HBG Podcast Episode #28 - Derek Wolfe Hunting Tactics, Sports, Mindset, Fitness, and More - Hunting Beast Gear Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:32):
Hey, welcome everyone to the bes Gear Podcast. Today, I'm joined
by former NFL defensive lineman and SuperBowl champ Derek Wolf. Derek is an
avid hunter, father, husband,and workout enthusiast and more. Derek has
been a big advocate for hunter landaccess in his home state of Colorado and
continues to give back to his communitythrough his Wolfpack Foundation. We're excited to

(00:56):
sit down with Derek talk about family, hunting, athletics in life, hopefully
learn a few things along the way. Please join me and welcoming Derek to
the show. So yeah, let'sget into it. Derek, how you
doing. I'm good man, Thanksfor having me. Yeah, no problem,
No problem. I want to talka little bit about your your athletic
career and kind of how it startedoff when you were younger. You know,

(01:22):
obviously you're a big guy, butas a kid, how did how
did things start out for you asfar as athletics and sports. Did you
have people in your family that wereinterested in it? Did you come into
it on your own? Were youthe first athlete in your family? Were

(01:42):
you one of many? Like?How did you start out? I was
I was the first athlete in myfamily. First and only actually, and
my family's I mean, I don'tknow though. I don't know who my
real dad is though, So whoknows. You could be an athlete,
you know, you could have abunch of athletes out there, who knows.
But you know, I was theonly athlete really in my family.
Likes some high school football players andstuff around. But I watched that Super

(02:07):
Bowl between the Denver Broncos and theGreen Bay Packers in nineteen ninety seven and
I was seven years old and thatwas my first year playing football, and
I was like, that's what Iwant to do. And I watched Reggie
White carry that Super Bowl trophy aroundin ninety six, you know, when
they won the Super Bowl ninety six, the Packers. And watching Reggie White
carry that carry that trophy around withhis with the Super Bowl T shirt over

(02:30):
his jersey, that will forever beingrained in my mind because I was like,
that's what I want to do.I want to do that and I
want to feel what that feels like. And it's crazy, like how many
people can say that they like,you know, that's like a kid seeing
an astronaut, you know, takeoff on a spaceship as a kid and
being like that's what I want todo, and then he gets to do

(02:52):
it, and he's like in thatmoment, like I'll never forget being in
that moment, like running around thefield with the super Bowl super Bowl T
shirt with Bardi Trophy in my head, running around the field like that.
I was just like, holy shit, I did it. I got I
can't believe that this actually happened andcame and came true. But you know,
it took a lot of hard workand went through a lot of stuff

(03:13):
in between there. And the onething that always stayed true though, was
that I just was like, Okay, if I just work my ass off,
like I'm gonna be, everything's gonnawork out. You know. I
had an opportunity to play in aSuper Bowl and was injured and didn't get
to play in the first one wemade it to, so I didn't know
if we'd ever make it to anotherone. But I just stayed true to
that, like, hey, youknow, just keep grinding, you know,

(03:34):
keep your head in the game,like, don't get distracted by all
the other bullshit and the outside noise, and everything will work out. And
you know, I was, Iwas. I started playing full contact football
at seven years old, and fromthe second I stepped on that field,
it was like, you know,I'll never forget I like, I like
twisted my ankle, roll bad.I'm like one of my first games and

(03:55):
I'll never forget my coach coming outthere and just being like get up.
I was like, all right,Like we don't. Like that's just like
a mindset thing. You know,this this isn't for This game isn't for
everybody because it is so physical andyou have to have a different mentality.
You know. Positions are different,right, Like if you're a quarterback,
you're not gonna have the same mindsetas a defensive lineman. But I was

(04:16):
always a defensive player. I playedrunning back to when I was a kid
and stuff, but it was alwaysmy coach would be like I didn't want
to do it, and he'd belike, hey, the quicker, you
score a touchdown, the quicker,you get to go back on defense.
And I would be like, okay, cool. So that's that's how I
looked at it, you know.But I was always defensive. I always
played linebacker, defensive line. Likethat was always like seaball. Get ball

(04:39):
was always really fun to me becauseit's like this, they don't know when
you're not you don't know what they'redoing, but you can make like educated
guesses. That was always like reallyfun to me. Like, and as
a game went on, you wouldstart to see tendencies and I would just
like I just naturally would remember seeinglike a backfield setter, naturally remember seeing
like how somebody moved, and itwould be like, okay, this is

(04:59):
that play. I would just goand attack and there was no hesitation there.
So it just took it took timeto like to really fall in love
with it. Didn't take any alot of time to fall in love with
the game. Is what I wastrying to say is that you know it
is right away. I fell inlove with it right away. So this
is this is it's good. Thisis interesting. So as a young athlete,

(05:19):
what because I feel like this isthis happens for a lot of people.
When you first started, what doyou think mentally? Mentally it provided
for you, like that first dayof practice where you said you fell in
love with it instantly. A lotof people say, you don't athletics.

