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Paul Stark
121 Plays1 year ago
There is nothing better than a good hunting story and Paul Stark is full of them.
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:06
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer Podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners. We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet.
Meet Paul Stark - Hunter and Agronomist
00:00:31
Speaker
All right, another episode of the Tricer podcast. I put a call out for some good hunting stories and this guy Paul Stark from Kansas reached out and then a thousand foot view. This guy just looks like a total killer and I'm super excited to talk to him. Actually told me he is
00:00:47
Speaker
not willingly from kansas is a missouri boy but living in kansas now and he's grown up hunting and you look at his pictures behind him or the deer behind him and he's got a lot of dead stuff up there on the wall and i'm excited to hear some stories from and i want to get into this like right away but i would like you to introduce yourself he's an agronomist which i've never heard the term of but it sounds like he's got a really good hunting bit right now for getting some permissions so i want to go right into that oh what's up man give us a thousand of you who are you
00:01:15
Speaker
Hey, how's it going? Paul Starr, originally from Missouri. Now, like you said, I'm in Kansas. I recently joined MFA, which is an agriculture based company and I'm an agronomist. So basically what I'm doing with that is going around all age, different crops, wheat, corn, soybeans, grasses, stuff like that. I'll be able to tell if they have any kind of disease pressure, insect pressure.
00:01:39
Speaker
anything that you'd have to go and apply a fungicide or an asexicide something like that to be able to tell people when they need to pull their animals off if they're grazing it and then be able to tell you a rough estimate of what your harvest would be but that
00:01:52
Speaker
It's working out pretty well. I've got a couple of growers that I've talked to that have some deer problems and they've got nuisance tags that they want to fill. And I respect the fact that they don't really want to just shoot the deer and not have some place for it to go, but then they're also busy throughout the year and don't have a lot of time. But I've more or less secured with two people, two different growers that have these. You have to be a Kansas resident, which is about the silver lining and being here.
00:02:20
Speaker
but you have to be a kansas resident to be able to use the tags you can own the property and get the tags but if you have a registered address in missouri you have to have a kansas fill the tags and those tags can be used anywhere from february to.
00:02:35
Speaker
I think the first weekend in September. No way. So they're outside of deer season outside of deer season. So no way. This is the best bit I've ever heard of. I'm not bit. I'm sorry. This is, this is awesome that you're getting to go on these things in February and March. So a lot of these places that where I am scouting and have these permissions, they're down in Southeast Kansas and there's a lot of out of state hunters and even in state hunters that come out.
00:03:02
Speaker
maybe own property rent it out for farming to get some extra income but nobody really shoots does it's just and that's just a stigma that's been around it's around where i'm from it's around a lot of places but nobody really wants to shoot does well when you have too high of deer population the best way to reduce that's does and then
00:03:24
Speaker
something that obviously you'll see when you thin out the herd of the does, you'll see some buck size increase some buck activity as far as movement because they have to go looking for does, but nobody wants to shoot does and I was talking to a couple of these producers and I was like, Hey, I'll
Hunting Regulations and Permissions in Kansas
00:03:38
Speaker
come out and do it. Well, you got to be a Kansas resident. I was like, wouldn't you know I am so we need to go and do that. And I was talking to my traveling partner that I go on a lot of my hunts with and I was like, Hey, so I don't know what you're doing between this month and this month, but
00:03:54
Speaker
I have an opportunity for us to fill the freezer." I said, okay, I'll buy it. What is it? And I explained the process to him.
00:04:00
Speaker
In Kansas, there's differences and nuances between nuisance tags, depredation tags, stuff like that. But in Kansas, the nuisance tags, you can use the meat, the hide, you can keep the rack. If they had a rack, anything like that, which is, you don't have to worry about wanting waste. And he's got a family. I provide a lot for some people that don't necessarily have a lot of money to spend on meat protein there at church. So I usually try and donate three or four deer to those people. So this is just something that will really help me out with that. And I was.
00:04:29
Speaker
Talking to some of these growers and like we don't care what you shoot. He's obviously we want dose shoot the doses He said if you see a buck, I'm not opposed you shoot in the buck. I was like, so just don't discriminate He's correct. It's like, all right, we can do that and one of the growers He had a guy that used to live in Kansas when he lived in Kansas. They came out. He had 50 nuisance tags They filled it in a weekend really news and rifles then you're not bow hunting
00:04:55
Speaker
You could use a bow. It's just no matter what method you use, it has to be essentially you would use it as if you were in that season. So if you're using a rifle, you got to wear orange. You can't daylight to dark whole whole shebang. Same with a bow, just the same principle. It's you would hunt as if you were in the season, but you're just filling the tag with your nuisance tags.
00:05:15
Speaker
And they killed all of those deer in a weekend. That grower has thermal scopes and stuff for hunting coyotes. So they went out and set up on the edge of the field thinking some of these carcasses might draw some coyotes. There's more deer sitting in the field. And he was adamant more of these need to go. And with a grain of salt, do I think people have deer problems? This man has two fields that he has not been able to harvest for the last two years.
00:05:42
Speaker
because the deer just eat it. He's essentially planting a food plot and then hopefully it's keeping them away from the bigger fields that are more open. If that's happening, that's up for debate. But I will say that I usually see about 12 deer at any point in the day when I drive by those fields. So he might actually have a deer problem.
00:06:01
Speaker
That's crazy. We hear about that out here, right? Our growers grow different things in California. We don't have growers. Our growers, they grow something different out here. But we hear about these overpopulations of deer and stuff back there. And it's like unfathomable for me to even think of. Because like in San Diego, we have such low numbers of deer. And you're lucky to see a doe, right? Or a couple deer a day when we go out and hunt in here. But back there, it's really that thick, huh? And you guys are dealing with there that many of them.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't used to be like this though, because we've almost flipped the script. Growing up deer hunting, I got my first deer at seven or eight. A real nice heavy 11 pointer is about 195 pounds field dressed.
