I mean, cause you always have an extra cute cooler that's taken up half your truck bed. It has nothing in it until you kill something. If you kill something, if you kill something, no offense, like, right? Like, and then it would say you're going on a hunt, like, uh, you know, so you have two elk tags. Now you're bringing two 160 or three 160s to do it. Right? Like, yeah yeah especially your deboning, do one of those six, one of those 60 inch killbacks will do everything you need it to do.
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's, uh, that's good. I'm going to, I'm going to get on board with that for sure. Yeah. you And they make the, like, I'm i'm not, but I mean, I am pumping them, but like I, the the owner of kill bags is actually Tricer's designer. Um, and like I've gone back and forth to them for a long time now on different designs. They have some new stuff coming out. Like I have a perfect flying bag coming out after some of the stuff I've been doing with them, but they've like mastered the zipper, their zippers better than everything else. They're fully waterproof. So you can like roll out thing around and water won't come out of it versus some of the fishing bags. Well, it has a drain in it.
00:25:59
Speaker
Like it's just like they've kind of like they've perfected it. They've been going through designs for like the last like five years, four, man, three years. and changing it up. I think they finally got it like mastered towards like this thing is like perfect and they've got the right sizes now to where I can do my stuff. So I will. Nice to throw. You could throw your gear in there too before you go. Some of it. Dude, a hundred percent. Like I throw my. you say When I fly watertight place. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. yeah When I fly, I'll throw
00:26:31
Speaker
by everything in the kill bag, right? And then it's only one carry-on, right? And then do that and then pick it up and then I come back. I'm bringing back two carry- or two, not carry-ons, whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. Check, check backs bags. There you go. Yeah. Cause I like, I actually did that twice this year. I did the Antelope and I did Accession on Hawaii with the Flying with the Meat thing.
00:26:49
Speaker
And there's something we said about it. I like driving. I've got my truck all set up now. I got the big camper now to sleep in the back of it. There's something we said about flying into a place and not burning three days of travel time, right? Or two days of travel time. Yeah, for sure. Flying in, renting a truck. Especially we did Antelope last year and I was like, they were done the first day. If I had drove up here, it would have been three days of driving to Wyoming from San Diego and two hours of hunting and then driving home.
00:27:15
Speaker
Well, especially, I don't know, getting a little, getting a little older. I'm 41 now. Like when I was younger, I'd bomb out to Idaho and, you know, not stop or stop at a truck stop and sleep for two hours. And for me, that's like a 26 hour drive and doing that by myself. Like I, that's, I can't do that anymore. it's like my boys are Then you get there and you're tired before you even start your hunt. Then, you know,
00:27:44
Speaker
Take a little bit more time, stay in and maybe fly in and take a little bit less taxing on yourself, I guess. Yeah. I'm going to do bears in Idaho.
00:27:57
Speaker
Montana this year, back to back. I don't know if I'm going to fly up or drive up. I'll probably drive up to have my stuff there, but I'm tempted as to fly up and be like, hey, Brad, pick me up. Let's do this. There's a new set about the drive, but I do enjoy the driving. This is a fun tips and tricks podcast. All year this year, I ran the canvas cutters.
00:28:20
Speaker
which I love. um So that way I can drive because i I don't like doing hotels because like my truck at all times has like 40 grand worth of gear in it, right? I mean, potentially like with like, let's say I'm going on a hunt and I want to showcase off BTXs and rifles. and i've got I've got extra things I don't even use on the hunts a lot of times in my truck so I can get pictures and content.
00:28:39
Speaker
So leaving that in like Meath City, Utah, you know, or i you know you're whenever you stop, but you're always stopping in like Meathtown, USA, right? Like it's like not not the greatest like town, right? Because you know some of these towns and I don't like to leave my truck outside. right yeah i had I've had two instances in the last couple of years where I stayed at a hotel and luckily I didn't have all my hunting gear in.
00:29:01
Speaker
my truck, but I stayed at a hotel, woke up, went out to my truck, and there were like three other vehicles in the parking lot that got broken into smashed windows. Luckily, it wasn't me, but it's just eye opening. It's like... Yeah. Well, the people know when... Like you said, you could have $50,000 worth of gear in your truck, and all of a sudden, it's all gone.
