September 22, 2025 • 32 mins
Venturing into the wilderness alone creates a unique set of challenges that even experienced hunters must carefully navigate. In this practical episode, Aaron and Dave tackle listener Brian's questions about solo hunting strategies and venison preparation techniques that can transform how your family enjoys wild game.
The hosts share a counterintuitive secret that completely eliminated gaminess from their venison - leaving the hide on for several days after field dressing. Though this technique puzzled even their butcher friend, the results speak for themselves, turning venison from a dreaded meal into a family favorite requested for special occasions. They dive into the essential details of proper field care, aging techniques, and processing methods that make all the difference in the final product.
For the solo hunter, equipment choices become critically important. The conversation explores must-have gear including backup GPS systems, satellite communicators, and game retrieval tools that can save your back and your hunt. Dave recounts a powerful personal story about harvesting a deer while battling Lyme disease, illustrating how using terrain advantages and smart techniques can overcome physical limitations when hunting alone.
Beyond equipment, the hosts emphasize the importance of thorough planning, community connections, and mental preparation. Having clear strategies for different scenarios - from blood trailing in darkness to loading heavy game - transforms potentially overwhelming situations into manageable challenges. Their practical advice on leveraging natural terrain, using mechanical advantages, and knowing when to seek help provides a comprehensive guide for anyone heading into the woods alone.
What's your solo hunting story? Have you tried leaving the hide on to improve venison flavor? Share your experiences and join the conversation!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron and I'm Dave.
This week we are going to betalking about solo hunting and
responding to a question sent tous by Brian.
He gave us an idea for apodcast, which led to kind of
deciding some solo stuff.
The first part was and I thinkwe addressed this previously
about the sense that episodesthat I replayed for a month that
(00:27):
were just replay episodes.
We're talking about differentscents that are now illegal in
the state of Washington.
They aren't synthetic.
So make sure, as always, doublecheck what your regs say for
your area, your state, yourprovince and that you're using
what's legal for your area.
So we're all synthetics.
Now, unfortunately, we can'tuse companies like James Valley
(00:49):
Scents.
We have to go with tinks orsomething like that.
First thing Brian was talkingabout was do we have any
favorite recipes for our venison?
His wife and daughter are finewith him hunting, but I'm trying
to get them to enjoy the fruitsof my labor more.
So Dave doesn't cook, so I'mout.
(01:10):
We're leaving him off the hookhere.
One of the things you mentionedand this was long before I ever
started hunting you talkedabout how some butchers will mix
the meat.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, it doesn't happen as much as it used to.
But you take your meat in andthey weigh it and everything
Through that whole thing.
They have this little formulathat they do You're going to get
so many pounds of meat becauseso much of this is bone
percentage wise, and they saythis is what you're going to end
up with.
How would you want to dividethat up?
And so basically, what they'recreating is a checklist.
They have certain days wherethey'll go through and okay,
(01:41):
today we're doing wild game,today we're doing elk, or today
we're doing beef.
If it's an elk day and they'reprocessing elk that day, you
know there were some butchersthat would okay.
So I got to get five pounds ofsteaks for this guy and 25
pounds of pepperoni here.
They were just filling orders.
So that doesn't happen muchanymore.
Now they're just processingyour animal, start to finish.
(02:06):
And what was bad about that isif you took good care of your
animal, you didn't know what thenext guy did.
And they're just filling ordersand you get part of that.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
The first time you told me about this.
It was one of your first elkthat you had ever gotten.
It was the worst when we wereroommates back almost 30 years
ago.
And elk is delicious.
I mean, it is the best meatthat I've had.
I like it more than anythingelse that I've had any game
meats.
This was terrible.
(02:32):
It was super gamey.
It was really inedible.
And you told me the butchermixed the meat and stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I actually gave that whole thing away, but again that
doesn't happen much.
I haven't heard about that fora long time.
But it was a thing in the past.
I will say that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So really I think if people don't want to eat
blacktail it's due to thegaminess of it and everything.
But before we get into talkingabout what you can do to avoid
that gaminess Blacktail it'skind of most of it is we do deer
steaks and we do grind yeah,and it's just whatever recipe
(03:14):
you have that has ground beef orsteak, you can use that for
anything, but with the I know itcan be.
It needs to be tenderized thesteaks.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The steaks yes.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And KitchenAid.
So Asha bought a tenderizer forthe KitchenAid.
So basically it turns it intocube steak.
So she runs it through thereonce or twice and it makes quick
work of it, instead of standingthere where she's pounding on
it for a couple of hours andmaking a big mess.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It makes a big mess but, it's therapy for her,
getting out the rage.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's a really good attachment.
Another thing to remember isdeer has very little fat.
It tastes fine for hamburgers,but they don't hold together
well.
So if you take it to thebutcher, I think they'll ask if
you want it mixed with beeftallow.
I think they'll ask if you wantit mixed with beef tallow, and
so you can do a 90-10 or an85-15, 80-20, you know whatever
(04:10):
your preferred mix is.
But that might be a good way togo and it would improve the
flavor, because a lot of theflavor in meat comes from fat
and a lot of the bad flavor canactually come from fat too.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Beef or pork.
They'll ask you either one ofthose.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, some of the questions that Brian asks.
It's how do you prepare, fielddress your deer?
A lot of it starts there.
Absolutely A lot of guys arecompletely caping it.
Is that the correct term?
Actually, no, they're justcutting it completely apart and
leaving the whole carcass outthere.
They're just deboning it out inthe field.
But you discovered a trickPersonal story here.
(04:49):
I hated venison.
I would not eat it.
Asha would say hey, we'rehaving family dinner, mom's
cooking venison stew this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I'd be.
That's nice.
Oh, I'm busy, because you couldnot hide that gaminess.
And the funny thing is you cansmell it when you're cooking.
If wild game, you can smell itif it's gamey.
If it's not gamey, it shouldsmell like regular meat yeah,
it's terrible, I just would noteat venison.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But then I remember I don't know if you learned this
trick when I had lived down inCalifornia and I came back and
you're like no, no, someold-timers told you this trick
right, right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So I had a buddy who said this old-timer taught him
this little trick to keepvenison from being gamey.
Now I have since been told thatit doesn't make any sense that
it shouldn't be this way, bysomebody who is very intelligent
and who would know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I don't know how to explain this, but this is
what I do.
But it works.
So the old timer said that ifyou leave the hide on for two,
three days, that it pulls thegaminess out of the meat.
Yeah, so we started doing that,and since then, the meat.
(06:06):
So we started doing that andsince then we go through so much
venison now.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's ridiculous.
I don't think I bought regularhamburger from the store in
years.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, it's crazy.
I mean, deer steaks is mydaughter's favorite meal.
That's her birthday meal.
She wants it every year andit's like before I was the only
one in the family that would eat.
That would brave it yeah, and Imean, like I said you could
smell it, that it was okay.
She's cooking the deer.
I can smell it, but now youcan't even tell and I know
(06:33):
there's other tricks.
