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00:00:01
James Bath
149 Plays1 year ago
Jumping on the podcast from down under is Australia resident Jame Bath. James is the GM of The Modern Hunter selling Tricer and Maven Optics across Australia and Ne Zealand. This was an amazing conversation and after hearing about the six deer species Australia has it has now moved very high on my last of places to go hunt.
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Transcript
Introduction to Tricer Podcast
00:00:07
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.
Meet James Bath and Maven Optics
00:00:31
Speaker
All right. Excited today to be talking with a friend from way down under across the world, the bottom of Australia, the general manager of the Modern Hunter, James Bath. Welcome to the Tricer Podcast, man. Cheers to you. Thanks for having me on. James, reach out to us because we work with Maven Optics a lot over here and there's a lot of our tripods and a lot of our customers are using Maven.
00:00:57
Speaker
And James is the Maven rep for Australia, correct? And New Zealand? Yeah. So we're the sort of distributors, I guess you could say. Yeah. Okay. And then you hit us up like, hey, we'd love your stuff. We'd love to sell your stuff. And for me, it made my wife a lot easier because now
00:01:16
Speaker
I can just be like, hey, go to James and I send people to you probably pretty
Hunting Culture in Australia
00:01:20
Speaker
often. Like it goes to your modern hunter because they have it down there. You can get it from them. And I don't have to deal with shipping it over there and customs and the whole nine. So you guys are selling our stuff. And when we were talking off air, I was telling you that, man, like I feel like you guys down there, the guys in New Zealand, Australia, they love gear, like just as much as us guys in the States and you guys are super into it. They love their gear and they've just been a big Tricer. They love Tricer. So it's been really neat and be working with you guys.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, I guess we've we're so spoiled for hunting over here. So I guess that's why a lot of guys are getting mad because we've got so many different species and terrains you can hunt. So you're always like trying to fine tune your gear, working out what works in one area, what works in another area. And like I said, because we can hunt so like so many animals any day of the year, it gives us a lot to focus on and always trying to fine tune. And I am so excited to hear about that because in my mind, I'm like, oh, they have kangaroos.
00:02:14
Speaker
I've seen some water buffalo and I think some like red stag. Are you telling me that you guys can hunt year-round? Yeah. Every state in Australia has different rules, but majority you can hunt year-round, pretty much any animal. You can't hunt kangaroos. They do get like culls on private properties and places like that, but with like by permit, because some properties are overrun. You can have like thousands and thousands and thousands of kangaroos.
00:02:41
Speaker
So, but yeah, like all the deer species, pigs, buffalo, you can, if you've got access, if someone property, obviously you go through the property owner, but anything else with this state forest, specifically here in Victoria, state forest and national park, you can just grab your car and grab your rifle or bow and just get into it. Really? And you don't have to have a tag.
00:03:08
Speaker
We have a general permit. So I'll speak, I guess for Victoria, so to say, we get like a deer stalking permit, which is like ring up, say, yeah, I want to buy a stalking permit that's valid for 12 months. And then you can just go off and hunt deer, like in any of the state forests, the national parks are open for stalking only. Whereas the state forest, you can do like hound hunting within season and stuff like that. But yeah, you can pretty much just hunt whatever you want, whenever you
Public Lands and Deer Species
00:03:36
Speaker
want.
00:03:36
Speaker
You can hunt in the national parks. Correct answer. With a rifle? Yep, rifle or not all of them, but most of them. And they do have a short closed window. And that's generally just because they're more populated with a lot of hikers and stuff like that. So they close it off from time to time. It's pretty much most of the year round, aren't they? I call it public land because we would call it public land. How much public land do you guys have? Is it just like the Mecca?
00:04:03
Speaker
There's so much. Yeah, there's, I'd say tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of acres. Once again, I can speak more Victoria, where I'm from, we're probably a bit more spoiled for that. Pretty much all of our state forest is available to anyone that wants to get a game license. Once again, you just pay for your license. The birds, like quail and duck, there are strict seasons on those, but as far as I can say, deer, pigs, and all that sort of stuff, you just, once you've got your game coming, you just go for it. Really?
00:04:32
Speaker
Now, is that because they're invasive? They're not invasive, are the deer invasive? The deer are invasive. They're introduced. The deer are the red stacks. We have six deer species here. Really? Yeah, so we'll have a Samba deer, which is my favorite. They came in from India, I believe. They were like in the mid 1800s or something like that. Sorry, Samba deer.
00:04:59
Speaker
rusa, which they're similarly from the same sort of family, really big bodied, like the males get to get 300 kilo, like for a big stay. So what's up? 600 pounds or something like that over there. Then we got like the red fallow. Do you have some of those here?
00:05:16
Speaker
Yep, so fallow, but we got like a different areas of Australia. They were released, I think they were brought over for like private reserves and things like that. So there's a couple of different genetics from different areas of Europe. So I think the New South Wales have a bit of a different genetic strain in their fallow compared to what we have in Victoria. And then we have the hog deer and the chittel deer. So I think they're like from the axis deer family, I believe.
00:05:45
Speaker
Dude, I have a grin. I don't know if you'd see it from like ear to ear right now just talking to you about this because I'm just like, man, how do I get over there and hang out with you? Just get a plane ticket, man. I'm going to have to get a plane
Gun Laws and Hunting Ethics
00:05:57
Speaker
ticket and fly over. I'm going to have to do it. So I'm like, this sounds this awesome. So now per capita, how many of you guys hunt? There's a lot of people hunting or no? At least people hunting. Okay. So the left one hunts. Okay. Yeah. All right.
00:06:15
Speaker
Now, you guys, I don't know what's going on with you guys and your guns and everything, but are you allowed to have guns anymore? Are they bad? What's going on? Yeah, we are. We are once again. Every state is a bit different. We obviously have much, much tighter gun laws than you guys do over there. But yeah, now we can, like once again, I'll speak to mainly where I'm from in the state of Victoria. I've got different 30 cals, 300 wind mags, 308s and all that sort of stuff done.
00:06:44
Speaker
You just, you put in for us and seeing, seeing you just say, so this is what I intend to use it for. And then they give you an application, like an application, you fill it out. And yeah, so you can have guns, but we're limited to like bolt actions.
00:06:57
Speaker
You can get some of that sort of fancy stuff that you guys have over there, but you have to have a high category license. And to get those licenses, you generally have to be an accredited color or do government control programs and things like that. But for the general public, we're limited to bolt-action rifles, lead-reaction rifles, things like that. And then shotguns, obviously. Yeah, shotguns as well. Actually, pump-action rifles, you can have semi-auto. You can have pump-action rifles.
00:07:25
Speaker
Shotguns. Can you have semi auto shotguns like a Benelli or no? Yeah. I'm not really a shotgun shooter. So there's a couple quirks with the legislation to that. I know there was a, I'm trying to remember the name of it, but it was like a self loading shotgun that was technically like a pump action, but it wasn't. And there was a bit of a kick up about that when that got introduced to the show and shows a couple of years ago. And I know trying to fine tune the license and keep up with that.