(05:39):
They can provide us with a home, a tribe, they can provide us
with confidence. Like when you thinkabout who you were as a kid,
maybe things that were going on inyour head, you know, at home
in life, like what did practice? What is going to practice? And
being around that environment kind of providefor you you initially and then yeah,

(06:03):
it provided I know exactly what you'regetting at, but it provoded. It
provided a family atmosphere that I reallywasn't getting at home. You know.
It was come from an abusive household, alcoholic mother and an abusive stepfather.
So I was like I had alot of rage that I had to let
out and I got to like controlthat rage and let it out on the

(06:24):
field. And then also the praisethat you would get from a coach when
you did it, when you didsomething right, so like it doesn't have
to be like a big play ina game. It could be just doing
the drill right, Like just doingthe drill right and your coach and like
there you go. That's how Iwant to see it. Like getting the
getting those small little praises were likethat was everything to me. You know.
That's like that's what got me upin the next morning and got me

(06:45):
going the next day. And that'sthe only reason I went to school and
cared about class because you had tohave the grades to play football. And
it was like, okay, Ijust I'm Everything I did in life was
just to make sure I could playfootball because I loved it so much.
I love I loved I felt likeif I didn't have football, then I
wouldn't have any kind of family,you know. And I and it was
like no matter what team I wenton, I was playing on, it

(07:09):
was like I found a brotherhood.You know, there's some kind of brotherhood
to be found in camaraderie. Andyou know, your coaches end up being
like your father figures and and that'sjust it was like that at every step
of the way, even in theNFL. You know, my my defensive
line coach in Denver, he's like, you know, he was like a
father to me. You know,Bill Cohler, you know, he's from
Warren, Ohio, and he's he'sjust like we'd get along really well.

(07:30):
And you know, growing up growingup in Northeast Ohio, like it's football
and hunting. Like football, huntingand wrestling are the three most important things
we'll get into talking about at somepoint. Yeah, So it was that
was for me. My my escapeswere, you know, hunting and in
football and that athletics. It doesn'thave to be just football, like it

(07:51):
could be any sport you know cancan give you those those same feelings and
those same meaning. You know,I was, I was always envious the
kids that like their whole family wouldcome to games and stuff like that.
But I, you know something,It's just something about being there by myself
and not have like nobody was pushingme to do this. I was doing
this because I wanted to do it. And I saw a lot of really

(08:13):
good players quit because they just didn'twant to do it anymore and they were
being pushed too hard. So I'malmost grateful that I didn't have one of
those dads that was like down yourthroat all the time. You know,
I did it because I loved itand I wanted to do it. It
wasn't because I was being forced todo it. It is a it's a
delicate thing when you're you have daughtersnow and you're if they get into any

(08:37):
activity and you're trying to mentor themand guide them. I feel like what,
you know, the thing that you'respeaking of is this self drive,
this thing that you found within footballand many. I see this in people
that get into like way deep intohunting in the outdoors as well. There's

(08:58):
there's a pull to it, pulledto it that speaks, that speaks to
their soul, right, and theyfind this camaraderie. It's awesome that you
mentioned like coaches and people early onin your life that mentored you. I
think a lot of people feel thatsame situation. I've coached for a long

(09:22):
time in wrestling, but I knowthe mentors that I've had, and other
coaches they should all know, likethe unbelievable influence and impact that they can
have on people's lives when you mentorsomeone and work with them, And it
could be just little statements like yousaid during practice where they said good job
on a drill, or that changesthe whole frame of mind of a kid's

(09:46):
day, a kid's week, akid's life. Yeah. So it's this
weird dynamic and I'm sure you're goingto experience it now that you've gone in
your life. You've gone, you'rethis sort of cycle of growth and prosperity,
and now you have a family.Do you think about in raising your

(10:11):
family now? Like how are yougonna how are you gonna instill in them
some of the values that you gotfrom growing up under that harsher environment,
but also, you know, helpthem be successful, you know, because
they're they're growing up in a completelydifferent environment. You know. Yeah,
And I think so the way Ilook at it is and it's a struggle

(10:33):
because, you know, especially myoldest is more of like an intellectual and
she just like excels at this stuff. Like she played lacrosse for a little
bit and then was really good atit, but she didn't love it.
And I was like, look,if you don't love it, I'm not
gonna make you do it right.I'm not gonna like, it's not my
job to coach effort. Like I'mnot gonna yell at you for not playing

(10:56):
harder, not trying hard. Ifyou don't it, then don't do it,
you know, And that's okay.And she was like so much happier,
you know, thought she was likegonna be letting me down or something.
She was so much happier knowing thatI didn't care. But now my
youngest, she is like super competitive, wants to win everything. I mean,

(11:16):
you can't even ask my oldest abouther day. My oldest is sixteen.
My youngest is four and a half. So you can't even ask my
oldest about how her day was withoutmy youngest being like, hold on,
let me tell you about my dayfirst. He has to like she wants
to be first, and she's competitive, you know. She she danced,
she does dance, she does gymnastics, she does martial arts. She's gonna
do soccer this summer. Like she'sall about doing any kind of sport she

