Ep. 14: Only One Gun, Cold Season Whitetail Clothing, Worthwhile Lightweight Gear, and More Listener Questions Answered

Jordan and Janis answer listener submitted questions. But first, an organizational gear hack Jordan stumbled upon while in the city and Janis’ continued lion hunting fails. They give their take on the best gun if you can only have one; clothing options for hike-and-sit whitetail hunting versus slow tracking-style whitetail hunting, which also translates to mountain hunting; rangefinding binoculars vs binos and a rangefinder; white gas vs canister stoves; the weight of their hunting packs; and what gear to buy that will actually save weight in your pack. 

If you have a question you want to submit to Gear Talk for discussion, email [e-mail]. Want to comment on this episode? Visit https://www.themeateater.com/listen/gear-talk and join the conversation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Gear Talk. I'm honest, but tell us with me.
I have Jordan's bud. This is the podcast where we
try to educate you about hunting gear so you can
make better purchases on hunting gear in the future, or
not make any purchases on hunting gear because you might
have what you already need. We've been getting a lot

(00:32):
of good feedback about people saying and people nothing against
just general listeners and fans that I don't know. But
when someone I get feedback from those types of people
that I have no contact with whatsoever, it's like, oh, awesome,
that's great. I'm glad you're learning stuff, and I'm glad
it's valuable. But if someone like one of my old

(00:56):
guiding buddies text me, is like, man, that's been really
good stuff. I've been learning about stuff I didn't even
know existed, about taking care of my rank here and
washing it. More often, when I get that kind of feedback,
I feel like we're really doing something right.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. Man. And then even this last episode that aired
for the Knife Sharpening or a couple episodes ago with
Steve Baker, like the Hayden who edits our podcast, he
sent me a video of him like shaving his arm
hairs with his knife and he's like that podcast changed
my life, Like no, I could. I feel like I

(01:37):
have a whole new skill because I can get those
things like razor hair shaven sharp. So that's like that
was super cool for me to be like perfect and
I mean it helped. It helped me too and how
I was sharpening stuff. So yeah, it's been cool.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Good. What else have you been up to?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh man, we just you and I just hung out
a bit in Bozeman. We had a little uh what
would you call it, like a not really a seminar.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Corey called it the spring Fling.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yep, it was a spring fling with the whole meat
eater gang and it was it was great. We all
got to hang out. We did a little shooting competition.
We had a like a public speaker person come in
or not really public speaker. He was like a more
of a speech coach.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Right, Yeah. I referred to him as a voice coach. Yeah,
but yeah, that was my idea to try to help
all of our content creators be stronger as hosts on
in front of the camera with their voice and help
them read voice over, which is the narrative that you

(02:47):
hear sometimes when you're watching a program and somebody it
wasn't recorded like in real time. It's recorded later and
then put into an episode that's voiceover. And reading voice
over well is extremely difficult. I would say, at least
it was for me. I feel like I'm getting better
at it. But it's very easy to be monotone and

(03:13):
to be kind of boring. And if you're not doing
that well and people aren't engaged, man, it just takes
right out of the content and there's nothing. The last
thing I want anybody ever to tell me is that
my content wasn't engaging. So anyways, yeah we did that.
We did some shooting well, friendly shooting competition, Yes, do

(03:36):
we do It was good, ate some food, dranks and beer,
just did general camaraderie things. Had the Element Boys from Texas,
Clay and Newcomb and Brent Reeves from Arkansas. Brent Reeves
is a new contributor. I guess you'd call him a
content creator. He's gonna be doing a podcast called This

(03:57):
Country Life and it's going to be stories and then
like tips and tricks and skills and hacks for beating
the system.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, somebody asked me what system really trying to beat,
and I'm like, I don't know, just the system.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, man, it's out to get you down. Yeah, you know.
I we should have followed up with Brent about that.
But I think a lot of it is going to
come down to, Hey, if you know how to do this,
then you don't have to pay somebody else to do
it because you have the skill, and so you save money.
You're more intelligent because you know the skill, and you

(04:40):
don't ever need to rely on someone else. Should that
happen again, Yeah?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, sweet. So Yeah, after I left Bozeman, I went
back to uh, went back to Boise where I live
for a couple of days, and then now, you know,
back in Nebraska, ready to start guiding hunters. Here. I've
got a youth hunter actually coming in this evening. We're
gonna hunt for the next three days. She's eleven, I believe,

(05:05):
if I remember correctly, she's eleven, and her dad has
her all set up to shoot the slam this year,
and ours is the last one she needs to get
it just this spring.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
So she's already killed three turkeys.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yep, She's already killed three, one of each species. And
now she's about to shoot Mariams well hopefully and uh
and yeah she'll have her four. So it's been it's
like it's it's been fun to just hear about the trips,
Like her dad's been texting me as they move along
on it, and they'll send me a picture of the

(05:42):
turkey and say like, hey, we got this one, Like
you know, can't wait to get up there and get
her Marriams.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
So have you heard if she gets it, is she
going to be the youngest person to ever do the
Slam in a single season.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
I have no idea. No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'll ask some of these kids. I know a few others.
They do more traveling for all kinds of hunting, even
in turkey hunting, especially than I do. You think with
my job, nobody would do it more than I do.
But man, some of these kids, I mean, come on
a Slam in one season. That's uh. She must be

(06:20):
missing some school.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah yeah, yeah it Uh they're they're on their way now.
But this morning she was hanging out, gonna swim in
the pool and then get a manicure. So I'm not
sure where the schooling lies in there, but it's I
don't know, man, it's gonna be fun. It's like a
little extra oomph to like make sure you do good guiding,

(06:44):
you know, or like try todd you know. It's just cool.
It's super unique. So yeah, that's it's gonna be cool.
I also I have a sweet gear hack for organizing stuff.
We get a lot of questions about like organizing gear
and how you do it on trips and in the
garage and whatever. So I want to dig into that
before we kick off A Q and A. But I

(07:06):
want to hear how you and Mingus have been doing
we uh, I.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Don't know if Mingus is frustrated. I'm frustrated. I feel
like I'm the worst lion hunter, definitely in the state
of Montana, quite possibly a larger portion of the Rocky Mountains.
But ma'am, the other day, did I put I? Did?
I did three days in a row, or at least

(07:31):
three mornings in a row. A couple of days were longer.
One was just a morning. But I've been hiking a
lot of drangers. There's a lot of snow in the mountains,
which makes it seem like the cats the deer are
pushed lower, so the cat should be pushed lower, and
there's no real reason to get on a snowmobile and
drive up these drainages too far, So I just hike

(07:53):
up half mile or a mile, come back out, go
to the next one, and repeat, do the same thing. Well, Friday,
I finally get on the track first thing in the morning,
super excited. Looks like the track from the day before.
Mingus is on it. He's off to the races. Well,
he comes to a loss, so pull him back in,

(08:16):
get him kind of. I'm checking the area out, put
him on a on a I can't remember it's the
same track again, or maybe while he was out on
the first one, I started following the track. Well, it
ended up sort of doing a loop and coming right
back into the same trail, and then I realized I
had cat tracks going two directions on the same trail.

(08:37):
Then we kept poking around, found four different kills on
this ridge from this one cap and it ends up
just being cat tracks everywhere. So I went from praying
in the morning, come on just one track, just one track,
Just need one track, And then by ten am like
this is stupid. Just tracks everywhere, cats, cats going every

(08:59):
direction and it's probably just one cat that's been hanging
out living in there and had been just doing circles
and doubling back whatever, not on purpose, just being a cat.
And it was cool to see the kills. And we
actually found a toilet which is basically it looked like

(09:20):
a buried a cat toilet, not a human toilet, but
it's basically a buried pile of cat poop, so very
reminiscent of a litter box. But you could poke your
hiking pull in this pine duff and just all through
there were cat turts. Was pretty interesting anyways, didn't find it,

(09:42):
but I figured, man, this cat's in here. So I
went back Saturday and I thought I found a track
that wasn't there the day before, put mingus on it.
Hunted again until three both days, five plus miles, lots
of post hole and even with snowshoes, climbing ste deep ridges,
and in the end went home. No cat in a tree.