00:07:52
Speaker
Gotcha. Gotcha. And I mean, I would be, no, what about handguns? Can you guys have revolvers or no handguns at all? I think that's, if you're obviously in like law enforcement and things like that, we do have like a lot of pistol clubs, like handgun clubs and things like that. But as far as like hunting with them or anything like that, there's no, none of that. Or like general carrying and stuff like that. Yeah. So you don't own any handguns. Just bolt actions. And
00:08:21
Speaker
You, which I'd be fine with, I'm fine with having a bolt action rifle. I'm not even, I have semi-autos and I don't really shoot them. I'm a very sweaty guy. I like revolvers and I like bolt action rifles. So I wouldn't be, obviously I love having my rights to have all the guns I want, but at the same time, I would, I thought you getting a gun was like impossible. It sounds like as long as you're hunting rifles, it's not super hard. And you guys can even buy, you can get chassis guns in the whole nine, right? I see a lot of you guys are really into chassis guns over, especially New Zealand.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Especially it's bigger for the, I guess you'd say like the long range community. Guys want to do like long range builds and stuff like that. But it's also getting pretty big in like the, what we call like a pest control. So guys that do a lot of pig shooting and things like that might be wanting to use like thermals on like private properties and stuff. A lot of them might use like chassis, like chassis rifles. Cause they'll have those in gun clamps and things like that. Cause they're shooting at night and trying to shoot a lot of animals at once as well. So they need a pretty stable platform.
00:09:17
Speaker
Gotcha. And you were spouting off to some normal calibers. So are you guys just mostly shooting the fuddy 30-06, 308, 31 mag calibers? You guys all in the PRC's over there now, like everybody else and the Creedmores and all. That's a big, yeah, that's a deep hole to jump into. Where, once again, in Victoria, where I'm from, we have caliber restrictions on certain animals. Let's say for instance, like a Samba deer, cause they're a quite big deer.
00:09:43
Speaker
They have a minimum requirement, they say, for a caliber, and that's like a 270. You can't use anything smaller than that. It's like a 270 Winchester, a rim mag, anything bigger than that you're able to hunt with. Not a 6.5 Cremore, not a 243. They reckon the projectile and all the ballistic coefficients and stuff aren't effective on such a large-body animal, but once again, that could be up for discussion, but that's just what the state
00:10:13
Speaker
says where I'm from. Everyone sort of abides by that. That is in all the state forests and stuff, but then you move, say, the next state up for me, which is New South Wales, and they don't have the same calibre requirements. So it's, you know, yeah, like where you're hunting and what, what Rolf will use. Gotcha.
Shooting Practices and Ammunition Debate
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, I would not be opposed to them putting a limit like that on elk and not letting people shoot six fives. I've seen some
00:10:39
Speaker
I saw a video this year of an elk getting shot eight times with a 6.5 PRC with a very popular hunting bullet that is made for going long range and hit in the boiler room every single time before it died. It just would not die. The video doesn't lie. What distance? 500 yards? 500 yards? Not crazy. It was like 550. It wasn't...
00:11:03
Speaker
For all intents and purposes, everyone's shooting these guns. They had six five PRCs, 800 yard rifle, whatever. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the 30 calibers since there's some millimeters on elk size game. So you have no restrictions on that whatsoever? No, not on caliber. I know that with like in Colorado, there's a limit on muzzle loader. You have to have a 50 caliber for muzzle loader. You can't get a 40 caliber. Yeah, but to my knowledge, there's not a caliber restriction on elk anywhere.
00:11:30
Speaker
So it's just pretty much wrong, but it's up to your discretion. Yeah. Yeah. And I go, you're wrong. I killed an elk with a two 60. It's just not the right caliber for it, which is essentially a six by three more to 60 Remington. And it's just not, it died. And we, I killed it. I shot him.
00:11:49
Speaker
four times really good and he died, but it was all of them were kill shots. It was just something about displacement and that horsepower being hit by a bigger bullet, which is the energy. There's this weird push right now. I was looking at a tie-in. I've talked to a couple podcast with this now, but I'll keep going on it because I'm into it. There's this weird push with ballistics and bullets, and they say it performed 1800 feet per second. So people have thrown kinetic energy out the window. And for me, I want to look at energy and be like, I want 1,500 pounds for an hour.
00:12:19
Speaker
I don't want to be like, okay, it's got 1800 feet per second and it's got 900 pounds of injury, but it'll still expand. Like I want to have 1500 pounds of energy for an elk and a thousand pounds of energy for a deer. And that's where I want to be. But I also want to limit my shots to under 500 yards, ideally 300. So with that whole, like talk about the fuddy calibers, like you didn't spat off that you're using a PR six or PRC or any of these crazy calibers. There's this weird, like.
00:12:47
Speaker
Everyone's a long range shooter now. And I had some bad experiences this year, not with myself shooting, but with other people shooting over us and going back to the truck and reloading and shooting like 15 rounds at elk missing. And you know, the guy's probably, I don't want to knock horn. The guy's probably got 300 PRC or some blacked out gun that he thought was, you know, 30 nozzle or whatever, six, five PRC. And it's this is a thousand yard gun. I'll watch what I can do and just shooting and shooting. And I've talked to the guys from the guys at Browning.
00:13:16
Speaker
and I'm getting an X-bolt, a Woodstock 30-06 X-bolt. Picked up a nice Leopold VX-5, put it on there, and I am going to kill every animal I killed this year with a factory 30-06. Yep. Yep. The 30-06 man's been around for forever. It's tried and true. It's a super poppy caliber over here too, because it'll knock down any critter you pointed out. And like you're saying,
00:13:45
Speaker
He can do that. 30.06, 3.08.
00:13:48
Speaker
Once you're proficient in that, but you know your projectiles, there's nothing stopping you from dropping everything up to 400, 500 meters with that. Yeah, my kid shot an elk this year at 320 yards with a 308, 168-grain TTSX copper bullet and just dumped her in her tracks right there where she stood. Like I said, as long as you stay within that horsepower range, I was talking about the 1,500 feet, you're solid. When you're running a heavier, bigger bullet like that,
00:14:17
Speaker
You're going to get less wind drift, and it's going to do more damage when it gets there. So I don't know what I'm going to do on the bullet yet. I was kicking around going like factory. I handle those. I really love hand loading. I was kicking around, I was going like factory Hornady ammunition or factory Barnes ammunition. Like a 175 grain ELDX. Yeah, the ELDX. I love the ELDX. You like the ball up? That thing is just unbelievable. Like the 178? Are you really handling it? Yes.
00:14:45
Speaker
Nah, so I was just running a factory. I don't have... I think it's a 178, right? 178 ELDX for the .30-06. Yeah, it has the horsepower, and really, that modern bullet in that gun makes that gun a proficient, like, $600 rifle. Like, with the horsepower getting there, you don't need to do something with some big, crazy-whispering cartridge when you got that thing in the modern bullets. It really does the trick.
00:15:12
Speaker
I'm thinking I'm probably going to look, where I live in California, you have to use mono bullets. Do you guys use mono metal bullets over there at all? Do you ever use them? No, we don't. There's a bit of talk at the moment around like the whole copper versus lead going around. Like you've got your bonded lead and stuff, which majority of people use, and then you've got like the people that switch into solid copper. There's a bit of talk around at the moment if there's ever going to be a, like a ban on lead bonded bullets just for the sheer fact of
00:15:40
Speaker
waterways and meat consumption and all the rest of it but i think at the moment that's just talk but there are some guys that love shooting those solid copper projectiles because i understand you can shoot them a bit wider but they carry a bit more energy but yeah it's it's weird i would say you're going to get way more bcs out of a lead bullet because you're going to get a longer bullet out of a out of it because it weighs more so with with copper like 168 gram bullets can be really long
00:16:06
Speaker
So you can't really get the weight there. So if you try to go 175 grand copper bullet, that thing's going to be super long. Like I love, like we have the hammer bullets. If you haven't ever heard of hammer and they're really cool bullet. They're like a boutique bullet maker up in Montana. I think it's Montana or Wyoming. I think it's Montana. And man, it's just a really good shooting bullet. And I probably killed.