00:29:20
Speaker
Yeah. du like and Tweakers have a sense for like when hunting season is, they just know like it's time to break in. I've had my truck broken into in my driveway here in San Diego. It wasn't broken into. I left the doors unlocked, like an idiot. Luckily, I took my 15s and my rifle out.
00:29:37
Speaker
But I went out to my truck, this is like years ago, like it probably 10 years ago, and I didn't have a ton of money. And like, they stole like six grand worth of stuff. They took my whole backpack with all my stuff and it I just got my gear together. My insurance covered it, but it costs $2,500 deposit, right? Yeah.
00:29:53
Speaker
So it was just like, I never anymore will do that. And I, um, and you hear about all the time, like we do all the time. You feel like, Hey man, this guy's stuff got broken into and we'll like donate a tripod or, you know, you hear about in the industry all the time, dude, even like, dude, like Aaron Schneider's freaking bowl got sold out of his backyard last year, or two years ago, right? like that those People suck, man. So, um,
00:30:16
Speaker
What I do now, like this year, what I did was look the canvas cutters. I have three of those, um and so I just pull off. I used to sleep under a tarp, but the problem is you get wind and stuff, and it just sucks. The canvas cutter, you just roll that sucker out, climb the canvas cutter, and sleep next to your truck, and you can kind of pull off anywhere. As long as you have on-ex, you can pull off anywhere. When you're driving to these places, there's public land everywhere. Pull off, sleep in the canvas cutter.
00:30:38
Speaker
But I'm up in my game this year. I bought a brand new truck for the first time. I was driving the same 20-year-old beater truck. I don't even seem to pick videos of it. like The bumpers were all busted in. and I didn't convince my nephew for $1,000. But I bought a brand new truck this year, and I just got an Oru Designs, which is kind of similar to like a Go Fast camper. Okay, yeah. um and I did
Camping Gear for Hunters
00:30:57
Speaker
it just for hunting. so it's got like you you Literally, I can pop a thing into a bed in 10 seconds. I stand it up, pop it open, um and it's a fully enclosed aluminum box that's locked all the way around. I put a cage on one side where I can open the door up, put my rifles in there and lock that down, rifle or a bow. so it's just That way, my guns are like locked up on like in their own compartment on the side of the truck.
00:31:19
Speaker
um And then I'm with my stuff all the time, right? yeah like And like for me, like, I don't know about you, but like I'm a meth head when it comes like these drives. I'm always like, ah, just go another hour, just go another another hour. So like you pull into a hotel at midnight and you're sleeping for four hours or five hours and get back in the truck. And it's like, they don't give you like ah a half night rate. Like you're still paying 140 bucks and I'm a cheesecake. Like, so sleeping next to the truck is nice. And that's, stuff hotels have gotten a lot, a lot more expensive it' too like since after COVID. like traveling during COVID was awesome. You could go stay in the nicest place in town for like 40 bucks. But now it's just gotten insane. So yeah, that can add a lot of expense onto your trip too. But on the same way, it's like, just keep going, just keep going, just keep going. And then yeah, one in the morning, you're like, I want to sleep for a couple hours. Now we're staying at a hotel. So I'm with you on that.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. Honestly, I don't know if you're running those yet, but the canvas cutters, only part of the canvas cutters, they are pretty big. So if you're running like three of you guys, that's kind of could take some truck space up. But dude, just for one of those things out and you could sleep right there. And there's like literally like the best nights sleep you'll have in the back country is in a canvas cutter. Like they're four inches thick. Like they're so comfy, man. Like they're rad. So I highly recommend that. If you don't have a camper shell, I'll do that. um But I do recommend just putting a camper on your truck to keep your gear locked up because just people suck, man. Yeah, I'm looking at a new truck probably this year too. So maybe I will see what that looks like to invest in that. That might be the ticket.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, all of these pictures of mine, the Oro one, they're in San Diego. I know Go Fast Campers is probably closer to you. There's a few guys that do it. The reason I'm on with Oro is they're right here in town. Yeah. um But Go Fast Campers is they another one that does the same things and just really nice, man, to be able to pop that sucker up. I mean, it is on my truck all the time, but like for what I do, like I think I spent like 70 days in the field this year. um yeah you know Just in the field for hunts, not not including all my other stuff. So probably well over 100 days with all my like tack events and stuff where I'm driving. um It's just really nice to have, I'm able to pop up. And for me, like my style of hunting has kind of been changing a little bit. like I want to be more mobile. like I used to be like very much like, I need to be able to
00:33:35
Speaker
I want to backpack as far into the spa as I can, you know, or I do a base camp. Well, i'm i I am doing that, but I like the idea, like with the, like the canvas cutters or like the the bed, the bed.
