January 12, 2023 • 46 mins
This week on Gear Talk, Jordan and Janis briefly recap their 2022 seasons then dive into their top gear picks for the year. They discuss snowmobiles, side by sides, boots, tripod heads, tents, rain gear and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
What's up everyone, Welcome back to Meat eaters Ere Talk podcast.
Jordan bud here your co host and then co hosting
with me. Is you honest, I'll tell us he's on
and uh yeah, we're just gonna do a quick recap
over I don't know, in the last couple of months
of the year, and then we're into the new year
now and we're gonna talk a little bit about the
(00:33):
gear we used, and it's pretty much it. What's been
going on, Ynnie, Uh, you know for me ever since
I got back from Latvia in September. And if you
want to hear how that hunt went, go check out
the h I think it was the Christmas episode of
the Meat Eater Podcast. Is that right? I think so? Yeah,
(00:54):
we're uh, Steve quiz me a little bit about my
trip over there. Let's do are fun? Uh, But since Latvia,
I did a couple of Wisconsin white tail deer hunts.
Unfortunately was not successful, but I had a good time,
learned a lot. And then since then, really once uh
(01:15):
December opened up or started, well, I was gonna say,
all I've been doing his line hunting. That's not true.
I went out with Max Barda for the first week
of December, and did some goose hunting, some dry uh
what do they call it? Dry field? I'm such an
inexperienced waterfall hunt I alna even know what it's called.
But we hunted geese in Montana. We also got lucky
(01:37):
and had some ducks come in on our spread one day,
so I think we had like a bonus three or
four mallards um, which is super fun. But since then
it's been all uh, lion hunting all the time, as
much as possible, which it turns out I'm learning this
slowly is because I'd like to say I'm just out
(01:57):
there catching lions, but actually I'm just out there are um,
driving my snowmobile, driving my truck and hiking looking for
mountain lion or bobcat tracks. And I wish I had
had a better journal CAPTI than me and go back
and write down my notes for the year to tell
you like how many days I have to go look
just to find a track, and then how many you
(02:21):
know tracks I find versus how how many times that equals,
you know, finding getting a cat in a tree? But
right now the tally as of the fourth of January
or sorry, the fifth of January is two mount lions
and one bobcat. So that's what I've been up to.
(02:42):
What about you, Oh, I think, uh last time we
talked was probably I think we just got done with
the Idaho general season. I shot a buck there and
then I went to Wyoming on a tag that I
drew and just we just had. It was rough. It
was really rough. It's far as I just saw like,
I didn't see very many bucks at all, saw tons
(03:04):
of does, didn't see very many bucks saw. Everything we
did see was pretty little. So um, we were there
for like four or five days, and then we went
to Montana and uh Leah shot a buck like pretty
much the first morning that we were there, and then
that was it. That kind of closed out our our
(03:24):
western hunting, well a little bit of our western hunting.
And then I went back to Nebraska and guided through
November and December the first part of December and got
the got the outfit, taken care of as far as
clients go, and then man, that's pretty much it, or
I guess I did. I went back to Montana with
we did a hunt with six hour in Montana, I
shot a white tail buck. So m hmm. That's right.
(03:47):
I saw that with Lydia Smith and a couple other gals. Yeah,
Jess Johnson was there and it was fun. And if
you want to see uh, Jordan's Fall full of mule
deer hunting, Uh, you can check out what you call
the you put together. Actually, that's a good question. I
(04:07):
don't remember what I called it. I think I just
said mule deer, right, or the hunting moon or something.
The hunting moon, Yeah, which is a very clever, cute
little idea. There's the hunting Moon. I don't know how
many other people have you used that, but you're probably
not the first one. But I like, I like the
idea of a hunting man. It was a man, it was.
(04:30):
It was a blast, honestly, it was so fun. So
since then, I've just been back in Idaho trying to hike,
have been hitting the winter range a little bit, just
like looking at Bucks and just trying to, I don't know,
get out more than anything, stay out and try not
to get too comfy in the house because it's pretty
easy to do. After you've been out for you know,
(04:53):
kind of a hard fall or a long fall. Oh,
it's so easy to do. It gets cold, that's One
of the great things I think I feel about cat
hunting and hound hunting in the winter is that it's
been still getting me up early in the morning, getting
me out. I saw him in getting as much hiking
in as I'd like to, because, like I said, there's
a lot of time spent just driving, uh whatever vehicle
(05:16):
it is to you know, try to find the tracks.
But hopelly, my luck is gonna change. I'll start finding
more tracks and that that always leads to more hiking. Yeah. Sweet,
what's your What is your three shaping up? So far?
It's kind of crazy. Like before, it seems like the
season barely gets over and it's already application season right now. Yeah,
(05:40):
my spring, I don't I don't want to say that
I've got like every single date planned, but I think
I've I've pretty much got an idea at least of
what I'm doing. I mean, it's as far as hunting goes,
it's the lion hunting is gonna lead or right into turkeys.
Steve and I drew a Seola tags in Florida's We're
going to film a meteor episode down in Florida for Ociola,
(06:03):
which I'm super excited about and that's early March, so
I actually like get back from that and still be
able to lion hunt for another month, but uh, you know,
that'll roll right into you know, regular Turkey and then um,
I'll probably squeeze in a solid week of bear hunting.
I really want to put some effort into that this
year and get myself bear and uh you know, yeah,
(06:27):
then it'll be a short you know summer and uh
we'll be uh right back into fall. So yeah, it's
crazy to think how fast it all goes. But um,
I don't know, there's I got a lot of irons
in the fire for the fall. I probably need to
sit down and like you know, pick and choose and
and focus in on what it's gonna be and you know,
(06:49):
make sure I got the hunts planned with the kids
and plenty of time set aside for all that. So
um and then you know how it is, it's always
with that with applying for tags, and I don't do
a bunch of states compared to others. I do like
three or four. But I'm getting to the point in
some states where I could get lucky and uh, you
(07:09):
know and draw a good tag, which kind of always
throws a ranch in things. But yeah, yeah, there's a
there's a there's an ELK tag that I should draw.
I'm like right on the cusp of the points, especially
if we keep getting some creep happening. Um, but I
should draw it. Hopefully that will be like a November
kind of like a later season l count, which I
(07:31):
really like with a rifle. And then man, it's kind
of just general, some general stuff. We're actually talking about
going to Hawaii in May for access here and then
attack on a couple extra days for uh, just a
little relaxation trip in Hawaii, so I haven't been down there,
(07:52):
so that'll be interesting, especially to see like how they
hunt on the island too, I think will be pretty cool. Yeah.
I like to do that too. It's a great way
to do some big game hunting with your bow, you know,
and staying stay in bow shape. I guess you, I
guess you can probably hunt them with whatever you want
when you're there, right because I don't think they really
(08:12):
have seasons, so it's pretty open. Yeah, pretty open for
what weapon you want to use. But uh, yeah, we
that's that's I I forgot. We might go to Texas
in February March to do some nil guy calling actually,
and then if we did that, we'd go down and
(08:32):
uh and try to shoot some pigs with the bow
and arrow too. All right, let's get to uh top
top you put in their top. We have a little
outline that Jordan I work off of, and it's a
top three gear items of the year. And that was
very daunting when I saw that, I like, there's no
(08:53):
way I can pick out like top three gear items.
So I ended up with four. And I ended up
just deciding that instead of like the top three that
I don't know because I don't know how you'd even
value rate that. But it's more like what I'm excited about,
what I've had fun using what seems to be, you know,
working well for me. So anyways, you want to kick
(09:16):
it off, Yeah, yeah, I'll kick it off. So I
started we started using the the ar Golly, the fourth person.
I think they call it the Absaroka tent Um. It's
basically it's they call it the fourth person. It's been
good for two of us. And then you can still
put gear in a two. It's like tick under three pounds,
(09:36):
just as the tent fly is. And then you can
pitch it. You can pitch it with their pole, or
you can actually just had new treking polls that came
out that they have like a connector that screws on
the top of one treking pole and the screws on
to the top of the other one, So then you
can get like a super extended one pole, and so
you could pitch it like that too, which I used.
(09:58):
We used it like that a couple of times in
the pretty nice. But it definitely it definitely saves the weight.
But I've I've found for me every time I do that,
I'm like, well, but now I want my checking polls,
So don't bring my tent down and pack it all
with me. If you're gonna hunt like that, it's great.
But if you're gonna like set up a base camp
and then hunt out of it, it's definitely better just
to bring the center pole. Yeah, you know, I've done
(10:20):
like a couple of times with tents. Is like you
know when they have the trekking pole tents that you
have to use your two trekking poles, not just one together.