00:16:27
Speaker
I don't know, 10 animals with them this year with that bullet. But I really like the Barnes bullets, the copper bullets, the 168 grand TTSX is one of my favorites. I was actually going to put that into that 30 out six or like the 175 grand LRX bullets, long range copper bullet. I'm a guy that I would rather use a heavy bullet and go slow than use a light bullet and go really fast. Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
That's my thing. Do you have, it's something that I've wanted to do, but I've just got that many hobbies and projects at the moment. I just, I don't have the time to jump down the thing. And once like those ALGX is ever since I switched to Lowe's, they just perform on everything. So I'm just like, yeah, watch it.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, they work and they're awesome. I just, the hand loadings is fun. There's something about the process of load and like, you load the bullet, you put the rifle together, you kill it with the bolt you shot. Then I like to pack the animal out myself. I like to, I process the animal myself in my house. I can show them about the whole, it just like ties the whole thing together for me. I don't know. I like hand loadings.
00:17:30
Speaker
I fully understand. I make my own hunting knives. So I make all my own hunting knives and stuff. So I've got a little small business as well, but once again, just limited to time. So I only do those to order. Like I butcher the deer with my own knives, pack it out myself. Same as you. It's a complete process. I'd love to have that element of the hand loads into it. I just don't have the time to commit to that. It's expensive to get set up, right? Even with the new caliber rail. So I just got a new
00:18:00
Speaker
concealed carry, pistol, a three-day special revolver.
00:18:04
Speaker
and I've already owned a few 38 Specials and 37s, I've never had the dies for it, never bought and reloaded for it, so I'm gonna reload for it. I ended up spending 500 bucks just buying brass and bullets and dies and the whole, and it's, man, I could have bought a lot of 38 Special reloaded cartridges for this. I don't know how, I had a little five-shot revolver, I'd probably never shoot all the, I don't know what I was thinking, but it does get expensive to get in there and do it, especially to do it right, to use the nice, like you learn it's like one of those crap in, crap out things, like I like to use high-quality bullets,
00:18:34
Speaker
I like to use nice powders, nice brass, like Lapua brass. When you load with nice stuff, you end up with a high quality product. When you load with crappy brass or soft brass, you start blowing primers, pressure signs, it's not as good. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. But once again, it's an expensive hobby, but if you love doing it, it's a good place to invest your money because you're getting the joy out of it. You're going out in the bush or doing what you do and you're enjoying every step of the way, so might as well.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. And it's cathartic. Like when you shoot your bow, do you shoot down with your archery gun and all, but your bow is like very, almost like meditative. I don't want to get too new age on you, but something nice about shooting your bow and reloading the same way for me. I can sit there and reload and just sit there and listen to a book or listen to some music and just reloading by myself. And it's just enjoyable. I like it. Something about it. It's fun.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, cool. So that aspect that you could blow yourself up if you didn't do it right. Yeah, I guess that's the other thing I was stressed about. I'm like, when I go out in the bush, all I want to think about is when I lift my gun, I pull the trigger up at someone else to blame if it doesn't go off. Yeah, I've never had an issue like that. Like I said, I'm not a super fast guy. Like I have friends who are like, I want to put a, I hope he listens to this. I'll make fun of him. I don't care. I want to put 130 grain copper bullet into my 300 wind mag and push the thing 3,800 feet per second.
00:19:52
Speaker
And I'm like, man, I would much rather put a 215 grain bull in a throwaway mag and push it at 2,900 feet per second. Just go slow and just get it down there. But people like to go fast. It's fun. People like horsepower, man. Look at Roy Weatherby. I mean, he built a whole company on freaking going fast and making flat shooting bullets and doing that.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, there's two different schools of thought. I'm sure you guys are probably the same. They're like, we've got the guys that it's like speed kills. So they want to go light, light and fast. I'm probably like yourself. I prefer to have a 210 grain projectile out of my 300 wind mag and it just hits like a truck as opposed to a guy running at 160 grain out of the 300 wind mag. It's just going like lightning. I know they both do the job, but once again, I guess it's the school of thought you're raised on.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess when you're shooting a deer, it really doesn't matter. Like usually the deer doesn't matter. When you start shooting a water buffalo, like you guys have water buffalo, right? Yeah, we do. I would much rather be putting a, that's where you'd probably really enjoy those monomella bullets is on the water buffalo and stuff like that with the, they just, they penetrate, they penetrate really well and they stay together. So like a barn's bowl is going to stay like 90 something percent together. When it goes in animals, you're going to get, and it's going to punch all the way through.
00:21:03
Speaker
And you open up wicked and that'd be a really, really good Buffalo bullets. Yeah. I've heard of guys with those Buffaloes. I've heard of guys shooting them with a 338, like a 338 lap or a 338 edge. Like those big calibers running like 300 grand projectiles. And they'll shoot a Buffalo front on, like in the front shoulder to put it right in the ballroom and the things front legs will go out of them. And then they said, they just watch them just pick themselves back up on their front legs, shake off the dust and just start running.
Hunting Stories and Challenges
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, I shot down Sonora, Mexico this year. I shot my deer head on like that. It came in. And as soon as he came in, I just shot him, put him right through the chest. And that thing, it did so much damage because we were only 60 yards away and I was shooting a 260, essentially a craymore. So it hit that thing going like 2,800 feet per second when it hit the deer. And it just...
00:21:54
Speaker
It left shockwaves underneath the hide all the way down. You can see blood vessels broken all the way down the deer. I don't know how to describe it. And that bullet went all the way through that deer, took out heart, lungs, out the butt. It would end to end. I thought for sure I was going to find it. And that deer did not like it. It was dead. It was dead. It ran like 30 feet. It was dead on its feet and just piled up right in front. And you probably saw the video.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, but if they run towards you, that's even better, isn't it? Yeah. Did you see, you saw the video? I'm shooting a video. You ran into my lap. It was funny. So with all that hunting, are you even buying meat or are you just killing everything? I try to eat mainly venison. We try to do it as much as possible. I'll still buy, I like doing like a smoked brisket and things like that. I might buy like a beef brisket from time to time and buy a couple of beef steaks from time to time. But
00:22:52
Speaker
majority of the meat we eat in our household is venison. I've got a few mates that are really like mad fishermen. We live on the coast where we are so they'll go out and yeah I'll trade off some venison and they'll give us some fish and stuff as well so that include that in our diet too.
00:23:09
Speaker
Gotcha. Yeah, it's funny because my kids pretty much only get game. It's like when they get beef, it's like, like a treat almost. What is this? It's incredible. It has the fat in it. It really is. I don't know. People can say they like elk more. There's nothing better than ribeye. Yeah, that's one thing you do miss, like all the deer species we have here, everything's just so lean. So there's just like, yeah, there's just no fat in anything. So.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, including that's why I guess I like the brisket. It's a big fatty slatter mate So one of those every week or second week I get my all my calories from that So now what about Can you hunt crocodiles they can be shot under permit if they? Yeah, it's I'm probably not that is educated in that but I don't think you haven't you haven't killed a croc is my you haven't you Know anything's not a thing to do this now. What about
00:24:07
Speaker
like venomous snakes. Are you running into those things all the time out there? The snakes pretty much year round. They do hibernate in winter when it gets cold, but they're still out. They won't go into full true hibernation. You just very rarely see them because they're just so slow and they just don't really want to move much. Most of the hunting during winter, you're pretty good to go, but I've still stumbled across the old lager snake or brown snake in the middle of winter that's decided to get itself out on a little rock, soak up some sun.
00:24:37
Speaker
So yeah, we like, I won't go into the bush without snake proof like gators come from your boot up to the bottom of your knee. Cause yeah, snakes a lot.