Soaking it in milk overnight wasa trick to pull out gaminess I
see I've done that with turkeyand I know that works for turkey
and it does work.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I just didn't think it worked real.
Not as well as hanging it.
But yeah, hanging it hide on,which means you're having to
drag we're gutting it out in thefield, but it's dragging the
whole thing or getting the wholething back to the vehicle and
then hanging it in your gardenshed.
Hopefully it's cool enough out.
(07:07):
So that's a big.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
This is all late season.
We save our deer tags forNovember, December.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
When you were doing more early season hunting.
I know you came across an oldPepsi cooler.
Uh-huh.
And had that plugged into yourshop and you just hang it in
there.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I would do the elk in there, okay, but see an elk?
I never did.
I always skinned the elk.
Yeah, you know, we always cutit into quarters, we pack it out
skinned and then I would hangit in that cooler for a day or
two and then I would take it in.
So elk was never a problem, itwas always venison.
The black-tailed deer,white-tailed, never had that
problem.
Never had that problem withmule deer, pronghorn, it was
(07:45):
just blacktail.
Yeah.
And blacktail being browsers andnot grazers eating such a mixed
bag of stuff all the timecontributed to it.
The other thing that I wouldsay, it's in how you take care
of your meat, and so I mean wealways try and get the animal
hung and get it caped andeverything, and I would go in
(08:06):
there and take that layer ofskin off.
Yeah.
That little film.
In it have all the dirt andextra hair and I'm picking all
the hair off and everything,getting all the bloodshot out,
and it would spend hours andhours and hours and I still do
that as far as making sure it'sclean, but I leave the hide on
for two, three days and I knowJimmy and Jimmy, the pro staff.
(08:30):
Before he was a vet, he was abutcher and he says it makes no
sense and I have to agree withhe would know.
Yeah, something happens.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
He said the goal is to get it off the bone as
quickly as possible.
Right, but we leave it's thewhole carcass hanging there and
it was four days.
I did my deer, which was inmid-November, for five days just
hanging there.
There were a couple of otherguys who left their deer hanging
before that, like at the end ofmodern, so late October, and it
(09:01):
was cool enough and not sure ifit's a mixture of the meat
aging and that hide, it pullsthe gaminess out of there.
But yeah, it's just not gameyanymore.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, I don't know how to explain it.
I'm sorry, jimmy, somethinghappens.
I don't know if elves come outin that shed or what, but my
whole family loves it now, andnone of us have died.
So we're still around kicking.
That used to be common practicea long time ago, hanging and
aging now, and none of us havedied, so we're still around
kicking.
That used to be common practicea long time ago hanging in age
yeah, I mean I remember my dadwould do that.
He got a couple deer and hewould do that.
(09:32):
And then I knew other guys thathad deer hunted, old timers
that would do that.
I say old timers, I'm an oldtimer now, you know well, see,
now you gotta tell them yeah andthey would do that and it was
something that was pretty common.
But as I came up that wasn't socommon anymore.
Guys were like, well, you needto get the hide off and get it
(09:52):
deboned and get it into thebutcher.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Get it in the butcher quick and deal with it.
So if you have a spot where youcan hang it and keep it cool,
cool and dry for four days, I dothree, four, four days and it's
good.
You know, and mine was, I think, five or six days because we
just didn't have time to getaround me.
You leah, if she's in town, dj,it's just an assembly line.
(10:17):
You're cutting it off the bone,dj's cutting out the sinew and
asha and I are cutting it into.
I did more more stir fry and wedid grind you have the grinder
here at the house and steaks andeverything.
So there's just a lot that youcan do with the meat once it's
ready.
It's just trying to get it towhere you don't have that
gaminess.
And I don't think that might bethe hurdle, or it's the mental
(10:41):
aspect of eating a wild animal,and some people I think somebody
had a bad experience.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This guy didn't take care of his meat, bringing it
out of the woods.
It's all dirty, let it hang.
It's got bloodshot all throughit and stuff.
Well, all that is going to addto that gaminess.
And so somebody had a badexperience and just assumed that
it's all like that, which isunderstandable, but you take
good care of it, you hang it ina cool spot.
The reality is, you guys, Idon't want it to hang that long.
(11:05):
What do you think it's going todo at the butcher's?
They put it in a cooler and it'sgoing to hang for a week.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, it's in a queue before they can get to it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
We're not cutting wild game this day.
We don't cut wild game untilnext Thursday.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Or there's mats, because you Matt's Meats Matt's.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Meats out of.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Longview Out of Longview, so they've done a
pretty good job with other likethe bear and everything like
that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, they're fantastic.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
But yeah, there is also the mental aspect of I just
don't want to eat Bambi.
Like I joked around with mycousin when I went camping that
I was going to bring down somebear brats and cook them all up
for everybody and have them eatthem and then tell them after
the fact that oh, by the way,you just ate a bear.
And now they won't trust mebecause they do not want to eat
(11:49):
bear even though they'redelicious.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Bear is easily one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But yeah, there's that middle.
Although I have eaten cougar inSloppy Joe's you were eating
cougar steaks one night I didn'twant to eat a cat, even though
I've been told by multiplepeople that it's delicious.
I've had too many cats in mylife as a pet.
I don't want to eat a big one.
Right.
(12:15):
So you know there's a lot ofthat.
But as far as processing it,it's either get it deboned as
quick as possible that wasJimmy's advice and, you know,
get it off the bone andpotentially age it for a little
bit Leave it hanging there withthe hide on for three, four days
.
It's been really good.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
The key is to get that meat cooled down.
Regardless of what you do, getthe meat cooled down and take
good care of it.
Keep it clean.
Yeah, you know, get all thehair off of it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, all of that.
So that was the first part ofbrian's question and now we'll
get into talking about solohunting.
He was asking and I've expandedbecause it was more than just
wanting to talk about solohunting, but it was any tips on
getting the deer into the truckwhen you're on your own and
exhausted.
One of the things I saw for ifyou're in a pickup is they had
(13:04):
the tailgate down, they had thedeer where it was rack up and
they somehow got it leaned up tothe tailgate.
They just squatted down, stoodstraight up and then walked
backwards and that was the waythey could get it into the truck
and it depends on how far outyou're hunting.
So most like I have a long setit was 0.6 miles from where I
(13:26):
park and got that spike and itwas still some work.
Dj came out and helped me andit was still some work for the
two of us to drag a spike a halfmile but still dragging
whatever 80 pounds or somethingof dead weight.
I know that they make sleds.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
They make sleds.
Game carts are probably moreideal.
I've heard guys using toboggans.
I've actually had friends thatuse toboggans for an elk
Dragging it down the loggingroad, which is gravel.
You've put 80 pounds worth ofmeat, a quarter or something
like that in there Sometimes 80pounds, sometimes lighter and
you drag it on gravel and thisbuddy of mine turns around and
says of course it burns holesbecause it just scrapes away the
(14:04):
plastic.