(11:37):
can possibly do and trying to bethe best at it. But she also
has like, just like every otherkid has, is when things don't go
her way, she wants to quit. So it's like I'm not. I
just don't let her quit. Likewhen it gets hard, I don't let
her quit. And I struggle sometimesbecause we'll be in like this in some
silly martial arts class where they're justworking on like front kicks and just goofy

(11:58):
things, you know, and shenot And if I see your goofing around,
she'll look back at me and I'lljust give her a look and she'll
like, oh, she like takesit, you know, she straightens up
takes it serious, like, hey, if you're gonna be doing this,
and I explained to her, evenat at four and a half years old,
she understands that I'm like, hey, if you're gonna do this,
try it. Just try. That'sall I ask is just try. Like

(12:18):
if you don't do it right,it's okay because you can get it right
the next time. But if youdon't try, if you're not even trying
to do it right, you know, that's that's what makes me angry.
Like that's why i'm that's why I'mgetting that's why I'm upset. Like that's
why I'm telling me, that's whyi'upset. I'm not upset because you didn't
do it right. I'm upset becauseyou're not trying hard. And that's and
then now she's like she just wantsto see that. She wants me to

(12:39):
see that she is trying hard oneverything that she does. So it doesn't
matter what it is. She's alwayslooking to make sure that I'm watching,
so I may you know, it'sthat's the other thing. Now you have
this responsibility of being at everything thatshe does. She wants to know that
you're watching. And you know,when I no matter how how well she
did in the class, whatever classit is, I always tell her,

(13:01):
Hey, you did a great job. You did a great job because you
tried and that's all I care about. Like, all I care about is
that you tried hard. I don'tcare if you won, you lost,
to any of that, But ifyou tried your hardest and played hard and
practiced hard and did all that likeand prepared hard, that's that's all I
care about. Same And the samegoes for my oldest with her with her
school. You know, she's inDECA and all the in FBLA does all

(13:24):
these things that I never even heardof when I was a kid. Now
she's like the vice president of it. And you know, she's got like
a four point two GPA And Iwas like, I didn't know you could
get above a four point zero.That's pretty you know. So it's uh,
you know then that's what I tellher. I'm like, you know,
she gets upset if she gets likean A minus or like a B
plus or something. I'm like,yeah, but did how Like I saw

(13:46):
I saw you studying. I sawyou weren't on your phone TikTok, and
you weren't you know, bullshit,and you were like taken serious. So
the fact that you tried is allthat matters. You didn't just like you
gave it, you get you dideverything you possibly good to set yourself up
for success. Yeah, and thatand that is like a lesson that everybody
should have. It's it's especially importantin the in the outdoors, Like you

(14:09):
have to prepare to fail because you'regoing to fail a lot more than you
succeed. So you have to beprepared to like deal with that that failure,
like that mental failure, uh,you know, of just not being
successful. You know, you mightspend five to seven days on an elk
hunt and come out of there withnothing. You might not even draw your

(14:30):
bow back, and you could beand you could either be disappointed or you
can be like, Okay, whatdid I do wrong? You know,
what what did I do wrong?You know? That's what I always try
to teach them. I'm like,hey, what could you have done better?
Like what did you what went wrong? Right? Don't just like get
mad and blame everybody else, youknow, because that's the easy thing is
to point the finger at other people. But what did you do wrong?

(14:52):
And what can you improve on?So like, yeah, it is it
is a struggle to like try toI don't expect them to have the same
you know, blind rage of drivethat I had, where like nothing else
mattered. I don't expect them tohave that, and I don't sure that
was my only way out of mysituation. They have so many other opportunities

(15:13):
that I had. All I wantthem to do is like take advantage of
those opportunities that they have and recognizeit and be grateful and and so those
those are the things that I tryto teach, you know, my wife
and I we both push that onthem really hardest. Well, be just
gratitude and you're you're doing me somuch justice. When my daughters listen to
this back, they will, youknow, because I profess a lot of

(15:37):
the same things, you know,and they are very accountable for themselves in
their school and their athletics. Myyoungest play soccer, my oldest played volleyball,
but very similar in the mindset andthinking like you can't coach effort,
show up, do the work everyday when no one, no one is
watching, right, and and bedriven. You'll that that sort of mantra

(16:00):
trump's almost everything else, because you'llget people that are talented in something right,
whether it be hunting, whether itbe you know, football, whether
it be wrestling, there's talented people. But you could overcome a lot of
that with hard work, determination obviouslyusing your mind to learn different different skills
and different techniques within that. So, yeah, there's a there's a great