00:24:46
Speaker
Really you guys got like big old lizards like this sounds terrible I don't like this but like a lot of our like experience of Australia is Steve Irwin. That's like what we got was like, this is Australia So I just I was infatuated with that guy didn't factor that show as a kid. I love the outdoors Yeah, I just think it's so neat. You have the big lizards to write you got all kinds of critters running down there It's like prehistoric
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So it also depends on what side of the dividing range is you're on. So once you end in Victoria where I'm from, we've got this thing called the Great Dividing Range. It's right up along the East Coast. And on one side of that, you'll still get a lot of
00:25:23
Speaker
lace monitors and goannas in the bush. But then on the other side of it, you don't really get them as much. They like to stay coastal. But yeah, so it's a bit of a troop out because you might get some deer hunters that have only hunted one side of the range a lot of the time and you go to the next side. It's like you're hunting in a different country, like the sand really soil and stuff. And you get these like huge lizards that will walk past a tree and next thing you look and there's just like, like five foot lizards attached to the tree with these like
00:25:50
Speaker
knives for fingers. And it's a bit of a spin out when you're not used to it. Yeah. Wow. Wow. You are a backpack hunter as well, correct? Yeah, I do a bit there. There's some guys down here to do a lot more. But yeah, I do enjoy just getting into those sort of more remote locations. And a lot of your stuff because you guys are, I guess you guys are really into tripods and glassing. A lot of your area hunting is glassable that I take it.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, so when you're backpacking, a lot of the time, if we're backpacking in, you'd want to be going in what we call the tops, which is like our alpine regions, because you get above the treelines. So once you're up above those treelines, you're exposed to just endless, as far as you can see, it's just just mountain ranges. You're generally packing 10 kilometres, 15 kilometres, and you can just sit up on these big rocky bluff sections and you've got to be glassing big, big bowls.
00:26:47
Speaker
So you might be looking like a big basin and you're just glassing all those animals that are going to come up from the treeline and they're going to feed up into these alpine meadows and chase all the really high feed like grasses and things that are available to them up on the tops.
00:27:05
Speaker
And what kind of predators do you guys have? Just hyenas or you have hyenas, right? No, we don't really have anything. So the dingoes, we've got the alpine dingo. Once you speak more in Victoria, the dingo is spread up through Australia, but they're much more of a sort of
00:27:25
Speaker
a pack animal and they would tend to sort of go for lower mammals, like smaller mammals and things. They wouldn't really want to take on the bigger deer and stuff, which is why their population's gotten so big since they're introduced. But we do have quite a bad problem with feral dogs, wild dogs.
00:27:42
Speaker
dogs that have gotten out, like hunting dogs, farm dogs, things that have gotten out over the years. And sometimes they crossbreed with the dingoes and stuff, but they'll get into big packs and they do a lot of damage. There's a lot of guys down here now that are getting trail cam footage or even seeing in real life, like you might see a deer just go running. And then all of a sudden you see another deer running. You're like, oh, that's a bit odd. And then you'll see a couple of dogs hot on their tail. And those are those free game to pop and keep off the deer or no?
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, so you can shoot wild dogs. There's actually a bounty on them, depending where you live. So usually, I think you get about $110 if you're taking a scalp and tail of the wild dog. Really? Yeah. So there's some guys living off doing it. They go around, do all the farms and stuff like that. They can go out and shoot 10, 15 dogs in a night sometimes.
00:28:33
Speaker
Now, I don't know why I thought that kangaroo hunting was more prolific. Maybe because people were suing it on private ranches, because I know that they're giving it to schools. It's just from what I understand. Yeah. Are you a cotton king? Go ahead. No, it's the reason why you would have seen all the mate is because it's a permitted system as well. So we have accredited mate harvests. And one of the big thing is.
00:28:56
Speaker
kangaroo and they'll usually do wild boar pigs as well. So once you have like licenses and you're fully accredited and your trucks got stainless steel backs and you're an accredited like food handling vehicle type thing and they'll go out to these private properties that are tens of thousands of acres and yeah they'll harvest like tons and tons of kangaroos. No you ever done that or no? Yeah I did back in the early days we used to do a bit with the pigs so
00:29:25
Speaker
you can go help out some of these guys. They just need hands. So back in the days when we're young, like 18, early twenties, the guys run these operations. So you go out and catching the pigs and stuff like that, which then they sell to what we call it the chillers. And then they'll also be on the kangaroos as well. So they're late nights and just lifting a lot of carcasses and stuff like that. So it's tiring work. Do you like the taste of kangaroo? Like how does it taste compared to venison? Is it close to venison? What's it taste like?
00:29:54
Speaker
I would choose venison any day of the week. I'd imagine it has to be tough. I mean, they freaking jump around. Yeah. It's super lean and tough. It's tough. Apparently some guys really know how to cook it. I probably don't know how to cook it. I would cry pop this night out of it. He's putting a pressure cooker. I think I'd try doing like some little steaks, like little sizzle steaks with just some red wine and garlic and stuff. You cook really hot. Look, it's okay, but I'd prefer these venison.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, guys do sausage making like kangaroo sausage. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Grind it. Yeah. Grind it down and get some fat in there. And apparently that's pretty good. Yeah. Grind it and throw about 20% fat in that thing. Get some sausage.
00:30:37
Speaker
Are you, you're coming a lot of stuff. Are you processing all your own game, like grinding it, do the whole thing or bringing it in? Yeah. Yeah. So I do that. So at home, I've got like a really big industrial, like chopping, chopping board thing. So when, whenever I get a deal, bring it back and I generally hang it in my fridge for a couple of weeks and then I'll just get it out and break it all down, break it into all my different cuts and then cry back at all and stop the freezer.
00:31:04
Speaker
So are you guys, are there like antler restrictions or dough restrictions or are you just wide open, whatever you want to kill? Whatever you want to go. Yeah. So are you, but are you guys self policing yourself and trying not to kill the dose or? No, no, not really. So the, we generally have a bigger population. Obviously there'll be more, like we call them like horns, depending on what these species, but say the Samba, for instance, the horns generally.
00:31:30
Speaker
can't eat a bit better, taste a bit better, but then again I've shot stags that some people think, oh you never eat stag, their meat smells and whatever, meat's too tough, but I've shot some stags and they've been the best eating animals I've ever had. So I think it all comes down to how it's handled, but no, not a lot of the guys, it's just it comes down to like body size nearly. If I'm going out looking specifically for a meat animal, I probably want to look for anything that's in that sort of
00:31:56
Speaker
two year range because I know it's going to be big, but it's not going to be that big where I'm not going to have to leave any meat behind. So I can shoot a two year old Samba deer and it's going to provide me with heaps of meat, but I'll be able to carry the whole thing out myself within maybe two trips. Gotcha. Aren't you guys big on head shooting too?
00:32:20
Speaker
I'm not personally, I'm like, no, I don't really, anyone I know, no one really goes to headshots. Yeah, no. So you're behind the shoulder, just like we would do it here, behind the shoulder, put it in there and try to ruin me. That's right. Yeah. On the culling side, like what we're touching on, like with the kangaroos and stuff like that, you'll head shoot those. So a lot of guys. That's right. That's where I got it from.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. So like that, but that's where you're like your two, two, three, two, four, three, those sort of calibers, those flat shooting varmint calibers that, and they're cheaper to run as well. That's what a lot of the varmint shooters are using with kangaroos. It's all headshots. I think the two 43 is my favorite cartridge. I go back and forth. I think it's my favorite cartridge. I, we have three of them. My kids have them. They're just fun. I love shooting predators and deer, everything. They're just fun.
00:33:06
Speaker
Tell me about the buffalo. Are you killing buffalo? I, myself, I've never done it. I've got a couple mates that have gone and done it. They're not in Victoria then. I know they're up north. They're in the Northern Territory. They're up in the very top end of Australia. Yeah, that's pretty wild country up there. That's where you get the
00:33:25
Speaker
You got crocs in any body of water up there. There's probably going to be a crocodile. Any part of the coast, you could go to dip your toe in the ocean. You're probably going to get bitten by a shark or a stung by some sort of jellyfish or something like that. And then when you get back to your swag at night, you're probably going to have a venomous snake or spider in there that will kill you. There's a lot of animals up there that want to put an end to your life. Yeah. You have me so I used to think I wanted to go to New Zealand. You have me so excited to go to Australia. Like I hear that stuff and I'm like, oh, man.