And now there's holes allthrough this toboggan and he's
like I'm going to take this backand get my money back.
I was like well, what did youthink was going to happen?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
$10 slab for the kids .
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I like carts and trailer.
I have an e-bike that has atrailer.
That is super easy Without thebike.
We've just walked that out.
I walked Miles on that and it'sso much easier Was it last year
or the year before?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I just had to walk in .
I was walking in a block and Ihad two gallons of water, a
20-pound block and 16 poundsworth of water and two
five-pound bags of mineralattractant and cameras, so it's
like 50.
It's like 50 pounds of stuffand I'm not walking a half mile
with that.
So I put it on the cart andwield it out there and that's
(14:51):
like with the cart, you've gotthis whole cart with you.
Well, one of the things you cando is you just wheel the cart
out and just stash it in thebushes when you go into your set
.
So it doesn't need to go all theway in, it just needs to be not
visible or far enough off agame trail and that's all I did.
(15:11):
I stashed it and that helped mefor the skidder road.
Yeah, I know for solo, alsothinking about some stuff I can
leave either up in the stand orin the ground blind.
So I know, last year, becauseit was kind of bulky, I had a
heated vest I left out in theblind.
I leave the pads that I sit onand behind my back for
(15:35):
insulation I leave those outthere.
There's a few things you canleave out there.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Right right, You're not terribly upset if it turns
up missing, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Bags of scent.
I leave the big Ziploc bagthere because I'm just using it
to refresh, so there's no pointin carrying it back and forth.
Right, there's some stuff thatyou can just kind of leave out
if you're going solo.
But you've done a lot of solohunting.
You're going to actually go outsolo this weekend with doing
some elk Before you go.
How are you going through yourchecklist of stuff to bring on a
(16:06):
solo trip versus where you'vegot other people going with you?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
typically on a solo hunt.
I'll take a gps of some sort,whether it's on x or whatnot.
If I'm going out solo, I'lltend to take a second gps.
I have a garmin that I'll takeout with me, just because I
can't afford.
For you know, when you're goingwith other people it's like oh
oh, my phone died.
Well, theirs is still good andwe've still got the mark, the
truck marked on theirs orsomething happened.
You know I fell in water orwhatever.
(16:31):
But when I have a backupbecause I can't take the chance
of my phone dying or falling inwater or something like that,
and so I'll have that extra GPSnumber one, Number two, always
let somebody know where you'regoing.
The plan, yeah, so Bud is outsolo hunting this past week in
Oregon and every day he wassending me the onyx of where he
(16:53):
was going that day.
Okay.
And so he goes.
I need somebody to know.
Well, if something happens tohim, somebody's got to know
where to go.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
To go look.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And then my son is packing in, or he he did pack in
today and we have an inReachmini two.
What that is is basically itallows you when you're out of
satellite area.
It serves as a satellite andsyncs to your phone so that you
can text and keep in contactwith loved ones, so he has a way
(17:21):
to contact us and we have a wayto contact him.
When you're packing in, youhave to prepare for the worst.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Because there's also the chance that they could be
separated during their hunt orsomething.
I know iPhones and I thinkthere might be some form of
something on Android that's thesame way, but iPhones now have
an emergency satelliteconnection.
Mm-hmm.
You can send text messages viasatellite.
(17:48):
So last year I tried that outand it worked the first time.
Every time after that it didnot work.
I couldn't and I mean I'mconnected with the satellite, it
just failed.
So I would have to walk out tocall or send a text.
I'm driving five miles to getto the first cell signal so that
I can start messaging, andwhatnot.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
On my Manitoba bear hunt this last spring.
I had that Garmin in reach andworked like a charm.
Yeah.
And there was no.
You were not sending any textsor anything.
If you didn't have that,Because we were what they call
the bush, we were way out there,yeah, so there was no, no
signal.
It was as remote as you can getyeah and oh, I was just
(18:31):
thinking of.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Another thing that I leave out in the ground blind is
I bought a I think it was a 10pack of for field dressing an
animal and it can't.
It has a pair of rubber glovesand it's got the full arm
sleeves on there, basically, soyou're not covering your body
(18:52):
and blood and guts and whatnot,but it's got a liver bag and
everything can be stuffed backin as garbage so you can haul
out all the garbage andeverything.
But I leave the stuff out in myground blind so that I'm ready
to go if I get something downand if I were by myself, so that
(19:12):
I don't forget that.
To me that's important, becauseDJ came out and he didn't think
about bringing anything.
All I had was this crappy knife.
I did have the other two toolsthat I used, but you still need
a knife to take care ofeverything.
He's trying to use thisterrible knife that I've got,
which then caused him to buy mea good hunting knife so that he
(19:36):
wouldn't be subjected to that.
But that's another thing to beready for the harvest.
If you're filming, you mightwant to have a light out there
or something.
But just kind of being readyfor what could come up.
So thinking about you've had topack out an animal on your own
right.
Yes, Walk us through that.
(19:57):
An elk would be a completelydifferent story, especially if
you're miles back in, but even adeer though.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, it's funny you say this because the worst
experience I've had was my son'sfirst big buck, and I was right
in the throes of Lyme's diseasewhen I was at my worst.
I took both my daughter and myson out and he ended up shooting
a big buck his first you know,and he's, my goodness.
What was he?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
10, 11 years old, I think he was 12 by the time he
got that one.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
We didn't find it that day.
So I went out the next day.
He had a soccer game.
Both my son and my daughter hadsoccer games, and so my wife
was taking him to the games andI was going to go out and look
for that buck.
And I did find the buck, when Iwas that sick with Lyme's
disease, I couldn't walk 40yards, just a regular 40 yards.
I mean, I had a fever, you know, 24 hours out of the day, for
(20:49):
six months straight, you know.
And it was crazy how sick I wasand extremely weak, having been
limited on what I could do forso long.
It was four and a half years ofthis when I found the buck.
I realized, you know, I've gotabout, oh, 150-yard drag
downhill to where the truck is,six, eight steps, and I would
(21:12):
have to stop, you know, and rest, you know.
And by the time I got to wherethe road was below me and it's
like how am I going to get thisin the truck?
There's no way I can lift it.
I was drenched in sweat, barely, my legs were all shaky and
everything.
I mean, it was just I was inbad shape.
But then, you know a littletrick that I'd learned
throughout the years is to getyour animal on a little mound or
(21:35):
something where you can backyour truck up with the tailgate
down.
Okay that you're hitting thatmound or that hillside and you
can either pull the deer orwhatever you're dragging
straight in, or it slidesdownhill into your bed.
Yeah.
And on that particular occasionI managed to get to a little
hill where I could back thetruck up to and I just pulled
(21:57):
the buck over to the edge and itslid right back down into the
bed of the truck.
And I mean, it was God, becauseI spent the next 45 minutes to
an hour and 15 just sitting inthe driver's seat trying to
recover from that drag.
And so you know that's a littletrick.