00:06:44
Speaker
And i am a lot larger now that i was then but it took me and dad and a friend barely hoss that sucker up on the truck but. You went out we mounted it's not the biggest deer like i'm it we never actually had a score but it had an inside spread of twenty three. So it's a nice deer but it's not a huge deer and my mom we got a mountain she's honey i just want you to know that you may never even see a deer like this again in your life.
00:07:10
Speaker
and you have to be okay with that oh yeah that's fine and go out and i think that was the second year i'd seen all season and then next year i saw two or three all season year after that i shot a slightly larger buck with a drop time
00:07:23
Speaker
We got that one mounted and they were a lot cheaper then, but they were still expensive. We're running a wall space. She's now probably won't see another deer this big in your life. I was like, I'm fine with that. And go three more years of maybe seeing five or five to 10 deer total throughout that entire stretch. And then shot another one about the same size as the second one European European mounted that one, stuck it up in my bedroom and.
00:07:46
Speaker
kind of kept the same conversation. Not seeing hardly anything, just figuring out where to be for a deer to move. And we're hunting a lot of timber and pasture and our family farm as a cattle ranch more or less because we're like the rock pile for everybody else, it seems. We have the rock, so we're not as tillable as some of these other places, but we do have all the timber.
00:08:06
Speaker
for a little sanctuary which is helpful so it was just playing that game but we didn't really have any kind of deer in the same breath springtime turkey season it was a slow day if you saw less than 50 birds we have a whole three or four family friends and then dad me sister sometimes my mom we'd be out turkey hunting all in different spots and we'd all have usually about 70 birds in front of us in the morning really and you'd see turkey all night that's switched as well now yeah so now that's switched off yeah we've it
00:08:36
Speaker
We built a nine acre lake that's about 50 foot deep on the property. And that was in the biggest sanctuary, you could say, for the deer. And when we did that, we forced them out of there and we started moving. We grew up in the stigma of not shooting a doe and we started shooting doe. So we started seeing a lot more movement of deer.
00:08:52
Speaker
And then we had pretty good Turkey numbers for probably three or four years of that. But then we had probably five to six honest years of bad hatch and then the weather was bad. The fair market's down. Snow is really trapping. So just a perfect storm of what ruined our Turkey population. And now we're.
00:09:12
Speaker
to the point where my dad got a bird two years ago and my sister and I were hunting pretty hard. I was like, do you want to go find some public to hunt on or we're not going to have any birds here? We finished that year with five birds total that anybody had seen on the property. Since then, we had a decent hatch, but we've got about 14 that we're seeing on property, but that's total everywhere. In 1,800 acres. Just shy of 13.
00:09:36
Speaker
Okay.
Wildlife Population Challenges
00:09:37
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah. We had the same thing in San Diego. So California doesn't really, they're not really managing them well because they're technically not supposed to be here right in San Diego. So they're they, if we lose them, they even dropped off a bag of birds up in by this lake up in the mountains out here in San Diego.
00:09:52
Speaker
And those things just blew up. That's probably 50 miles from the border, almost all the way down the border, we have birds. And it just, the last five to 10 years, it's really starting to just taper off with some really bad drought years. When you have bad drought years, you get low grass and the coyotes and the bobcats just hammer them. The state banned bobcat hunting here. So those things, bobcats just tear up turkeys. It's like your house cat, but
00:10:19
Speaker
bigger and badder. We banned my online hunts, they're tearing up the turkeys and say, we've had a few bad years and it's just, it's hard to bounce back from that. It's just, we had a pretty good hatch last year, but yeah, they just, there is these ebbs and flows with all that stuff. And it is neat to hear about the whitetails going up. You hear that everywhere, right? Like they say that we have more whitetail right now in the United States than we did when the pilgrims arrived. Which is like crazy to think about, but I guess it makes sense with all the crops and everything. Are you guys dealing with, I've never had this, like, everyone says like the biggest insurance claim back there, people hitting deer.
00:10:49
Speaker
Oh yeah. I've recovered. I watched some guy smack one when I was home for my wife's home for family Christmas. We're driving back to her mom's house from her grandma's house and watch somebody smack one, stop to see how they were fine. My wife shot a deer in Kansas and filled her tag.
00:11:09
Speaker
And she was at my dad's vet clinic in the large animal area, scraping the hide off the head to get it ready for a Euro mountain. Dad and I were working on the tractor and got down to the end of the driveway, told my wife we were on our way down there and turned to the right and looked down the road and there's somebody with his hazards on us. Ooh, I bet that guy got a deer. We drove down to check on him and stopped and asked how he was. He said, could you pull my bumper out? And we pulled his bumper out and he's like,
00:11:33
Speaker
think it might've been eight or 10 point deer. He's, he's over there somewhere. You can have him if you want. He's, aren't you guys supposed to be shooting these? So I'm not hitting them. I was like, we're trying. But we came back and we found it. There's a, another, I guess she's a high school age girl from church and she had hit a deer and we found that one on the road. So I called the conservation agent for a salvage tag and took the head off of that and getting that one ready for your amount as well.
00:11:59
Speaker
Actually, that one got hit on the road really last year
00:12:04
Speaker
But got a lot, they straighten part of our problem, which I don't know, it's not much different than anywhere else. But part of our problem is they came through and flattened the highway. So it used to be hilly. So you could still go fast and something could creep up on you. But now it's really flat. So you can see a long ways. The downside is like our family's house is on a hill. The road's about right here. They took the dirt from that and moved it to the low spot. So now it's by the time the deer get to the road, they're in the road and you're
00:12:34
Speaker
You can't miss them kind of thing. So we call it the gauntlet and that's where the guy hit the deer. That's where that girl hit the deer. We usually lose five or six during season and then more throughout the year. It's something else. But I know I went to New Jersey for an internship and there were deer just all over the road. A lot smaller, but they're not next to a cornfield. Yeah, I've heard Jersey's pretty gnarly. All those places back there, it's nuts. You keep talking about church. You go to church a lot?
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, we try every Sunday. Now her family's about two hours away. So if we're down there, we don't typically get to our church does have, I guess it's a webcam. They live stream it on Facebook that we can watch. Obviously don't get to when I'm hunting, but if I'm on the mountain, I have service. I'll try and watch it stuff like that.