00:33:47
Speaker
camper, I could pack up a quick and move 30 miles, right? and be And do that, right? Or like, I'm going to do a bunch of, we're making always predator tripods. So I'm going to do some trips over to Arizona this year, where I'll be just driving public land, hunting coyotes for the day, pop a tent up, sleep real quick, pop it down, move, keep going. You know what I mean? So it's all right there. It's really, it's really nice to have the ability to, like, I like running like wall tents and stuff, but they're a lot of work. Like, there are a lot, like, I have a 16 by 12,
00:34:16
Speaker
i didn't use it once this year i just yeah i have a It's a Cabela's Walton. I forgot what it's called, an Anorak or something like that. And it's a big one. It's like a 12 by 12 or something. But I mean, it's been sitting in my garage for the last few years because it's just to put it up takes so long. it And then again, you're not mobile. You can't just hop in your truck and go. stop And it seems like everybody and you know in the industry, while it was really popular for a while, obviously it still is to backpack way in. And that's great if you have a spot to go to.
00:34:52
Speaker
But like I said, last year, we went on to me and two of my buddies went on an elk hunt in Wyoming and we packed in seven miles, stayed there for four days. you know We had our hot tents, everything. We had a great campsite, but four days we didn't see an elk. So why are we going to sit here? you know So we just popped out and got mobile, same thing, either pitch a tent or we sit in a hotel one night or whatever, just to find different spots in that unit to go. But I think, like you said, staying mobile and just being able to quickly pop up camp and move is great. I do another elk hunt in South Dakota, excuse me, um same thing. You're just bombing around in your truck and wherever I end up at the end of the day, that's where camp is. Like I don't have a set spot to go back to.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, Corey Jacobson is big on that too. He's kind of gave me the idea for it. And it just worked out on my own this year in Colorado. We were backpacking, but we were also truck camping. So having these campus cars, we can move around, sleep where we were, backpack in, hunt, come back out. I weren't saying I'm instead of a 10-up. You know what I mean? Because you're in Colorado, there's inclement weather. You're not going to sleep under a tarp. You need something to sleep in. So the campus cars were clutched for that. And now my truck.
00:36:09
Speaker
but versus the wall tent, what I've switched to is I have the big 16 by 12 Davis tent. And like, if my farm wall is going, like me, 76 years old, like I'm setting that thing up, we're going to do the experience of the grandkids. We're going to put up, there's something cool about having my stove going and being in there together, right? for sure But what I switched to now, and I need to have them on the podcast, I love this tent, is the Kodiak canvas, like the eight by 12 they have. but It's like the ah spring tent. And so it's like a canvas tent, but it just goes one pole on the top.
00:36:38
Speaker
I can't really call it. And it just, it pops up and I run a just a little buddy heater in there and you can run four dudes in that all day long and have a ton of space and it's easy to set up. So I switched over to that thing instead of doing the um my big wall tent and I really liked that Kodiak canvas. Yeah. For truck camping. Yeah, that's a big thing. I mean, like I said, my wall tent is ridiculously heavy. Oh, and they're huge too. And it's just like, it's going to take up half my truck bed if I want to take it. and I don't know, I really need to have a spot where I know I'm going to be for a long time if I'm going to do that, but it is comfortable. I got a big stove in it and it's nice to have that wood heat in there. But I think even something like a Kefaru teepee, I would probably rather switch to in a situation like that just because of the space. And those little titanium stoves seem to work pretty dang good.