I've killed a big buck dayafter Thanksgiving, one year out
(22:17):
, by myself and had to load iton a four-wheeler, Basically did
that same trick as far asbacking up to a hillside and
then dragging the buck down thehillside onto the back of the
four-wheeler where it had a rack, and I just strapped it to that
rack.
Your body's only got so manyhunts left in it.
You have to do everythingsmarter.
(22:37):
You know, when we're youngwe're able to do things harder.
You know, because we still havethat invincible mentality.
Embrace it.
Yeah, that's part of theadventure that you're going into
it for seeing how far you canpush yourself, and that's great.
I used to be that way.
I can't afford to now that Ihave Lyme's.
It's a life-changing experience.
But my son is there.
He's working out all the timeand he's on his backpacking hunt
(22:59):
right now for elk.
He's having a great time.
I'm jealous, but life is whatit is.
You roll with the punches andmake the best of it.
These are the things you takeinto consideration when you go
into the woods.
What is my limit?
If I do get one down, how am Igoing to get it out?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, do you have some people that you can call?
That has been one of the moreincredible things about our
community that we have guys whowill just drop everything and go
help somebody who they haveonly met once or twice and help
them with pulling something outof the woods and stuff.
And that's kind of what we want, because we want people to be
helping each other out in thewoods celebrating successes.
But I just think if I didn'thave DJ, how much of a pain in
(23:47):
the butt that would have been.
I could have drugged that spikeout of there by myself.
It would have taken me fourtimes as long, you know, as I'm
trying to figure out how to gutthis thing.
Right right, and then you knowit's a spike so I can't.
That's one of the things thatwe had to drag it by its hind
legs, so we're dragging itagainst its fur, which always
(24:07):
makes it harder.
Not a lot, but it was just thatlittle extra.
You got to pull it over a logor maybe uphill a little bit.
So there's always that littlebit of extra that if you can
just be able to reach out tosomebody who can lend that hand,
and even if they're notnecessarily another hunter, it's
good to have a community whereyou could say if I gave you a
(24:30):
call, can you come out?
and help me.
At least just drag this thingout of the woods.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right Part of the trophy is not just what you put
on the wall If you get thatopportunity.
The main part of the trophy,the part that keeps giving
throughout the year, is the meatthat you get off that animal
and the high protein that you'regoing to get from an animal
that is very lean.
There's no, everybody wants tofarm, raise this and grass fed
(24:55):
this.
Well, you're not going to getany better than wild game.
If you want to be that way, takeup hunting.
If you don't, don't be naive tohow that meat got on your plate
, whether it's beef, wild game,fish, whatever.
You have to understand that itgot there in a certain way and
(25:19):
that way is necessary to sustainby somebody killing our
community, our world.
it's a harsh reality and it'sone that we don't want to deal
with because we feel like, ohwell, that's mean, that's cruel.
That's just part of quote LionKing, the circle of life.
That's how it works there arefeeder fish and there are sharks
when you're an apex predatorthat's how it works.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Thinking about the solo it's a big part of it.
Think about a cart and maybeyou don't have the option,
you've got to keep it and you'vegot to quarter it out because
you've got to put it in somegame bags and throw it into a
backpack to carry it out.
But a cart or some sort oftoboggan sled thing to where you
can get it out of there.
Just kind of think of a processahead of time.
(26:06):
And I know that they make ahandle that attaches to, if you
get a big enough buck, theantlers and you can drag it out.
That way You've got a handle.
Address the issue before it's aproblem.
Right right, I'm going to go outand get a buck.
So if I'm going to get thisbuck, I need to have my process
of how I'm going to get that outof there.
And that's part of it of methinking about and this is a
(26:30):
really good example me thinkingabout bear hunting.
Well, I've never skinned out orseen a bear being skinned out
and I can probably watch it onyoutube.
But the first time I wouldhaving somebody who's shot a
bear out there who can come outand meet me.
So then it's thinking aboutwell, I gotta make sure that
somebody's around to do that forthat first time.
(26:51):
But going forward, well, thereare 300 400 pound bears out
there.
If I shot one of them, I got toget that thing out of there.
I've got to have that process.
I use this example in interviewsall the time.
They would talk about theseunforeseen problems that would
come up.
I oversaw some parentingclasses with childcare and half
(27:13):
of my childcare staff would callin sick or they wouldn't be
available and so I'd have tohave a plan to cover that.
And they're like what days werethose?
I was like I didn't know.
All I knew is twice a year ithappened.
So I had a plan in place on howdo I be prepared for this thing
to happen.
And that's the whole idea ofsolo hunting is be prepared for
(27:37):
this thing to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Whether it's a safety issue, whether it's a harvest
issue, be prepared for that tohappen.
And then you've got a planwhere, okay, so it's right
before dark and you get thisbuck down and you can't see,
you're so low, so maybe you come.
(28:00):
You just it's part of your planthat if you shot one and it's
dark out and you're not going tobe able to safely get it out of
the woods, you come back thenext day and finish getting it
out of the woods or somethinglike that, and I mean with blood
trailing.
For you guys who are archeryhunters, there's lots of times
you've had to come back the nextday because you couldn't find
it at night.
(28:21):
Yeah.
So, with solo hunting, have yourplan in place before it happens
.
If it's, how do you get a buckinto the back of a pickup?
Well, you know where you'rehunting.
You can look around and seethat oh there's no hills.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
A little bit of preparation goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
There's no hills I can back up to.
That was one of the things Isaw on the YouTube video where
the guy propped it up.
I think he tied a rope to theantlers so that he could pull it
up.
Then he could reach the antlerstanding on the tailgate when it
was down and then he justsquatted and stood straight up
and then walked backwards andthat's how he was able to get
this buck, a big white tail,into the bed of his pickup
(29:03):
without any assistance.
Yeah, you got to kind of thinkthose through, Because
deadlifting a dead deer in theback of a pickup, yeah that
would be a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And deer are probably the easiest of all big game
bear.
There's no handholds on bears.
They're, they're just the.
They're the hardest thing todrag out, they're the hardest
thing to load, you know, they'rejust.
There's no way to grab themwhere you feel like like you got
a handle, you know what I meanwith a deer you can, but with an
elk you're doing quarters.
Very seldom are you able toload it whole.
(29:34):
It does happen, but very seldomin comparison.
So the deer is the easier oneof the big game.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, maybe grouse are a little easier.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, maybe yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Unless you get a lot.
It was that one year.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Lift with your legs.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So I think that's what it comes down to with solo
hunting have your plan in place,visualize what you're going to
do ahead of time, know thesituation you're getting
yourself into.
And invest in the tools thatmake it easier.
I thought about if I got a deer, maybe I should have a hand
truck, because there's a lot ofarea that I could actually use a
(30:10):
hand truck getting along thoseskidder roads and then I
wouldn't have to drag it quiteas far.
But then I've got to also thinkabout how am I going to strap
it to the hand truck?
Or there's a lot of thosethings where, okay, how would I
do that?
And I've thought about thoseand I'm hoping that I've got
enough friends now in thehunting community.