(10:06):
So it is what it is, man, And a lot
of times I'm frustrated and bummed because it's just not
happening at the same time as bind myself. It's only
my third year doing it. It's extremely hard. I love
that it's hard. It's humbling, it's It's a big reason
that I got into turkeys, because early on I was

(10:27):
not a good turkey hunter and took me quite a
few years to feel like I was getting it. I
was figuring it out. And I'm in the same boat
again with this line hunting thing. It is just tough man, tough, tough, tough.
So I'm having a great time doing it. But yeah,
I've got one week left. Season closes April fourteenth here

(10:50):
in Montana, so I've got one day left this upcoming
week where I'm gonna put give it another go. Probably
gonna go back to that same ridge, could because I
think that cat is living there. There's plenty of game
for it to eat, so I don't know why it
would leave. And yeah, hopefully we'll finish the season with
a bang. All right, tell me about this gear hack.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, okay, So I was we were doing backyard projects as
the weather gets nicer, and we were strolling through lows
and I went through the tool boxes just kind of
on accident, and I started noticing a lot of like
big toe sized or maybe a little bit smaller toolboxes

(11:35):
that they're lockable, they have nice latches, they have like
you know, wheels on them for rolling. But the thing
that comes out, like the big handle that comes out,
it's like telescoping. So the handle basically like slides back
into the lids so it stays out of the way.
But then when you want to, if you have a
lot of weight and it, you can like telescope that

(11:59):
handle out and then wheel it around. And so most
of them lock, and if they don't lock, they at
least have holes that you could put a padlock in them.
They roll, so when you have all the stuff in there,
you're good to go there. They're heavier duty than a tote,
and they have like a gasket around the lid for
sealing out dust and water and stuff. And I was like,

(12:23):
that's genius. And they're not that expensive, Like they're a
little bit more expensive than a regular plastic tote. But like, dude,
a lot of those totes I can't get the lids
to stay on. The latches break all the time. I
end up standing on them at one point or another
and I break them, and YadA YadA.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
So are you talking about a full on job site box?
Like it's a big metal box. It's lockable that you
can put all your tools in when you leave the job.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
I'm metal, they're like they're Rodo molded, so they're still plastic,
and they're like fairly lightweight, but they're just heavier duty
than a regular plastic tote. And then you have all
the other features of them too, And some of you know,
some of them have dividers, some of them didn't. Some
of them you could put dividers and organizers in them,

(13:14):
and some of them it was just a big just
one big toat to put stuff in. But I thought
it was cool.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
And are you thinking these for back of the truck
organization or garage organization or where you gonna apply these products? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
So usually when we're going out on trips and stuff,
I'll have a tote that might have some extra clothes
in it, extra boots. If we're doing just a regular
like car camping type trip, I still usually have a
tote that has all of my backpack, like some backpacking
stuff in it in because I do an overnighter food

(13:52):
like extra backpacking meals and food and stuff like that,
I just usually have tots for all that stuff. And
it just seems like I could put most of that
stuff in one thing and still be okay and be
able to just have a more what I feel, a
more sealed, weather proof dustproof box if you're gonna throw

(14:16):
it in the back of the pickup or leave it
outside or something like that while you're camping. I don't
know if that makes sense. It was just pretty cool
to me. And they're like fifty bucks some of them.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Hm, yeah, that's not much more expensive than an action packer.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
No, yeah, exactly. And it has wheels, and it's just
like it just seems a little more heavy duty and substantial.
So I just thought that that was a that was
an interesting thing that people might not think to look
at because they're not in the same section as action
packers and tots and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
That's yeah, I'm gonna have to cruise through there next
time I'm at the hardware store and and check it out.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, I see what you think, all right.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
So for this episode, we've dedicated it to answering listener questions.
We've we get a lot of them. We appreciate you
guys sending your questions in. As a reminder, if you
have any questions or comments, you can send them to
gear talk at themeeater dot com, or you can d
M Jordan or myself on the Instagram, and you can

(15:26):
also leave comments on the podcast web page on the
mediator dot com. You just go, you just find it
there within the website and you'll see you right up top,
there's a button that says comment. You can hit that,
it'll take you right to the comment section, and you
can listen to the podcast there on the meter site

(15:47):
as well. So, all right, first question, we're gonna talk
white tails a little bit, but I want to preface
this question was saying that a lot of what we're
gonna talk about and our answers, it can be used
in similar situations or a lot of different pursuits, a

(16:09):
lot of different animals that you're gonna hunt, certainly a
lot of different locations. Even though we're answering this kind
of sort of white tail specific question, you'll see as
we'll explain the answer that it can be applied in
a lot of places. So the question is something I
haven't heard really anybody covered with a concrete solution. What

(16:33):
is the best layering system for long hikes in out
of hunting public land and northern whitetail. I usually hike
one to two miles while gaining about one thousand feet
to get to my spots. I know this isn't a
death march, as y'all call it, but the challenge is
trying to keep my pack as light as possible while
still having enough to stay warm during long sits in

(16:54):
the saddle. I believe the hardest part to conquer is
the wind. It's tough to beat a stiff cold win
without weight, for example, the weight being what he usually
carries fleee or wool. Please share your secrets if you
have any. Always looking to improve my system, Scottie Deck,
What do you think.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Jordan Man, I don't think. I don't know if there's
really any secret to this as far as what you're
going to be carrying with you to be able to
sit for like long sits to stay warm, like what
we've always done here. We're not in the north and
I'm not walking that far to a white tail stand,

(17:35):
but I think the same thing pretty much applies. I
will have like a backpack and I will have my
bibs on the backpack. If I'm walking further and like
walking through the brakes or whatever, I'll have my my
big jacket on my backpack. I'll have my bibs on

(17:55):
my backpack, and then I'll just have like regular pants
underneath my bibs so I can walk in and out
and hopefully they just lighter weight pant they just breathe
a little bit better, and then they also act as
like a little bit more of an insulation layer when
you have your bibs on. And then for the top,
like I'll probably pack like if I'm doing like a

(18:17):
lightweight puffy jacket. I don't really do puffy jackets that
much unless it is like a you know, a white
tailor's puffy jacket, per se. But I just walk in
with as little of clothes on as I can, just
like a lightweight wool shirt or even as I tend

(18:39):
to stick to like wool if I'm going to be
sitting a lot. But yeah, just try to try to
keep as cool as you can going in and not
have a bunch of layers on where you're just gonna
get sweaty. And then once you get there, you put
all these clothes on and then you still have that
moisture on you and then you're just you're gonna get cold.

(19:03):
So gosh, I don't I don't know if that make
Munks makes much sense. It's pretty much what I'm doing
for Western hunting too, Like I'm not wearing my puffy
jacket while I'm walking up a hill, you know, keeping
it like as light as I can and uh, and
then when I get to where I'm going, like try
to let myself dry off just a little bit and
then put your warm dry layers on and roll.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah. I think that the big difference between this and
say Western is that, especially if you're gonna get into
a tree on a white tail hunt, these folks are
probably they could be sitting all day. I don't know
if he said it was gonna be an all day
sit in this question, but there's no chance to That's
a nice thing about Western hunting. You get cold, walk

(19:50):
down the hill two hundred yards and walk back up
to your glass and spot, and you're just as warm
as when you started right, Or get out of the wind,
go to the backside of the you know, get on
leeward side of the mountain, get out of the wind
a little bit, and build a fire. That sort of
stuff is not an option when you're sitting in that stand,
just waiting, waiting, waiting for your thirty second encounter with

(20:12):
the buck. Right that being said, I think that I
like what you said about going in with wearing as
little as possible. That's key, as they say, be bold
and start cold. If you get if you leave the
truck and start hiking and you're nice and comfy and warm,
at that moment, you've got too many clothes on by far,

(20:36):
and it won't be long until you're starting to sweat,
and then you got to address layers. So, like I said,
be bold, start cold. Depending on what the weather is doing,
it might be less or more. It might be just
a bass layer. It might be a bass layer and
a soft shell jacket or something to break the wind
a little bit. It's just going to depend on the day.