(16:22):
quote. There's a great a greatquote about that. It's, uh,
you know, hard work beats talentwhen talent doesn't want to work. There's
a lot of talented people out there, but they just don't have the work
ethic. They don't have the mindsetor the work ethic to to excel and
be great. They just they That'swhy you see like these guys as they
peak in high school, you knowwhat I mean, because they never they
they didn't push themselves and try harder. They just were like, Okay,

(16:45):
I'm really good at this right now, and I'll just stay here. Which
leads me to another thing Peyton Manningtold me one time. He's like,
you either get better or you getworse. You never stay the same because
the variable is other people there.Other people are working really hard or they're
not working as hard as you.So where are you at on that level?
Right? So I think the environmentis constantly changing too. Yeah,

(17:07):
exactly, think about how much footballis you know, evolved over the last
forty years. Well think I meanthink about the last ten years. Yeah,
like the ten years I was inthe league, it was like a
whole different game. I was like, what the hell is going on here?
You know, you can't even landon the quarterback, It's just right,
It's just crazy. The rules changeevery year, like, so it's

(17:30):
always moving, so you have tomove with it. Guys are getting bigger,
stronger, faster, you know,guys are more athletic. You got
to be smarter, you got todo this, You got to do that.
You know, it's you have tobe financially literate. There's all these
things that go into it that thatpeople don't think of. It's not just
being a good athlete, right,just just like it's not about just you
know, being a good shot withyour bow, Like, yeah, I'm

(17:51):
a good shot, right, Butwhat happens whenever the pressure's on? You
know, what happens whenever you've beenholding it some weird position for you know,
ten minutes, you know, andor let you know, sitting on
one knee, you know, notable to move for you know, thirty
forty seconds, and then you drawyour bow back. Now you got to
hold your bow back for two minutesand wait for that elk to get in
position. And then you're like,well, I wonder what the range is

(18:15):
and you have to guess the range, and like there's all these things that
happen that you know, you don'tthink about when you're in your backyard just
shooting at your same target you shootat every day, and you're like,
I wonder why I missed. It'sbecause you didn't put yourself in those situations.
You have to you have to prepareyourself. And you know I do
that by just like I'll just takemy bow into the gym with me and
I'll just do these crazy workouts andget my heart rate and get my arms

(18:37):
as tired as possible and my legsis tired and be shaky and breathing heavy,
and pull my bow back and justtry to make a good shot at
twenty yards, like just try toget it in the dot. And then
there's a punishment for me if Idon't make it in the dot. You
know, I got to go pickup this two hundred pound ball five or
six times or something. You know, Like it's things like that, do
you I want to know if youthick this in your head, do you

(18:59):
feel like you know, A lotof people would say, you know,
Derek, you played football your wholelife, you wrestle, You've reached the
pinnacle of the sport at the highestlevel. Like why do you still do
workouts like that? What? Whatdrives you to keep going in and do
it? Do you do you getsome I guess? Is it a place

(19:19):
where physically if you drain yourself likethat, like you can it sort of
absolves everything else that's going on inthe world and it just allows you to
focus or what do you get outof here? Yeah? Yeah, that's
my That's my happy place. Man. It's like my It's like my church.
You know. Being in the gymis like that's like my church.
And it's not just about you know, lifting heavy weights and being in a

(19:41):
meathead. It's about like when Iwhen I get myself to where I want
to quit, and then I don'tquit. That's I know. That's like
a lot of people are preaching thatright now. But you have to make
yourself uncomfortable and I love to dothat. I love to make make myself
uncomfortable and then like push through it. Because then I get like the it's
an endorphin drop. Really, it'syou're doing it for endorphins, you know,

(20:03):
And I think it's good for youto continue to do that to grow.
That's how you grow, you know, is by doing shit that you
don't want to do. You know, there's days so I don't want to
get up. I don't want toget up in the morning. I just
want to lay there. But Iknow that if I don't get up,
then, you know, then I'mgoing to be behind. I got to
get my daughter ready for school.I gotta do this. I do that,

(20:25):
like I like having a routine.And some days you don't feel like
doing it, but the days andthen when you do it, there's like
you get those little victories from that. And there's actually a part of your
brain that grows when you do stufflike that. And that's those two little
voices in your head and you gottawhich one are you going to be today
type of thing exactly, Yeah,are you gonna bitch out? Or are

(20:45):
you going to do it? Youknow? And that's that's just like,
that's the reality of life today isthat too many kids are being taught that
it's okay to quit. Yeah,it's okay. It's okay, like a
little, like the littlest bit ofdiscomfort and they quit and they throw a
fit, and it's like, youknow, all the gentle parenting going on

(21:06):
and this and that, like it'sokay to feel some adversity and go,
okay, it's okay to feel alittle bit of anxiety. It's okay to
fail, like bottom line, it'sokay to fail and have to retry.
And there's I think that social Imean I didn't grow up with social media,
so I don't know what it's likefor these kids, but I know
that, like they compare themselves toother people NonStop. It's hard. That's