Hey, come up here, I need somehelp, but you also have to be
(30:31):
willing to go help other guys,absolutely, absolutely.
So, brian, thanks for sendingin that question, that podcast
episode idea.
I appreciate it.
Hope we were able to answer somequestions for you and we stayed
on topic.
If you have a topic that youthink would be great, feel free
to send us an emailblacktailcoach at gmailcom, or
(30:51):
you can go to the websitetheblacktailcoachcom.
There's a place where you cango to the website
theblacktailcoachcom.
There's a place where you canmessage us.
We always respond to themessages.
Whether or not we turn it intoa podcast, we will always
respond to you Thanks forlistening and we'll talk to you
again next week.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron and I'm Dave.
This week we are going to betalking about solo hunting and
responding to a question sent tous by Brian.
He gave us an idea for apodcast, which led to kind of
deciding some solo stuff.
The first part was and I thinkwe addressed this previously
about the sense that episodesthat I replayed for a month that
(00:27):
were just replay episodes.
We're talking about differentscents that are now illegal in
the state of Washington.
They aren't synthetic.
So make sure, as always, doublecheck what your regs say for
your area, your state, yourprovince and that you're using
what's legal for your area.
So we're all synthetics.
Now, unfortunately, we can'tuse companies like James Valley
(00:49):
Scents.
We have to go with tinks orsomething like that.
First thing Brian was talkingabout was do we have any
favorite recipes for our venison?
His wife and daughter are finewith him hunting, but I'm trying
to get them to enjoy the fruitsof my labor more.
So Dave doesn't cook, so I'mout.
(01:10):
We're leaving him off the hookhere.
One of the things you mentionedand this was long before I ever
started hunting you talkedabout how some butchers will mix
the meat.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, it doesn't happen as much as it used to.
But you take your meat in andthey weigh it and everything
Through that whole thing.
They have this little formulathat they do You're going to get
so many pounds of meat becauseso much of this is bone
percentage wise, and they saythis is what you're going to end
up with.
How would you want to dividethat up?
And so basically, what they'recreating is a checklist.
They have certain days wherethey'll go through and okay,
(01:41):
today we're doing wild game,today we're doing elk, or today
we're doing beef.
If it's an elk day and they'reprocessing elk that day, you
know there were some butchersthat would okay.
So I got to get five pounds ofsteaks for this guy and 25
pounds of pepperoni here.
They were just filling orders.
So that doesn't happen muchanymore.
Now they're just processingyour animal, start to finish.
(02:06):
And what was bad about that isif you took good care of your
animal, you didn't know what thenext guy did.
And they're just filling ordersand you get part of that.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
The first time you told me about this.
It was one of your first elkthat you had ever gotten.
It was the worst when we wereroommates back almost 30 years
ago.
And elk is delicious.
I mean, it is the best meatthat I've had.
I like it more than anythingelse that I've had any game
meats.
This was terrible.
(02:32):
It was super gamey.
It was really inedible.
And you told me the butchermixed the meat and stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I actually gave that whole thing away, but again that
doesn't happen much.
I haven't heard about that fora long time.
But it was a thing in the past.
I will say that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So really I think if people don't want to eat
blacktail it's due to thegaminess of it and everything.
But before we get into talkingabout what you can do to avoid
that gaminess Blacktail it'skind of most of it is we do deer
steaks and we do grind yeah,and it's just whatever recipe
(03:14):
you have that has ground beef orsteak, you can use that for
anything, but with the I know itcan be.
It needs to be tenderized thesteaks.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The steaks yes.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And KitchenAid.
So Asha bought a tenderizer forthe KitchenAid.
So basically it turns it intocube steak.
So she runs it through thereonce or twice and it makes quick
work of it, instead of standingthere where she's pounding on
it for a couple of hours andmaking a big mess.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It makes a big mess but, it's therapy for her,
getting out the rage.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's a really good attachment.
Another thing to remember isdeer has very little fat.
It tastes fine for hamburgers,but they don't hold together
well.
So if you take it to thebutcher, I think they'll ask if
you want it mixed with beeftallow.
I think they'll ask if you wantit mixed with beef tallow, and
so you can do a 90-10 or an85-15, 80-20, you know whatever
(04:10):
your preferred mix is.
But that might be a good way togo and it would improve the
flavor, because a lot of theflavor in meat comes from fat
and a lot of the bad flavor canactually come from fat too.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Beef or pork.
They'll ask you either one ofthose.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, some of the questions that Brian asks.
It's how do you prepare, fielddress your deer?
A lot of it starts there.
Absolutely A lot of guys arecompletely caping it.
Is that the correct term?
Actually, no, they're justcutting it completely apart and
leaving the whole carcass outthere.
They're just deboning it out inthe field.
But you discovered a trickPersonal story here.
(04:49):
I hated venison.
I would not eat it.
Asha would say hey, we'rehaving family dinner, mom's
cooking venison stew this Sunday.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I'd be.
That's nice.
Oh, I'm busy, because you couldnot hide that gaminess.
And the funny thing is you cansmell it when you're cooking.
If wild game, you can smell itif it's gamey.
If it's not gamey, it shouldsmell like regular meat yeah,
it's terrible, I just would noteat venison.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But then I remember I don't know if you learned this
trick when I had lived down inCalifornia and I came back and
you're like no, no, someold-timers told you this trick
right, right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So I had a buddy who said this old-timer taught him
this little trick to keepvenison from being gamey.
Now I have since been told thatit doesn't make any sense that
it shouldn't be this way, bysomebody who is very intelligent
and who would know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So I don't know how to explain this, but this is
what I do.
But it works.
So the old timer said that ifyou leave the hide on for two,
three days, that it pulls thegaminess out of the meat.
Yeah, so we started doing that,and since then, the meat.
(06:06):
So we started doing that andsince then we go through so much
venison now.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's ridiculous.
I don't think I bought regularhamburger from the store in
years.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, it's crazy.
I mean, deer steaks is mydaughter's favorite meal.
That's her birthday meal.
She wants it every year andit's like before I was the only
one in the family that would eat.
That would brave it yeah, and Imean, like I said you could
smell it, that it was okay.
She's cooking the deer.
I can smell it, but now youcan't even tell and I know
(06:33):
there's other tricks.
Soaking it in milk overnight wasa trick to pull out gaminess I
see I've done that with turkeyand I know that works for turkey
and it does work.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I just didn't think it worked real.
Not as well as hanging it.
But yeah, hanging it hide on,which means you're having to
drag we're gutting it out in thefield, but it's dragging the
whole thing or getting the wholething back to the vehicle and
then hanging it in your gardenshed.
Hopefully it's cool enough out.
(07:07):
So that's a big.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
This is all late season.
We save our deer tags forNovember, December.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
When you were doing more early season hunting.
I know you came across an oldPepsi cooler.
Uh-huh.
And had that plugged into yourshop and you just hang it in
there.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I would do the elk in there, okay, but see an elk?