Faith and Hunting Community
00:13:18
Speaker
So.
00:13:18
Speaker
Good for you. Yeah, I'm in church three days a week or something. I went to Bible college. I love the Lord. Tricer's, every package we make has a scripture on it. And I love serving God. I love hearing guys doing that. And that's why I like this industry, right? It's a bunch of guys who have the same values or pretty darn near. And it's just neat to meet guys like that doing that stuff. So good on you guys. So tell me some hunting stories, dude. You're out there in Kansas. You grew up, you shot your first, I don't think you even realize what you said. You killed your first 11 point bucket, eight years old.
00:13:47
Speaker
That's pretty nice. Somewhere in there. And then it was basically on either a two or three year rotation for deer after that. So get right down to that. Dad had a 30 carbine paratrooper rifle, really lightweight, peep side, whole shebang. We're out there in a friend's stand that was put up on the prior for about 12 foot off the ground. We're sitting there. It's only got one seat. So dad's sitting in the seat and I'm sitting just on the wood platform.
00:14:11
Speaker
I'm sitting there like rocking around yes it still hurts he's lean to one side sit on one cheek when that starts to rotate some. When about ten minutes back and forth and he was getting tired me going back and forth about every ten minutes he's like just stand up and as soon as i stand up i look over shoulder miss.
00:14:32
Speaker
work on a draw, there's a small wet weather stream that was running about 40 yards to our west. And I was facing south and he was facing north. But basically when I stood up, I went white because right over his shoulder was this buck. And our family rule was it had to be, your first deer could be anything. It could be a spike, it could be a button, fork horn, anything like that. But then anything after that had to be at least an eight pointer.
00:15:00
Speaker
So I see this deer and just about fall out of this tree stand because I'm just flabbergasted. I've seen it. This is back when we're hardly seeing any deer and let alone something of that stature. And I kind of stutter and I was like, there's a deer right behind you. Don't turn around.
00:15:16
Speaker
I was like, he's walking down the creek. Just look over your shoulder. He'll be right there in about 10 seconds. And it was about a 15 yard shot through the peep site in this 30 carbine and dropped him on the spot. And he was a pretty good sized deer and we got him drug up out of there. And then our farmhand dad's actually ex rodeo partner.
00:15:33
Speaker
Helped get them in the truck with us. So we took him hung him up in the hay barn and that was yeah That was something skinned him out. Let him hang overnight because it was pretty cold. Hey barn was probably about oh 25 feet to the rafters and we had a pulley system. So we just
00:15:50
Speaker
Rip them all the way up so nothing could get into and we drop it back down the next morning we went processed it that way kind of thing and that was when we first started when i was younger there's a lot more people not something unrelated to hunting that they don't really prepare you for is all these people that you look up to your heroes just people is good family friends stuff like that.
00:16:09
Speaker
nobody ever really warns you that as you get older, they get older and then slowly either are out of the equation because they can't or have just flat out passed away. And that's something that's hard to fathom because when we started out, there'd be like eight or nine people in the kitchen every morning. They wouldn't be hunting the farm. They'd be hunting other places, their properties, but they'd come in, we'd have coffee, we'd have eggs, bacon, stuff like that. And we just, that was, it wasn't a deer camp in the sense that we went somewhere and had deer camp
00:16:35
Speaker
That was deer camp. My wife, when she came onto the scene a few years ago, when I first met her, she joked with me a little bit. She said, are you guys going to, going to your dad so you can sit there before you go deer hunting? I was like, yeah, dad calls it the camaraderie now. She's, oh, I like morning deer meet and greet better. I was like, okay. So that's, we're calling it morning deer meet and greet. Yeah. It's, that was back when we were having that. So people, everybody came over. You.
00:16:58
Speaker
You weren't doing telecheck or anything, so you had to take it somewhere to check it. So you instantly got the bragging rights and stuff like that. And that really solidified very early on in my hunting career that I was definitely hooked for life.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. And you talk about those guys not being here anymore, but you can never replace those memories, right? And no picture can describe it. None of that stuff. Like my father-in-law, 70, said it's from 74, and he went hunting elk with us this year. And then he typically goes on a couple hunts with us a year. He's going, we're going to Mexico, me and him next week, Sonora.
00:17:35
Speaker
And you can't recreate those. These times are special, man, and you can't get that time back. And Randy Newberg talks about you can always make more money, but you can't get time back. Let's try and get out there and hunt with your dad or your friends or whoever it is, your kids, because I'm experiencing it now. My one boy is 17. He's been going off to college in a year and he's probably not coming back to California.
00:17:57
Speaker
He's Mr. Right-wing and hates the politics here. I don't want to live in this state. I can't blame him. I'm trying to get as many hunts as I can with them now because you can't get those back. You can't get back that five days you took off. You can always go work more. I had a guy on the podcast, Brad Bolton, and he said, I'm of the mindset that I would rather go hunting now and work another year when I'm older and not regret it.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty good. So you're not just a white tail guy, right? Cause we always assume you guys are just like sitting in a tree stand bow hunting white tail or shooting white tail. You're also coming out West too. Yeah. Yeah. Dip my toes in it. I don't know that a lot of people necessarily consider Nebraska out West, but I can talk to me and I guess it's more West than Kansas. And I was like, guess that counts. I keep going.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, just barely. So we go out there and the panhandle, I guess you could say, Nebraska, and they got mule deer management zones. They've got some elk and pronghorn out there as well. But the first year we went out, I went with the guy that ended up being the best man in my wedding and his dad and then another buddy of ours.
Gaining Access through Conservation
00:19:02
Speaker
And we were out there and I mentioned
00:19:04
Speaker
people not really wanting to shoot does, but that's one way we gained some private access out West in Nebraska. As you talk to these producers, they think they've got a deer problem. Nobody wants to shoot does. They're all out there for the bucks, preferably the big bucks. And if you got it, if you drew a mule deer tag, you got a free white tail doe tag.