(21:29):
why we don't let my We don'tlet my. My older she doesn't have
any social media. There is nosocial media because it's just it's a distraction.
You don't need it for Social mediais something you should use. Don't
let it. Don't let it useyou. Yeah, you know, so,
so don't get caught Like people getcaught up and they put their self
worth on how many likes they geton something or how much, how much,

(21:51):
how many impressions they had, orhow many like all these all these
variables that have become like a currencynow that are just unhealthy. Yeah,
I mean really, prior to thedigital age, prior to the internet,
you could detach yourself, like youhad your pods, Like if you're at
school or you're at work, you'rearound a certain group, whatever was going

(22:11):
on, you were in that environment. But then you could always disconnects.
It's more difficult now to disconnect.I mean, but there are great things
like this podcast that we're doing andbeing able to communicate with people like this.
Yeah, I think for younger,younger kids that grew up with this
in their life, it's very difficultfor them to disassociate or disconnect from that

(22:36):
because it's it's always present. Theyfeel like they're going to miss out if
they're not connecting to it. ButI think that's another thing where the outdoors.
If they could get into the outdoors, they could get into hunting,
they could get into experiencing what theoutdoors have to offer, you know,
like this this digital environment, itcan't hold a candle to it. You

(22:56):
know, there's just it's not real. Yeah, it's not really you know,
it's real going and going out andhitting a trail and I don't care
if you've got a bow in yourhand, a rifle or nothing, but
you put on put ten miles onyour feet and really get after it and
get and go to somewhere where you'relike, man, not a lot of
people have come here. There haven'tbeen a lot of people here. And

(23:18):
just spend a couple of days inthat environment and it'll reset you, total
reset and it is like the bestfeeling and it's so good for you mentally
that you know. That's what Ilove most about Western the Western hunting MH
is that you know there's a grindto it it. You wake up early
as hell, you get to atrailhead, and then usually you're hiking straight

(23:41):
up a mountain like you're you're neverhiking down. You're always hiking up something
and it sucks and you it's youstart. You're literally have to start your
day off doing something you don't wantto do, like I don't want to
go up there right now. Youget up there, you're sweating, you're
a little bit cold now. Andthen you sit there and you wait for
the bugles, you know, andthen once the bugle start, it's like

(24:03):
you're hit all that none of thatmatters. Let's go yeah, and you're
after them and that and and that'swhy you know. Same with glassing.
You might get up there and glassout glass mule, deer sheep or whatever.
You're hunting your glass in all morningand then finally you find something that's
worth putting a stock on. Nowyou can start like the wheel start turning,
like how do I get there?And what's the best way to come

(24:26):
down on him? What are mythermals going to be? Like what the
time I get over there? Becausehe might be two miles away, But
so you got to think about what'smy wind and my thermal is going to
be doing by the time I getover there. So there's all these variables
that go into it. That islike it's it's activating parts of your brain
that you don't use when you're justmindlessly sitting on your computer, mindlessly sitting
on your phone scrolling. You're usingparts of your brain that I think,

(24:49):
I think that people I know thatI'm codd to go do this stuff.
Like when I when I'm hunting,it is like it's it's like I'm I'm
doing what I'm I feel like I'mdoing what I supposed to be doing.
There's no, like unnatural feeling toit. It feels super natural for me
to be doing it. So it'ssomewhere in my DNA code, the hunting
and hunting is like in there,like I'm supposed to be doing this.

(25:12):
And then I've heard that from otheravid hunters as well. Oh it's it's
like it's coded. And when Idon't get to do it for a while,
you know, like the like rightnow, it's kind of the off
season, you know, and it'slike, yeah, you can find things
to go hunt, but like thethings that I like to hunt elk and
I like to hunt deer, andI like, those are the things I
like to hunt. So you onlyget a short little period of the year

(25:33):
to go do those things, especiallyyou know with seasons and tags and all
this stuff, like you know,really, to me, it's like September
November or the two months that Iget to go do these two things that
I've really I really love to hunt, right. I love hunting elk,
and I love hunting white tail,and I'll hunt mule deer as well.
I love hunt mule deer too,but I like, I like the physical
grind of an elk hunt, andI like the mental grind of a of

(25:56):
a white tail hunt. Mm hm, you know, because it is a
mental game that you're playing with thesedeer. Like it's you're not going to
go spot and stock deer in themiddle of Kansas. Sorry, you're not
doing it. I don't care ithappens. But like, I'm too big
to be doing that. I'm toodamn tall to be sneaking around in some

(26:18):
brier patches. They're gonna spot mefrom a mile away. And that's just
not something I'm interested in doing.But I love the mental game of it.
But if if you can just likeset like set yourself up for success
by training, right, So train, get yourself in shape, go out,

(26:38):
put yourself into mountains and put makeyourself uncomfortable. It will do.
I mean it'll do. There's sciencebehind this, right yeah. I think
three days out there can set youup for a whole year. And the
other thing just you know, peoplethat haunt and are getting into this,
getting into doing this in a regularbasis, there's so many other benefits that