It's like, well, I'm thinking of like the Seek outside
the Oldists or something like that. Um, I would leave
one pole up and then when we left in the morning,
I would take the other pole out so I could
(10:40):
use it, and then just like set a rock on
top of the tents so it wouldn't flop around. And
then when I got back, I could just take the
back up. And it seems I guess you could always
just have a saw with you and uh just cut
a just cut a nice long straight young you know,
(11:00):
for tree or something. True. Yeah there, but uh yeah
to the this ur golly it. Uh you can get
like a net like floor insert And I used that
when we were in Alaska this year caribou hunting, so
I used that. I didn't know what the bugs situation
(11:21):
was going to be like, so I wanted to have
the net. But here in the lower forty eight, like
we just to save a little bit of the bulk
we just ended up. I went to Ari. I think
it bought like a Nemo three person footprint for a tent,
and then it has little steak points on it so
you could stick it out inside of the floral less
(11:44):
and then it's like your ground sheet for sleeping pads
and for and we we had our pads right side
by side together. But if you were just going by yourself.
You could get like a one person or two person
and they're pretty light, full down, small, fairly durable MATERI
areal it seemed like, and uh yeah you can stick
them out and then it's a good groundcloth for your pad,
(12:06):
uh to help you know, protect it and does some
other things too. So that's pretty much what we ran.
And that was I mean, that was like, that was
awesome for for two of us, and even like just
for one person packing it in, it's you know, it's
not heavy, especially when you compare something the size of
like the footprint that you get with that and the
(12:28):
size compared to like just a regular pitched free standing
tent with the same way, like you just get a
lot more room. So that was pretty awesome. Yeah, I'm
a fan. There's still a lot of people that will
comment when I do a post about a floorless tent,
like why would you you know, skip the floor and
(12:51):
you know water is gonna get in there and um,
you know bugs and snakes and whatever. Uh. I guess
where we hunt mostly out West, it just it's not
an issue and the water, you know, unless you just
happen to like pitch in a place where you know
you pitched it in a low spot, meaning that everything
(13:13):
around you is higher and it's going to cause the
water to run to you, um, which would be just
a bad move on your part. And if you even
if you put up you know, regular tent with the
bathtub floor, if it all ran in there, it was
just soaking like that, um. And you have the pressure
of your body laying there, it's gonna push that moisture
(13:34):
through there too. Um. So that's you know, if you
pitch your tent in a proper location, moisture is not
anything to worry about. But the big advantage is, like
you said, just the room. There's so much more room.
It's so much more comfortable, and you don't notice it
when the weather is nice because you're not spending time
in your tent. You like, you get in there, getting
(13:55):
your bag and you go to sleep. But when you
get caught and it's like a trip where there's a
bunch of rain or some snow or you're fogged in
and you're all sudden you're hanging out in the tent. Um, Man,
does it make a difference just to be able to
get out of the weather and hang out comfortably. You know,
read a book yeah, and I'm like that specific one.
(14:16):
I'm like five ten and I can. I have to
like tilt my head over a little bit when I'm
in it, but you can stand up. At least, you know,
you're not only being able to sit up and your
head's hitting the top of the tent. So that's nice.
And then not even to mention like being able to
run a stove in it. You know, some of these
companies like Seek Outside, Kafaru, there's other ones that are
(14:38):
popping up now. They're making these little stoves you can
carry with you, wood stoves that are like two pounds,
and so, yeah, toss a two pounds stove in there,
and especially later season when you want to dry stuff
out or honestly, it just gets dark really fast, and
it gets dark at five thirty and then you're just
(14:59):
sitting there for three hours while you're waiting to go
to bed or whatever. It's nice to have a fire ribbon. Yeah, yeah,
it's the more comfortably you are, the harder you're gonna hunt,
the longer you're gonna hunt. Hopefully that equals more success.
All right, what else you got? Uh? I guess second
on mine, I've got a set of boots that I
(15:20):
ran this year, the Crispy Bristol Pro. They're a ten
inch tall, I wrote, or I wore the regular Bristol
quite a bit. I really like that boot, but it
is I think it's a seven inch hot height. So
the pros they just made those tens. There are two
Graham insulation, which it's like not a lot, but it's
(15:43):
pretty good for me and might be get pretty cold easy,
so even in like October, being able to just like
knock the chill off as long as you can start
warm usually. Um Uh, it's a leather boot, the flex,
you know, like out of a five scale a flex,
it's a four, so it's pretty narrow too. It's like
(16:06):
it's a good for me, Like I like a stiffer boot.
I've had some ankle issues where I've like rolled my
ankle really bad, stretched it out, and really soft flexible boots,
especially like side hilling or going straight up a hill,
have seemed to give me fits. But so a stiffer
boot has really helped me with that. So, um that
(16:27):
to me is like a good It's a good combination
of like a mountaineering type like fit where it's really
a narrow like it's a it's a technical type boot,
but it's still like full leather and still has some
good rock or to it. It's still comfy, if that
makes sense. It doesn't feel just like a ski boot. Um.
(16:49):
So yeah, do you feel like you could hike in
that boot on a like a hard packed trail for
five miles and it would still be comfortable? Yeah? I do. Yeah,
I think so. And then even I've been wearing it
quite a bit um here in the off season, just
like and most of that has been on trails, So
it's a yeah, it was a good boot for me. Yeah,
(17:09):
I need to I need to figure out what I'm
gonna try it from Crispy that might be the the
thing to try. I need something just a little bit
of insulation, um, especially for a running around this time
of year. Um, which I'll, i'll, i'll, i'll. That's a
nice segue because one of my one of my top
picks two that I've been excited about was boots. And
(17:30):
what I've mostly been wearing. I'll start with with these
mostly been wearing i'd say most of the fall, aside
from the early season, which was i'd say through September.
It's still the Schnas Bear tooth, and I've been trying
some other boots. I'm not gonna get into all the
other boots that I've tried this fall, but I keep
coming back to those. It's just a really solid all around,
(17:54):
you know, leather boot. UM. Certainly not as stiff. I've
never haven't worn that Brickstol, but I don't think it's
nearly as stiff as that. UM. It's definitely a little
bit softer, which in a way is nice because there's
literally almost no breaking period. I feel like with those
bare tooths UM, and they just they're comfortable. My feet
(18:14):
have a the Romas in them, and so a super
stiff soul will irritate that after a while and you know,
cause me a lot of pain. So that a little
bit of a softer flex is nice. I think they
put it on the the one or two scale over
there Schnais out of a four UM. But it's just uh,
it's it's kind of a no frills kind of a boot,
(18:37):
which I like about it. They got a new uh,
they changed a couple of the islets on it and
so it laces up even faster. UM. They got rid
of that kind of locking islet that was the one
around the ankles, which I never was a huge fan of,
but um, just solid, solid, uh boot. And sometimes I
feel like, oh, everybody needs to come up with something new,
(18:59):
but then you go back to like the old trusted
product and you're like, oh, yeah, this is solid and
I can trust it and it works every day. But
that being said, when I can get away with something lighter,
I do. And this September I was running around in
the han Wog Makra, which my first pair of Hanwags.
(19:21):
I've had a few friends, uh that have worn it.
I worn it on our caribou hunt in Alaska. I
really liked it. Super lightweight, but definitely stiffer. And again
I know it's it's it's hard to you know, tell
people when we say stiffer, lighter, what exactly that means.
Me A lot of the stuff we learned from Kendall,
(19:41):
you know, a couple of weeks ago and to how
those ratings can change between companies, but certainly stiffer than
my bear tooths, and it does that stiffness does perform,
like you were saying, side hill and going straight up
steep stuff. Um, you don't you can kind of just
kick in your boots a little bit harder, you know,
(20:03):
into the side of a hill, which I think chasing
Elk in September. I really like it, and I like
just it's a it's a shorter boot, it's generally lighter
um and it makes me feel faster. Whether or not
I actually am, I don't know, but it's a great
boot fit good it. I think it still has plenty
(20:24):
of life left in it for for next September two.
I feel like when you're talking about the bear Tooths,
those are that's a boot that's like oftentimes we'll hear
people ask what if you could only have one? Because
we do, you know, we are lucky enough if we
get to use a lot of different boots and boots
that are meant to be in certain situations. But it's like,
(20:47):
if you're somebody that hunts September through November, like the
Macra might not be the greatest boot for November or yeah,
but like the bear Tooth or something like that is
kind of if you can only have one boot, like,
that's a boot to look at. And I think I've
been using the Timberline just for like maybe the last month,
(21:08):
and that's a boot for me. Then I'm like, if
somebody was looking for a boot, that's like, if you
could only have one, I think that that would be
that could be a good option too. Yeah, it's very
similar to the bare tooth. It's one flex rating less
then the bare tooth has um but very similar like
(21:30):
easy to break in, comfortable right out of the box,
and uh yeah right, Like if you had to, you
could easily wear that uninsulated bear tooth from August all
the way into December. I mean I've been running around
Mount Lion hunting and hunting in it in some super
cold tempts and yes, on a zero degree day to
(21:50):
my feet start to get cold mid day, you know,
especially if I'm not moving around. Is doing too much,
is riding on the snowmobile? Yes, um, But that being said,
it's still is still getting the job done for the
most sweet And that's what those like brickstels for me
are two is like, if I could only have one boot,
like that's probably what I would choose, insulated or none.