00:37:31
Speaker
They do, they do and I have like I have a Sikh outside TP and I've got a Kefaru like single man hot ten as well. Yeah, I have that one. What's that? Tarp. That tarp, super tarp? Yeah, super tarp. That's the sickest tarp I've ever had. I love that super tarp man. Like for like a single person shelter or even a two person like no stow shelter. Yeah. That thing is rad. So I'm a big fan of having tarps on me in the backcountry. Yeah. and that super dark checks the boxes for me. Yeah, I've used that quite a bit as a heated tent. And once you get it dialed in with a stove and like, get all of your wood and stuff ready in there, you can kind of keep it hot throughout the night. If you wake up, just fire it up again. And obviously in the morning, get it all nice and toasty before you have to get out and get your stuff on.
00:38:21
Speaker
But I've also used it, you know, in September when it's 90 degrees. um i yeah And then I just got a little, um, God, I don't even know what brand makes it. It's a backpacking brand, but it's basically just like a bug net. Like it weighs nothing. It's like, you know, this big weighs less than a pound. And so you can have your bag in there. Just use the tarp as a tarp. No annex.
00:38:46
Speaker
And then you have that bug tent, which if you're in somewhere where there's mosquitoes, like it'll be brutal if you don't have that. Yeah, dude, or flies, dude. The flies, I mean, not little gnats flying around and buzzing on you, and dude. You know what I got in September this year in Colorado was crickets, and they were biting crickets, dude. like We were just infested. We were on a burn, and like we were just infested with crickets the whole time they jump on you, and they freaking bite you, dude. They were a trip. everything If you threw like a piece of like a bar down, they would eat your bar. Whatever you put down, they would eat it. like They were just like freaking locusts, man.
00:39:21
Speaker
I've never even heard of that before that sounds like something you'd never think of that also you do their squares like infested crickets on the city like it was in one area so for like four days we we're just in these crickets all time it was gnarly that's brutal so i'm.
The Birth of Tito Knives
00:39:38
Speaker
Tell me about you know like when did you start you know what's what's the deal with it so started in a twenty sixteen.
00:39:46
Speaker
um Basically, how the whole thing started, and I've told this story before, but was out on a hunt in Western North Dakota, mule deer hunt, but he killed a nice big velvet mule deer on our way back, stopped at a taxidermist to drop off the deer, and got to talking with him for a while, and he was using just like a medical grade handle that accepted, you know, the blades that everybody's using now. And he used them for his taxidermy work. And then he was like, I actually use this out in the field too. He's like, so I just have whatever the little plastic or metal handle and a handful of blades. And he's like, it weighs nothing. I throw it in my pack. Like, you know, off I go, I have sharp blades. And I was like, well, that's cool. um So I went home.
00:40:39
Speaker
ordered something probably whatever the cheapest thing I could find at the time like off Amazon. The rest of my hunts that year used it and just sitting, you know, glassing and stuff thinking about it. I was like, well, this is awesome idea.
00:40:53
Speaker
but it could be better and cooler and more suited for the outdoor industry. um So basically just downloaded like a free CAD program and started making a design and hooked up with a local you know machine. This is like before 3D printing and stuff too. yeah right So you're not like just 3D printing out stuff to try and figure it out. No, just hooked up with a local machine shop and was like, hey, can you guys make this?
00:41:20
Speaker
So just made the first one and you know it worked well, used that for a year, ah polished it up a little bit, you know got a few different different iterations of it. you know And then went to market and luckily I got it in some of the right people's hands. And that was when social media was really, ah I don't know, easier friendlier for us guys. dude It's so hard now, it's so hard.
00:41:48
Speaker
And just hooked up with some of the right people that helped me promote it. Aaron Sender is a big one. um Got him right away and which. You know, kind of cool all of a sudden, you know, the people I've been looking at on social media, reading articles and Eastman's all of a sudden I'm on the phone talking to him, which is, you know, isn't it a tro and that is And then it's just kind of blew up from there and just have been making new designs, you know, making the fixed blade knives and we've been rolling since then. So.
00:42:18
Speaker
Cause you guys are like, correcting or wrong you are like kind of the first guys to do the skeletonized fixed blade or a replaceable blade handle deal, right? Yeah. So it was the first, a lot of people are doing now, but you guys, yeah, the first fixed handle, I guess, uh, replacement blade. Cause I think, uh, some of the other folding companies had been out there, but I looked at that right away. And I mean, I've tried to.