(20:56):
But once you get in there, I think, and this
fell was really asking on how to be lighter because
he's trying to have a light pack to get in there,
but then have enough insulation. And most of the times
I'm with you, Jordan, where if I'm hunting my Wisconsin place,
I have a couple hikes that are close to a mile.
Even then that's short enough where I'll have the big

(21:19):
white tailors bibs and jacket on my backpack and I'll
haul him in there. But if I had to go
double that distance. Probably not gonna take that just too much,
too big, too bulky. If I run into a deer
on the way in or out, and you know it's light,
I can't really you know, be hunting and pursuing an
animal with that much stuff on my back. So I

(21:41):
think you got to take a little bit more of
a you know, western backpacker's mindset and go, Okay, what
is absolutely the lightest stuff that I can get in
a tree with and be comfortable. And obviously we get
into the nothing's perfect here because this ultra lightweight, super
instant related stuff like a down jacket that you can't

(22:03):
find one that has a face fabric that is sufficient
enough where most white sellars would say, oh yeah, that's
quiet enough for me to draw my bow. That being said,
that is your absolute, your lightest way to do it.
I think if you're in a stand, you probably can

(22:24):
get away with down or synthetic pants on the bottom.
I feel like saddle or in the stand, if I'm
standing there when the buck comes in, even if I
had to stand up, my pants are probably not going
to make that much noise right to where it is
going to trigger the buck. Or alert the buck of

(22:45):
my presence. If I have to draw my bow in
a scratchy down jacket, that might do that. So for
the bottom, there's a lot of options for synthetic puffy
pants and down filled puffy pants that would be a
way to go to the extremes right, and then you

(23:09):
may or may not put something on over it that
those kind of pants, You really wouldn't want to put
them under a normal hunting pant because you would compress
the insulation probably too much, and it's going to reduce
the loft and reduce how much it's keeping you warm.
So I would consider just keeping those on on the outside.

(23:29):
I'd consider bringing maybe a down over boot for your
boots themselves for the same reason, because I feel like
if your extremities are warm and the rest of you
stays warm. I don't know who makes those products, but
I know there's a couple of them out there, But
it's basically a lightweight down booty that just goes over
your regular boots that you hiked in and it'll in

(23:52):
it acts as a barrier, you know, to the extreme
elements on the outside. Now, the jacket I think is
going to be tough for this because again, you want
to be lightweight or you're going to be quiet when
when the moment of truth comes to take that shot, right,
I think that you could bring a your outer garment's
got if you're bow hunting, your outer garment's gonna have

(24:13):
to be somewhat quiet in your jacket. So I don't
know if that's a soft shell. I don't think there's
any real hard shells out there. They're going to be
quiet enough. But you can maybe oversize your soft shell
and then have a big puffy down jacket underneath it.
On to me, I don't think there's any way you're
going to go lighter and still be able to be

(24:38):
warm and sit all day like that. Everything else is
gonna be a heavier option than that. So depending on
the day, you might make it with just a base layer,
just one down jacket and then one sort of soft
shell or like I said, outer jacket piece that could

(25:00):
do two things. Could break the wind a little bit
more for you, and it could uh make it a
little bit quieter. You're still gonna hear the sound of
that nylon exterior underneath your jacket. I think having a
something over it is gonna dampen that sound enough where

(25:20):
at twenty yards you'll be able to draw your bow
and get a shot. I think something to think about
too is like I was talking about your feet and
keeping your extremities warm, bringing a over the top hat
that is warmer than what you actually need. Again, if

(25:40):
your head's warm kind of helps keep everything else warm.
Bring a net gator, even if it's a skinny wool netgator,
Bring that and insulate that neck. Don't be losing heat
in these, you know, easy to cover places. Same thing
with your hands. You know, have some nice woolf liners,
have a way to keep warm inside some you know insulation,

(26:03):
whether it's pockets or a muff or something that you
brought in with you. But I think if you keep the
extremities warm, I think it'll overall make your body feel.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Warmer, super like good intel. Like I think some of
my thinking with just like especially later season you're dipping
into November. I don't remember if you actually put that
on here. I think that's a question further on down.
But like I have just been freezing cold before then

(26:34):
I would have given any amount of money to have
a super cushy set of bibs in a big jacket on,
and yeah, it would be tough for me just to
try to like skimp by is as as least as
I could, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Sure, it's gonna come down to personal choice on whether
you want to carry the way of of the big
you know, heavier uh, you know, bibbs and jacket with
you or not. All right now kind of on the

(27:22):
a segue to another question, is is another fellow wanted
some clothing recommendations for a main northern tier whitetail hunt,
but not one where you sit in a stand. Instead,
go out there, cut a fresh track, follow the buck
and do a hunt. That question came from Instagram at

(27:44):
Greg H six nine. Way different, right, you're moving the
whole time, so even if you're in single digit temperatures
down to zero again depending on this the speed that
you're moving, depending on how much the wind is blowing.

(28:06):
But that's not too different from a lot of the
lion hunts I've been on this winter. It's cold, it's snowy.
I'm going up some I'm going you know, across the ridge.
Some I'm going downhill. Some usually not too fast. I'm
not in a rush to get anywhere. I'm just hiking around,

(28:29):
but I'm moving enough to keep up my core tempt
and if it's if it's gonna stay freezing or below,
I'll go with my midweight wool base layer. Anything warmer
than that, I'll go with the lightweight version. But just

(28:49):
one wool based layer and a soft shell jacket, something
just to knock the wind off, contain a little bit
of my own heat. That is enough to get me
through most situations most days, until I stop, and the
same thing goes for this fella, I think that you
could hunt. You could be on the track with a

(29:11):
single bass layer, a nice soft shell jacket. You're cruising along,
you're moving. You know, if it's not quite enough, you're
gonna have to bring in either another another base layer
of wool, or you could add in a thin synthetic
puffy of some sort underneath that soft shell. If I

(29:34):
was that person hunting, I would always have some kind
of a down jacket in my backpack. And that's not
just for stopping and having lunch or stopping and glassing
for a minute, or whatever it might be. But you
get into a situation and you got to stay out
longer than you thought. You're going to be super happy

(29:55):
to be pulling busting out a down jacket out of
out of your backpack. As far as the bottoms go,
very similar situation. I would say, one light wool based layer,
some sort of a soft shelly pant, and then you know,
whatever you do for gators or you know, for depending

(30:17):
on how much snow there is. I think something that
can vent open has some zippers so that you can
let the air flow that way, if you do hike
up five hundred feet at one time, following a buck
track real quick, because you know he went up and
over to the other side of the mountain, you can

(30:38):
zip out and let the heat dump out. Yep.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, I don't really have a lot to add on that.
I think the only thing I do just a little
bit different is like you mentioned, sometimes depending on the temperature,
you where either like the lightest weight wool, or you'll
go to like a midway or just a little heavier
weight wool. I think from me, I always tend to
stick with that lightest weight wol and then I might

(31:04):
just put another layer in between that soft shell jacket,
so like sometimes it could be a fleece, sometimes it
might just be a vest. Like just a lighter weight vest.
But yeah, I mean pretty much same same thing that
you've got going on. Would be my recommendations.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
I found for me when I double up any sort
of bass layer in mid layer, whether that midlayer is
the fleece or another layer whirl, well, it just seems
like a more apt to get sweatier sooner and faster.
And again I just have to remind myself of that,
be bold, start cold, and let the system work for you, right,

(31:51):
let it insulate you to the point that you need.
But then also with the less layers in there, it's
going to let that moisture and let that heat move
through it faster, easier, and hopefully regulate your temperature better.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, and it's hard to start bold sometimes.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh man. Yeah, especially when you're tired and it's day
three or four and you're a little cranky. But man,
as soon as you get moving and you're like, oh yeah,
I'm very comfortable right now. My wife and I actually
just went on a run yesterday, a little easter afternoon run,

(32:29):
and it was no different. Man. She had gone outside.
It was a beautiful day here, I mean probably sixty
degrees maybe even a little bit warmer, but the song
was getting a little bit low. It was maybe five
thirty and I'm like, I'm going t shirt and shorts.
It's just nice. The wind's not supposed to blow at all.