I they do make it on a non insulated I
(22:13):
would still probably stick with the even even in the
early season, Like my feet just sweat anyways, So it's
like I don't know. I would rather have them for
it when you're dipping a little later in the season
and deal with the hotness early season. Interesting. I'm just
gonna go with another pair of thicker socks when it
(22:34):
gets Yeah, dive into your next one. Yeah. It's this
kind of a combo gear combo serious Apollo arrows and
the tough head evolution. Uh two point o broadheads. I
(22:58):
shot two critters with those this year. Um, a nil
guy in February and then a bull elk in September. Uh.
Both times they performed absolutely well. The nil guy I
hit exactly where I was aiming. Um, it was a
heavy quarter and away shot had to go through a
(23:18):
bunch of guts to get to the vitals. It did.
I believe that the setup that that is a single blade, uh,
single bevel um heavy arrow gave me that penetration of
at least two ft maybe you know, three ft of
of like seriously dense gut to get into the vitals,
(23:40):
stowing all the way through the vitals and almost poked
out the front end of the animal. Um, it was
not great blood until he started coming uh you know,
blood started coming out of his mouth and nose, because
because I got the lungs, but at that point he
pretty much tipped over and died anyway, So he went
sixty seventy yard. It's um, my elk wasn't quite so
(24:03):
good of a shot, same same positioning, just a little
bit farther the you know, quartering away, but a little
bit farther instead of twenty five, it was closer to
forty and ended up hitting him in the key star,
which I think I can't remember I talked about on
this podcast or on or on the Mediator podcast, but
either way you can listen to the whole story somewhere else.
(24:24):
But both instances, it just it worked really well. Whether
it was you know, exactly where I was aiming, or
if the animal jumped and I missed my mark a
little bit. Um, it did the trick, and I was
able to quickly recover both animals, and uh just very
pleasantly surprised. UM. I did actually switch over to try
(24:46):
some eastern accesses in for my white tail deer hunting,
and I was going to try the iron will broadheads
on that hunt. Unfortunately I just never got a shot opportunity.
So hopefully this year I'll be able report on the
performance of those. But yeah, super stoked on on how
they worked. And um, it's a heavy set up, six
(25:09):
fifty grains. It's a it's a slow moving set up.
But like I said, for the two times that well,
I should say two times on on big heavy bone critters,
it worked very well. I also shot two pigs. One
I hit right where I was where I should have
hit it. It died immediately. The other pig I hit
high like in the and basically across the backstrap, you know,
(25:34):
missed the vitals, missed the spine. And uh, I'm pretty
sure that pigs still living unless it's um, you know,
I don't know, be eaten being eaten by some predator
or somebody else shot it. So uh yeah, let's see you.
Uh what else did you have on your list? So,
(25:55):
something that I've been using a long time quite a
long time now is the doorsman's pan head. And one
of the reasons I wanted to talk about it is
just its integration with like pan head to the window
mount to like your bino adapter. Um. Like, there's a
ton of different tripod heads out there, and like there's
(26:17):
certainly some that are cheaper, like, uh, you can pick
up I think that Doorsmans pan heads like four hundred
bucks and you're talking about the new one that's like
a little bit bigger. Right now, this is just the
regular pan head. I think it's like the first head
that they ever came out with. Two got it, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we got on the meat Eater site for yeah. So
(26:43):
a little more expensive than what you can get. But
one thing I really like about it is if you're
looking at the head on the bottom of it, it
actually has a dove tail type system that is the
same as like the the plate that you would put
on your on your binoculars or on your spotting scope
(27:03):
to put on top of the head. It's hard to
explain because there's just not a lot of other people
that do it like that. What you can do with
that is on your tripod, no matter what tripods you're using,
you can put their quick detach on top of that tripod,
so it is just a dovetail slide your head on
(27:25):
top of your tripod instead of screwing it on. And
what that does for me is like a lot of
the times, especially in Nebraska later season, we are we're
out of vehicles a lot, and we're using window mounts
a lot. So like if you use a window mount
a lot, this is where I think this system really shines. Um. Basically,
(27:45):
their window mount is just a little thing. It's basically
you can hold it in my hand. It's pretty small.
You screwed on your window and then it has the
dovetail on top of it to receive the tripod head,
so I can I can slide the tripod head off
of a tripod and put it onto the window mount,
(28:05):
and then I'm using the same head on my window
mount as I am on my tripod, and then everything
like all my adapters for for my bino adapters for
spotting scopes, all my plates will still work on my
window mount. Where like typically you get into a situation
where like you have your tripod in your head system
(28:29):
and you have to take your spotting scope off of it,
take your plate off, put the plate on for your
window mount, and run it like that. This one just
this system just keeps it like, just keeps it more streamlined.
You're not losing plates forgetting to put them back on whatever. Um,
And yeah, it's just a system. Nothing nothing worse than
(28:51):
showing up for a hunt and realizing that you've got
everything besides like three plates and you need one for
you know, binoculars spot or and I don't know, maybe
you have a like a shooting v or something said,
you know, attached to war, but nothing worse. When you're like, oh,
I'm gonna have to change plates like every single time
between things, that's a that's a I've never thought. I've
(29:13):
never mess with their window mount. It's something I might
have to, because, yeah, that is slick when you can
just take the whole tripod head and just move it
from tripod over to the window mount. Yeah, And I
think like if you have hunting buddies that you're hunting
with a lot, like if you can get them kind
of all everybody on the same system, then like I can.
(29:35):
I can give you my spatting scope. You could throw
it on your head real quick, like you can switch
things back and forth if you want to look through
my fifteens or whatever. It already is going to have
the same bin amount on it to just switch everything around.
So it's like kind of an expensive entry to get
into it. But man, like I've been using that system
(29:56):
for a long time and I just like I can't
get myself to switch because it's so slick. So yeah,
my only uh critique about that head is that I
have a hard time finding like locking it to a
(30:16):
position where it'll still move, but the weight of whatever
is on there won't let it won't make it fall over.
Does that make sense? Where like it's almost like it's
either kind of locked off solid to where you can't
move the head, or you open it up and the
thing gets so much plan it that you almost have
(30:37):
to be holding onto the the handle to keep it
from from you know, falling up and down. So usually
when I'm usually when I'm doing that head, I'll lock
off the tilt and just keep the pan open and
just pan left and right, and then I'll adjust the
tilt to another you know section of hill that I'm glassing,
and then lock it off again and do that. Yeah,
(30:59):
it is like it's not like a like a video
head that you can move around. But uh yeah, lightweight.
You gotta love it. Yeah, all right, Um, the omen
rain pants, but I'm gonna talk about how they're great
for hunting and snow. Um, I'm kind of fed up
with gators and I've tried a bunch of them, and
(31:21):
I mean a bunch of them. I think I'm sitting
on four different pairs right now, and I think it's
they are the four They're the best on the market
right now. Um, and they all seem to have the
same problem. No matter how tight I get it up
at the top of my calf, eventually, you know, if
it is deep snow, it's actually over the top of
(31:43):
the gator. Eventually snow starts to build up at that
the junction between the top of the gator and my pants.
You're getting snow in there. Maybe a buckle comes loose,
you get more snow in there. Uh, they'll eventually it
seems like they get pushed down or they slide down,
you know, if you're like they get caught maybe on
(32:03):
a log you're crossing, they get kind of slid down
a little bit. You don't notice. Then you have snow,
you know, above them on your pants. It's just it's me.
It's an imperfect system. Um. On the bottoms, I always
I feel like, no matter how perfect, I get that
fit on the on the on my boot and stretch
them out nice and tighten and you know, get my
(32:25):
the stirrup not you know, just right. Eventually snow can
still work in between the gator and my usually leather
boot and it's gonna slowly just start to get that
boot wet. UM. So instead, I took a little something
from what back country skiers do and also my buddy
(32:46):
Jake because my main line mentor, he runs this program too,
but basically running heavy duty rain pants for hunting in
the snow, and those I don't know if I'm sure
there's other Honey company that have an internal gator built
into their snow snow pants too, but most Skei pants do. Um,
it's got some elastic on it, and then we'll usually
(33:08):
have like a clip that you can pull down and
attached to your boot lace that just kind of it's
more of a hook than a clip, and that internal
gator stays down and then you have your you know,
your pants over the top of that. The Olman actually
also has holes in the pants themselves where you're in
the cuff where it's like a groment where you could
(33:30):
run a string from one side to the other for
I guess extra you know, protection from keeping the pant
riding up, because that's that's gonna be the downfall and
with this system is if that little lace comes undone
and you're you know, plowing through super deep snow and
it just gets pushed up above your boot and then
(33:50):
again you're gonna have snow top of the boot sock area,
so on and so forth. But um, last year I
actually broke some of those internal gators because I was
wearing the Omen pants in a in a large regular
and I was putting too much stress because my legs
were too long and putting too much stress on that
boot lace clip. I broke those and pretty much once
(34:13):
you break that that internal gators, I don't want to
say worthless, but it went from being great to not
so not so good at all. Now that I have
the large longs, you know, I still have the freedom
of movement. It's not putting so much stress. And I
don't know of probably hunting twenty days with them off
on the snowmobile and hound hunting, nothing's broken and I
(34:37):
haven't had any snow getting up into my program. So
I think, you know, you don't have to be lion
hunting or or you know, hound hunting in the in
the deep snow to to use these this way. I
think that anytime you're hunting, you know foot plus I
mean you could certainly use them in six inches of
snow to a foot plus of snow. They're gonna shine, um,
(35:01):
because you're probably I think the one downfall is gonna
be that they're not gonna be as quiet, you know,
as as a lot of other materials. But you know,
if I'm rifle hunting elk late season, um, I think
I can be quite enough wearing that uh Omen rain
gear that I could get to within rifle range pretty easily.