00:42:42
Speaker
even gutted deer as a kid with a folding knife and then you got an hour of cleaning every day. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about that right now. but so i'm a big i've been Up until these knives here, I was a big have a long guy. I'm embarrassed how gross my knife is. yeah You cannot get that clean. like My knife has like fat from like six different animals in it still. like like The little chunks are in there. like You try and get it out. like it's just That's the hard thing about our folding knife. It just gets in there and you can't get this stuff out of it. You have to totally disassemble it to clean it properly. and I never do that because I throw it back in my backpack and I go back out. I'm like, oh, my knife is gross still. and Then and then you're stressed yeah you're just asking for bacteria and all kinds of nasty stuff. Yeah, I know. Don't tell my wife. Hopefully, there's not this podcast.
00:43:26
Speaker
but yeah that's ah That's how, that's how it all started and off and running. So, um, it's been good. We've been growing pretty good year after year. And, you know, but I guess back to the social media thing, that's been a, that's been tough
Challenges of Marketing on Social Media
00:43:42
Speaker
now. I mean, we grew really fast for a while and then they kind of throttled everything that was in the.
00:43:48
Speaker
hunting space or knife space or whatever. you know They want to call everything a weapon and it shuts it down. So it's it's been tough on on that end of it. We're shut down like once a week. People are always like, oh, you liberal. Why are you using a stick in your video? I'm like, if I put a gun in here, like you nobody will see my ad or my reel or anything. So we constantly, every week, have to have to like go. like they They flag my tripods all the time, just a tripod.
00:44:11
Speaker
They just assume it's a rifle. like it's It's all done by bots. like One thing that sucks for me, like as like we have 16,000 followers, like if I would have gotten in 2016, I'd have 150,000 followers right now. like It was so much easier to get followers. You almost have to pay for followers now to get followers as well, which is really hard. like On my posts, nine years ago when I saw my posts are going to be like my followers, not new followers. like They make it to where you can't. like That's exactly what it is. and You start looking at the analytics and it's just like, you know you're just preach into the choir every day. You're yeahre same people reaching for people who are already looking at your stuff anyhow. yeah So I don't know. I mean, it sounds like they're trying to make some changes. I mean, I've seen some posts recently that, you know, supposedly we can post this stuff and people can look at it now. I mean, our side of the world looks at it as a tool, which it really is. And there's other people who look at it as as something else. So as it's a little frustrating.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, man. I don't know. We'll see what happens. It's funny to see Zuckerberg come out. I don't know. Maybe he's honest. Come out and say, hey, we're going to be, for one, four years ago, we're not censoring anybody. Guys come out and be like, we're going to stop censoring you. Obviously, we're censoring us. I know people like Courtney Preet, her outdoor journey, I don't know if you'd follow her at all. She had like 35,000 followers and lost her account.
00:45:34
Speaker
for No reason for being like an awesome woman in the hunting industry and they freaking shut Courtney down and that was like that was really frustrating to watch that happen and happens all time and like we have like treasure has burner accounts because like I guess according to my My media team like we're kind of controversial I guess a little bit some stuff we do and like you need to have backup accounts because you can lose this Like you're kidding me like we're paying a ton of money every month to betta for ads. It's like doesn't matter man They'll shut you down and you won't get it back you just lose your account and just like that and like all the work you put into it, they'll just shut you down and be like, later. Yeah, it's, it's, it's tough. It's tough to see. And I don't know, like person like you or me or whoever is trying to, you know, work hard for the American dream and, you know, run a small business and you have this awesome tool and it just seems like there's somebody sitting in office somewhere that,
00:46:31
Speaker
has nothing to do with any of this stuff and is is not doing what we're doing is just clicks a button and all of a sudden, you know, you have ruin at all. so Dude, it's not even a person anymore though. It's a freaking AI robot. That's the trip. That's somebody designed, I suppose. Somebody designed and this thing's out there. It's like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And you've got some liberal in there telling them what, you know, this is all evil here, right? And they're going to shut it down. I ran, uh, I did some Trump stuff this year and dude, they did not like that.