00:19:25
Speaker
We went out and we went to his farm and we didn't really see, I guess his dad saw one mule deer buck and three does. And I didn't see anything the first night. We went to a public piece in the morning and walked in there about eight miles and came back out. And Buddy's dad free handed a, with a muzzle at her free handed a doe at about 120 yards, dropped her.
00:19:46
Speaker
So we carried her out and got one dough and that public spot wasn't too awful far from that guy's farm, but he was just ecstatic that we took a dough out of the area. So he ended up telling more people in our area that we had permission to hunt grew exponentially. He, not going to say he was the farmer, but he was respected as a lot of farmers are in the area. And he talked to other farmers in the area and they're like, if you vouch for them and you say they're good, they can come out.
00:20:14
Speaker
So we basically go out and meet them so they could have a face, see what kind of truck we were driving so they knew what to expect. And we ended up filling every doe tag we had that year. My best man shot his first mule deer, looked like a whitetail hybrid. Antlers were really spongy. They squeezed together. It was weird.
00:20:34
Speaker
One side looked like a traditional four by four as pretty spindly, but then the other side looked more like your traditional white tail. Like it didn't have the same curvature and it didn't have the same splits. It was interesting. They did say that there are apparently hybrids there. The DNR also says that's not necessarily the case, but the locals at least say that there's hybrids. So we, that's the excuse for shooting a small builder. The other buddy, it's a hybrid.
00:21:01
Speaker
You know, the other buddy got a pretty nice, he called high tower. It was real heavy, not wide, but just tall, but he was nice. And then that year, my best man's dad, Carrie, and the nine didn't draw mule deer tags. So we had white tail buck tags and he shot an eight point or I guess a four by four. And then I got an, got this one. Oh, it's a good buck. Again, not terribly huge. The, the rack, I wish that, you know, infinite money, I would have had him mounted because he was every bit
00:21:31
Speaker
of 220, 225 field dressed. He was, we went out, my buddy shot his Miele and they were celebrating. We went out and we got permission to hunt this pivot. And the weird thing about Nebraska is we're out there with muzzle loaders in Nebraska. You can have a scope, but we're citing them in Missouri and we've got everything out good to 150, 175. Okay. Yeah. That's normal. That's fine. That's like a pretty good spot to be at. Nebraska distance is a number. There's no backdrops because it's just corn fields.
00:22:01
Speaker
The cornfield just keeps going and going and then you think it keeps going but there's like a weird sandy Canyon that drops down and it's just it's insane you have to range find stuff I'd We had a couple of clean misses because people said that oh, that's 150
00:22:17
Speaker
And then he ranged it and it's 180 and we're shooting 270 grain bullets. It drops pretty quick out of a muzzle loader. But we went up to this pivot and the other guy, he ranged it. We saw a nice eight point and he ranged it and I went to go shoot it. And he's, man, I heard that smack. That sounded good. I feel good about that. So he and I take off running up there.
00:22:37
Speaker
And we're standing up there where the deer is. And I look back at my buddy that was at the clump of grass. We were hiding behind us. This does not look right and range it back hundred and like 175. I was like, ah, we, no, we didn't hit him. We didn't get him. We backtracked out. That was right before it got dark. And then we backtracked out, went back to the hotel. We were staying at just a real small mom and pop thing with a communal kitchen, talked to the other guys that were there. And then the next morning he and I went out back up to that pivot. So we're up there. We start crawling up.
00:23:04
Speaker
get to our clump of grass and start looking across this cornfield. And there's probably about 20 does out there. And he saw there's a buck pull up. I'm looking at it through the scope. And I was like, that's the one from last night. He arranges, he's like 125.
00:23:16
Speaker
I was like, okay. And I sat there, I was, range it again, actually. And he's getting ready to range it again. He's 125. I was like, okay. He's like, wait, there's a bigger one. I was like, left or right? And he's left. So I pan over and he was like 170, 173, somewhere in there. And he looked like a cow. All the other deer looked like deer. And this one was just a tank. It was ridiculous, but we shot him, or I guess I shot him and
00:23:40
Speaker
he bucked up and ran to the evergreen trees on the edge of the field. And that's another thing the buddy I was with, he warned us, he said, they don't really have timber per se, but they have evergreen jungles. What the heck does that mean? It's impenetrable. Oh, okay. And it's when there's a clump of evergreen trees, it's hard getting through it out there. That's something else. But we went and we looked and sure enough, we had good bright red blood and
00:24:03
Speaker
We went back to the truck and let everybody else know, and we waited about 45 minutes and we start tracking this thing. Walking, it was snow, fresh snow. It was supposed to get up to 42 that day, so it was going to dissipate, but there was fresh snow and bright red stands out on that, so we're walking, get to a bed. I was like, that doesn't seem right, bright red blood. Then there was a lot of it. Keep walking, fall in blood, get to another bed, and I'd look at my buddy.
00:24:25
Speaker
Is there a chance we got liver too? He's high. No, he's not with that bright red of blood and that much of it I think he had to get it was had to be a good shot. I was like, okay There's I couldn't see he I was trusting on him to see it because I couldn't see through the smoke by the time that he took off and we ended up
00:24:40
Speaker
Called two other guys in the the buddy and his dad and we were out there and that thing went seven miles No way Because I was a little bit too far back I just barely got any of the lung but I got the liver and we had went in and he just kept
00:24:55
Speaker
He had just kept going because we pulled out again and it was just, we ended up falling that whole thing. It was terrible. That, I mean, we found him, it was a great hunt and it was definitely very memorable, but where he ended up falling, we ended up, we were exhausted and it was getting hot. And we ended up having to hike out about three quarters of a mile with this. And that was, we weren't really, that was our first year. So nobody really had a frame pack or anything like that for packing meat. So we hadn't.
00:25:18
Speaker
One guy had a regular backpack that we had both the front shoulders in and then straps and the cuts of meat. One guy was carrying both the back legs over his shoulders. And then I had the hide and the head slung over a shoulder and carrying the gun. And it was, I'm not going to say miserable. It was not the most fun hike back to the truck. And then we found out that, cause the buddy's dad and one of our local guys that was out there, oh yeah, there's a road. You could have gone about 40 feet and came down the hill.