(32:51):
And she put on tights and I think she had
on a wool first light hoodie, and fifteen minutes into
it she was sweating. And same thing. I was super comfortable.
I wasn't even even the lead I would. I don't
even say I started cold. I mean it might have

(33:13):
been a tinge of of you know, cold, but yeah,
it's the same thing. It's so easy to go no, no, no,
I want to be comfortable. I'm gonna wear more. But
as soon as you start doing any kind of activity
where you're exerting energy, it's going to get You're gonna

(33:34):
be too hot. All right, Take take this one. Jordan.
We just did a haunt in northern main White Tail
where he's gonna move all day, follow and follow a
buck track. Josh Selfridge, he's going to Oregon this year
for his first l hunt. It's gonna be a post
rut rifle hunt November one to five, and he'd love

(33:55):
to hear your opinion on a first like kit to
bring out there that time year. Is there anything you
would change for that hunt compared to the Northern tier
white tail hunt?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
A little bit, A little bit, I would do the
same thing, like light bas layer, because if we're walking
a lot, that's probably what I'm going to be in
a lot, go with the fleece. I kind of teeter
back and forth on those November hunts of whether I
want to bring a soft shell or not. Sometimes with
like a backpack style hunt, they're just like, yeah, they're

(34:35):
a little bulky, and you can pretty much get by
with just putting your puffy jacket on earlier. But a
lot of times I still like a soft shell, especially
if there's gonna be some if there's gonna be a
lot of wind and there's gonna be some weather coming in,
sometimes that soft shell is really nice to hike in

(34:56):
with a pack on to cut the wind. Just like
you were saying with the guy from Mean, what I
would add for sure is puffy pants, and I would
make sure to have a puffy jacket and probably like
a fairly substantial puffy jacket and with that mix. But
other than that, I mean, it's still kind of the same.

(35:18):
I think I would still use like the Corget foundry
pant with like over the top of a wick like
the wick base layer bottoms. That seems to be a
pretty good system. If I knew it was gonna be
really cold, I might bump up to like the Catalyst
pants instead of the cor Gate. Just gets you a
little a little bit thicker material, a little bit of

(35:40):
like fleecy lining, and can be a little bit warmer.
But for the most part, man, it doesn't really change.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
No, I agree, not that not that much. It's gonna
be cold, but you're gonna be moving when you stop,
you get you needs it figured got a way to
keep you warm, and yeah, no better way and do
that than puffy pants and or a puffy jacket.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Man. And I think like puffy pants. I think that
they're underrated. They're starting to get up there, like people
are starting to wear them and be like, holy cow,
I never knew my pants or my legs got cold
until I put those things on and you kind of
realize how chilled they were. Another thing I want to
kick and hear real quick is like utilizing your rain

(36:29):
gear too for more than just beaten rain storms. And
if that stuff is waterproof, it's wind proof and throwing
a set of rain pants on can be really nice.
I've done that a bit, like maybe in October when
I just like am not super sold on packing my

(36:51):
puffy pants, I can throw those rain pants on in
it like you'd be amazed how much it traps that
heat in. It cuts the wind one hundred percent. And
then I don't know, it's just I feel like rainear
is pretty underutilized and we all seem to always have
it with us.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's the there's some sort
of saying adage about having multiple uses for each piece
of gear, and certainly if you're packing around the two
to three four pounds of rain gear and only pulling
it out when there's a deluge happening, I think you're

(37:32):
you're doing it wrong. You're packing a lot of gear
round for no reason. It definitely works extremely well for
breaking the wind and just you know, keeping the chill
off of you. That's something that probably won't work well
for the white tail hunter. It's just going to be
too noisy. But on a western hunt, a rifle hunt,

(37:54):
the elk at two hundred yards is not going to
hear your rain pants machine together or swishing against the brush.
I mean maybe on the absolute still at night, but
you should just be a little bit more careful. I
guess if you know there's a bulk at two hundred
yards in that situation. But yeah, I've been wearing my

(38:15):
Olmend rain pants all winter cat hunting in them instead
of wearing pants with gators. Because the internal gator has
a little clip on it. I put that on my bootlaces.
That keeps the pants down, keeping them from riding up
when I'm postoling through the snow. And to me, it's

(38:37):
one less layer because instead of having socks long John's,
a hike or a hunting pant, and a gator, now
I just have socks long Johns and one pair of pants.
It just seems like one less layer. I feel like
my calves don't get as sweaty running that way, So

(38:59):
you could consider that good luck, Josh Hope, you uh
whack yourself a big one out there. I've never hunted
an Oregon, either of Steve. I guess we did. No,
that was Washington we hunted together. I've never been in
Oregon hunting. Yeah, what's the next one here?

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah? Onto Danny Doyle's.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Question, let's go to Danny Doyle.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, uh, he says Yanni. How about discussing what rifle
you'd both have if you could only have one? And
this is a really hard question.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
It's impossible. Do you want to take it first?

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah? I mean, if you were starting from absolutely zero
and you're going on a L hunt, I would probably
go with like a seven mag. If you are just
going to be shooting deer and stuff. I don't think
there's anything wrong with, you know, overgun and then going

(39:55):
to something like seven mag, but for deer and antelope
and stuff like going with something like a six ' five.
We've talked about this a little bit, but it I
think you should be able to shoot your rifle really
well and feel comfortable shooting it, rather than being like,
all right, I got I got an L hunt coming up.

(40:17):
I hear. I have to have a three hundred rum
or a three hundred win mag to shoot an elk with,
So I'm gonna get that thing. And especially if you
haven't shot a lot, those things whack the hell out
of you, like they're not that fun to shoot. They
just aren't. And I think that having a rifle that
you can shoot well and you like shooting is going

(40:39):
to be a little better than going with something really big,
which is kind of getting a little I'm getting down
a rabbit hole. But mine would probably be some like
a seven mag. But you know, you take this over, Yannie,
like I kind of know your thoughts on it.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
A little bit, very well rounded cartridge choice there. I
got a lot to say about this, But Danny, you're
not gonna like my answer because I'm gonna tell you
that I wouldn't never answer this question and say, oh yeah,
it would just be the Remington seven hundred and thirty

(41:18):
hot six. It's just there's no I've owned that rifle.
It did me well. I killed my first three or
four elk with it. I don't own it anymore. I
don't own a single thirty hot six anymore. And yeah,
with my job, I get to cycle through a lot
more guns. But before this job, when I was just
a hunting guide, I still cycle through guns. I went

(41:41):
through that, then I went through Trying to think what
I went to after that, I think I went to
three hundred Winchester short Magnum. After that, I had a
three hundred weather be for a little while, and that
was about as big as I ever went, and then
I backed it down to to seventy. I have a

(42:01):
six y five Swede, which I bought because Chuck Hawk's
and my buddy Scottie are huge fans of the sixty
five fifty five Swede, which is pretty much the equivalent ballistically,
And I know a lot of people are gonna love
this and freak out on us, but it's pretty much
the equivalent of that six y five creed more than
everybody loves. For whatever reason, the sixty five, not whatever

(42:24):
reason is marketing, is why the six fifty five swede
never took off here in the United States. Over in Europe,
it accounts for something crazy like seventy five percent of
the moose killed or something ridiculous like that are killed
with a sixty five fifty five. Anyways, I own one
of those. I've killed I think three giant cow elk
here Montana with that cartridge, and each one of them

(42:48):
did awesome. So my point to all that is is
that it just for me. Part of this whole thing
is the fun of trying new stuff of Yeah, whether
it's a different caliber or different rifle configuration, Like even
if you're not a hunting influencer, dude, and you're getting

(43:12):
rifles sent to you. It's not that hard. I used to
how I got my three hundred weather be I walked
into the Cabellas and Sitdney, Nebraska, and it was sitting
there looking pretty as could be in that used gun rack,
and I think I got it for like six hundred
and fifty bucks or something like that, and it was sweet.
I think it was a Remington seven hundred that one.