(27:02):
bleed into other parts of your life. Because, like you said, if
you set a goal that you wantto train every day, maybe you know,
maybe you put a rucksack on andyou're hiking, you know, in
an area to try to build upyour endurance so you can get out and
go further into white tail hunt.Or you're working in elevation and you're doing
this sort of thing that's going tobleed into how you feel better, you

(27:23):
know, just doing your job,just doing your everyday life, so you
can kind of turn your passion intosomething that can have a significantly positive impact
on the rest of your life.One question I wanted to ask you,
going back to your childhood with hunting, what would you say what I've seen

(27:45):
with other like avid outdoorsmen that whenthey were a kid, they sort of
picked up some instincts or some habitsor some things in the outdoors that have
sort of stuck with them. Arethere things in your mind or experiences that
you had as a kid that you'vethat have sort of held true with the
outdoors that you use today, Likecertain gut feelings or things that you've learned

(28:08):
that you use today. Yeah,you can't kill them from the couch.
Yeah, that like always stuck withme. No matter what you can't get,
You're not gonna kill anything sitting onthe couch. So like you know
that I always I had a lotof friends that would be like, I'm
not gonna hunt today. The weather'snot it's not exactly how I want it
to be this, and then it'slike, well do you you never know?

(28:32):
You never know when like it's it'sAnd for me, it's always those
days that I was like, oh, I don't feel like going out today,
I don't feel like waking up inthe morning and getting up getting up
early. Those are the days thatI always would see, you know,
good deer, you know, becauseto me, I love being out.
I like, especially because I grewup unting white tail in turkeys, right
a white tail hunting was like,you know, with a bow, it

(28:56):
was you know, if you're notfifteen twenty yards from me, I'm not
shooting at him, you know,because because they jumped the string and I
wasn't, you know, I justI just feel more kind and I'm shooting
through all kinds of junk anyways.So, and I'm always hunting somebody else's
property, you know. So it'slike I get to do a couple sits
there and then I'm going somewhere else, you know, and it's like or
public land or something like we werehut a lot of public land, or

(29:18):
it's shotgun season and you only getto go out for four or five days
a year, or you get thefirst they give us the first day of
school off for shotgun season in Ohio. So how did you balance your passions?
Because being a former athlete and rustlingmy whole life like that bulk of
that season of football, wrestling,whitetail hunting in Ohio, like it all

(29:42):
falls right on top of each other. Oh, it sucked. Like the
hunting took a back seat for along time, you know, especially once
I once I got out of highschool, Like once I got to like
high school football, it was likethere was no you couldn't just like I
was so tired after you know,after in games. It was no,
Like I wasn't about to go sitin the woods for two three hours and

(30:03):
then drag a deer out of there, Like I just wasn't going to do
it. And so I just likeI took it took a back seat,
and I would go do it everynow and then, Like when I got
to the league, it would belike, uh, you know, in
college, I didn't get to huntat all because we only get two weeks
off a year. That was usuallyduring the summer, so I never had
time to do it. But whenI got to the NFL sometimes on the

(30:26):
bye week it would fall in likeOctober November sometimes and I would go.
I would sneak home real quick andyou know, shoot the first deer I
saw. You know. But Ithink it's incredibly important for people to understand
that, because they should understand likeyou can focus on other areas in your
life and still have this passion,right, like I want to get back

(30:48):
to that, but I need tofocus on this to be successful. And
in you focusing on football in thatportion of your life, like you built
all these their skills that now inretirement you're applying to you know, your
business, you're hunting your recruit youknow the things your family, the things

(31:10):
that you're doing, Like this stuffis now becoming very useful in what you're
doing now. Oh absolutely, youknow. Just the the thing about hunting
is that, like like I saidearlier, you fail so much, like
you're you're usually come out of theirfit. Some of these units out here
are like seven percent five percent success, right, And people get jacked up

(31:34):
because it's more than two or threepercent right now. It's like it's it's
like, think about that man likeI was. I was a defense alignment.
I played for ten years and Ihad thirty seven career regular season sacks.
So think about how many pass playsI was involved in that I didn't
get a sack thousands, right,you know, thousands of times I failed,

(31:56):
right, And it's all for thatone time you succeed. It is
like this huge rush. It isthe same, if not better rush when
you get a good shot on ananimal and then you get to walk up
on that animal. It is likeit's all these emotions that you know,
and it's not a quick turnaround withanimals. With football, it was like
you made the play and then itwas all right, next play. You

(32:17):
know, now you're trying to Nowyou're chasing that next play. Now.
It's like you get time to kindof kind of sit in that feeling and
that of accomplishment because it's so hardto do and it's just something that I
just I cherish it, really Ido, because that feeling, that feeling
of like a failure sucks, Likeit sucks to fail, right, but

(32:39):
it's like you could do everything onepercent right if that animal doesn't screw up,
just at least at least five percentscrew up. You could do one
hundred percent right. If that animaldoes everything one hundred percent right, he's
gonna win. But if you canget him to screw up, and usually

(33:00):
you got to trick their stomachs ortheir dicks. That's the only way you're
going to trick these big bucks,you know, and that you have to
trick them, like you have tooutsmart them. You have to put yourself
in position to where they're doing somethingstupid, chasing does or they're coming to
food or doing something that or comeingto water like those are the ways that
you trick them. Same with elk, like you got to trick them.