00:47:01
Speaker
Don't talk about Trump on social media because they will get you. It was funny. like They bumped my ads up like 5x costs on my Trump ads. like It was pretty funny. It's how fast it happened and they shut a bunch of them down for being political. Blah, blah, blah. Well, I guess i mean not to be too political, but it seems like the pendulum swung so far one way.
00:47:21
Speaker
It looks to me like it's starting to swing swing back the other way. yeah you know just in the middle After this election, it just seemed like everybody kind of had a big sigh of relief, to be honest with you. And I think some people who you would think were way on the left are probably farther, a little closer to how we think than than than you would.
00:47:43
Speaker
Oh, you're seeing it right now, dude. like I live in California. I'm watching LA burn right now. And all these people and liberals are out there like, what? We have no water. What the heck? It's like, we've been saying that forever. Talk to the farmers. yeah They don't track any of our water. So we could get a ton of rain, and then we let it all go in the ocean because there's like a couple of these little fish. And now we have no water to take these people, right? We don't do any controlled burns. Like when San Diego 20 years ago burnt, the whole city burnt. I mean, the whole town, like county burnt now, all the hills. It's so due for it. We do no prescribed burning here.
00:48:11
Speaker
We didn't know if we've been into maintenance. the California has this hands-off approach. yeah you know Same thing with like our lions and stuff. We can't hunt lions. and it's like It's going to burn, and we're goingnna everything's going to be upset. and Now, LA is burning down because they do no prescribed burns, nothing to prepare for it. They they hired a freaking DEI lesbian ah fire chief just because she's a lesbian, not because she's qualified. right like um I have family members who left l LA Fire Department because they're like, I can't work here anymore. They're with Riverside Fire Department because it's that bad. This is like last year.
00:48:41
Speaker
And the priorities are so backwards, right? It's like you probably should be on like getting good firefighters, not like DEI, right? or or I mean, it's a it's a prettyho pretty important job, right? We want somebody who's qualified. I mean, I don't care who you are as long as you're qualified, right? Yeah. That's that's the thing. And we've seen that. I mean, you saw the attempted set assassination on Trump. Like those people weren't qualified. It's clear. You watch those videos and it's comical. And it's like,
00:49:11
Speaker
That's a pretty important position, right? like You can't just put somebody in there because that they fit a box. like They got to be qualified. you know yeah it's It's insane. but It's insanity, dude. and like yeah like You look into this fire chief, I don't know what I'm saying. She has posts out there like, my goal is to make the fire department more equitable. Your goal should be to the safety of the citizens. That's it. like That's your only goal. like you have there's nothing It's like when I send my kid to school, your goal, should we teach my kid math, reading, and arithmetic, right? like
00:49:49
Speaker
not not about all this other stuff, right? And it's just so backwards. And California is the head head of that, right? And like I'm starting to say to everybody listening, like as goes California goes everybody else, right? like we're We're pretty close over here. Yeah. So it's just like, yeah, it's scary, man. um You're seeing it now. You're seeing a lot of people come out and be like, it's funny because they'll post it. like These like celebrities will post something like, I don't want to be too manga, but This is ridiculous. I can't believe this, you know, oh this, this, this and this, you know what I mean? And these fires are probably started by whatever, man, it's kind of getting all tangent. So anyway, you started, you started Tito knives. You've been rolling now for, that's a, that's a good run. You're going for eight years and you're growing year over year. Yeah, we've been growing year over year. It's been good. um You know, there's been challenges, which I'm sure you're, you're seeing as you're running business too. Advertising obviously has been a bit of a challenge for us.
00:50:44
Speaker
You know, we've tried doing advertising and print and just some of that stuff. It's just hard to see what you get for a return, right? That's really that's one of the hardest things to like so you can go dump a bunch of money into a magazine or something and like.
00:50:58
Speaker
how am I gonna know? Like you you're really just, it's ah it's a shot in the, shot in the dark on knowing what you're getting back from something like that. I'll do the same thing with influencers, honestly. Like, you're kind of like, am I getting anything back? I gotta know. I mean, unless you have like a promo code or something like that, that they're using and you can kind of track. I mean, we've done some of that stuff, but no, it's been good. I mean, this year we've really focused on some of our in-house manufacturing stuff rather than you know, focusing on some new products, which we'll see here in 2025 that we're working on. But yeah, it's been good. We've been growing and, you know, it's a it's a fun deal. So are you full time Tito? I am not. I have a regular day job as well. So luckily I have some good people to help me with Tito to to relieve some of my time. So I'm a pretty good excuse me. I'm a pretty busy guy at this point.