(43:32):
But anyways, it shot great. It did what I needed
to do, and I'm sure I could have easily sold
whatever other gun I had for roughly the same price
and been into something else. Like I just enjoyed that stuff.
It's fun. Back when I reloaded, it was another reason
to buy some more gunpowder and more brass and more
bullets and load up more loads and just enjoy the

(43:55):
journey of experiencing different calibers and checking it all out.
Which brings me back to the seven rem bag, which
I just got one in a Tika t X three.
It's got an MDT stock on it, which is a
sweet little setup. And I've never hunted with a seven milimeter,

(44:19):
never killed a single animal with a seven milimeter, and
this will be my first spring and fall I'll hunt
with one, and I'm looking forward to it. See what
it does. I'm sure that it's going to do well.
I know hundreds of people they've killed the animals with
a seven millimeter. With today's bullets, quality bullets, there's a

(44:39):
lot of options that can help any caliber get the
job done. I will leave you with this. If I
was going to do anything right now considering around rifles,
and you really had to spend some money is I
would get my butt into a place that sells suppressors
and do the paperwork and get the process started. There's

(45:05):
what's that. Yeah, it's not gonna be fast, it's gonna Basically,
you should just set aside a year. I know you're thinking, like, oh, man,
a year, and it's like, yeah, you won't be hunting
it hunting deer season twenty three with it, but you
will be hunting deer season twenty four with it. And
obviously you got to check your local rags and whatever
and make sure they're legal. I don't know if any
place is that they're not, but man, to me, I've

(45:28):
been thinking about it a lot lately. I've got a couple
of them now, and it just makes rifle shooting so
much more fun. You don't have to worry about the
both things like the recoil and just the sound. Well
it's messing up your ears. But how much I was

(45:49):
just thinking about because I was shooting that rifle the
other day at seven millimeter sight it. Sighting it in
really is all I was doing. But it was such
a breeze and I was so calm throughout the whole
thing where and I realized that I didn't have to
sit there and go, Okay, brace yourself because it's gonna punch,
but don't brace yourself so much that you are affecting

(46:12):
your shot like me control, but let the rifle do
its thing. Right. There's this big thought process that I'm
always going through, and now that I have that can
screwed on the end, that is gone. It's just pull
the trigger, pull the trigger, and I'm watching the bullets
hit the paper. I'm watching the bullets hit the the

(46:35):
the steel. It's just and I was thinking about how
much of a difference that's gonna make for my kids.
How for me, and they're dealing with it a little
bit now with shotguns, but for me growing up there
was always this sort of thing when I remember going
up you know, rifle sizes, you know, up to a
thirty caliber and think always thinking about the recoil, and

(46:57):
it was a big part of it. Now with cans,
it doesn't have to be that way, and they're gonna
have such a better in my opinion experience. Like Steve
always says, there's no reason the rifles have to be
loud and have a whole bunch of recoil mm hmm.
Like we have this thing called a suppressor, right, Like,

(47:17):
there's no rule that says you have to endure this
crazy loud boom with this and this crazy uh impact
against your shoulder and your cheek and possibly your forehead
if you're in too close on the scope.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
So yeah, so much nicer to shoot. Man.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Oh just it's just yeah, it's just fun. I think
I told the story already. But last year I shot
my first animal using a suppressor. It was a my
longest shot ever. It was a prong horn five hundred
and sixty yards I believe it was. I was prone
on top of a little ridge overlooking this beautiful hayfield.
We're hunting some private property i'd gotten access to and

(47:59):
I shot. It was the first animal ever, and I
can remember what. I never lost the prong horn in
my site picture, and I saw the bullet hit. I
saw the ripples sort of go through its fur and
whether that was air or just the shock wave going
through its fur. But as soon as I pulled the

(48:22):
trigger and saw that, I was like, Okay, good, that's
dead prong horn. Don't need to think about a follow
up shot, right that? Being able to keep that animal
in my site picture, that's the biggest thing I think
for hunting with suppressors. The biggest pro is that it's
so much easier to keep your target in the site

(48:46):
picture and be ready to know what happened, and to
be ready and be faster on a follow up shot.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Some random thing I was just
thinking about, like kicking and how that can stick with
you to this day. I still think that four ten's
just kick like a mules, because the last time I
shot one, I was like ten.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Right o. My daughter is battling it bad. We have
daily conversations about when the next time is going to
be that she's gonna muster the uh, the fortitude to
go out there and pull that trigger again. Her younger
sister is doing it now regularly and is not scared
of it, and I'm hoping that that's enough to push

(49:31):
her into doing it. She wants to kill a turkey
this year. But I'm definitely not pushing it too hard.
I just said, every day we have a little conversation,
how you feeling. Do you want to know? If you
don't want to talk about it, we don't have to
talk about it, but let me know, let me know
when you're ready to try. I'll have the targets set
up in five minutes.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
She'll work through it.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll happen. So sorry, Danny, I couldn't
help you out and just pick one, but I just don't.
I just think it's and you know what, Danny, though
you're not alone. I think that when I asked for
these questions, there was at least three four, maybe half
dozen versions of the same question. And I just I

(50:19):
don't want to say it's it's not stupid, and I
guess it's. If you're learning about all this, you might
think there's a right answer, But as long as you're
not extremely undergunned, that's the only place you will get
into some real trouble because you can be overgunned and
you're just gonna have probably more meat loss or whatever

(50:39):
heavier gun to carry, and this and that and the other.
But as far as getting the job done, you can't
really overgun it. You could just be undergunned being meaning
you have too small of a caliber. But yeah, all
Jordan's points were great to pick something that you can
shoot well, that you're not scared of. Shack Cox, the
Great Gun always said that the third Yacht six was

(51:03):
for a lot of people, that sweet spot of having
a lot of just enough gun for a lot of critters,
but a manageable recoil that didn't cause bad shooting form.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
So yep, yep, all right, let's dive into some range
finding monoculars. I've gotten this question quite a few times,
so excited to tackle it. So from j Hols eleven
on the homepage, we have Hello, Jannis and Jordan love
the podcast. Could you talk about the pros and cons

(51:39):
of range finding monoculars. I predominantly bow hunt and I
would love to hear about your thoughts on switching from
a traditional bino and rangefinder setup to a combined setup.
Could you also give some advice on a few different
models of range finding buyos.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Well.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
I've used both. I did use a range finding Bino
for everything quite quite a few This has been quite
a few years ago now, and I ended up going
back to not really going back. I still I have.
I have both and I can use both, which is nice.
I find myself for bow hunting going to a range

(52:21):
just a you know, a regular little rangefinder. Some of
that I think is and this isn't like across the board,
but a lot of times when you're putting a range
finder into your optics, sometimes your optics can get like
they might not do quite as well in low light,

(52:42):
Like you're just adding a lot of things that the
lens has to take or the glass has to take,
so your optical quality might go down a little bit.
And then they're just nicer to carry around a lot
of times as far as just your your little normal
rangefinder and uh for bow hunting, like you don't need

(53:08):
ten power a lot of times, and sometimes it's I
was on a stock one time where I had a
mule to your betted and he was at like forty
yards in my binoculars were ten powers and it was
almost a little goofy like trying to find him exactly
where he was betted, or just tried to pick up
on his antlers because it was like too much magnification.

(53:30):
And a lot of these range finders now they're six
the it's six power or their seven power, so they
give you quite a bit more field of view. It's
just a really hard one, Yanni. It kind of is
like a range finded by no. Like I've bow hunted
with them and they definitely work, but that's a bigger

(53:50):
object to move around and then try to I feel
like with a little rangefinder, especially with the tethers that
a lot of the like the harnesses have, now you
can range and then you can just drop it, and
I feel like you can't always just do that with
a buy and no. Sometimes they just stick more in
the way when you just like let them flop on

(54:13):
your chest.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
If that makes sense, Yeah, totally, I think you. And
I asked the fellas at SIG about this, and I've
talked to the the people over at Vortex. So far,
it seems like with range finding binoculars and I have
not tried the Swarowski el range It's uh.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
I had that one for years.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Yeah, well, do you think that, because I know with
from the other companies, it seems as though to get
the the ability to do the display, to do the
and to range through that glass they aren't able to
use for some reason, and they can't combine the best

(55:02):
possible optic quality glass that they have with the rangefinder technology,
like I wish I could remember exactly what it was,
but the two aren't compatible. So I don't know if
it's the same for Swirrel, but for everybody else. You
can't buy their high end binocular with the with the

(55:24):
rangefinder capabilities built in. It's always going to be the
second tier glass with the rangefinder built in. We'll just
have to have someone on that can explain that to us.
But did you feel like with the el Range, were
you ever able to compare that to another swirrow and
say yes, it's less or it's yes, it's the same.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Well, so one little thing with that, I'm I'm almost
one hundred percent sure on this. They told me one
time that the el Range actually has the SLC glass
in it, so it doesn't have that field flattening like
the els or I don't remember they call it, but
it's a field flattening that's supposed to eliminate the effect