I never did.
I always skinned the elk.
Yeah, you know, we always cutit into quarters, we pack it out
skinned and then I would hangit in that cooler for a day or
two and then I would take it in.
So elk was never a problem, itwas always venison.
The black-tailed deer,white-tailed, never had that
problem.
Never had that problem withmule deer, pronghorn, it was
(07:45):
just blacktail.
Yeah.
And blacktail being browsers andnot grazers eating such a mixed
bag of stuff all the timecontributed to it.
The other thing that I wouldsay, it's in how you take care
of your meat, and so I mean wealways try and get the animal
hung and get it caped andeverything, and I would go in
(08:06):
there and take that layer ofskin off.
Yeah.
That little film.
In it have all the dirt andextra hair and I'm picking all
the hair off and everything,getting all the bloodshot out,
and it would spend hours andhours and hours and I still do
that as far as making sure it'sclean, but I leave the hide on
for two, three days and I knowJimmy and Jimmy, the pro staff.
(08:30):
Before he was a vet, he was abutcher and he says it makes no
sense and I have to agree withhe would know.
Yeah, something happens.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
He said the goal is to get it off the bone as
quickly as possible.
Right, but we leave it's thewhole carcass hanging there and
it was four days.
I did my deer, which was inmid-November, for five days just
hanging there.
There were a couple of otherguys who left their deer hanging
before that, like at the end ofmodern, so late October, and it
(09:01):
was cool enough and not sure ifit's a mixture of the meat
aging and that hide, it pullsthe gaminess out of there.
But yeah, it's just not gameyanymore.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, I don't know how to explain it.
I'm sorry, jimmy, somethinghappens.
I don't know if elves come outin that shed or what, but my
whole family loves it now, andnone of us have died.
So we're still around kicking.
That used to be common practicea long time ago, hanging and
aging now, and none of us havedied, so we're still around
kicking.
That used to be common practicea long time ago hanging in age
yeah, I mean I remember my dadwould do that.
He got a couple deer and hewould do that.
(09:32):
And then I knew other guys thathad deer hunted, old timers
that would do that.
I say old timers, I'm an oldtimer now, you know well, see,
now you gotta tell them yeah andthey would do that and it was
something that was pretty common.
But as I came up that wasn't socommon anymore.
Guys were like, well, you needto get the hide off and get it
(09:52):
deboned and get it into thebutcher.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Get it in the butcher quick and deal with it.
So if you have a spot where youcan hang it and keep it cool,
cool and dry for four days, I dothree, four, four days and it's
good.
You know, and mine was, I think, five or six days because we
just didn't have time to getaround me.
You leah, if she's in town, dj,it's just an assembly line.
(10:17):
You're cutting it off the bone,dj's cutting out the sinew and
asha and I are cutting it into.
I did more more stir fry and wedid grind you have the grinder
here at the house and steaks andeverything.
So there's just a lot that youcan do with the meat once it's
ready.
It's just trying to get it towhere you don't have that
gaminess.
And I don't think that might bethe hurdle, or it's the mental
(10:41):
aspect of eating a wild animal,and some people I think somebody
had a bad experience.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This guy didn't take care of his meat, bringing it
out of the woods.
It's all dirty, let it hang.
It's got bloodshot all throughit and stuff.
Well, all that is going to addto that gaminess.
And so somebody had a badexperience and just assumed that
it's all like that, which isunderstandable, but you take
good care of it, you hang it ina cool spot.
The reality is, you guys, Idon't want it to hang that long.
(11:05):
What do you think it's going todo at the butcher's?
They put it in a cooler and it'sgoing to hang for a week.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, it's in a queue before they can get to it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
We're not cutting wild game this day.
We don't cut wild game untilnext Thursday.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Or there's mats, because you Matt's Meats Matt's.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Meats out of.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Longview Out of Longview, so they've done a
pretty good job with other likethe bear and everything like
that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, they're fantastic.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
But yeah, there is also the mental aspect of I just
don't want to eat Bambi.
Like I joked around with mycousin when I went camping that
I was going to bring down somebear brats and cook them all up
for everybody and have them eatthem and then tell them after
the fact that oh, by the way,you just ate a bear.
And now they won't trust mebecause they do not want to eat
(11:49):
bear even though they'redelicious.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Bear is easily one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
But yeah, there's that middle.
Although I have eaten cougar inSloppy Joe's you were eating
cougar steaks one night I didn'twant to eat a cat, even though
I've been told by multiplepeople that it's delicious.
I've had too many cats in mylife as a pet.
I don't want to eat a big one.
Right.
(12:15):
So you know there's a lot ofthat.
But as far as processing it,it's either get it deboned as
quick as possible that wasJimmy's advice and, you know,
get it off the bone andpotentially age it for a little
bit Leave it hanging there withthe hide on for three, four days
.
It's been really good.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
The key is to get that meat cooled down.
Regardless of what you do, getthe meat cooled down and take
good care of it.
Keep it clean.
Yeah, you know, get all thehair off of it.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, all of that.
So that was the first part ofbrian's question and now we'll
get into talking about solohunting.
He was asking and I've expandedbecause it was more than just
wanting to talk about solohunting, but it was any tips on
getting the deer into the truckwhen you're on your own and
exhausted.
One of the things I saw for ifyou're in a pickup is they had
(13:04):
the tailgate down, they had thedeer where it was rack up and
they somehow got it leaned up tothe tailgate.
They just squatted down, stoodstraight up and then walked
backwards and that was the waythey could get it into the truck
and it depends on how far outyou're hunting.
So most like I have a long setit was 0.6 miles from where I
(13:26):
park and got that spike and itwas still some work.
Dj came out and helped me andit was still some work for the
two of us to drag a spike a halfmile but still dragging
whatever 80 pounds or somethingof dead weight.
I know that they make sleds.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
They make sleds.
Game carts are probably moreideal.
I've heard guys using toboggans.
I've actually had friends thatuse toboggans for an elk
Dragging it down the loggingroad, which is gravel.
You've put 80 pounds worth ofmeat, a quarter or something
like that in there Sometimes 80pounds, sometimes lighter and
you drag it on gravel and thisbuddy of mine turns around and
says of course it burns holesbecause it just scrapes away the
(14:04):
plastic.
And now there's holes allthrough this toboggan and he's
like I'm going to take this backand get my money back.
I was like well, what did youthink was going to happen?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
$10 slab for the kids .
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I like carts and trailer.
I have an e-bike that has atrailer.
That is super easy Without thebike.
We've just walked that out.
I walked Miles on that and it'sso much easier Was it last year
or the year before?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I just had to walk in .
I was walking in a block and Ihad two gallons of water, a
20-pound block and 16 poundsworth of water and two
five-pound bags of mineralattractant and cameras, so it's
like 50.
It's like 50 pounds of stuffand I'm not walking a half mile
with that.
So I put it on the cart andwield it out there and that's
(14:51):
like with the cart, you've gotthis whole cart with you.