00:25:48
Speaker
Why didn't we do that? That would have made this a lot better. But that was the first time there. The other whitetail that Buddy's dad got, he shot it and they got up to it and they went to go drag it to the truck and the antler popped off. Oh man. It wasn't a huge deer, but it was a nice four by four eight point. And we got that load in the truck. It made for some funny pictures. It just rotated the antler around. Did he reattach it for his mount?
00:26:14
Speaker
He, I think he Euro mounted it. So I think it's, I don't know if he's just got it sitting there attached to the other antler or if he put like a dowel or something. Cause he was talking about putting it on a Nebraska shaped plaque. And then he was just going to have the plaque also have a picture frame to have the picture of everybody with their deer.
00:26:32
Speaker
And I think he joked about putting like a dowel rod on it so he could spin it like he did in the pictures. Yeah. I think it'd be cool to have it with one antler too. So it's, it's memories, right? Like we talked about. Yeah. That'd be really slick. What kind of bouldering should you need a muzzleloader? I've got, so when we started doing that, we were looking at something and I was more or less wanting something that I could use everywhere out West with the copper requirement. So I use the federal Borlach trophy copper.
00:26:59
Speaker
So it's a copper bullet with a green polymer tip on it and they mushroom out really good picture. Perfect mushroom. It's, we recovered it off of that first deer on the finishing shot. And yeah, it was every bit of what you'd expect on a traditional bullet. Yeah. And it was beautiful and it's got, it doesn't have a, oh, I don't have you saying this wrong. Sabo Sabo. But it's got like a little compression thing. So when you fire it, it shoves up and it seals the gap.
00:27:28
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So my buddy owns Thor bullets. He's a Christian dude out of Oregon and very similar. They're copper bullets with no savo, but it has an expansion chamber in it. So when you shoot it, it expands out and they're blue tipped, really slick bullets. They're fun to shoot. Are you shooting? I use the Thor bullets. I think they're like 185. Like you're saying 175. Maybe they're more.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah, the one I'm shooting. I'm sorry. Yeah, I think they're, yeah, like two, I'm sorry, I'm misspeaking, like 250, 275. But I'm using the white hot pellets. It's just so easy, man. I just put two pellets in there, throw that Winchester primer in the back, shove that copper bolt in there. It just shoots every time. It's awesome. Are you using pellets? What are you using?
00:28:09
Speaker
So I've got pellets and I was just using the triple seven, the hog and triple seven pellets. And basically the same thing works really well. You drop that in super easy to load pretty quick. I'm pretty sure I've got federal primers, but yeah, shoots great. Now, when we went to Colorado for the elk hunt this past September, I put in for a preference point and then second draw was a muzzleloader and my buddy's dad put first draw for muzzleloader. And my buddy did first draw for.
00:28:35
Speaker
Mule deer and we went out there and you're not allowed to have a scope. It's got to be iron sights. You can't have pellets It's got to be powder same copper bullet stuff like that. Okay, so this everything else stays the same We got to have figure out what we're doing for powder and I debated taking the scope off the gun But I didn't want to have to deal with sighting it back in so I ended up getting a second muzzleloader Specifically for that this one. I also
00:28:58
Speaker
have the Northwest breach plug adapter. So I could be able to use it in Washington, Oregon, stuff like that if I so chose, but we ended up having to go to powder and we went, I'm pretty sure, well, couldn't find any blackhorn in stock and we went to go sighted in and didn't want to take any longer than we had to. So my buddy already had some powder from, he's got a 54 round ball.
00:29:19
Speaker
muzzleloader so we were using that powder and we went with the williams western precision iron sight with the globe on the front i have that same sight it's bitching with the crosshairs on it i mean it's exciting man the the bdc rectangle crosshair on it so it's got a second holdover on it it's great it's uh a little difficult in some low light situations depending on what the backdrop is but that's to be expected especially with a peep sight but that that turned out great uh
00:29:48
Speaker
We've got part of an old railroad that ran through the family farm. They pulled it out, but it's so packed down that it's just trees don't grow on it. You get a little bit of grass growing on it, but it's straight for the entire length of the property. So we can shoot. There's some trees that have fallen down that would make it a little more difficult to shoot super long distances, but we could shoot out to 200 or 300 yards pretty easy.
00:30:08
Speaker
That's awesome. So we did the whole thing. Yeah. So we went, I think we, 150, 175, and then the bottom of the rectangle was like 190, but yeah, it's shoots really well. Didn't get to shoot it off at anything in Colorado. So I actually, when rifle season came around for whitetail here, I was walking around with that. And my buddy's a conservation agent near St. Louis and he said, you're a muzzleloader. I was like, you betcha. He's, what's that for? It's like, why not? And he's, you're at a disadvantage. It's like,
00:30:34
Speaker
I just want to shoot something with it. I spent all this time getting it set up and I haven't even got to shoot anything with it, but that worked pretty well. But those Borlachs work really well. I have looked at those Thors. I thought about trying those out, but I've got a bit of a supply of those Borlachs for now.
Muzzleloader Techniques and Debates
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's how it is. I really, so I understand you got to use pellets or not pellets, powder in Colorado, but versus the triple sevens, I have a triple seven pellets. They're so like sulfuric and so dirty versus those white hots, man, you can get five or six shots because people don't understand what the muzzleloader is. You're almost having to clean it every couple of shots to really once, once you get like through three shots of that triple seven, it is dirty. It's filthy.
00:31:13
Speaker
So the Whitehots seem to, they're just a lot cleaner, which I like about them. And I feel like I can shoot it and not, you almost need to clean every time you come home, but it's not so bad. I don't feel so bad. But on the whole scope thing out West, I'm, people, it might be unpopular, but, and I'm in support of that no scopes on muzzle loaders thing. I think it's, as my stance on it is, I think every state should be the same on that. And we should go to no scopes. I know that would be color in Arizona or next, but everyone's starting to make that switch. California's that way. I just feel like Americans are so awesome.