(56:09):
of like curvature when you look through binoculars. So sometimes
when you look through binoculars you look at like a
telephone pole. Ar some it seems a little curved. Well,
that's just the shape of the lens and that's just
kind of the way it is. Well, Sworrow got away
from that somehow by making their els. But what I
understand is that the EL range actually has the SLC glass,
and at least at that time that was twenty thirteen,

(56:33):
twenty twelve something like that.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
The SLC glass is still incredible glass.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Really good. Yeah yep. But likezing that range finder, you know,
it only went down to like thirty one yards or
something like that, which I didn't really find to be
a big limitter myself, because if I knew something was
thirty yards, it was pretty easy to figure out what
twenty was. But I can see the I can see

(57:01):
the appeal to wanting to have one that goes under thirty.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, after using both of them, I don't mind using
the Well, I've used both the Vortex Furies and the SIGH.
I think it's the kilos right, Yeah. Range finding binoculars
on at least a half well the sake less maybe

(57:28):
two or three hunts of this for the sake and
ten hunts for the furies by Vortex, and I got
away with it. I still glassed off a tripod and
did it and made it happen for rifle hunts. But
in the end I thought, Man, I'm sitting here glassing

(57:51):
for hours. I want the best optical quality I can get,
the clearest picture that I can forward, that I can
get my hands on. That's what I'm gonna That's what
I'm gonna go for, because if I can't find the game,
then who cares? If I can range it? And so
I don't mind having it separately. Now if I'm using

(58:13):
any company's high end glass and then having a separate
range finder, that's for rifle honting for bowl hunting. I've
never tried the range Fin binocular and I don't think
I will, mostly for the reason you were talking about.
When you're getting in tight, you need the least amount
of motion possible and just pulling up a little bitty

(58:34):
rangefinder and getting your range shooting it like like you said,
they're five and six power usually, so you're getting a
little bit of magnification. You can use that rangefinder to
pan around and look through some brush, see what the
animal is doing whatever. Ah, And it's uh yeah at

(58:54):
that point, and when I'm making those kind of close
range shots, I don't need binocular as anyon like you
were saying, you don't need tens tens that might be
too much, even eights at fifty yards is it's not
the time for for glassing, right, It's it's it's time
for ranging and then and then hopefully getting a shot off.
So I'm gonna stick for the time being. I'm sticking

(59:17):
with uh regular regular binoculars is the best I can
get my hands on. And then a range finder on
my side.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yep, yeah, I'm I'm really in the same boat. I
think rifle hunting, I'm more apt to taking a range
finding buy non with me, but you know where one
of those things really shines for me. And really the
reason that I got the EO ranges to start with
was is guiding. Then you're like you can range at
the same time, and then you're always in your byos

(59:49):
watching like if the hunter takes a shot, and I
know there's really you know, in the grain scheme of things,
there's not that many people that are guides, but like,
if you go with somebody a lot, it's nice to
be able to help call out ranges and be able
to stay in your in your powered glass. But that's
a small that's a small bit of a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I mean, they're not guides, but everybody hunts with friends
and buddies and family members and uh yeah, and again
it's probably more of a Western thing. It's I don't
find myself using needing to know how far that white
tail is away when I'm hunting in Wisconsin. It's just
never going to be that far away. Where we hunt,

(01:00:34):
we don't have giant ag feels where you actually could
shoot past a couple hundred But yeah, that's a good
point because when you're hunting with people, especially people you
don't know, like clients, the shot rings sometimes when you
are not expecting it, and it's nice to, like you said,

(01:00:56):
stay in the binos and be working two things at once. Yeah,
we'll get more into deeper into the range finding binoculars
on an upcoming episode. What you know when that comes up.
So if you have more specific questions about arrange finding binoculars,
get them to us. This one is from air Hunger

(01:01:31):
Underscore are in. I wonder what he or she meant
by air hunger. I think that person is a nurse.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah, if I was a guest, they would be like
a flight for lurse parlor flight or something. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Okay, well they ask when do you break out the
old white gas stove or y'all canister rigs only?

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Dude. I've been nerding out on this as of late,
actually trying to talk myself into buying a Whisper Light Universal,
and I think have come to the conclusion that I'm
just not going to do it. I've been around the
white Gas or the Whisper Light Universal from MSR or

(01:02:24):
not Universal, the International from Whisper Light a little bit,
running white gas through them, and like, yes, the gas
it's cheaper, which I think is a big reason that
people like them is because your fuel just isn't gonna
cost you as much as those canisters and the canisters

(01:02:45):
can you know, they are kind of expensive if you're
doing it a lot. I think a big draw to
white gas or those like white gas type stove. Some
of them you can run off all kinds of fuels
you can run off of, like diesel fuel, fuel, kerosene,
they all are like a little bit different, it seems.

(01:03:05):
And also it seems like with running those different fuels,
it's not really as easy as just hey, let's put
the diesel fuel jet on and let's run diesel through it.
Like it doesn't it. They don't quite work and just
fire up as easy as that. From the research that

(01:03:26):
I did, white gas seems to be a lot better.
But I think with the advances in canister stoves and
they like a lot of those canister stoves have regulators
on them now, and it seems like as long as
you can keep that canister warm, they perform really good,

(01:03:46):
even at elevation. So I don't know, I think with
some of those better canister stoves, that's just the way
to go for for like backpack hunting. They're easier, Like,
they're way less bulky, they're way lighter, They're just like,
especially for me, I like taking those things on the

(01:04:06):
mountain in the middle of the day, like warming up
some tea or something like that, and you're not doing
that with a white gas stove at least not as easy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Yeah, not as not as easy. It's crazy to say
that I'm old enough that I don't know if for
sure they weren't around, but they were definitely rare because
I know for a fact that I had a whisper
light and then a dragonfly. I feel like I used
those for solid decade before I even started thinking about

(01:04:38):
the Uh that's kind of when jetbell came on the scene,
was probably about a decade after I'd been in the
you know, backpacking, just regular backpack. I wasn't even backpack
hunting at that point. But yeah, they worked. There's a
there's definitely more of a learning curve using the white
gas stove. You gotta to know just how much to

(01:05:02):
let out to light, to prime the stove so that
when you let out the pressurized gas that it'll ignite
and burn. That gets tricky Oftentimes people let out too
much gas in the beginning. You'll light it and you've
got this giant fireball for the next thirty seconds. And
depending on where you lit that, it could be problematic.

(01:05:27):
I think the last time we used one was on
a flight in Alaska, or sorry, on a haunt in Alaska,
where the pilots wouldn't take canisters, they wouldn't take the
compressed gas, so we still had to bring the white
gas stove. I think it was on THENT the caribou
hunt we did with Doug Dertn and Mark Kanyon, And yeah,

(01:05:52):
they weren'd fine in that situation. It was more of
a base camp we had to be like, so everything
was getting flown in, but they weren't fine. Like you said,
they have a regulator on them, which is a thing
that the canister stoles for a long time didn't have.
But now they have them as well, so you can
turn it down, do some low simmering if you need

(01:06:13):
to do something like that. The big, the big drawback
I find the canisters. It seems like I've always got
a half or a quarter canister, and yeah, you can
weigh it and and sort of eyeball it, and it
tells you how much you've got left. But who really
wants to go even on a three or four day

(01:06:35):
or with a half of a canister? Right You're like,
you're not gonna take that risk. You're gonna have a
full one. I try to use up my halfers and
whatnot either when I'm going with multiple people and I
know we're gonna cycle through a few. But like you said,
for on the mountain, midday, warm drink or if you're

(01:06:55):
gonna eat a house on the mountain and then come
back to the truck. There's nothing wrong with being out
there with a quarter of a of a you know,
a take, because if it goes out, well, you're going
to the truck anyways, at the end of the day.
But that's a great way to use all the gas
that's in there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Yeah, for the most part. Definitely the last five years,
I'd say I've been canister only.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
They're just easier, man. I mean, I think a big
draw to the white gas is the fuel is less
expensive if you're doing it a lot. But man, I
one scenario that ran through my mind was like waking
up early, rolling over, Like usually I just go like
start some water. I even like prep the night before,

(01:07:43):
put some water in my cup and just have it
ready to go, so first thing when I wake up,
I can strike it and ready to rock on coffee
or tea or whatever pretty soon in water for breakfast
and whatever. And I just have this thought of messing
around and trying to like prime my white gas stove,

(01:08:04):
getting too much in there, and then lighten, lighten the whole,
lighten myself on fire. So I just think that the
canister stows are going to be better for what we're doing, Like,
you know what, the kind of hunting that we're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
I guess if I was a backpacking guide all summer
and then I was a backpack hunting guide for half
the fall until it got too too bad to be
out there all you know, snow got too deep for
backpack hunting, and it was seriously one hundred days on
the ground, I could see considering it for those reasons. Right,

(01:08:44):
It's easy, you just you would come back. All you
need is a gallon jug of white gas, fill up
the container that you're going to pack with, and you're
out the door. You're rocking and rolling. But for me,
if I really am honest about it, I'm gonna get
a spring bear hunt where I'm gonna do some backpacking.