(35:22):
So yeah, they've been been tough, you know, overall, but
I think it's it's my go to right now for
when I'm you know, out and about lion hunting. They've
got the full length side vents, so when we do
get to hiking, I can drop those zippers down off
my waist. Let a little air in there, um, because
that again is it's gonna be something you fight too.
(35:42):
When you're wearing a four and a half layer waterproof pant.
Is that when you start really hiking hard, it's gonna
get hot in there, so you're gonna have to vent
it out a little bit. Yeah, are you just wearing
a bass layer under that? Are you wearing pants just
a bass layer? Just that I'm glad you asked that question,
because that's a good point. Just wearing the bass layer. Um.
(36:07):
If yeah, and it's been great for the time if
it's a day where we don't really go out, if
it's much below zero. But if I knew that the
high was gonna be five degrees, I might wear you know,
a second bass layer or like a thin, you know,
(36:27):
fleece pant under there. I'm probably not gonna wear like
a full on hunting pant under there because it's just
unnecessary and like I don't need more pockets or whatever
I'm gonna have in there. Um, I'd rather have something
that's just adding just a little bit of insulation, a
little bit of warmth. Um. But again you run into
the problem where even if the highest five degrees, once
you start hiking up some hill through deep snow, it's
(36:51):
you're gonna get hot, you know. So Um again, how
it's like not the perfect system. I haven't figured it out,
because it'd be great just have like a puffy, warm
shell you know that you're wearing over that as you're
you know, putting around in the on the snowmobile for
hours and then when you kind of track and need
to go hike after it, you could just peel that
(37:13):
off and still have your you know, rank gear just
over a thin bass layer. But um, yeah, that's uh
it's been working, so I've been definitely I've been wearing
them more. Is just like my general outer pant versus uh,
you know, using them just as a rain layer to
put on later. Yeah, I've heard of guys doing that
(37:34):
in a like Alaska where it's really if it's really wet,
they're like, we're not taking the rain pants off anyway,
so they'll just leave like their regular pants back so
they don't even have a chance to get wet, so
they know they have like a dry pair and then
they're bringing their rain pants with them anyway, so they'll
just put them on over base layers where them as
their pants get back, then they can take them off,
(37:56):
put dry pants on to hang out in or whatever.
So that's it. I think it's a good system, No,
it is. I did that on a an Alaskan doll
sheet punt with Steve when we filmed with his brother,
and it was a very wet week and I spent
you know, I think all the time that week just
wearing a bass layer bottom and uh rain pants over
(38:21):
the top of that, and it was it was the
way to go nice nice, ready for the heavy hitters.
Oh yeah, these are heavy. Um. I just got a
new I just got a new snowmobile. Um. Wasn't planning
on it. But at the end of last year, I've
been riding my two thousand six playists r M K
(38:44):
and I was making do it was fine. But then
we uh we we filmed a little bit off of snowmobiles,
filmed a lion hunt, and uh, because we had so
many people, we needed to rent a couple of snowmobiles,
and so we rented some new sleds and you know,
just for fun. When we had a little bit of
(39:04):
an open powder field, I jumped on one of the
new ones and zifted around a little bit, and I I
was just like, oh my gosh, what have what am
I missy here? Like just like you know, and it's just,
you know, my old one was almost twenty years old. Uh.
Technology and um just improvements, I guess, and ergonomics. I
(39:27):
don't even know how to put it into words. But
it's all improved, it's all changed. It's way better, way easier.
And so I put one, I put a Schedoo Tundra
on snow check last spring, meaning I put a you
know deposit down so when they came in this year, um,
I was able to snag one as soon as they
got in, and man, what a game changer. Like I'm
(39:48):
still getting it stuck some, I'm still tipping it over some,
but not nearly as much as I was with that
old one. And my back is not like getting strained
as much from it, and um man, it's just it's nice.
Another big thing too, is at that rm K was
not made for putting around doing five hour going slow
(40:11):
looking for tracks while you're pulling a you know, eighty
pound dog and a sled behind you. Um, it's meant
for ripping up and down powder fields as fast as
you can. It's always having overheating problems and having to
constantly be you know, watching out for that. Now with
the air cooled engine, and it's just geared for more
(40:32):
of the utility type work that I'm doing. Um it's
uh yes, it's performing flawlessly. So um super super stoked
on on that and um yes, it's like a it's
like a real joy and I'm not scared with my
old sled. I was kind of always like, Oh, what's
(40:54):
gonna happen today? Did you say it was lighter too?
I saw a post read Oh, I mean, I I
don't know what that old one way, and I can't
even tell you what the new one ways. But I
know that just when I'm moving it around on the
trailer or you know, having to jostle with it a
little bit, if I've gotten it stuck, um, it's a
lot easier to to move that new one around than
(41:18):
that old one. Was nice. I I did an upgrade
two this year. I I used, I grew upgraded my
side by side. So I used to have a Honda
like a seven hundred right in the middle there, and
I got a Canam Defender, an HD nine and ended
up a just kind of went all out, got the
(41:40):
got the cab in the heater. I don't have like
I put a cab on it later with the heater. Um.
I didn't do like the limited that has air conditioning
and all that. Um. But man, it's like going from
Garrett told me that it was gonna be this way.
He's like, going from your Honda to this thing is
gonna be like going from a work truck f and
fifty to a Denali, and it's pretty much what it's like,
(42:04):
Like I it's just so nice and like there's a
lot of things that we I use it like a
ton um So I think I use it way more
now than I used my Honda, just because it has
a cabin heater and it's just taken like it's taking
a ton of stress off my pickup. Like I'm pretty
(42:26):
much if I just have one person, like I'm just
using it for guiding instead of even touching my truck
at all. Um, which is really nice to be able
to take somewhere and tear off of that and then
it's just so much faster to get around if you're
hunting in areas where it's you know, only open to
four wheelers or uh, side by sides, obviously it just
opens up your range. But man, even when we were
(42:48):
in Wyoming and we had a snowstorm roll in, like
you know, we just went out, started it, like let
it warm up a bit when out and got in it.
We had a heater. We were riding around on all
the rails that we could have wrote around or just
on the regular roads, and man, people were like hanging
outside their campers like I don't know. It just it
(43:10):
felt like we were just hunting harder, even though advantage.
Oh yeah, I really feel like it. Like it does.
I cannot say enough good things about that. That system. Yeah,
I like I like mine too. I'm a big fan.
I think I told you I didn't have mine with
the heater in the beginning, but we put in a
(43:32):
We put a heater in over the summer, and um man,
what a difference. I don't think actually even use it
on a hunt, but we use ours a lot to
snowplow here at the house. And uh yeah, the heater
makes all the Yeah, I think you just like you
want to be in it because before, like I hauled
that Honda like all over the place, and uh you know,
(43:55):
I had like one of those soft cabs on it,
like just the doors that you can like zip yourself in,
and like that definitely makes a difference. Um but I
hold that thing all over and if it would get
nasty cold and we were gonna if we could be
in the pickup, like that's what we would go with.
And it's like, I don't know, there was a couple
of hunts it didn't even get used just because it
(44:16):
was rough. Weather and it was just easier to use
the pickup and then walk than then use that thing.
But um, yeah, it's been great. Cool. That's good to hear.
Good to hear. I'm I'm excited for when you take
me on a big mega deer hunt out of that thing.
All right, that is it for today. Remember send your
(44:38):
questions to gear talk at the meat Eater dot com.
You can also send us ideas for gear you might
want to see for first light to uh to make.
If you have any gear critiques, I love to hear it.
It can all be there at gear talk at the
Meteor dot com. Um. Both Jordan I are on Instagram
(45:02):
Jordan what's your handle at Jordan dot bud and I'm
a Janice underscore ptelis Um I'm not in my d
M is a whole bunch, but I try to keep
up as much as I can. That's a great place
to send us questions and comments too. And you can
go to the meat Eater website to the podcast page
for this specific episode and if you have a comment
(45:24):
on this specific episode or something we talked about today, um,
you can leave it there. We're trying to get a
little bit of a conversation going there and getting people involved.
So Jordan and I are both checking in there. There
hasn't been much yet so far. So um, if you're
into that kind of stuff, please go there and drops
a comment and uh, we're we're trying to read it all,
(45:49):
which I think so far we're doing a good job of.