00:31:43
Speaker
that we find a way to really like play in the gray area. And we created these 500 yard single shot rifles now shooting 40 caliber bullets and high PCs and Americans are awesome. But I do think having the making it a primitive weapon is good. I think it should be a primitive weapon. I don't necessarily mind the scope. I don't know. I grew up here half the time. Most of the deer I've ever shot here with a rifle, I legitimately could have shot with my bow. It's just hunting hardwoods, hunting pasture and stuff. You're hunting transition areas and trails.
00:32:13
Speaker
I think the longest shot I took on a deer prior to going to Nebraska was 70 yards. That's crazy. But dad's got a pump action 30-06 he uses on the iron sites. That's what my older sister used when she goes. A Remington, like the, not the, it's a Remington 700. I think it's like a 7.60 or 7.600. I have a 30-06 Remington, 7.60. I had a first gun I ever killed.
00:32:37
Speaker
Deer with and pigs with that rifle. It's nice. I really like it. He's got a custom stock on it that I haven't seen anything else. It's, I call it a shotgun, like an old school shotgun stock. There's no pistol pommel on it. It's just smooth and slick all the way back. It looks pretty sharp. He's killed a lot of deer with it. Older sisters killed a couple of deer with it. I don't know, killed one deer with that 30 carbine. Mom had a 30 out of six with a Swaroscope courtesy of my dad's brother from an elk hunt.
00:33:05
Speaker
but that's what my little sister used. I've used that gun. One of the gentlemen that came to the morning deer meet and greet camaraderie, he passed away. He had a .308 with a man liquor stock on it. Are you familiar with those?
00:33:17
Speaker
No, I don't know. M A N L I C H E R. I think, but it's a style of stock where the wood goes all the way to the tip of the barrel. Okay. Okay. So pretty heavy gun. It's not very fun to freehand. He had probably the cheapest task scope you could put on it in the sixties, but he passed away. Uh-huh. He passed away and we were, I've got two sisters, my dad and my mom.
00:33:44
Speaker
We're playing like musical rifles as far as if everybody want to go deer hunting, somebody was probably taking a bow during rifle season. So we're playing musical rifles, trying to get this out. So that's what I ended up with. He left it to another gentleman that came to the morning deer meet. Great. So I just borrowed it from him every year. And every year I came back, I was like, Hey, I grew up with him. That's his stands. Actually the one that I shot that first buck in, it's like, I'd like to buy the, the rifle off if given the chance. And I asked that for eight years.
00:34:09
Speaker
eight years and he never budged and I'm driving home from work one day and my dad called and he said, Hey, Mike, he said he'd sell you that rifle if you want it. I was like, you bet. When does he want the money? He's like, whenever you want, but he's at the house now, I was going to go over there. Nice. I'll stop at the bank and I'll be there in about an hour and a half. Went to the bank, pulled the money out and bought the rifle. We sat there for probably three or four hours sitting there essentially having a deer camp, but this was after hunting season was over. Like I had just cleaned it and I was getting ready to bring it back anyways. But we just sat there and we talked about Billy Freeman, the, uh,
00:34:39
Speaker
original owner of the rifle. We talked about hunting stories with him, his tree sands. We talked about when dad went out west with Mikey and his son-in-law and a couple other guys hunting elk. And with their bows, we talked about going duck hunting with Kevin, the son-in-law and stuff like that. I mean, we were there forever. It was, that was a late night, but it was great. And I've, I've proudly got that gun in the gun safe. That actually, my wife's first buck, which is the white tail shoulder mountain right there. A little 10 point.
00:35:08
Speaker
Uh, she'd never gone deer hunting or at least hadn't got a deer and we're driving. We've got a pipeline that runs to the property and we're going down. The only rifle she'd shot of mine is a little 6.8 SPC AR that I've got. We're driving down with, we're going to go to one of the buddy stands and we looked down this pipeline. Okay. I don't see anything. And about two seconds after we go to turn a 10 point buck walks out and I was like, Oh crap, that'd be a great first deer.
00:35:33
Speaker
He goes back into the woods, like, all right, we know where he's at. He's probably not going to be anywhere. We're going to be tonight. Let's keep going to where we were planning on. So we're going down across the creek. There's an eight point buck, a little bit smaller. I was like, that also be a pretty good deer. He's, and we don't really have a stand over there at that moment, but we could go sit up in one of the clumps of trees and do all right. That might be an option, but we turn around. It's like, you know what? That first year we saw, there's not a creek crossing until one of the buddy stands we have to the north.
00:35:59
Speaker
I was like, I bet if we hustle, we could get up there. We might see him. I was like, I wouldn't hold your breath. That'd be a perfect storm. If he shows up and we turn around and we're busting ass to get to this tree stand. And I set her up where I thought he was going to come up the road to our Creek crossing. And we're sitting there for a little bit do to do to do. She's got the AR I've got that 308 and all of a sudden she just.
00:36:19
Speaker
There he is. I was like, put your arm down. She's like, why? I was like, because he can see this. So she sits there and if we're looking noon, he was about 130 or so. And she lines up and she finds him the scope of that AR. She's like, all right, I've got him. Can I shoot? And I was like, if you have a shot, shoot. And you just hear click. I was like, oh, shit. And I look at it and it jammed. So at that point, it was mild panic inducing.
00:36:47
Speaker
I was like, here, shoot this one. So she grabs it. She's moving around. He's gone from one 30 to three o'clock, which is over my shoulder and she's trying to freehand. It's like, it's pretty heavy. I was like, do you want to use my head as a rest?
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah, if I can. So I put my hands up, she puts the gun up and I can feel her moving. And I was like, if you fall out of this tree stand, we are going to have some words.
Family Hunting Success Stories
00:37:07
Speaker
I was like, stop moving. Just move your body. So I feel her stop moving. And he goes across the creek. I was like, she's, what do I do? I was like, hold on. I was like, let's hope he's horny. So like, estrus bleep. Boy, howdy. His head just turns broadside and stops. Bam.
00:37:23
Speaker
I'm going to shoot and shoot some and I see him flinch up and he runs about 40 yards. He's this whole time. It's like a 40 yard radius of the stand. And he's now at 530 to six. And he's just standing there and I turn around. She's just holding the gun. She's I missed him. I was like, we still here reload and chambers another round.