(01:09:05):
I'm going to backpack with my family twice this summer,
and then in the fall I'll probably get This fall
is actually kind of light like right now I only
have one for sure backpack hunt. I'm trying to work
in another one. So what does that add up to
twenty days sleeping in the dirt, you know, full on

(01:09:27):
out of the backpack. Maybe a few more. It's just
not my I'm not in the position right now to
run a hundred like a guide would, So I think
for me, I'm not gonna burn that much money buying
the canisters for those twenty days.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Yeah, I like that answer, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Continuing on the backpacking subject, what pieces of backpacking gear
can you absolutely justify spending more for less weight? By more,
he means more money for less weight as in pounds
and ounces. That's from entertained underscore mats on Insta. That's

(01:10:15):
not his fans only handle, that's just as regular. I
don't know I'm joking with that. But what do you
think where can you spend money Jordan to actually get
less weight? Where is it worthwhile?

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
With backpacking stuff? I think you're sleeping bag, sleeping pad,
your tent. A lot of those things seem to just
come with if you wanna, if you want to go
to a to a tent or something like that, that's
in the you know, three pounds, even sub three pounds.
You want a sleeping bag or a quilt or whatever,

(01:10:52):
that's going to be in the one and a half pound.
Like they just for that higher quality fill, they just
cost more. And but with that you're also getting, in
my mind, a better product and probably a warmer product
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
So yeah, one hundred percent. I did a little extra
research on this one. Talk to my wife about it,
who spent maybe more days sleep in the back country
than I have. And then a couple of friends who
are real hardcore not only into backpack and backpack hunting,
but when they backpack they like to do the ultra

(01:11:30):
light thing, and they definitely said that it's the Big
three is where you can actually see a demonstrable difference
in weight by spending more money. That's gonna be your tent,
your shelter, your backpack, and your sleeping bag pads. It's
kind of hard. I mean, yeah, you can drop a

(01:11:51):
little bit of weight, but in the in the big three,
you can spend more money and easily drop a pound,
sometimes more. And again it depends on time of year
that you're going. If you're backpacking in July and August,
no chance of snow. I mean, I don't want to
say no, it snows in the Rockies every month of

(01:12:12):
the year. But you can have an ultra light shelter
that weighs a pound. You can be in a sleeping
bag that keeps you only warmth down to twenty twenty
five because it's July and August, and your backpack can
be you know, nothing more than a than a satchel

(01:12:34):
with a couple of straps on it, right, because you're
and you're not gonna be hauling any meat out right.
But when we get into talking about it for hunting specifically,
we usually start if you are starting in August, you're
up way up north somewhere, which you could be getting
into inclement weather. But down here in the lower forty
eight it's gonna most likely be September. But even then,

(01:12:57):
you know, you never know when snow is going to
roll in. You gotta prepared for that kind of stuff.
But still, those big three, that's where you can spend
a little more money. And like I said, like you said, Jordan,
you're not only getting lighter equipment, but you're definitely gonna
get better quality equipment that if you take care of it,

(01:13:18):
excuse me, if you take care of it, it should
last longer. And you might say, oh, man, if there's
only three things and it's only a pounds apiece, that's
only three pounds, Well, man, three pounds, that's a day
and a half of food that you just either gave
yourself that extra ability to stay longer or you know,

(01:13:42):
do it less. So the way I look at it,
it's I can still remember one of my first big
backcountry elk hunts by myself. I knew where the elk were,
I knew right where I was going me it was
gonna be no brainer. My first morning, I was gonna
list into bugles and get in on him. And I
dropped in off this ridge after spending the night. First morning,

(01:14:06):
had all my camp on my back, going full campaign style,
drop in there, and bulls are bugling. I started chasing
a bull and going downhill. It was no big deal.
I just remember hitting the creek and then the bull
was up the drainage. So all of a sudden I
had to go uphill and I went about fifteen minutes maybe,

(01:14:29):
and I realized, Okay, my pack is way too heavy
to be actually hunting and carrying everything on my back.
At that moment, I had to drop my pack. I'm like, okay,
take some stuff out, take camp out. I'm gonna reassess
and go hunt elk, and I'm gonna have to have
more of a come back to camp. Situation because I'm

(01:14:51):
just too heavy. Now, with what I've learned over the
years and stripped that weight down big time, I feel
like I could chase that elk still not as fasts
I would be able to do with just a day pack,
but do a pretty good job at it. Actually, I'll
be hunting that elk in the mountains with camp on

(01:15:12):
my back and then be able to again. The goal
here is is that it gets dark, you barely have
to move off. You just get in a place where
the elk can't smell you through the course of darkness,
and you sleep right there. There's no hiking back miles
hours to get back to all your stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Yeah, and I think that that can be a huge
advantage and along with saving some weight, like I almost
see a bigger not a bigger advantage, but maybe like
more so of an advantage of your saving a lot
of bulk. Usually Oh yeah, some of that stuff just
packs down better and it's just smaller, and it just

(01:15:57):
it's a lot nicer to pack, especially with taking it
in and out of your backpack every day.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
Yep. So there you go. I would absolutely justify spending
the money there, and then you can keep going down
the lightweight rabbit hole when you want. Okay, So that
on that question segues very well into this one. Tell
me one area of your back country kid, where you

(01:16:24):
always stay minimalist, in another area where you are willing
to carry extra weight. I try to save weight in
my entire sleep system so I can carry multiple optics
for glassing intensive hunts. That question came from read Hamar
or hammer Hamar on Instagram. What do you think, Jordan?

(01:16:48):
What do you like to be lightweight so you can
carry weight somewhere else?

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
Yeah? You know, after I read this question, I was like, huh, Yeah,
it seems like it's never I'm never trying to shave
weight down on my spotting scope because it just kind
of is what it is, you know. But it seems
like I have a lot more options to try to
save weight in like tripods to a certain extent, or

(01:17:17):
like just exactly like he said, my sleep system. I
feel like, over the last few years have tried to
really refine my sleep system and try to get stuff
that was lighter weight, just thinking about that more more
so in the front of my mind. But but going
down on like my optics, I've never really tried to

(01:17:38):
go to lose weight on my optics because I always
want to have those things with me because they're important.
So yeah, I mean I really agree with him.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
Yeah, I completely agree with Reid, And I don't think
I can point to one specific spot in my backcountry
kit where I'm trying to lend at the way I'm
doing it really for the same reasons as hunters were
going in there. On my sheep hunt, I ran into

(01:18:08):
some backpackers and man, they were living large. They're hanging
at the same lake that I was hanging out and
whether I was using sort of as a base camp,
and I could actually see some sheep from this lake sometimes.
But these guys had like they weren't yetty thermoss but

(01:18:29):
some bigger cup thermos thing. They had flannel shirts for
just chilling around camp, you know, looking all comfy, a
big tin, I mean the kind of tent where you
can stand up in two people. I mean, absolutely luxurious.
And they were long ways in there. I mean we
were I think that that lake was seven to nine
miles depending on the trailhead you used. But for me,

(01:18:55):
because I had to have I couldn't do that hunt
without at least one pair of binos. I only did
one pair, a really nice spotting scope that had to
go on a substantial and sturdy tripod, a rifle ammunition.