00:33:55
Speaker
I want to go to the north coast of Australia. So you don't want to shoot a buffalo. I never even thought about that. So like we'll kill animals on water and then we'll clean the animal. Like you don't want to shoot a buffalo right next to a water hole because then you can eat by a croc.
00:34:08
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to have your camp set up near anybody award as well because the crocodiles, they say they learn to patent people. So if you've got camp set up and you're going down to get water from the same spot two days in a row, if you're in an area with crocodiles, the crocodiles probably worked out that you'll go into that spot. So on the third night, there's probably going to be a crocodile there. Oh, man.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah, and they do. They eat people, right? That's the thing that happens over there. It's probably doesn't happen as much as what people might tell over there. There might be a few tall stories getting told, but it does happen. Yeah, it does happen a lot more with a lot of people lose dogs and stock and things like that on these huge properties, like these big cattle properties and stuff like that. You might get a resident crocodile that sits in it and just knocks off cattle just whenever it wants, whenever they come down to the water, sort of thing. Gotcha.
00:35:02
Speaker
All right. Tell me about New Zealand because you went over there and did that too,
Backpack Hunting in New Zealand
00:35:06
Speaker
right? You jumped over a couple of years when I did your first trip. Yeah, that's right. Me and a couple mates we've been wanting to get over there for a while. I've been over there just as a tourist and looked around. It's just such an amazing country. We always want to go over and hunt tar because I have quite a good tar population over there. I'm sure. I want to hunt tar bed. Oh man. I can't recommend it enough. It's such an amazing, amazing animal to hunt. Yeah. We started putting this trip together that was
00:35:30
Speaker
me and three of my mates and we were in contact with a guy from New Zealand. We went to the South Island.
00:35:37
Speaker
So we would try to chat to a couple locals down there and just get to be their heads up because we wanted to do it self-guided. So yeah, we just did a bit of information, put all the planning in place and really simply all we have to do, it's pretty easy for us. We didn't take our own guns because a friend of ours has a business contact in New Zealand. So he was able to provide us, they can lend us a gun if we fill out permits and things like that. So you fill out like a temporary New Zealand gun license, pretty much.
00:36:04
Speaker
And then we get like a permit for the animal as well. And you have to list like areas where you want to hunt in New Zealand and with the timeframe that we're going to be there. So it's actually pretty, pretty easy. And yeah, so we went over, I think it was November. So it was around that springtime because they stuck in the snow melt and the tar, they start moving around these top toxic areas. So we planned our trip around.
00:36:26
Speaker
And yeah, so we flew in to South Island, we had to go pick up the guns, get all like a crane with the area and go speak to our contact over there. It's been a couple of days just picking his brain about what these animals do. And then, yeah, we went and met our contact through as a chopper pilot. And yeah, obviously we went and we stock up for a couple of days and they always say you have to take a couple of extra days food as well. Because if you're getting helicopters into these big mountainous areas, there's only one way to get out and that's why helicopters
00:36:56
Speaker
Because if you were to try to work, walk yourself out, you're probably not going to make it unless you go full steve eel install and try to live off the land sort of thing. But we were a bit out of our depth over there. But yeah, so we got choppered in, a couple extra bits of food and then the chopper pilot just literally just dumped us on top of a mountain and he just, I'll see you in five days, it just took off.
00:37:16
Speaker
That was a bit of an eye-opening. But yeah, it's just such an amazing country like you're up there above the clouds. So like you're just sitting on these mountain top and in the afternoons you just see the clouds rolling and you just see like tops of mountains sticking up all over the joint. We were lucky enough that where we were setting up camp we spotted a lone task standing up on this block that was a bit sort of two kilometres away from that camp. So we knew there were some animals getting around which gave us a bit of hope.
00:37:41
Speaker
And yeah, and then we just had to make plans of how we're going to hunt the areas from there between the florists. But it's really hard now to wear that glass. We took over all the big spotting scopes and all these different powered binoculars and stuff like that because to get from one mountain peak to the other, it might be caving. It could be a day of walking. We had to become very reliant on the glass. And I guess that's where having really good glass came into it. Because you might see some tar and you say, oh, they've all got ant. It's a bunch of nannies. It's a bunch of the females.
00:38:12
Speaker
so having a big spotter and stuff like that you can see the shape of their body and shape of their head you're like oh no there's some bull tars in that mix and then that way you can try to go after those but because we were trying to do it ourselves we didn't we tried to apply like how we'd hunt deer species over here but it's a different sort of strategy over there and it took us a couple days but we were
00:38:35
Speaker
we started encountering the animals with the first we don't see glimpses of them in the distance and we could never really get onto them because they actually got really good eyesight and they'll hang in the craziest places man like you might be glassing and you look and you're seeing a complete vertical drop and then all of a sudden you stare and stare and stare at this drop and you realize that there's just a guitar they're just like sitting there like I've got a photo of this one tar and it was a
00:39:00
Speaker
like a bunch of tussock like just growing off the side of a rock and it was laying on it with its guts on the tussock and its legs were just dangling underneath it. It was just a sheer drop below it and they would just be comfortable hanging out there having a nap and just soaking up some sun. That was a wild experience. And you ended up getting the tar? Yeah we did. I think that was on our third day. I was hunting with my friend Rob who's a really he's a great knife maker as well. That's how me and him started hanging out.
00:39:31
Speaker
And we could, we only had, we had two rifles, but we had four hunters. So we had to work out like kind of one guy on the rifle, one guy as like a spotter, so to speak, and it would swap it around. And me and Rob had been hunting this one sort of section of this mountain range and the other boys was hunting this area. We started working out like, oh, we think we know where the animals are, but we've been coming at it from the wrong angle. And the animals were already spotting us before we got there.
00:39:55
Speaker
So this morning we ended up going up, I guess what you'd call the easy way. We took the really hard way and walked around the bottom of this mountain range and tried to pop up below them. And as we were coming along, we noticed all the tusks had been like chewed real flat and we could smell the animals. So we knew they were around. It was just a matter of sort of finding them again. And as we looked up, there was this, they call them guts or slips or something like that. It's like these rock slips. And we just noticed that in it, there was a task standing.
00:40:25
Speaker
And it was only about 100 meters away. My friend, Robert, confirmed he had to bull, but he was like making his way down the ceiling. They can cover by the time you lift your rifle and get on your stomach, they've probably gone 150 meters. But they just they just cut around like it's nothing. And so he got set up on that. And I was on the camera and I was filming and confirmed the animal. And we just had to wait. And the animal popped up and we're standing looking around on us because it's got a wind. And then
00:40:54
Speaker
Rob put one into it using a two, four, three, and that just whacked it pretty hard. And we thought it just dropped on the spot. So we're like, yeah, yeah, that's done. But by the time we actually started having to get down there, we realized what we thought was like a flat alpine meadow was actually just, it was like bundles of this mountain tussock. And then there'd be like a four foot vertical cavity.