(33:21):
You gotta. You're not going tojust sneak up on a bull elk,
like you're just not going to doit. I mean, guys do it.
But it's like, you know,if you're after a big bull elk,
you got to call them in.You know, you got to get
them fired up. You got toplay a little head game with them and
call them in. Keep your windright, do all these all these factors
that go in. Yeah, Imean from a biological standpoint and a natural
environment standpoint, they have a significantnumber of advantages. Are you kidding me?

(33:45):
Going into their environment? Imagine someonewalking into your house and trying to
get you, like, I'll justshut the lights off and be able to
move around here, no problem,right, you know, But if you
come into my house, you don'tknow where things are, you don't know
what like what walls are where,and you start bumping stuff making noise.
I'm going to hear those noises peoplewalk around the woods like deer aren't going

(34:08):
to hear them. And as ifdeer don't regularly hear the common noises that
are in those areas like that arein their core areas, they constantly hear
a pattern of noises that are normal, and when they hear something that's abnormal.
You know, we don't really knowhow they retain thought I do.

(34:30):
I'll ask you this question, doyou think because I believe this to be
true, Like I think there's patternsof behavior, because I've seen this in
deer that are passed down through throughtheir generations, through their genetics. Because
I'll see generations of deer behave similarlybased on pressure, you know, based
on the contour of a specific area. You know, so I think there's

(34:53):
something there with like the migrations ofthe caribou in Alaska. They've trace that
back to the does that actually leadthe herds, and they have that they'll
have separate herds that all come togetherand migrate as a single group. And
it's not like they're being taught thatyou have fawns from the previous year that

(35:19):
are that are starting to lead theherd. Well, why do you think
you see whitetail walking through the woodslooking up in the trees? Yeah,
like they'd look up in the trees. Why would a deer look up in
a tree other than the fact thathumans have been sitting in trees for you
know, the last forty fifty yearstrying to shoot at them, right,
And it's like they're coded to likelook to be like, hey, danger

(35:42):
is up there too, you know. And it's I think they everything with
deer I think has to do withlike survival, you know what I mean.
So they're just always like on thelookout for like what's the next threat,
Like where's a threat? That's athreat? This is a threat?
Like that's why they do Why doyou think dose will try to trick you
into looking into moving, they'll stompit around or like look down and hurry

(36:02):
up and look up again, likeevery tail hunter's least favorite experiences. When
it's the worst. Sure dough locksonto your silhouette and she's trying to get
you to break silhouette. Oh,it's the worst. It'll go on for
an hour, and just like prayingshe doesn't blow, or if that I've

(36:22):
had that happen and had the buckthat I was after come in and I
still I can't move. Yeah,I cannot move. I can't grab my
bow, I can't move. I'mstuck here and this dough all she sees
is like my bill and my hatsticking out from behind a tree. And
now she's like all spooked out aboutit. And then and then when I
finally decide, okay, I gotto make a move, here, she

(36:43):
blows and everybody's gone. And thenthat spot's ruined for two weeks at least.
It's you know, that's that's justbut that's hunt. That's how hunting
goes. It's funny because I alwaysget mad and people are like, well,
that's hunting, you know, becauseI hate hearing that because it's just
like, yeah, I know,you know, it's like thinks a lot
bud, right, it is.But it's good for people to understand.
And I know this has kind ofbeen said many times to some extent,

(37:06):
but you are when you're going outa lot a lot of folks that follow
us and do a lot of mobilehunting, right, So they're setting up
their gear, they're taking it down, they're coming back out more often than
not. You know, people onlytend to talk about the success stories,
right, those are the things thathey, you know, you want to

(37:27):
share that with your friends, youwant to share that with your family,
But sometimes that's thirty forty six ofnothing burgers or And that's why I really
tell people, like the true journeyis all that other stuff you experience.
You know. It's like the squirrels, the hawks, the owls, the
you know, everything else that youencounter. And you and I were chatting

(37:50):
before, it's like goofy stuff thatyou see in with raccoons and everything else
that takes place in the woods whileyou're doing a white tail hunt or an
elk hunt. So much other stuffgoing on. You know, Yeah,
you just you become a part ofthat. You become a part of that
forest, you know, it's it'slike you're in the tree. You've you've

(38:10):
hiked back way back in there somewhere, found a good tree to get into.
Found you know, you did allthis research once you got in there,
and then you're like, okay,this is where I'm gonna get and
then you get up there, andthen there's all the second guessing that tree
looks really good over there, there'sa good trail coming by that. It's
like, well, if I goover there, he might come over here.
And it's like all these games youplay with yourself where when you're going

(38:32):
into somewhere blind, you know,like mobile hunting is, that's the fun
part about it. You don't knowwhat you're gonna see. You know,
you might not see shit, butyou might see something, and you might
see something big. You might likethose are the times when you do see
a big buck. Like you hearthose stories all the time more often than
not, where a guy just waslike, you know what, I had
a hunch about this spot, soI went in there, got in this

(38:54):
good tree, and here here comesyou know, this one fifty buck just
comes cruising. Yeah, And Ithink I think with the the guys that
do that, year after year thatsimilar to how you mentioned earlier about as
you developed in your football career,you started being able to instinctually read plays.