I think we've we've read every single email and messages
come through. Yeah, any other uh D S A S
S C T A S no, nothing nothing, all right, Well,
Jordan Budden and I signing off. We'll catch you in
a couple of weeks.
What's up everyone, Welcome back to Meat eaters Ere Talk podcast.
Jordan bud here your co host and then co hosting
with me. Is you honest, I'll tell us he's on
and uh yeah, we're just gonna do a quick recap
over I don't know, in the last couple of months
of the year, and then we're into the new year
now and we're gonna talk a little bit about the
(00:33):
gear we used, and it's pretty much it. What's been
going on, Ynnie, Uh, you know for me ever since
I got back from Latvia in September. And if you
want to hear how that hunt went, go check out
the h I think it was the Christmas episode of
the Meat Eater Podcast. Is that right? I think so? Yeah,
(00:54):
we're uh, Steve quiz me a little bit about my
trip over there. Let's do are fun? Uh, But since Latvia,
I did a couple of Wisconsin white tail deer hunts.
Unfortunately was not successful, but I had a good time,
learned a lot. And then since then, really once uh
(01:15):
December opened up or started, well, I was gonna say,
all I've been doing his line hunting. That's not true.
I went out with Max Barda for the first week
of December, and did some goose hunting, some dry uh
what do they call it? Dry field? I'm such an
inexperienced waterfall hunt I alna even know what it's called.
But we hunted geese in Montana. We also got lucky
(01:37):
and had some ducks come in on our spread one day,
so I think we had like a bonus three or
four mallards um, which is super fun. But since then
it's been all uh, lion hunting all the time, as
much as possible, which it turns out I'm learning this
slowly is because I'd like to say I'm just out
(01:57):
there catching lions, but actually I'm just out there are um,
driving my snowmobile, driving my truck and hiking looking for
mountain lion or bobcat tracks. And I wish I had
had a better journal CAPTI than me and go back
and write down my notes for the year to tell
you like how many days I have to go look
just to find a track, and then how many you
(02:21):
know tracks I find versus how how many times that equals,
you know, finding getting a cat in a tree? But
right now the tally as of the fourth of January
or sorry, the fifth of January is two mount lions
and one bobcat. So that's what I've been up to.
(02:42):
What about you, Oh, I think, uh last time we
talked was probably I think we just got done with
the Idaho general season. I shot a buck there and
then I went to Wyoming on a tag that I
drew and just we just had. It was rough. It
was really rough. It's far as I just saw like,
I didn't see very many bucks at all, saw tons
(03:04):
of does, didn't see very many bucks saw. Everything we
did see was pretty little. So um, we were there
for like four or five days, and then we went
to Montana and uh Leah shot a buck like pretty
much the first morning that we were there, and then
that was it. That kind of closed out our our
(03:24):
western hunting, well a little bit of our western hunting.
And then I went back to Nebraska and guided through
November and December the first part of December and got
the got the outfit, taken care of as far as
clients go, and then man, that's pretty much it, or
I guess I did. I went back to Montana with
we did a hunt with six hour in Montana, I
shot a white tail buck. So m hmm. That's right.
(03:47):
I saw that with Lydia Smith and a couple other gals. Yeah,
Jess Johnson was there and it was fun. And if
you want to see uh, Jordan's Fall full of mule
deer hunting, Uh, you can check out what you call
the you put together. Actually, that's a good question. I
(04:07):
don't remember what I called it. I think I just
said mule deer, right, or the hunting moon or something.
The hunting moon, Yeah, which is a very clever, cute
little idea. There's the hunting Moon. I don't know how
many other people have you used that, but you're probably
not the first one. But I like, I like the
idea of a hunting man. It was a man, it was.
(04:30):
It was a blast, honestly, it was so fun. So
since then, I've just been back in Idaho trying to hike,
have been hitting the winter range a little bit, just
like looking at Bucks and just trying to, I don't know,
get out more than anything, stay out and try not
to get too comfy in the house because it's pretty
easy to do. After you've been out for you know,
(04:53):
kind of a hard fall or a long fall. Oh,
it's so easy to do. It gets cold, that's One
of the great things I think I feel about cat
hunting and hound hunting in the winter is that it's
been still getting me up early in the morning, getting
me out. I saw him in getting as much hiking
in as I'd like to, because, like I said, there's
a lot of time spent just driving, uh whatever vehicle
(05:16):
it is to you know, try to find the tracks.
But hopelly, my luck is gonna change. I'll start finding
more tracks and that that always leads to more hiking. Yeah. Sweet,
what's your What is your three shaping up? So far?
It's kind of crazy. Like before, it seems like the
season barely gets over and it's already application season right now. Yeah,
(05:40):
my spring, I don't I don't want to say that
I've got like every single date planned, but I think
I've I've pretty much got an idea at least of
what I'm doing. I mean, it's as far as hunting goes,
it's the lion hunting is gonna lead or right into turkeys.
Steve and I drew a Seola tags in Florida's We're
going to film a meteor episode down in Florida for Ociola,
(06:03):
which I'm super excited about and that's early March, so
I actually like get back from that and still be
able to lion hunt for another month, but uh, you know,
that'll roll right into you know, regular Turkey and then um,
I'll probably squeeze in a solid week of bear hunting.
I really want to put some effort into that this
year and get myself bear and uh you know, yeah,
(06:27):
then it'll be a short you know summer and uh
we'll be uh right back into fall. So yeah, it's
crazy to think how fast it all goes. But um,
I don't know, there's I got a lot of irons
in the fire for the fall. I probably need to
sit down and like you know, pick and choose and
and focus in on what it's gonna be and you know,
(06:49):
make sure I got the hunts planned with the kids
and plenty of time set aside for all that. So
um and then you know how it is, it's always
with that with applying for tags, and I don't do
a bunch of states compared to others. I do like
three or four. But I'm getting to the point in
some states where I could get lucky and uh, you
(07:09):
know and draw a good tag, which kind of always
throws a ranch in things. But yeah, yeah, there's a
there's a there's an ELK tag that I should draw.
I'm like right on the cusp of the points, especially
if we keep getting some creep happening. Um, but I
should draw it. Hopefully that will be like a November
kind of like a later season l count, which I
(07:31):
really like with a rifle. And then man, it's kind
of just general, some general stuff. We're actually talking about
going to Hawaii in May for access here and then
attack on a couple extra days for uh, just a
little relaxation trip in Hawaii, so I haven't been down there,
(07:52):
so that'll be interesting, especially to see like how they
hunt on the island too, I think will be pretty cool. Yeah.
I like to do that too. It's a great way
to do some big game hunting with your bow, you know,
and staying stay in bow shape. I guess you, I
guess you can probably hunt them with whatever you want
when you're there, right because I don't think they really
(08:12):
have seasons, so it's pretty open. Yeah, pretty open for
what weapon you want to use. But uh, yeah, we
that's that's I I forgot. We might go to Texas
in February March to do some nil guy calling actually,
and then if we did that, we'd go down and
(08:32):
uh and try to shoot some pigs with the bow
and arrow too. All right, let's get to uh top
top you put in their top. We have a little
outline that Jordan I work off of, and it's a
top three gear items of the year. And that was
very daunting when I saw that, I like, there's no
(08:53):
way I can pick out like top three gear items.
So I ended up with four. And I ended up
just deciding that instead of like the top three that
I don't know because I don't know how you'd even
value rate that. But it's more like what I'm excited about,
what I've had fun using what seems to be, you know,
working well for me. So anyways, you want to kick
(09:16):
it off, Yeah, yeah, I'll kick it off. So I
started we started using the the ar Golly, the fourth person.
I think they call it the Absaroka tent Um. It's
basically it's they call it the fourth person. It's been
good for two of us. And then you can still
put gear in a two. It's like tick under three pounds,
(09:36):
just as the tent fly is. And then you can
pitch it. You can pitch it with their pole, or
you can actually just had new treking polls that came
out that they have like a connector that screws on
the top of one treking pole and the screws on
to the top of the other one, So then you
can get like a super extended one pole, and so
you could pitch it like that too, which I used.
(09:58):
We used it like that a couple of times in
the pretty nice. But it definitely it definitely saves the weight.
But I've I've found for me every time I do that,
I'm like, well, but now I want my checking polls,
So don't bring my tent down and pack it all
with me. If you're gonna hunt like that, it's great.
But if you're gonna like set up a base camp
and then hunt out of it, it's definitely better just
to bring the center pole. Yeah, you know, I've done
(10:20):
like a couple of times with tents. Is like you
know when they have the trekking pole tents that you
have to use your two trekking poles, not just one together.
It's like, well, I'm thinking of like the Seek outside
the Oldists or something like that. Um, I would leave
one pole up and then when we left in the morning,
I would take the other pole out so I could
(10:40):
use it, and then just like set a rock on
top of the tents so it wouldn't flop around. And
then when I got back, I could just take the
back up. And it seems I guess you could always
just have a saw with you and uh just cut
a just cut a nice long straight young you know,
(11:00):
for tree or something. True. Yeah there, but uh yeah
to the this ur golly it. Uh you can get
like a net like floor insert And I used that
when we were in Alaska this year caribou hunting, so
I used that. I didn't know what the bugs situation
(11:21):
was going to be like, so I wanted to have
the net. But here in the lower forty eight, like
we just to save a little bit of the bulk
we just ended up. I went to Ari. I think
it bought like a Nemo three person footprint for a tent,
and then it has little steak points on it so
you could stick it out inside of the floral less
(11:44):
and then it's like your ground sheet for sleeping pads
and for and we we had our pads right side
by side together. But if you were just going by yourself.