00:37:43
Speaker
At this point, I think she's going to just lean the barrel against the tree. And I feel it sit down on my head and I was like, okay. First time to shoot, close my ears when she said, I'm going to shoot it. And then she pops it. She said, I'm going to shoot it. And before she even finished saying shoot, she shot. So my ears are ringing, but I see the deer drop and she's bouncing up and down celebrating. Sit down right now. She said, I'm sorry. Take the gun. I said, all right, you're going to climb down. Okay. I was like, I'm going to climb down.
00:38:10
Speaker
You're going to chamber another round. We're going to walk up, make sure he's dead. She's okay. So we get down there and he's dead as can be. And then we drag him a little bit further away from the stand back towards the road and teach her how to field dress him. She did a lot of field dressing herself, get them loaded up and took him to get mounted. The guy was kind enough to give her a $50 discount because he's, I don't see very many women hunting and this is her first deer. So we got to got that mountain done for 500 bucks, I think. Oh, that's a great gun back there.
00:38:36
Speaker
Turned out pretty nice and she ended up bragging on my wife because she's pretty new at the hunting. We go the next year and she said, you're really picky with deer. I'm not going to shoot a deer unless he's just really big.
00:38:49
Speaker
And I was like, a legal deer has four points on one side. And I was like, if you see a legal deer and he tickles your fancy, shoot him. I was like, it's more important to me that you enjoy hunting. And if part of that is tied to success, at least for now, shoot him. It's like you've shot one deer. Let's wait to be picky. Too awful picky until you have a few more on your pouch. Okay.
00:39:09
Speaker
So I set her up and that was her first year having completed the hunter safety course. She was hunting on an apprentice tag with me for that first buck, but she took her hunter safety course. She sets up. I set up on the other side of the field and I'm sitting there and that was my first year with a tree saddle. So I'm just swinging in my death diapers, she calls it. And I see a nice eight point buck run by.
00:39:29
Speaker
Probably a little bit bigger, a little bit wider than that one was. And we get up and I was like, hey, that buck's heading your way. If he's something you like, go ahead and take him. About 20 minutes later, she's, hey, that buck went by. I was like, okay. I didn't, we're in interest. She's, no, I couldn't even stop. I was like, okay, we're in business. So we pull out and we're driving up to the barn. Cause I got cows to feed and dad meets us on the back road. He's, hey, there's a eight point buck in the clinic field. You can't see him from the road, but you can see him from the driveway. I was like, okay.
00:39:57
Speaker
So we get up there and pull up to the clinic and I get out and take my binoculars out and I'm glassing across and it's the same eight point buck. So I tell her and she's like, how far away is he? He's like, he's about 300 yards. I was like, you've never shot that far. I was like, I'd feel a lot comfortable if we could cut it about in half. She's like, okay. She says, is it going to work? I was like, I don't know. You don't really get to spot and stock in Missouri very often. She's like, oh, okay.
00:40:19
Speaker
Like, but we're going to crawl through this grass and then pop up every once in a while and see how far away it is. Okay. So we get out there and miss communication on my part as far as having her pop up to shoot it. I had told her, Hey, when I pop up this next time, we should be about 150 yards. You got to be ready to shoot.
00:40:39
Speaker
I was like, he's out here with a doe. They're both laying down, but we're getting a lot closer. So you got to be ready to shoot when we pop up. She's like, okay. But we crawled just a little bit and I popped up and I'm ranging. And then I got my binoculars on cause another doe came out and then Buck ends up coming. I was like, you gotta get, so if you got the shot, shoot, you got, got the shot, shoot. And he ends up going over the fence back into the timber. I turned around and she's sitting there and she's like,
00:41:01
Speaker
Sorry, that didn't work. I was like, did you, she said, I never got up. I was like, how are you supposed to be getting ready to shoot if hit? And she's like, I just, I thought you were going to give me like a def. And I was like, okay, we'll remember that for next time. And we just crawled across this about 150 yards or so.
00:41:14
Speaker
We're walking back more or less in silence and we get about halfway back to the truck. So this is going to be your favorite hunt. I was like, not right now, but give it a day or two and you'll warm up too. She's like, what do you mean? I said, did you enjoy yourself right now? Or would you say you're happy? She's like, not really. No, I was like, exactly. Give it a little bit. You don't hardly ever get to spot and stock in Missouri. It's like, so you did.
00:41:37
Speaker
And in all honesty, it was a successful spot in stock because they did not spook because of us. He just started chasing another doe. I was like, you had the opportunity. We just didn't seal and harvest the animal. She's like, okay, I guess you're right.
00:41:49
Speaker
two days later, that buck comes by the tree and I was like, Hey, there he is. He's coming up and 12 yards away. Stop that. She's looking at him. I'm like, shoot him, shoot him. She's just sitting there staring at him. He gallivants away. And I turned and look at her. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, what? I was like, that was the buck. She's, Oh, I didn't think it was. I was like, you're kidding me. I was like,
00:42:08
Speaker
He didn't stop, but you were going to shoot him. We crawled 150 yards and he didn't get a shot and you were bummed. Now that he's 12 yards away, I'm not going to shoot him. She said, I just, I guess I thought he was different. I was like, that was definitely the same deer. He had an inch broke off of his G2 on his right side. Okay. So we didn't have any success that year. The next year we were going, trying to go mobile. I had my saddle and she had a hang on stand and
00:42:32
Speaker
I was carrying the stand and she had her gun and we're walking down this railroad to this area and before we get down there, there's a buck. I was like, okay, so he drops off into the creek. We set the tree stand up. He ends up coming back up like a drainage ditch and he's chasing does around and around. She's like, I'm going to shoot a doe because the buck hadn't been back in 10 minutes. He's just going everywhere. And she was
00:42:56
Speaker
I'm going to shoot a doe and about every time she'd line up on a doe, the buck would come back and the doe would scatter. So she said, I'm going to shoot him if I get a shot on him. And then he disappeared and the doe would come back. And it went on for 40 minutes of that, just off and on. So she's spun around in this hang on stand, got the gun up, just as still as she can be. And finally gets a shot on this buck, shoots him. We go down, he went maybe 20 yards. Nice wide eight point, not super tall in the times, but a nice wide eight point. I was like, Hey, you got your second buck.