Well, one of the things you cando is you just wheel the cart
out and just stash it in thebushes when you go into your set
.
So it doesn't need to go all theway in, it just needs to be not
visible or far enough off agame trail and that's all I did.
(15:11):
I stashed it and that helped mefor the skidder road.
Yeah, I know for solo, alsothinking about some stuff I can
leave either up in the stand orin the ground blind.
So I know, last year, becauseit was kind of bulky, I had a
heated vest I left out in theblind.
I leave the pads that I sit onand behind my back for
(15:35):
insulation I leave those outthere.
There's a few things you canleave out there.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Right right, You're not terribly upset if it turns
up missing, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Bags of scent.
I leave the big Ziploc bagthere because I'm just using it
to refresh, so there's no pointin carrying it back and forth.
Right, there's some stuff thatyou can just kind of leave out
if you're going solo.
But you've done a lot of solohunting.
You're going to actually go outsolo this weekend with doing
some elk Before you go.
How are you going through yourchecklist of stuff to bring on a
(16:06):
solo trip versus where you'vegot other people going with you?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
typically on a solo hunt.
I'll take a gps of some sort,whether it's on x or whatnot.
If I'm going out solo, I'lltend to take a second gps.
I have a garmin that I'll takeout with me, just because I
can't afford.
For you know, when you're goingwith other people it's like oh
oh, my phone died.
Well, theirs is still good andwe've still got the mark, the
truck marked on theirs orsomething happened.
You know I fell in water orwhatever.
(16:31):
But when I have a backupbecause I can't take the chance
of my phone dying or falling inwater or something like that,
and so I'll have that extra GPSnumber one, Number two, always
let somebody know where you'regoing.
The plan, yeah, so Bud is outsolo hunting this past week in
Oregon and every day he wassending me the onyx of where he
(16:53):
was going that day.
Okay.
And so he goes.
I need somebody to know.
Well, if something happens tohim, somebody's got to know
where to go.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
To go look.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
And then my son is packing in, or he he did pack in
today and we have an inReachmini two.
What that is is basically itallows you when you're out of
satellite area.
It serves as a satellite andsyncs to your phone so that you
can text and keep in contactwith loved ones, so he has a way
(17:21):
to contact us and we have a wayto contact him.
When you're packing in, youhave to prepare for the worst.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Because there's also the chance that they could be
separated during their hunt orsomething.
I know iPhones and I thinkthere might be some form of
something on Android that's thesame way, but iPhones now have
an emergency satelliteconnection.
Mm-hmm.
You can send text messages viasatellite.
(17:48):
So last year I tried that outand it worked the first time.
Every time after that it didnot work.
I couldn't and I mean I'mconnected with the satellite, it
just failed.
So I would have to walk out tocall or send a text.
I'm driving five miles to getto the first cell signal so that
I can start messaging, andwhatnot.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
On my Manitoba bear hunt this last spring.
I had that Garmin in reach andworked like a charm.
Yeah.
And there was no.
You were not sending any textsor anything.
If you didn't have that,Because we were what they call
the bush, we were way out there,yeah, so there was no, no
signal.
It was as remote as you can getyeah and oh, I was just
(18:31):
thinking of.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Another thing that I leave out in the ground blind is
I bought a I think it was a 10pack of for field dressing an
animal and it can't.
It has a pair of rubber glovesand it's got the full arm
sleeves on there, basically, soyou're not covering your body
(18:52):
and blood and guts and whatnot,but it's got a liver bag and
everything can be stuffed backin as garbage so you can haul
out all the garbage andeverything.
But I leave the stuff out in myground blind so that I'm ready
to go if I get something downand if I were by myself, so that
(19:12):
I don't forget that.
To me that's important, becauseDJ came out and he didn't think
about bringing anything.
All I had was this crappy knife.
I did have the other two toolsthat I used, but you still need
a knife to take care ofeverything.
He's trying to use thisterrible knife that I've got,
which then caused him to buy mea good hunting knife so that he
(19:36):
wouldn't be subjected to that.
But that's another thing to beready for the harvest.
If you're filming, you mightwant to have a light out there
or something.
But just kind of being readyfor what could come up.
So thinking about you've had topack out an animal on your own
right.
Yes, Walk us through that.
(19:57):
An elk would be a completelydifferent story, especially if
you're miles back in, but even adeer though.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, it's funny you say this because the worst
experience I've had was my son'sfirst big buck, and I was right
in the throes of Lyme's diseasewhen I was at my worst.
I took both my daughter and myson out and he ended up shooting
a big buck his first you know,and he's, my goodness.
What was he?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
10, 11 years old, I think he was 12 by the time he
got that one.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
We didn't find it that day.
So I went out the next day.
He had a soccer game.
Both my son and my daughter hadsoccer games, and so my wife
was taking him to the games andI was going to go out and look
for that buck.
And I did find the buck, when Iwas that sick with Lyme's
disease, I couldn't walk 40yards, just a regular 40 yards.
I mean, I had a fever, you know, 24 hours out of the day, for
(20:49):
six months straight, you know.
And it was crazy how sick I wasand extremely weak, having been
limited on what I could do forso long.
It was four and a half years ofthis when I found the buck.
I realized, you know, I've gotabout, oh, 150-yard drag
downhill to where the truck is,six, eight steps, and I would
(21:12):
have to stop, you know, and rest, you know.
And by the time I got to wherethe road was below me and it's
like how am I going to get thisin the truck?
There's no way I can lift it.
I was drenched in sweat, barely, my legs were all shaky and
everything.
I mean, it was just I was inbad shape.
But then, you know a littletrick that I'd learned
throughout the years is to getyour animal on a little mound or
(21:35):
something where you can backyour truck up with the tailgate
down.
Okay that you're hitting thatmound or that hillside and you
can either pull the deer orwhatever you're dragging
straight in, or it slidesdownhill into your bed.
Yeah.
And on that particular occasionI managed to get to a little
hill where I could back thetruck up to and I just pulled
(21:57):
the buck over to the edge and itslid right back down into the
bed of the truck.
And I mean, it was God, becauseI spent the next 45 minutes to
an hour and 15 just sitting inthe driver's seat trying to
recover from that drag.
And so you know that's a littletrick.
I've killed a big buck dayafter Thanksgiving, one year out
(22:17):
, by myself and had to load iton a four-wheeler, Basically did
that same trick as far asbacking up to a hillside and
then dragging the buck down thehillside onto the back of the
four-wheeler where it had a rack, and I just strapped it to that
rack.
Your body's only got so manyhunts left in it.
You have to do everythingsmarter.
(22:37):
You know, when we're youngwe're able to do things harder.
You know, because we still havethat invincible mentality.
Embrace it.
Yeah, that's part of theadventure that you're going into
it for seeing how far you canpush yourself, and that's great.
I used to be that way.
I can't afford to now that Ihave Lyme's.
It's a life-changing experience.
But my son is there.
He's working out all the timeand he's on his backpacking hunt
(22:59):
right now for elk.