You could get like a one person or two person
and they're pretty light, full down, small, fairly durable MATERI
areal it seemed like, and uh yeah you can stick
them out and then it's a good groundcloth for your pad,
(12:06):
uh to help you know, protect it and does some
other things too. So that's pretty much what we ran.
And that was I mean, that was like, that was
awesome for for two of us, and even like just
for one person packing it in, it's you know, it's
not heavy, especially when you compare something the size of
like the footprint that you get with that and the
(12:28):
size compared to like just a regular pitched free standing
tent with the same way, like you just get a
lot more room. So that was pretty awesome. Yeah, I'm
a fan. There's still a lot of people that will
comment when I do a post about a floorless tent,
like why would you you know, skip the floor and
(12:51):
you know water is gonna get in there and um,
you know bugs and snakes and whatever. Uh. I guess
where we hunt mostly out West, it just it's not
an issue and the water, you know, unless you just
happen to like pitch in a place where you know
you pitched it in a low spot, meaning that everything
(13:13):
around you is higher and it's going to cause the
water to run to you, um, which would be just
a bad move on your part. And if you even
if you put up you know, regular tent with the
bathtub floor, if it all ran in there, it was
just soaking like that, um. And you have the pressure
of your body laying there, it's gonna push that moisture
(13:34):
through there too. Um. So that's you know, if you
pitch your tent in a proper location, moisture is not
anything to worry about. But the big advantage is, like
you said, just the room. There's so much more room.
It's so much more comfortable, and you don't notice it
when the weather is nice because you're not spending time
in your tent. You like, you get in there, getting
(13:55):
your bag and you go to sleep. But when you
get caught and it's like a trip where there's a
bunch of rain or some snow or you're fogged in
and you're all sudden you're hanging out in the tent. Um, Man,
does it make a difference just to be able to
get out of the weather and hang out comfortably. You know,
read a book yeah, and I'm like that specific one.
(14:16):
I'm like five ten and I can. I have to
like tilt my head over a little bit when I'm
in it, but you can stand up. At least, you know,
you're not only being able to sit up and your
head's hitting the top of the tent. So that's nice.
And then not even to mention like being able to
run a stove in it. You know, some of these
companies like Seek Outside, Kafaru, there's other ones that are
(14:38):
popping up now. They're making these little stoves you can
carry with you, wood stoves that are like two pounds,
and so, yeah, toss a two pounds stove in there,
and especially later season when you want to dry stuff
out or honestly, it just gets dark really fast, and
it gets dark at five thirty and then you're just
(14:59):
sitting there for three hours while you're waiting to go
to bed or whatever. It's nice to have a fire ribbon. Yeah, yeah,
it's the more comfortably you are, the harder you're gonna hunt,
the longer you're gonna hunt. Hopefully that equals more success.
All right, what else you got? Uh? I guess second
on mine, I've got a set of boots that I
(15:20):
ran this year, the Crispy Bristol Pro. They're a ten
inch tall, I wrote, or I wore the regular Bristol
quite a bit. I really like that boot, but it
is I think it's a seven inch hot height. So
the pros they just made those tens. There are two
Graham insulation, which it's like not a lot, but it's
(15:43):
pretty good for me and might be get pretty cold easy,
so even in like October, being able to just like
knock the chill off as long as you can start
warm usually. Um Uh, it's a leather boot, the flex,
you know, like out of a five scale a flex,
it's a four, so it's pretty narrow too. It's like
(16:06):
it's a good for me, Like I like a stiffer boot.
I've had some ankle issues where I've like rolled my
ankle really bad, stretched it out, and really soft flexible boots,
especially like side hilling or going straight up a hill,
have seemed to give me fits. But so a stiffer
boot has really helped me with that. So, um that
(16:27):
to me is like a good It's a good combination
of like a mountaineering type like fit where it's really
a narrow like it's a it's a technical type boot,
but it's still like full leather and still has some
good rock or to it. It's still comfy, if that
makes sense. It doesn't feel just like a ski boot. Um.
(16:49):
So yeah, do you feel like you could hike in
that boot on a like a hard packed trail for
five miles and it would still be comfortable? Yeah? I do. Yeah,
I think so. And then even I've been wearing it
quite a bit um here in the off season, just
like and most of that has been on trails, So
it's a yeah, it was a good boot for me. Yeah,
(17:09):
I need to I need to figure out what I'm
gonna try it from Crispy that might be the the
thing to try. I need something just a little bit
of insulation, um, especially for a running around this time
of year. Um, which I'll, i'll, i'll, i'll. That's a
nice segue because one of my one of my top
picks two that I've been excited about was boots. And
(17:30):
what I've mostly been wearing. I'll start with with these
mostly been wearing i'd say most of the fall, aside
from the early season, which was i'd say through September.
It's still the Schnas Bear tooth, and I've been trying
some other boots. I'm not gonna get into all the
other boots that I've tried this fall, but I keep
coming back to those. It's just a really solid all around,
(17:54):
you know, leather boot. UM. Certainly not as stiff. I've
never haven't worn that Brickstol, but I don't think it's
nearly as stiff as that. UM. It's definitely a little
bit softer, which in a way is nice because there's
literally almost no breaking period. I feel like with those
bare tooths UM, and they just they're comfortable. My feet
(18:14):
have a the Romas in them, and so a super
stiff soul will irritate that after a while and you know,
cause me a lot of pain. So that a little
bit of a softer flex is nice. I think they
put it on the the one or two scale over
there Schnais out of a four UM. But it's just uh,
it's it's kind of a no frills kind of a boot,
(18:37):
which I like about it. They got a new uh,
they changed a couple of the islets on it and
so it laces up even faster. UM. They got rid
of that kind of locking islet that was the one
around the ankles, which I never was a huge fan of,
but um, just solid, solid, uh boot. And sometimes I
feel like, oh, everybody needs to come up with something new,
(18:59):
but then you go back to like the old trusted
product and you're like, oh, yeah, this is solid and
I can trust it and it works every day. But
that being said, when I can get away with something lighter,
I do. And this September I was running around in
the han Wog Makra, which my first pair of Hanwags.
(19:21):
I've had a few friends, uh that have worn it.
I worn it on our caribou hunt in Alaska. I
really liked it. Super lightweight, but definitely stiffer. And again
I know it's it's it's hard to you know, tell
people when we say stiffer, lighter, what exactly that means.
Me A lot of the stuff we learned from Kendall,
(19:41):
you know, a couple of weeks ago and to how
those ratings can change between companies, but certainly stiffer than
my bear tooths, and it does that stiffness does perform,
like you were saying, side hill and going straight up
steep stuff. Um, you don't you can kind of just
kick in your boots a little bit harder, you know,
(20:03):
into the side of a hill, which I think chasing
Elk in September. I really like it, and I like
just it's a it's a shorter boot, it's generally lighter
um and it makes me feel faster. Whether or not
I actually am, I don't know, but it's a great
boot fit good it. I think it still has plenty
(20:24):
of life left in it for for next September two.
I feel like when you're talking about the bear Tooths,
those are that's a boot that's like oftentimes we'll hear
people ask what if you could only have one? Because
we do, you know, we are lucky enough if we
get to use a lot of different boots and boots
that are meant to be in certain situations. But it's like,
(20:47):
if you're somebody that hunts September through November, like the
Macra might not be the greatest boot for November or yeah,
but like the bear Tooth or something like that is
kind of if you can only have one boot, like,
that's a boot to look at. And I think I've
been using the Timberline just for like maybe the last month,
(21:08):
and that's a boot for me. Then I'm like, if
somebody was looking for a boot, that's like, if you
could only have one, I think that that would be
that could be a good option too. Yeah, it's very
similar to the bare tooth. It's one flex rating less
then the bare tooth has um but very similar like
(21:30):
easy to break in, comfortable right out of the box,
and uh yeah right, Like if you had to, you
could easily wear that uninsulated bear tooth from August all
the way into December. I mean I've been running around
Mount Lion hunting and hunting in it in some super
cold tempts and yes, on a zero degree day to
(21:50):
my feet start to get cold mid day, you know,
especially if I'm not moving around. Is doing too much,
is riding on the snowmobile? Yes, um, But that being said,
it's still is still getting the job done for the
most sweet And that's what those like brickstels for me
are two is like, if I could only have one boot,
like that's probably what I would choose, insulated or none.