00:43:23
Speaker
second dears like this is you're doing great this is awesome I was like we know where he is drug under the railroad it's like let's go back and get the truck we'll get everything cleaned up we'll get them loaded and we'll try and get everything done before it gets dark because I don't really like doing it in the dark she's okay well we're walking back towards the truck and there's the bottom off to our left and I said shoot there's does out there she's yeah
00:43:43
Speaker
I was like, do you want to fill your dough tag? She said, do you think I can? I was like, I don't know, but we can try and stock them. So we drop it, drop down into the bottom and come up back to the field level. And she shoots a dough and had a nice follow up shot and dropped it. And it was a good sized dough. I was like, heck yeah, this is great.
00:43:58
Speaker
double the second one. Yeah. Second one was in the field. I went to go shoot it with that three oh eight. And at that point it had been knocked off by about a foot because I assassinated tree behind the door as a darn. So we go out, find her does like this is great. We're about 250 yards from the truck. We're going to go grab the truck. We'll be fine.
00:44:14
Speaker
And we get to the truck and there's a different doe about 40 yards and the tree line past the truck. And I was like, let me see your rifle real quick. She's like, why? It's like, there's a doe over there. She's like, where? Right there. So we put that doe in the truck, put the other doe in the truck, went and got the buck and had three deer we had to clean that night. And of course it was dark by the time we got all that done. So ended up having to do it in dark, but we, she doubled up. I got one. I was like, man, this is, we're doing pretty good. And this year I went and.
00:44:41
Speaker
with my buddy down to Forsyth, Missouri down Mark Twain National Forest near Branson area, Southern Missouri, almost Arkansas. And they had CWD tags they had to fill, which is something that we're dealing with a lot in the state. Not necessarily, and I guess it's a hot topic. Not everybody thinks it's a big deal. The conservation department does, but we went down there. So she was hunting the same place she got her first deer at.
00:45:03
Speaker
And she ended up shooting what she thought was a doe when it was running by with several other getting chased by buck. It turned out to be a button buck, so she wasn't very happy about that. But she filled her Missouri tag and I got back and we went to go hunt Kansas and it was the last, ended up being the last day of rifle season for any deer. And we're in the ground blind out there sitting on a harvested bean field. She's a tree line and I look up and there's eight point bucks. You've created a monster at this point. I've created somebody that I should be afraid of if I piss her off.
00:45:33
Speaker
She is very often, but we were out there and she's at one point when I was in force, she's like, how far can I shoot? And I was like, that gun will shoot a lot further than you're capable and still be effective. She's like, what's that mean? I was like.
00:45:47
Speaker
That gun could take the air out to six, 700 yards and you're not shooting that. I was like, I don't care how good you are, where we're at right now. You're not going to shoot that. We just don't have the area. That's something that can, it's going to happen. She's okay. But like, how far do you think I can shoot it? I was like, you're zeroed at a hundred. You probably wouldn't drop that much at two. I was like at three, I'd aim a couple inches high and you ought to be good. She's like, okay. So I ranged this one. This round is like three 11. He dropped. I was like, Holy. He pops back up, spins around.
00:46:18
Speaker
And he dropped. So I was like, you've got to be kidding me. We get out there, take the picture. She tags and I range back to the ground blind. So he's actually 319 yards. So I did pretty good. I was like, yeah, that was really good. She's okay. Or get them loaded, get them back up to the truck. And this was Sunday. So we dropped him off at the clinic and hung him up there and then went home, got cleaned up and went to church and ended up having to go back and skin them out and process them after that. But.
00:46:45
Speaker
That's awesome, man. We're in that hour mark, but it sounds like you've created a killer. So you're just guiding a killer now. Was that like four or five deer in three years? Three or four, yeah. She's doing really well. I'm trying to get her to go mobile. I got a different stand that's a little lighter with some more mobile type steps that she could put up if she really wanted to. She hasn't had to, obviously, because she already got the other deer. She's just got the deer luck.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome, man. My wife is not a hunter. She will not hunt, so it's cool to have her out there with you doing it. So, dude, we're in the hour as you just told some awesome hunting stories. I appreciate you coming on. You got Instagram or anything you want to plug? Are you public? Are you private? Or are you on Instagram?
00:47:29
Speaker
Oh, I've got an Instagram. It's public. I think it's 36 Stark. Starkrest, maybe. Just one second. Yeah, 36 Starkrest. S-T-A-R-K-R-E-S-T. Starkrest is the name of our cattle ranch that's been in the family for since 1856. So it's, yeah, pretty near and dear in my heart. Yeah. Give me a follow on that and you can see a whole multitude of things. You'll see a lot of my dogs. You'll see some hunting.
00:47:58
Speaker
some travel. We went to Glacier this year. I went to Panama, caught some peacock bass in Panama. Yeah. Went to Panama for our honeymoon because we got married last October. Went to Panama in February, I think. Almost got her to go to Belize to go hunt the oscillated turkey. I was like, it's going to be a 10-day trip. We'll hunt for five days. We'll scuba dive and we'll see the Mayan ruins the other five. She's like, I don't know if I want to hunt that long. Okay.
00:48:25
Speaker
She said, we could still go now. If I go there, I'm going to hunt turkeys. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:48:31
Speaker
You got to get back down there and do it again. I think that'd be cool to get that slam for sure. But yeah, dude, that was awesome. Let's do it again. Let's jump back on maybe after next season and talk about it. And that was a great podcast, dude. You got all kinds of hunting stories. And if you guys want to follow him on Instagram, he's got, he'll be in the show notes and he'll be on the Instagram post. Lots of dead stuff. Lots of big stuff. I'm just stoked to have met you Paul. I'm stoked to be on here with you and let's do it again. All right. That works for me.
Podcast Conclusion and Social Media Outreach
00:49:02
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Tricer Podcast. Do us a favor, or like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at TricerUSA. And go check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.