00:41:18
Speaker
and then it'd be like a two foot gap and then it'd be another tussock and then there'd be another cavity behind it so you was like hopping from like the tussock patches and if you fell into anyone you'd go a chest deep in between it it was really arduous trying to look around and probably yourself you see an animal go down from it was only like it ended up being about 230 meters or 220 meters so it wasn't that far away
00:41:42
Speaker
But while it's time to get down there and you're like, where was it? We're like, yeah, there was a bush and a bit of grass. There's bush and grass everywhere. Like everything looks exactly the same. That ended up being a couple of hours sort of hunting because they can fall down these crevasses and they can just disappear as well. So some of those crevasses can actually be quite deep. So yeah, it was just more, and they don't leave like blood trail as well when they're in that sort of area. So you just have to find the actual animal, which is very hairy, right? They have a lot of hair.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Huge, just big bushes. So it's going to be hard to get a blood trial that anyways, probably imagine just soaking up the blood. That's right. And I'm sure if there's anyone from New Zealand that's probably telling me I'm wrong, but we, being our first experience, we was out of our depth as well because we used to shoot deer and everything over here. Yeah, you get deer sometimes that don't bleed, but majority of the time, if they've got a good hole in them, you're finding blood.
00:42:31
Speaker
at least somewhere to start from so we luckily had filmed it we had to keep just watching the footage over and over again and we sort of rough idea where it was but the problem was every time we've got closer and closer we're getting further and further to the edge of this big plateau that we're on and it got to a point where we were like on the edge and we'd identified we're like no it's here it's going to be here then and while we're doing that
00:42:56
Speaker
My mate Rob, he was staying at the lookout for me because I guess you don't want to be too close together in case you both fall off a mountain. You want one of your buddies to be able to call a helicopter to come, yeah, try to retrieve your body once you've fallen off the edge, I guess you'd say. And while we're up there, we would pretty much ready to give up. I think it'd taken about three or four hours of looking and we're just like, this is gone. We're never going to find this animal. And we saw another mob of bull tar and they were just jumping down this cliff. So we got up and started filming those.
00:43:25
Speaker
And then just by chance, as I put my camera down, I look down to my left and I'm like, Tussock looks a bit weird. And I'm trying to call my mate over. I'm like, Rob, come down here. And he's just like, he's not, you're on your own. He's a big guy. Yeah. 110 kilos, big bro. He's a big mountain man. And he's saying to me, you're a nimble little guy. You go down there and you do it. And so I had to climb down this section down toward the lower plateau below us and tucked up underneath the Tussock. That's where the target ended up. Yeah. We're able to recover it.
00:43:54
Speaker
butchered it all out literally on the edge of the mountain. From that plateau where it landed on, it was a vertical drop, like hundreds of metres down to one of the glacial valleys below. So we sat there perched pretty precariously and butchered it all out, scanned it all out. So yeah, that was a pretty cool experience.
00:44:11
Speaker
That is awesome, man. That is cool. You have me excited to go down there and I want to do tar really bad. Now I feel like I want to go to Australia more than I want to go to New Zealand. You have six different kinds of deer and I love ungulates. I want to hunt high alpine. I didn't realize my mind. I just imagine like red sand and low desert. And you're telling me about high alpine above tree line hunting. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to go do this now.
00:44:37
Speaker
So that is definitely high on my list, because I obviously love glassing, right? It's one of my things. Yeah. Man, that's awesome. Yeah, dude. That's a great podcast. Tell me a little bit, you guys are so much Maven down there. You love Maven? Yeah. Yeah. That's how I've come to work. I work for the Modern Hunter, the general manager for there. Like you're saying, we distribute Maven and your gear to try some stuff. But by my first set of Mavens, about seven years ago, I've been using some old loopholes. They weren't even loopholes.
00:45:06
Speaker
call it Wind River or something like that. Can that be a Redfield? I can't remember. I bought them when I was probably 18 years old and I was coming up and I think I'd probably just turned 30 or 35 or something like that and I was just like it's time for me to upgrade. I need some good glass and I'd been looking and I'd always looked at Swarows and all the European glass and stuff and yeah I was nearly ready to pull the trigger on a pair of Swarovskis and a buddy of mine said have you seen these Maven binoculars? I was like nah. I started checking them out and yeah so then I bought my first set and I was blown away and
00:45:36
Speaker
Now I've got rifle scopes, binoculars, range fighters, and then I've been buying everything for Josh and it got to a point where he's just like, man, you're buying that much gear through me. You're so into it. He's like, why don't you come work for me? So that's how that sort of came to fruition. And yeah, so it's been a great product. We love it. It's just loves when we have taken to an expo and people pick these things up and they hear the price point, they come in out and they're comparing them to like your likers and your Swarovskis and just seeing how blown away people are by the performance of them. It's just such a cool product. The guys have really
00:46:07
Speaker
done an absolutely amazing job with all the Maven gear. Yeah, Mike and Craig are awesome to work with. Like I said, they're selling a ton of tripods. It's awesome for us. And they make some great gear. I've got some of their stuff. My partner says some of their stuff. I need to get one of their rifle scopes. I literally just bought a Leopold. Man, I should have bought a Maven. I should have called Mike up and got a Maven for this gun. And I don't know why I didn't even think about until I was done.
00:46:28
Speaker
I think I was in this Jack O'Connor kick with this whole wooden stock thing, and I was like, Jack O'Connor had a Leopold on his number two, 270, and I'm like, I want to do a Leopold, and I went from 270 to 36, so I don't know. I should have made it on that thing. What magnification range should you go with the VX5? Three to 15. Okay. Three to 15. Yeah, I'm a low power guy. I want the lowest low power. I like the VX3.
00:46:57
Speaker
I have like two or three of those as well. One of them was like, I think a three to 10 on my kid's gun. It's really nice. And then I have a couple of those four and a half to 14s, the VX3s, but the VX5 has the three to 15 range. I like having that low range to high range. Honestly, you never want to get caught with your gun on 10 power. You want it to be a low power and then you can adjust up if you have to.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah. These guys that are out there running these six to 24s, I don't understand it. I don't know what you're doing. That's not my thing. Maybe I'm not knocking you. Maybe you're doing that. I'm not sure. I'm a bit like you, the low power. I love, so the Maven, they had the RS1, which is the two and a half to 15, which is the first focal plane. And they've just done the 1.2. So I've done the same thing, but with an illuminated reticle in it.
00:47:43
Speaker
And that's originally what I wanted to put on my 300 WinMag, but I ended up going with the RS5, which is a big one. It's a 4-24x50. But the thing I noticed on the field of view on that thing on 4P, I was like, I've shot deer eight meters on that. I'll use it as a bush rifle. The low end of 4 is the field of view on that thing. It's so incredible. I can use it as a bush talking gun. It's a 50mm, it's a 50mm.
00:48:06
Speaker
That's right, yeah, I love the 50mm. A lot of the deer hunting we do here, it's always like winter and dark and you don't really have those big, bright days. So you want big objectives just for more light transmission. But that new RS1.2, the 2.5-15, that thing, yeah, sweet piece of gear.
00:48:25
Speaker
I should have did that instead i don't know i just have them on all my guns and i literally i bought it and then i was talking to me this week i was like man i don't know why i didn't get to pick up a maven and try it out because everyone loves them cody rich just swears by on my buddy jake i mean there's a lot of guys running on my buddy pat runs them he runs all of them are all their glass i said i'm running their spotting scope i really like their spotting scope the s1
00:48:46
Speaker
It's great. They make phenomenal gear. Maven makes phenomenal optics and they have it at a price point because they're selling direct to consumer that is reasonable. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's reasonable. They have lower end price point stuff, but for their high end, like their S1, the R1 that you're saying, you can get into that spot or for two grand, that was more or less than you're paying for other optics. Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
We outfitted a guy that had like a trip of a lifetime. I think he was going to like one of the Stan's kazakhic Stan or one of those doing, I think he was doing sheep, but it was like hunted a lot of time for this guy. He was going to buy, he was looking at all the lighter stuff, which awesome gear. And we're doing a hunting expo. He saw a spot and he's like, how much is this?