00:51:56
Speaker
you know, my I guess full time job is I'm a sales rep for petroleum equipment. So we sell products to people who build gas stations and fueling systems and that kind of stuff. But that I got I kind of make my own schedule, which is nice. So it opens up some time for me. And then, like I said, I got two kids, my eight year old, I'm coaching three of his hockey teams right now. So staying busy doing that. And Not out in the outdoors as much as I used to be, but I guess that's part of growing up and part of that that time of life for me right now.
00:52:35
Speaker
We homeschool, we have five kids and my wife, we're in this co-op thing and they got to go to a skating rink in San Diego. It was the first time my kids have ever seen ice. It was hilarious. Well, that's awesome. It's actually, hockey's grown big time in California. It is. All over the nation, but California's got some really good programs. My partner's kid is doing hockey here in San Diego. He's like, he's doing hockey? Yeah, he's doing hockey, ice hockey.
00:52:59
Speaker
we are We're going to sheep show next week. It'll be my first time my son's ever seen snow. He's five years old. He's never seen snow in his life, dude. We're still like, I'm wearing a hoodie right now. It's about as much as he can see me wear. I don't know how you guys do it. I went back to North Dakota. I go visit shields a couple of weeks ago. It was like negative 10. I was like, holy, we were in Fargo, right? It was right by you guys, right? I don't know where you are in Minnesota. Yeah, it's about three hours northwest of us.
00:53:25
Speaker
So I was just like, oh my gosh. You walk outside and you feel like you're like, everybody's just gonna get punched in the face. Just like sucks everything out of you. I was like, how do you do this? You get used to it. I mean, it's kind of like, I have some relatives that live like in Phoenix and I've talked to them about it. It's like, it's kind of the same as it being, you know, 110 degrees, right? you're yeah like ah You're not outside for very long, but ah yeah you get used to it. Like single digits or even in the teens, like if it's not windy, you can be outside. like just dress for it and off you go and it's not too bad. But when it gets way negative, it's it's pretty
Minnesota's Atypical Winter Weather
00:54:01
Speaker
brutal. Last winter for us was crazy. It was like 50 degrees all winter and we never got any snow. Really? Unheard of. No one's seen that for as long as I can remember even some of the old folks that I know. so But we'll see. It's ah pretty cold and snow in here right now.
00:54:20
Speaker
Yeah, I see some storms
Luke's Mule Deer Hunting Story
00:54:21
Speaker
coming through. So, dude, we always end these things with a like a hunting story. Okay. So, any kind of hunting story, your best year, your smallest year, your first year, your grandpa's dear, it doesn't matter. Cheap, doesn't matter. Because give us a word for our story. We'll talk about this ah mule deer behind me. I actually wrote an article last year. It publish it got published last year in Eastman's about it. but So I guess I won't say the state, but it's in the Badlands area. It gives it up. It gives it up a little bit, but there's there's a couple that it could be. um ah So yeah, I just spot that I've been hunting since college. Archery hunting worked a lot finding good areas and finding good deer.
00:55:13
Speaker
So went out opening, actually I had scouted like in July, found this buck and then went opening week for nine days. So it was like September, maybe August 31st through September 8th with a couple of buddies out there. Chasing them in velvet at that point. Yeah, they're in velvet. They usually start in velvet like the first half and then they start to kind of shed throughout that week.
00:55:42
Speaker
um So, hunted hard, saw this deer five or six times and just couldn't get on him. So, hunted with three or four guys. We kind of separate and go do our own thing, but had been watching him.
00:55:57
Speaker
Had some other opportunities, had an opportunity, had a really big three by three that I got super close on. I was probably snuck to 12 yards. And when he stood, I could see his head looking straight at me. But when he stood up, he was behind a big big pine tree and ended up not getting a shot. So that was a bummer. But that was my best opportunity during that week.