(01:19:15):
I guess I would say those are the main things
that those guys weren't carrying that I that I have
to carry, right, And I think on a hunt versus
a backpack trip, that's what you're there for. You're there
to find that animal, kill that animal, execute, get the

(01:19:37):
job done right. You're not there to just you know,
bag the peek or hang out, enjoy the scenery. All
that is part of it, and I enjoy it. But
again because I mean that between my rifle and spider binoculars,
just doing quick math in my head, but I'm guessing
it's fifteen pounds easy, if not pushing twenty. And it's hard, hard,

(01:20:00):
like you said, to drop any kind of weight there,
So everything else is it's just super minimalless. I think
if I had to point to one place where, over
the years, and even over the course of just the
season sometimes or even the course of one hunt, if

(01:20:21):
you're going back to the truck to restock on food
and then coming back into the woods clothing, is a
place where I think that people early on carry way
too much. You don't have to have that flannel shirt
for kicking around camp. You don't have to have that
extra People have a lot of redundancy in their clothing.

(01:20:44):
And on that same sheep hunt, the last day we
went in and again we were watching the weather. We
had had beautiful weather, The weather was going to stay
beautiful for another seven days. When I repacked, I was
way lighter than when I started, because I went in
with a bass layer, like a wick bass layer, the
thinnest one first Light makes, and an synthetic puffy jacket

(01:21:09):
and uncle progrey puffy. That's all I had for a top.
And then I had a pair of boxer shorts and
a pair of I think they are the Corugate Foundry
pants that I was hunting him. And I probably had
a pair of socks on and an extra Para sos
in my backpack. I didn't have extra underwear. I didn't
have extra shirts. Yeah, you know, at most we're going

(01:21:32):
to be out for five days. You can make it
and be stinky. It's okay to be stinky a little.
And again, nobody really stinks that bad. After five days
of crazy hunting. Just deal with it. It'll be fine.
Those clothes, Sure they get a little stinky, they get
a little crusty, but I feel like they're in clothing

(01:21:53):
at least for me, was the easiest place to start
chipping away at serious it gains because when you take
if you go from carrying forced pairs of socks to
two pairs of socks, three or four pairs of underwear
down to one uh, back up you know long John's
for top and bottom, all this stuff, yeah, yeah, or yeah,

(01:22:19):
you've got the rain jacket and the puffy and this,
but the forecast hasn't call for any rain for seven days.
You know what, your synthetic puffy. If it drizzles a
little bit, you'll be fine. Set up your tart, but
get out of the weather if you have to, You'll
you'll be fine. Like you just have to be willing
to endure just a little bit of uh, you know

(01:22:39):
that the bad stuff. But I feel like that's the place, yeah,
if you if you can, if if you really want
a place where you can shave, it's probably there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah. And I think he made a really good point
too about it's not just trying to figure out what
else you can buy to shave the weight, especially if
you're just starting out. It's just ditching stuff out of
your pack all together. It's not yeah yeah, and you
know you don't need a leatherman. Probably the.

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
Leatherman' is a tough one man, because there are times
when that little sucker those pliers are so nice or
a screwdriver is so nice, and you have to you
gotta if you're in there, you have to have the
tools to take care of whatever gear you have, especially
if you're that cheap point. We're in there often seven

(01:23:35):
to nine miles back until you know, far from the truck,
and if all of a sudden the scope sluse, you
can't just tighten it down and then shoot a shoot
a stump and rezero your rifle in right, you have
to go back to the truck. And that's a full
day round trip. You got to go seven to nine

(01:23:55):
each way. So yeah, I hear you. The leather man
is a heavy little.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Yeah, yeah it is. And you know they make cool
ones now, they're like the skeletol and like super lightweight stuff.
Another thing too, if you're bow hunting, like just take
the Allen ranches that you need that you know things
perfectly you don't have to take the one that has
fifteen of them that flip out. Yeah, man, there's kind

(01:24:23):
there's we could just talk about this forever because it's
it's ever evolving for me, it's ever evolving for you,
and we've been doing it a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Yeah. But yeah, you you hit the nail on the head.
It's gonna The easiest way to cut down your pack
instead of buying more expensive shit is just get rid
of shit. Okay that this rolls right into this one.
What total pack weight and all gear weight are you
happy with for five to day five to seven day

(01:24:56):
sheep hunt in the mountains in September. I'm just looking
for ballpark questions sent in by Jordan Cuttbill on the Instagram.
What do you think, Jordan?

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
You know the last sheep hunt I went on that
I actually weighed. I was just filming and I had
four nights of food with me, and I think I
was at forty five pounds. That was actually with a
spot in a tripod because I was filming through a
spotting scope and that was a big scope too. I
was in ninety five, So that's what I was at

(01:25:31):
there when I went on my sheep hunt in Alaska,
I was quite a bit more. I was up pretty
I think I was pretty close to sixty. And that's
something I wanted to touch on, just like super quick
from this last one about staying minimalists, and like when
you were talking about you got to be a little

(01:25:52):
careful what you bring because you also have to pack
things out, and you know that was great. On my
sheep hunt, I was sixty pounds. I was really in shape.
I felt good about that. But dude, on the way out,
like there was no going back for another trip, Like
we were all splitting the sheep up and making one
trip out, and my pack was one hundred and four pounds,
Like it could have not been one hundred and four

(01:26:14):
pounds if I'd have left my spotty scope at home.
But that was a trip that I was like, gosh,
I just don't feel like I can leave that thing
at home on a sheep hunt. So there are other
things that I think I probably could have left and
got along without. But be thinking about what you're gonna
have to carry out too with that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Oh yeah, it's always uh, it's always given take. Like
we've talked about it before the book. Now, it's not
that big a deal because you can just download a
book onto your phone. But before a book, yeah you're
and you were stuck in a tent for two or
three days on that hunt. Everybody would have paid big
dollars to have a book in their hands to read,

(01:27:00):
and you'd be happy to pack that thing out. But
if it's beautiful weather and you just pack around that
extra pound for a week, yeah you're not happy. I
guess at that point. I hate to say it, but
you could always burn it. I'm not promoting burning books,
but yeah, for my sheep punt again, this is ballpark,

(01:27:22):
and this is a good thing to remember. For food,
most people are gonna eat about two pounds of food
a day. That's what it takes to stay in a
I think in a plus space where you're not burning,
you know, more than you can consume. So that's usually
what I plan for. So when I went in for

(01:27:43):
five days, I had ten pounds of food. All my
gear in my pack with the ten pounds of food
was forty six pounds, So gear was thirty six Food
was ten pounds. That did not count water, the clothing
that I had on, and then the gear that I
had on my body and The clothing that I was

(01:28:04):
wearing came in at twenty pounds, and that included rifle, ammunition, binoculars, hat, pants, boots, etc.
And I feel like I did pretty good at that point.
I feel like the only way you're gonna get less

(01:28:25):
is if you go. Kurt Roscoe was a founder of
Stone Glacier. You can go his style where you don't
bring the stove, you don't bring the fuel, and you
eat cold food. That's good dropping You're dropping weight there.

(01:28:46):
You just have to be cool with always eating and
drinking cold. You can listen to a whole podcast about
that on the Meter podcast just search Kurt Roscoe. I
think we called it the Hardest Hunt maybe, And that's
where some feller wrote in and said that guy is
harder than Woodpecker lips he is, He's pretty hard.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Well. That uh, that was good, Yanni. We we really
appreciate everybody writing in and asking questions. We like answering him.
It's a really good way to kind of let you
guys decide where the conversation goes. So if you have
any more questions that you would like to hear or
topics you would like covered, send him to gear Talk

(01:29:38):
at themeeater dot com, or you can just send him
to us on our Instagram pages. Mine's at Jordan dot Bud,
Yanni's is at Jannis Underscore. Tell us pretty sure it's
an underscore. I think I asked that every single time
I do this, all right, I need to look at
it and uh yeah. Then you can also, don't forget
to go over to the meat eater dot com, hit

(01:29:59):
the podcast tab, hit gear talk, and then on the
individual episodes you can comment directly on them as well
to ask questions about that episode, or wherever you feel
you can ask for questions for the next Q and A.
So that's all I got, Yanni. I hope you guys

(01:30:21):
have a good time tracking lions the last day.

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
Thanks. Yep, we're gonna We're gonna give it our best
one more time and hopefully I'll have a not too
crazy but crazy being that I got to look at
a mountain lion story next time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
Yeah, yeah, all right, See everybody,