00:49:32
Speaker
and we showed him was that S series and he went back to the Lycra stand and came back and next thing he bought binoculars rangefinder spotting scope and he said I'm walking away with brand new optic system and it's cost me less than the Lycra or I'm trying to work it he was turning up between it's end of the day he bought our whole glassing system and it cost him less than the spotting scope that he was going to buy
00:49:54
Speaker
from the European. And it's great gear, man. Like I said, I have that spotter and I run it a lot and use it a lot. And it's just crisp and clean. And they're just doing it by having a direct consumer. You cannot buy it anywhere, but through Maven or through Modern Hunter in Australia. Yeah, that's the thing. We do get a couple of people saying that. You're a direct consumer. We have it here. That's the deal we have with Maven. I think so we become their sort of go-to guys. We can display, because a lot of people, they don't want to buy it because
00:50:23
Speaker
Everyone must have looked through it, but you can tell anyone, oh, it's clear. But until someone actually looks through the optic, that's what sells it.
00:50:30
Speaker
We get guys messing with us all the time, like, oh, but how good are they? How clear are they? Field of view. And they come in, sit an expo or a demo day or something. I look at them and they're just like, yeah, man, take the money. What else you got? They want to buy some more. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I don't know anybody who's complained about it. Like people just like the glass. Like I don't know anybody who's, Oh, I don't like it. It's, people love Maven. It's a great product that those guys are just doing great. And there's so a ton of stuff. They come out with some new stuff.
Maven Optics Innovations
00:50:54
Speaker
I don't know. They have a new smaller spotter coming out, which is awesome.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're doing a detachable eye cup because obviously yourself with the big spotters, I can take up a lot of real estate in the backpack. So I think with the new angled spotter, you can take the eye cup off and then it stores like a straight spotter.
00:51:12
Speaker
Really? That's kind of slick. Yeah, so if you're a bit hard up on that pack space or if you've got those smaller side pouches, you can actually just have this spotter once you're living in there because that is the one down for the angled. And I know some guys end up choosing straight spotters because they just want to sit in that pouch on the side of the pack or whatever.
00:51:31
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not a big spotter guy, like I love 15s, but then I went to the, I have the BTX and now sit next to me. I run the BTXs now, so now I'm definitely a spotter guy. I guess it's giant, but I'm running straight. So I have the Angle S1 and I have, I have a straight COWA 554 that I'm playing with. I really like that glass.
00:51:51
Speaker
And I got that new vortex. I want to try it. Everyone's talking about the new straight vortex. And I went straight just because they're easier to pack, right? Just fits in there. It's easier. And I don't you'll never find me glassing with a spot or like I just I glass with a
00:52:04
Speaker
Binoculars, if I find the animal, then I'll grab a spot around and look for it. Or if I see something like it might be an animal, I'll throw a spot around and look through it. I just not my, I won't have both eyes. That's why I love the BTX. Looking through that thing with both eyes is nice. Do you have a lot of guys over there with your glassing and stuff, especially for elk for instance, do a lot of guys use like those 15 by 56 or 18 by 56? Is that a popular thing? Oh dude, 15 by 56 is the binocular that won the West.
00:52:29
Speaker
Yeah. If you're an Arizona guy, or I'd even say SoCal, because all my SoCal guys, we all run this 50 by 50 sexes. Okay. Or a lot of guys, you go into the Maven has the 18s, right? And the 15s. Yeah. Oh man. Like I just, the 15s are just money. You do 18 because you have Maven. They're just money, man. Yeah. I don't even, I never use it. You don't need a spotter anymore. It's just, you run that and you can sit and you can have an enjoyable, for me, like glassing needs to be enjoyable.
00:52:59
Speaker
And glassing with one eye through a spotter is not enjoyable, but glassing with 15s is enjoyable. Now the kicker is they're heavy. I think they're almost two and a half pounds. So they're heavier than these spotters. These new spotters are coming out really light, but man, you can sit behind. I sit by my 15s for 10, 12 hours a day. I'm not going to sit there and look for you. Yeah. And that's become pretty popular with everyone over there in the States. Has it like just usually? Oh, not even, it's been popular forever. Forever. Yeah. Forever. The 15s.
00:53:26
Speaker
they'd change the glossing. It's, yeah, the coosier guys and those 15s are just, they're the way to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm looking at doing now. Going to pair 15 by 56 or 18 by 56 myself to add to the lineup and same thing. I actually enjoy sitting behind a camera, like a big ultra zoom camera, because I can just watch it all. And then if you say something cool, you start recording it, but I'll just find
00:53:49
Speaker
Using the spot is great once you've identified the animal and you can actually get right up and close with it But the majority of the glassing I'm with you like two eyes behind it and you can just glass all day Yeah, you're gonna find so many animals with those eight teams. You're never gonna go back You're gonna be like all these smokes like I I run I run eights on my chest Mm-hmm. And okay, and I'll put those on a tripod look through them I'll put the tripod a little bit but man like I'm almost exclusively with my 15s on my tripod
00:54:18
Speaker
15s on the tripod or now the BTX, we have the new JC coming out and the new BP, it's just built for the BTX and I've been running that thing a ton. I have probably 30 days behind this setup right here to my right this year. Yeah, man, the 15s, you can't beat them. If you were like, you get one binocular to use,
00:54:37
Speaker
It'd be the 15s. I would do the 15s. And that's it. And I wouldn't even take just the block because I'd use the 15s and sit behind a tripod and find animals because really you don't find a tennis ball offhand anyways. So I would just... Yeah, I guess that's where it's different. Like in Victoria, like I use 10x42s. 10x42s and 8x42s are very common. But that's just generally because the bush-stalk meter is quite thick.
00:54:58
Speaker
So even if you're only looking a hundred meters or eighty meters you're using the especially the same video cuz there are a dark brown so they look like every bit of bush we have but you're generally just using the binoculars to determine the difference between like bullshit because that they'll hide in this scrubby bush that we have a lot of the time.
00:55:17
Speaker
So the chest binos, you're just using it to constantly scan and look through the bushes rather than actually finding it. You don't really find animals out in the open. You're identifying an ear flicking between the tail of a bird, but to the ear of a deer, sort of thing. So that's what a lot of us use our chest binoculars for.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah. A hundred percent. Same thing. I'm hiking around. I'm taking them out, looking, looking down. Hey, it looks deary. It's looking there. Hey, I see something. I see something's moving. Look down in that Canyon. You know, you'd pick a lot of stuff up with them and I'd like to run eights on my chest. I'd like to have, uh, I run a range finding by now. I just like to have a range finder in there. Um, so awesome, dude. That was a good one. Let's do it again. I'm coming to Australia. So maybe we can do the next one in Australia. We'll do it. I've recalled B.
00:56:00
Speaker
So I'll do it, I'll do it down there with you. I'm like, I know I'm going back to Sonora. I already booked that. I got a ranch going next year. I have a really cool crew of guys going. I don't want to announce who's going yet, but I've got a super cool crew of guys going to Snore with me next year. What are you talking about? Coosdeer. You could do mule deer as well, but I love coosdeer. And we've got our own mountain ranch. It's just going to be, so we're going to, we're going to have a blast. We're going to have, I have a really cool group of guys going from the industry and just.
00:56:30
Speaker
friends, father-in-laws, dads. It's just going to be just like a fun camp, big glassing country. And we're going to be chasing the ghost in the rut in Mexico. It's going to be awesome. I'm trying. I really want to go hunt axis deer in Hawaii. So I'm looking at doing that with another guy in the industry. But now I'm like, man, I just want to go to Australia. And you guys are opposite. So you guys are wintertime opposite of us. So you guys are hunting
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. So your winter is during my summer. It's like when I can't hunt. So if I come down there in like June. Oh, you don't even have to hunt in winter. Like at the moment, like we're just coming out of our summer. Like we've had a bit of a weird summer here, but we're saying like there's been some absolute crack at like deer ship shot already.