00:56:20
Speaker
Came back by myself in October, I think I ended up killing him on October 26th. With a rifle? Nope, with archery equipment, it's an archery tag. um So came back, we ended up, we ended up staying in a little cabin and then going out from there to public land. Anyway, stayed in the cabin, got there on the 25th, it was snowing, hunted a different area where I knew this buck wasn't.
00:56:49
Speaker
Got up the next morning, still dark. Had snowed probably an inch and a half. Hiked my three miles out to my little glassing knob and sat down and on my way out there I saw, walked across some mountain line tracks, which was pretty interesting. So I was like, well, still throw another little dynamic into my hunt. um Anyways, sat down on my glassing knob, spotted him up.
00:57:17
Speaker
He was starting to chase does already October 26.
00:57:24
Speaker
To get from my glassing spot down to where he was is just, it's that Butte country, that Badlands Butte country. And it's just like straight down. You look down and you're like, I don't, every time I go down, I'm like, I don't think, I don't know how you even get down here. the dirt's breaking below your feet and to slide yeah pick your You just pick your path down.
00:57:43
Speaker
I know I have my spot where I get down there. i've I've hunted that area quite a bit. Picked my way down and at that time, you know, there's probably two inches of snow and it was in the teens in the morning. Pretty cold. Got down, got down to where he was chasing does so I kind of came up. Over a Butte and he was down on the other side chasing does probably 15 does and there's two other bucks.
00:58:12
Speaker
Just got into a good spot. I got pinned down for like 35 minutes with a doe just staring at me. And I just stood there, just was like kneeling in a really awkward position. It just brutal. And it was cold. Waited her out until she relaxed. And then he came out chasing a doe. He had no idea I was there. Just stopped. This is a longer shot.
00:58:37
Speaker
um you know Drew back, it felt good, let her fly, made a perfect shot on him. And he just bound it up. You see those mule deer bounding, like on a second or third bound, you could tell his legs were real weak. So he just topped over, gave him a half an hour, and there he was.
00:58:56
Speaker
um cut them up, took pictures, cut them up, and then it had started to get warm. So it was probably 11 o'clock or so, um and that snow started to melt. So I packed them up in my pack, obviously had the cape, all the meat, and then getting back out of that hole was probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Because it's all slippery and muddy. Because that snow started melting on that, you know, that butte gumbo stuff and it was was brutal. getting off Your boots are like high heels now. you got like four Exactly. ten You take one step up, slide you know three steps back, one step up, just clinging to every little... Just covered in mud. You're all just covered in mud, everything. There was a couple times where I was like, should I just stitch this back and get myself out of here? But no, got them back up and
00:59:49
Speaker
You know, once I got out, it's a nice, easy ridge walk back. So, but walk back and then you got a full mule deer on your pack. And you know, there's a mountain lion in the area. Kind of forgot about it till I went back over those tracks. Nope, made her back. And that's kind of the story, but solo, solo mule deer. And that was, uh, it was fun. So I can see five on his left. What does he got on his right?
01:00:17
Speaker
Uh, four. And then he's got brown tines, too. Yeah, he's got brown tines. He's a good buck, man. What is he, like 170s? 170 something? Yeah, I think a little bit north of that, maybe 180. I haven't put a tape on him. He's a good, he's a really good buck, man. He's heavy. He's got freaking awesome G2s. Like, people who are listening, not watching, it's it's a, it's a buck. Most of you guys, it's one arrow out, that's for sure. It's a good buck. He's a pretty good one. I got one other one here. Let's see if I can show them to you. That's pretty good, huh? Oh, yeah. That buck's freaking, what, 28, 30 wide?
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, he's a good one, too. In velvet? That's a stud buck. That's awesome, dude. Well, Luke Johnson, TitoKnives. I learned how to pronounce it. Yeah. Where can we find you guys? I'm a big fan of your guys' and stuff. Where can we find you?
01:01:02
Speaker
www.TitoKnives.com is our website and then TitoBlades on Instagram. Tito by Instagram. Luke, that was an awesome podcast, dude. Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate it. We had some cool conversations about you know everything. Everything. Great to chat with you. Thanks, dude. Yeah, have a great one.
01:01:23
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.