He's having a great time.
I'm jealous, but life is whatit is.
You roll with the punches andmake the best of it.
These are the things you takeinto consideration when you go
into the woods.
What is my limit?
If I do get one down, how am Igoing to get it out?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, do you have some people that you can call?
That has been one of the moreincredible things about our
community that we have guys whowill just drop everything and go
help somebody who they haveonly met once or twice and help
them with pulling something outof the woods and stuff.
And that's kind of what we want, because we want people to be
helping each other out in thewoods celebrating successes.
But I just think if I didn'thave DJ, how much of a pain in
(23:47):
the butt that would have been.
I could have drugged that spikeout of there by myself.
It would have taken me fourtimes as long, you know, as I'm
trying to figure out how to gutthis thing.
Right right, and then you knowit's a spike so I can't.
That's one of the things thatwe had to drag it by its hind
legs, so we're dragging itagainst its fur, which always
(24:07):
makes it harder.
Not a lot, but it was just thatlittle extra.
You got to pull it over a logor maybe uphill a little bit.
So there's always that littlebit of extra that if you can
just be able to reach out tosomebody who can lend that hand,
and even if they're notnecessarily another hunter, it's
good to have a community whereyou could say if I gave you a
(24:30):
call, can you come out?
and help me.
At least just drag this thingout of the woods.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right Part of the trophy is not just what you put
on the wall If you get thatopportunity.
The main part of the trophy,the part that keeps giving
throughout the year, is the meatthat you get off that animal
and the high protein that you'regoing to get from an animal
that is very lean.
There's no, everybody wants tofarm, raise this and grass fed
(24:55):
this.
Well, you're not going to getany better than wild game.
If you want to be that way, takeup hunting.
If you don't, don't be naive tohow that meat got on your plate
, whether it's beef, wild game,fish, whatever.
You have to understand that itgot there in a certain way and
(25:19):
that way is necessary to sustainby somebody killing our
community, our world.
it's a harsh reality and it'sone that we don't want to deal
with because we feel like, ohwell, that's mean, that's cruel.
That's just part of quote LionKing, the circle of life.
That's how it works there arefeeder fish and there are sharks
when you're an apex predatorthat's how it works.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Thinking about the solo it's a big part of it.
Think about a cart and maybeyou don't have the option,
you've got to keep it and you'vegot to quarter it out because
you've got to put it in somegame bags and throw it into a
backpack to carry it out.
But a cart or some sort oftoboggan sled thing to where you
can get it out of there.
Just kind of think of a processahead of time.
(26:06):
And I know that they make ahandle that attaches to, if you
get a big enough buck, theantlers and you can drag it out.
That way You've got a handle.
Address the issue before it's aproblem.
Right right, I'm going to go outand get a buck.
So if I'm going to get thisbuck, I need to have my process
of how I'm going to get that outof there.
And that's part of it of methinking about and this is a
(26:30):
really good example me thinkingabout bear hunting.
Well, I've never skinned out orseen a bear being skinned out
and I can probably watch it onyoutube.
But the first time I wouldhaving somebody who's shot a
bear out there who can come outand meet me.
So then it's thinking aboutwell, I gotta make sure that
somebody's around to do that forthat first time.
(26:51):
But going forward, well, thereare 300 400 pound bears out
there.
If I shot one of them, I got toget that thing out of there.
I've got to have that process.
I use this example in interviewsall the time.
They would talk about theseunforeseen problems that would
come up.
I oversaw some parentingclasses with childcare and half
(27:13):
of my childcare staff would callin sick or they wouldn't be
available and so I'd have tohave a plan to cover that.
And they're like what days werethose?
I was like I didn't know.
All I knew is twice a year ithappened.
So I had a plan in place on howdo I be prepared for this thing
to happen.
And that's the whole idea ofsolo hunting is be prepared for
(27:37):
this thing to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Whether it's a safety issue, whether it's a harvest
issue, be prepared for that tohappen.
And then you've got a planwhere, okay, so it's right
before dark and you get thisbuck down and you can't see,
you're so low, so maybe you come.
(28:00):
You just it's part of your planthat if you shot one and it's
dark out and you're not going tobe able to safely get it out of
the woods, you come back thenext day and finish getting it
out of the woods or somethinglike that, and I mean with blood
trailing.
For you guys who are archeryhunters, there's lots of times
you've had to come back the nextday because you couldn't find
it at night.
(28:21):
Yeah.
So, with solo hunting, have yourplan in place before it happens
.
If it's, how do you get a buckinto the back of a pickup?
Well, you know where you'rehunting.
You can look around and seethat oh there's no hills.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
A little bit of preparation goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
There's no hills I can back up to.
That was one of the things Isaw on the YouTube video where
the guy propped it up.
I think he tied a rope to theantlers so that he could pull it
up.
Then he could reach the antlerstanding on the tailgate when it
was down and then he justsquatted and stood straight up
and then walked backwards andthat's how he was able to get
this buck, a big white tail,into the bed of his pickup
(29:03):
without any assistance.
Yeah, you got to kind of thinkthose through, Because
deadlifting a dead deer in theback of a pickup, yeah that
would be a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And deer are probably the easiest of all big game
bear.
There's no handholds on bears.
They're, they're just the.
They're the hardest thing todrag out, they're the hardest
thing to load, you know, they'rejust.
There's no way to grab themwhere you feel like like you got
a handle, you know what I meanwith a deer you can, but with an
elk you're doing quarters.
Very seldom are you able toload it whole.
(29:34):
It does happen, but very seldomin comparison.
So the deer is the easier oneof the big game.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, maybe grouse are a little easier.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, maybe yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Unless you get a lot.
It was that one year.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Lift with your legs.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
So I think that's what it comes down to with solo
hunting have your plan in place,visualize what you're going to
do ahead of time, know thesituation you're getting
yourself into.
And invest in the tools thatmake it easier.
I thought about if I got a deer, maybe I should have a hand
truck, because there's a lot ofarea that I could actually use a
(30:10):
hand truck getting along thoseskidder roads and then I
wouldn't have to drag it quiteas far.
But then I've got to also thinkabout how am I going to strap
it to the hand truck?
Or there's a lot of thosethings where, okay, how would I
do that?
And I've thought about thoseand I'm hoping that I've got
enough friends now in thehunting community.
Hey, come up here, I need somehelp, but you also have to be
(30:31):
willing to go help other guys,absolutely, absolutely.
So, brian, thanks for sendingin that question, that podcast
episode idea.
I appreciate it.
Hope we were able to answer somequestions for you and we stayed
on topic.
If you have a topic that youthink would be great, feel free
to send us an emailblacktailcoach at gmailcom, or
(30:51):
you can go to the websitetheblacktailcoachcom.
There's a place where you cango to the website
theblacktailcoachcom.
There's a place where you canmessage us.
We always respond to themessages.
Whether or not we turn it intoa podcast, we will always
respond to you Thanks forlistening and we'll talk to you
again next week.
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