I they do make it on a non insulated I
(22:13):
would still probably stick with the even even in the
early season, Like my feet just sweat anyways, So it's
like I don't know. I would rather have them for
it when you're dipping a little later in the season
and deal with the hotness early season. Interesting. I'm just
gonna go with another pair of thicker socks when it
(22:34):
gets Yeah, dive into your next one. Yeah. It's this
kind of a combo gear combo serious Apollo arrows and
the tough head evolution. Uh two point o broadheads. I
(22:58):
shot two critters with those this year. Um, a nil
guy in February and then a bull elk in September. Uh.
Both times they performed absolutely well. The nil guy I
hit exactly where I was aiming. Um, it was a
heavy quarter and away shot had to go through a
(23:18):
bunch of guts to get to the vitals. It did.
I believe that the setup that that is a single blade, uh,
single bevel um heavy arrow gave me that penetration of
at least two ft maybe you know, three ft of
of like seriously dense gut to get into the vitals,
(23:40):
stowing all the way through the vitals and almost poked
out the front end of the animal. Um, it was
not great blood until he started coming uh you know,
blood started coming out of his mouth and nose, because
because I got the lungs, but at that point he
pretty much tipped over and died anyway, So he went
sixty seventy yard. It's um, my elk wasn't quite so
(24:03):
good of a shot, same same positioning, just a little
bit farther the you know, quartering away, but a little
bit farther instead of twenty five, it was closer to
forty and ended up hitting him in the key star,
which I think I can't remember I talked about on
this podcast or on or on the Mediator podcast, but
either way you can listen to the whole story somewhere else.
(24:24):
But both instances, it just it worked really well. Whether
it was you know, exactly where I was aiming, or
if the animal jumped and I missed my mark a
little bit. Um, it did the trick, and I was
able to quickly recover both animals, and uh just very
pleasantly surprised. UM. I did actually switch over to try
(24:46):
some eastern accesses in for my white tail deer hunting,
and I was going to try the iron will broadheads
on that hunt. Unfortunately I just never got a shot opportunity.
So hopefully this year I'll be able report on the
performance of those. But yeah, super stoked on on how
they worked. And um, it's a heavy set up, six
(25:09):
fifty grains. It's a it's a slow moving set up.
But like I said, for the two times that well,
I should say two times on on big heavy bone critters,
it worked very well. I also shot two pigs. One
I hit right where I was where I should have
hit it. It died immediately. The other pig I hit
high like in the and basically across the backstrap, you know,
(25:34):
missed the vitals, missed the spine. And uh, I'm pretty
sure that pigs still living unless it's um, you know,
I don't know, be eaten being eaten by some predator
or somebody else shot it. So uh yeah, let's see you.
Uh what else did you have on your list? So,
(25:55):
something that I've been using a long time quite a
long time now is the doorsman's pan head. And one
of the reasons I wanted to talk about it is
just its integration with like pan head to the window
mount to like your bino adapter. Um. Like, there's a
ton of different tripod heads out there, and like there's
(26:17):
certainly some that are cheaper, like, uh, you can pick
up I think that Doorsmans pan heads like four hundred
bucks and you're talking about the new one that's like
a little bit bigger. Right now, this is just the
regular pan head. I think it's like the first head
that they ever came out with. Two got it, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we got on the meat Eater site for yeah. So
(26:43):
a little more expensive than what you can get. But
one thing I really like about it is if you're
looking at the head on the bottom of it, it
actually has a dove tail type system that is the
same as like the the plate that you would put
on your on your binoculars or on your spotting scope
(27:03):
to put on top of the head. It's hard to
explain because there's just not a lot of other people
that do it like that. What you can do with
that is on your tripod, no matter what tripods you're using,
you can put their quick detach on top of that tripod,
so it is just a dovetail slide your head on
(27:25):
top of your tripod instead of screwing it on. And
what that does for me is like a lot of
the times, especially in Nebraska later season, we are we're
out of vehicles a lot, and we're using window mounts
a lot. So like if you use a window mount
a lot, this is where I think this system really shines. Um. Basically,
(27:45):
their window mount is just a little thing. It's basically
you can hold it in my hand. It's pretty small.
You screwed on your window and then it has the
dovetail on top of it to receive the tripod head,
so I can I can slide the tripod head off
of a tripod and put it onto the window mount,
(28:05):
and then I'm using the same head on my window
mount as I am on my tripod, and then everything
like all my adapters for for my bino adapters for
spotting scopes, all my plates will still work on my
window mount. Where like typically you get into a situation
where like you have your tripod in your head system
(28:29):
and you have to take your spotting scope off of it,
take your plate off, put the plate on for your
window mount, and run it like that. This one just
this system just keeps it like, just keeps it more streamlined.
You're not losing plates forgetting to put them back on whatever. Um,
And yeah, it's just a system. Nothing nothing worse than
(28:51):
showing up for a hunt and realizing that you've got
everything besides like three plates and you need one for
you know, binoculars spot or and I don't know, maybe
you have a like a shooting v or something said,
you know, attached to war, but nothing worse. When you're like, oh,
I'm gonna have to change plates like every single time
between things, that's a that's a I've never thought. I've
(29:13):
never mess with their window mount. It's something I might
have to, because, yeah, that is slick when you can
just take the whole tripod head and just move it
from tripod over to the window mount. Yeah, And I
think like if you have hunting buddies that you're hunting
with a lot, like if you can get them kind
of all everybody on the same system, then like I can.
(29:35):
I can give you my spatting scope. You could throw
it on your head real quick, like you can switch
things back and forth if you want to look through
my fifteens or whatever. It already is going to have
the same bin amount on it to just switch everything around.
So it's like kind of an expensive entry to get
into it. But man, like I've been using that system
(29:56):
for a long time and I just like I can't
get myself to switch because it's so slick. So yeah,
my only uh critique about that head is that I
have a hard time finding like locking it to a
(30:16):
position where it'll still move, but the weight of whatever
is on there won't let it won't make it fall over.
Does that make sense? Where like it's almost like it's
either kind of locked off solid to where you can't
move the head, or you open it up and the
thing gets so much plan it that you almost have
(30:37):
to be holding onto the the handle to keep it
from from you know, falling up and down. So usually
when I'm usually when I'm doing that head, I'll lock
off the tilt and just keep the pan open and
just pan left and right, and then I'll adjust the
tilt to another you know section of hill that I'm glassing,
and then lock it off again and do that. Yeah,
(30:59):
it is like it's not like a like a video
head that you can move around. But uh yeah, lightweight.
You gotta love it. Yeah, all right, Um, the omen
rain pants, but I'm gonna talk about how they're great
for hunting and snow. Um, I'm kind of fed up
with gators and I've tried a bunch of them, and
(31:21):
I mean a bunch of them. I think I'm sitting
on four different pairs right now, and I think it's
they are the four They're the best on the market
right now. Um, and they all seem to have the
same problem. No matter how tight I get it up
at the top of my calf, eventually, you know, if
it is deep snow, it's actually over the top of
(31:43):
the gator. Eventually snow starts to build up at that
the junction between the top of the gator and my pants.
You're getting snow in there. Maybe a buckle comes loose,
you get more snow in there. Uh, they'll eventually it
seems like they get pushed down or they slide down,
you know, if you're like they get caught maybe on
(32:03):
a log you're crossing, they get kind of slid down
a little bit. You don't notice. Then you have snow,
you know, above them on your pants. It's just it's me.
It's an imperfect system. Um. On the bottoms, I always
I feel like, no matter how perfect, I get that
fit on the on the on my boot and stretch
them out nice and tighten and you know, get my
(32:25):
the stirrup not you know, just right. Eventually snow can
still work in between the gator and my usually leather
boot and it's gonna slowly just start to get that
boot wet. UM. So instead, I took a little something
from what back country skiers do and also my buddy
(32:46):
Jake because my main line mentor, he runs this program too,
but basically running heavy duty rain pants for hunting in
the snow, and those I don't know if I'm sure
there's other Honey company that have an internal gator built
into their snow snow pants too, but most Skei pants do. Um,
it's got some elastic on it, and then we'll usually
(33:08):
have like a clip that you can pull down and
attached to your boot lace that just kind of it's
more of a hook than a clip, and that internal
gator stays down and then you have your you know,
your pants over the top of that. The Olman actually
also has holes in the pants themselves where you're in
the cuff where it's like a groment where you could
(33:30):
run a string from one side to the other for
I guess extra you know, protection from keeping the pant
riding up, because that's that's gonna be the downfall and
with this system is if that little lace comes undone
and you're you know, plowing through super deep snow and
it just gets pushed up above your boot and then
(33:50):
again you're gonna have snow top of the boot sock area,
so on and so forth. But um, last year I
actually broke some of those internal gators because I was
wearing the Omen pants in a in a large regular
and I was putting too much stress because my legs
were too long and putting too much stress on that
boot lace clip. I broke those and pretty much once
(34:13):
you break that that internal gators, I don't want to
say worthless, but it went from being great to not
so not so good at all. Now that I have
the large longs, you know, I still have the freedom
of movement. It's not putting so much stress. And I
don't know of probably hunting twenty days with them off
on the snowmobile and hound hunting, nothing's broken and I
(34:37):
haven't had any snow getting up into my program. So
I think, you know, you don't have to be lion
hunting or or you know, hound hunting in the in
the deep snow to to use these this way. I
think that anytime you're hunting, you know foot plus I
mean you could certainly use them in six inches of
snow to a foot plus of snow. They're gonna shine, um,
(35:01):
because you're probably I think the one downfall is gonna
be that they're not gonna be as quiet, you know,
as as a lot of other materials. But you know,
if I'm rifle hunting elk late season, um, I think
I can be quite enough wearing that uh Omen rain
gear that I could get to within rifle range pretty easily.