00:57:13
Speaker
Yeah, because the thing is, like, down here, our deer, speaking mainly on the fallow, have more of a sort of definite, like, season, like when the stags have antlers or bucks have antlers, and when they rut and stuff like that, but the Samba deer, they at any time. So you might see a full antler polished out a stag and beside him is a stag that's in soft velvet and has only got soft nubs. So they can be you can shoot it if you're after like a trophy animal, you can shoot
00:57:47
Speaker
Really? And how I keep trying to, I keep trying to get you out of here an hour. I told you to get out an hour, but now I'm just like, so what about bringing a rifle down? Can I just use one of your rifles or do I, is it hard to bring a rifle? Can I bring a rifle in or how does that work?
00:58:03
Speaker
Coming from America, geez, I don't know. I think, I know a couple guys that have had mates come over from the States and stuff like that. And I think the easiest way is to use a local rifle and just apply. Yeah. And once again, that's where having the contacts and that's where social media and stuff like that's great. Where people can get in touch with people and swap a hunt for a hunt and whatever. But if you were keen to come down, you'd say, yes, wait, no worries. We'll just get your gang license permits all done, work out whatever thing. And I'll just, I could just give you a ride from where you just go get into it.
00:58:33
Speaker
I'm 30 out six only this year and you have a 30 out six. I can grab whatever you want. The 300 wind mag does it. I love the 300 wind mag because it'll just sort out anything. It's bad medicine for anything. That's right. But that's just a T-3X. Yeah, T-3X, but it's the feather light, so fluted barrel. It's super light. I'm left-handed, so I get so screwed on my rifles. I just trying to get a rifle.
00:58:58
Speaker
that fit that works is it's almost impossible, especially in wood. Apparently no one makes wood rifles anymore, especially left-handed. But yeah, I had a Tikka forever, two six, I killed all kinds of stuff with it, but it was left handed, but they don't offer the fluted one for lefties. We just get the basic teacher. Yeah. No, that's fine. But yeah, no, man. Anytime you want it, just hit me up. It's the office available. Anytime you want to come down. That'd be fun, man. We'll get you over here and go hunt with us. That'd be crazy. That'd be crazy. Go to an elk hunt.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, hunting alks on that's a bucket list hunt. So New Zealand with Martin, I want to get back to New Zealand, do the red stag and the roar. So hopefully probably try to plan that for next year, I believe. That's another bucket list, but yeah, doing alks, even to come up with a cameraman. I'd just love to just get out there. You don't have any points over here, right? I don't understand how you're, that's the thing. It's so weird. Okay. So you, so I guess what we need to get you to do then is you should just be, you have to
00:59:54
Speaker
So you can come over, we can do over the counter Colorado. It's gonna be hard if you get over the counter tag for elk. You have to have points to go to do the whole system, the draw system. We can do over the counter Colorado. I'm sure we can get you over the counter in, I think Montana. Idaho, we can get you a tag. You definitely can, you definitely could get a tag in Idaho. You can get your tag up there for sure. Like in the Frank or get you, like that would be really cool. Get you like a Frank church tag. Um,
01:00:22
Speaker
And then you can put it for New Mexico as well, because there's no points there. So you can put in for that, and if you draw it, you're going to come over and do it. Yeah. I think if I were you, and I wanted to have a good hunt, I think Idaho's the way I would go. Idaho. Idaho's the way I would go. 100%. I'm thinking about it right now. You're not going to need points. You'd be able to do the draw system the same way we do it. You'd probably have to wake up. You're so opposite of us. You'd be like midnight there or something, because it's 8 in the morning here. We're opposite. You're 8 AM there right now, and I'm
01:00:52
Speaker
What do you do at the moment? It's nearly midday here. Yes, I don't know what it would be. You'd be late, but it's worth it. You'd get to be late, but I think Idaho is the way you should go. We can get you an Idaho tag and get you over here to go hunt. Not going to piss off any locals having some foreigner turning up. Oh no, screw them.
01:01:11
Speaker
Yeah. I've heard some places get pretty, um, get their backup, don't they? With like guys coming from out of state, out of country, rocking up and buying. Yeah. Everyone's, especially if you're from California, I'm in California, everyone hates us. We just screw everything up to everybody. Nobody likes Californians. And plus we're moving, we're all moving to their states. Then they move, people move from our state. They vote the same way they voted here and screw their sums. We're driving, we're driving. In California, I live in a house that costs me a half million dollars.
01:01:39
Speaker
10 years ago, it's worth a million dollars now and it's 80 years old. It's a pile. It's not even a nice house. It's a scalpel for everything so expensive. I can leave here and go buy a freaking giant house, like he's a property in Montana or Idaho for selling my house for a million and buy a house for 400,000. People are doing it all day long. The problem is that house is only worth 200,000 and we're screwing everybody over.
01:02:02
Speaker
raising the rates of everybody up there. That's a whole other conversation. I'm sorry. I'm sorry out of state or from California, write me a DM me how much I suck. I can have no problem. I've never had issues with people out of state. Like I enjoyed when I was state. I think as long as you're not a freaking asshole, people are going to treat you good.
Hunting in the U.S. and Future Plans
01:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. Do you guys like encounter many other people like when you go hunting? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You do for sure. That's why I'm saying if you want to do like, it's how I wouldn't want to do like over the counter Colorado, we call it like the orange army.
01:02:31
Speaker
You're going to see so many people. If we had Idaho, especially we did like a Francon, we could fly in. And is that for Elk, is it? Elk, yeah. You'd be able to do Elk and Deer for the same unit. You'll get two tags at the same time. Yeah, that sounds cool. It'd be fun. Yeah, if you get in there and do it.
01:02:52
Speaker
We could bug the limit this guy. So if we can't do it, you should do that. I tried it off with those guys, man. The guys that limit this, they hunt up there a lot. I'm sure they want to go to Australia and go hunting. The only hard thing is the deer species we have down here, like mainly, like I just love targeting Sam, but they were brought in over from India. So they're natural predators of the target.
01:03:10
Speaker
So like they call the gray ghost over here because they're just, you get guys over here that have been like in their early career. Like some of them go, Oh, it's a bit different now. Cause the deer population become bigger. But like when I first started hunting them, it used to be an achievement. Just a CD. Like you could go this, there's guys that have gone years that haven't shot one. And there's some guys that I took a guy at one time. He'd been hunting for about three or four years and we
01:03:39
Speaker
like I spotted a deer, and I'm like, I'll blast the deer up. And his eyes just went up, he's like, where? I was like, it's just over there. He got the binoculars on it, and he nearly wet his pants. I'm like, are you okay? And he goes, I've never seen one in the bush. So this guy's been going out for four years and had never laid eyes on one. Granted, this was years ago, and the population has become bigger, but they're definitely, I've hunted for a long time, and I can have a trip sometimes, you go up five, six times, and don't see a deer.
01:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, they can be really tricky to nail there because they just move constantly. So you might have a little honey hole and you just go there and sometimes it's not there or you just can't get on because they've just, the wind's slightly wrong, whatever. They'll just bug you out straight away. They just do not want to be around. Again, it makes me excited. I love glassing and finding them. Now you call them the great ghost and my favorite gear is the great ghost over here. Yeah.
01:04:34
Speaker
Let's wrap this thing up, man. Let's do it again. I'm coming to Australia. You're coming here. We're going to go to Idaho and hunt together. We're going to piss off a bunch of Idaho guys. Who's this foreigner? Thanks, bro. Let's do it again. No worries, man. Thanks for having me on.
Podcast Conclusion and Promotions
01:04:55
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Tricer Podcast. Do us a favor and 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.