(35:22):
So yeah, they've been been tough, you know, overall, but
I think it's it's my go to right now for
when I'm you know, out and about lion hunting. They've
got the full length side vents, so when we do
get to hiking, I can drop those zippers down off
my waist. Let a little air in there, um, because
that again is it's gonna be something you fight too.
(35:42):
When you're wearing a four and a half layer waterproof pant.
Is that when you start really hiking hard, it's gonna
get hot in there, so you're gonna have to vent
it out a little bit. Yeah, are you just wearing
a bass layer under that? Are you wearing pants just
a bass layer? Just that I'm glad you asked that question,
because that's a good point. Just wearing the bass layer. Um.
(36:07):
If yeah, and it's been great for the time if
it's a day where we don't really go out, if
it's much below zero. But if I knew that the
high was gonna be five degrees, I might wear you know,
a second bass layer or like a thin, you know,
(36:27):
fleece pant under there. I'm probably not gonna wear like
a full on hunting pant under there because it's just
unnecessary and like I don't need more pockets or whatever
I'm gonna have in there. Um, I'd rather have something
that's just adding just a little bit of insulation, a
little bit of warmth. Um. But again you run into
the problem where even if the highest five degrees, once
you start hiking up some hill through deep snow, it's
(36:51):
you're gonna get hot, you know. So Um again, how
it's like not the perfect system. I haven't figured it out,
because it'd be great just have like a puffy, warm
shell you know that you're wearing over that as you're
you know, putting around in the on the snowmobile for
hours and then when you kind of track and need
to go hike after it, you could just peel that
(37:13):
off and still have your you know, rank gear just
over a thin bass layer. But um, yeah, that's uh
it's been working, so I've been definitely I've been wearing
them more. Is just like my general outer pant versus uh,
you know, using them just as a rain layer to
put on later. Yeah, I've heard of guys doing that
(37:34):
in a like Alaska where it's really if it's really wet,
they're like, we're not taking the rain pants off anyway,
so they'll just leave like their regular pants back so
they don't even have a chance to get wet, so
they know they have like a dry pair and then
they're bringing their rain pants with them anyway, so they'll
just put them on over base layers where them as
their pants get back, then they can take them off,
(37:56):
put dry pants on to hang out in or whatever.
So that's it. I think it's a good system, No,
it is. I did that on a an Alaskan doll
sheet punt with Steve when we filmed with his brother,
and it was a very wet week and I spent
you know, I think all the time that week just
wearing a bass layer bottom and uh rain pants over
(38:21):
the top of that, and it was it was the
way to go nice nice, ready for the heavy hitters.
Oh yeah, these are heavy. Um. I just got a
new I just got a new snowmobile. Um. Wasn't planning
on it. But at the end of last year, I've
been riding my two thousand six playists r M K
(38:44):
and I was making do it was fine. But then
we uh we we filmed a little bit off of snowmobiles,
filmed a lion hunt, and uh, because we had so
many people, we needed to rent a couple of snowmobiles,
and so we rented some new sleds and you know,
just for fun. When we had a little bit of
(39:04):
an open powder field, I jumped on one of the
new ones and zifted around a little bit, and I I
was just like, oh my gosh, what have what am
I missy here? Like just like you know, and it's just,
you know, my old one was almost twenty years old. Uh.
Technology and um just improvements, I guess, and ergonomics. I
(39:27):
don't even know how to put it into words. But
it's all improved, it's all changed. It's way better, way easier.
And so I put one, I put a Schedoo Tundra
on snow check last spring, meaning I put a you
know deposit down so when they came in this year, um,
I was able to snag one as soon as they
got in, and man, what a game changer. Like I'm
(39:48):
still getting it stuck some, I'm still tipping it over some,
but not nearly as much as I was with that
old one. And my back is not like getting strained
as much from it, and um man, it's just it's nice.
Another big thing too, is at that rm K was
not made for putting around doing five hour going slow
(40:11):
looking for tracks while you're pulling a you know, eighty
pound dog and a sled behind you. Um, it's meant
for ripping up and down powder fields as fast as
you can. It's always having overheating problems and having to
constantly be you know, watching out for that. Now with
the air cooled engine, and it's just geared for more
(40:32):
of the utility type work that I'm doing. Um it's
uh yes, it's performing flawlessly. So um super super stoked
on on that and um yes, it's like a it's
like a real joy and I'm not scared with my
old sled. I was kind of always like, Oh, what's
(40:54):
gonna happen today? Did you say it was lighter too?
I saw a post read Oh, I mean, I I
don't know what that old one way, and I can't
even tell you what the new one ways. But I
know that just when I'm moving it around on the
trailer or you know, having to jostle with it a
little bit, if I've gotten it stuck, um, it's a
lot easier to to move that new one around than
(41:18):
that old one. Was nice. I I did an upgrade
two this year. I I used, I grew upgraded my
side by side. So I used to have a Honda
like a seven hundred right in the middle there, and
I got a Canam Defender, an HD nine and ended
up a just kind of went all out, got the
(41:40):
got the cab in the heater. I don't have like
I put a cab on it later with the heater. Um.
I didn't do like the limited that has air conditioning
and all that. Um. But man, it's like going from
Garrett told me that it was gonna be this way.
He's like, going from your Honda to this thing is
gonna be like going from a work truck f and
fifty to a Denali, and it's pretty much what it's like,
(42:04):
Like I it's just so nice and like there's a
lot of things that we I use it like a
ton um So I think I use it way more
now than I used my Honda, just because it has
a cabin heater and it's just taken like it's taking
a ton of stress off my pickup. Like I'm pretty
(42:26):
much if I just have one person, like I'm just
using it for guiding instead of even touching my truck
at all. Um, which is really nice to be able
to take somewhere and tear off of that and then
it's just so much faster to get around if you're
hunting in areas where it's you know, only open to
four wheelers or uh, side by sides, obviously it just
opens up your range. But man, even when we were
(42:48):
in Wyoming and we had a snowstorm roll in, like
you know, we just went out, started it, like let
it warm up a bit when out and got in it.
We had a heater. We were riding around on all
the rails that we could have wrote around or just
on the regular roads, and man, people were like hanging
outside their campers like I don't know. It just it
(43:10):
felt like we were just hunting harder, even though advantage.
Oh yeah, I really feel like it. Like it does.
I cannot say enough good things about that. That system. Yeah,
I like I like mine too. I'm a big fan.
I think I told you I didn't have mine with
the heater in the beginning, but we put in a
(43:32):
We put a heater in over the summer, and um man,
what a difference. I don't think actually even use it
on a hunt, but we use ours a lot to
snowplow here at the house. And uh yeah, the heater
makes all the Yeah, I think you just like you
want to be in it because before, like I hauled
that Honda like all over the place, and uh you know,
(43:55):
I had like one of those soft cabs on it,
like just the doors that you can like zip yourself in,
and like that definitely makes a difference. Um but I
hold that thing all over and if it would get
nasty cold and we were gonna if we could be
in the pickup, like that's what we would go with.
And it's like, I don't know, there was a couple
of hunts it didn't even get used just because it
(44:16):
was rough. Weather and it was just easier to use
the pickup and then walk than then use that thing.
But um, yeah, it's been great. Cool. That's good to hear.
Good to hear. I'm I'm excited for when you take
me on a big mega deer hunt out of that thing.
All right, that is it for today. Remember send your
(44:38):
questions to gear talk at the meat Eater dot com.
You can also send us ideas for gear you might
want to see for first light to uh to make.
If you have any gear critiques, I love to hear it.
It can all be there at gear talk at the
Meteor dot com. Um. Both Jordan I are on Instagram
(45:02):
Jordan what's your handle at Jordan dot bud and I'm
a Janice underscore ptelis Um I'm not in my d
M is a whole bunch, but I try to keep
up as much as I can. That's a great place
to send us questions and comments too. And you can
go to the meat Eater website to the podcast page
for this specific episode and if you have a comment
(45:24):
on this specific episode or something we talked about today, um,
you can leave it there. We're trying to get a
little bit of a conversation going there and getting people involved.
So Jordan and I are both checking in there. There
hasn't been much yet so far. So um, if you're
into that kind of stuff, please go there and drops
a comment and uh, we're we're trying to read it all,
(45:49):
which I think so far we're doing a good job of.
I think we've we've read every single email and messages
come through. Yeah, any other uh D S A S
S C T A S no, nothing nothing, all right, Well,
Jordan Budden and I signing off. We'll catch you in
a couple of weeks.
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