(39:15):
I mean, there is some tojust studying formations and learning specific plays,
but what you were speaking to isa is an instinct that you were
you were feeling the flow of thegame on the field, and I think
that becomes very true for hunters aswell as when they put themselves in these
situations time and time again, theystart to instinctually feel that pattern again.

(39:40):
It's like this spot feels like it'sright because of this, this and this,
and then you know they're able togo to different locations and recognize have
that same pattern recognition again. Well, and you have the use of trailcams
now. So like in my experience, and you know stories that I've heard
of my friends, you know thatthat are successful and big, big deer

(40:01):
that they're after. If a deerdoes something twice, you better get it
twice in a row. You betterbe into that next day because he's gonna
They do things in like threes.It seems like three days on, three
days off, three days on.Like it just it seems that there's like
a pattern of threes with these deer, and if the way if if it's
like, hey, the weather isthe same, the wind's the same,

(40:22):
all the things are the same,I'm going to be in there that third
day and then and usually they findsuccess. They at least see that deer
and he does kind of like whatthey thought he was going to do.
But you know better than anybody thatthese deer get have like a spidy sense
yep, and it's like he's doingit, and then something's not right,
something is different, so they sothey don't come in. They don't do

(40:45):
it. They just skirt you.And trail cameras have made it so you
can be really good at this,Like if you if you really set your
trail cameras up right, you canreally be good at this, especially the
guys that are hunting like their ownproperties or their buddies properties or you know,
farms and stuff like that. Youcan really pattern these deer out and
really understand what is happening and like, okay, why was he coming in

(41:07):
now? Like why did he comein this time? Because what happened?
When they go nocturnal, you know, you might get two opportunities to kill
that deer two on a buck that'sover five six years old. You might
get two opportunities that season where he'slike going to daylight on you know,
on camera. You know. Soit's like, how do you decide which

(41:30):
days you're going to do that?Right? Well, if I catch him
doing it two days in a row, I know that third day there's a
really good chance he's going to doit again. Yeah. Yeah, And
I think I mean everything you said. There's so much I know people that
do this. It's this fine line, Like I there's a part of me
because I grew up in a timewhen that wasn't as popular or wasn't as

(41:53):
available. Right, So there isa certain draw to knowing the topography of
an area and knowing the layout ofit and maybe some information about the travel
pattern and trying to play that catand mouse game and figure out how that
buck is coming out of bedding orhow that buck is moving through there.
Right. But then when you bringtechnology in and we're in our modern world,

(42:17):
if you have a family and you'reworking your job and all this other
stuff, and you've got this smallwindow to execute on your passion, Yeah,
you can't deny that understanding how touse trail cameras, understanding how to
use mapping you know software, acompany Spartan Forge that provides mapping software.

(42:39):
They have a lot of predictive analyticsin their stuff and they're doing a really
they're doing such a good job withthat, you know. I know some
people think it's a fine line.But if you are one that has a
small window of time, like yousaid, to hunt during September November,
the data because we're all data electorsas hunters, because we're looking at the

(43:01):
wind, you know, we're lookingat the thermal pattern, we're looking at
the different topography. It there's somereal advantages to having that data summarized so
you can be most efficient, youknow, right, you know, and
then there's there's other factors that gointo it too, like understanding topography is

(43:22):
there's an art to that, youknow what I mean, understanding what a
saddle looks like? Like what doesthis saddle really look like? Because that's
a good travel corridor. So ifyou can set yourself up in the middle
of that somewhere, find like findget up there, find the highway,
and then you've got to place yourselfstrategically off of that highway that they're moving

(43:42):
on. You know, if youfind a good dough betting area, right,
if you can get down wind fromthat, you know, and catch
a buck cruise in that, youknow, and it's like this, it's
this cat and mouse game of okay, Like and that's what I'm saying.
You're tricking them with like where they'retraveling, You're tricking them, where are
coming to eat? You're you knowsome of these states like Ohio, I

(44:04):
grew up where you could just bait. So these guys, I mean,
there's guys that sit the same cornpile every year. They they put corn
there all year, every year,and that's where they sit. They sit
there and they and they wait forthe right one, and there's like that's
fine. Yeah, I don't Idon't like doing that because it's it's just
like now I'm sitting around a bunchof does, and I don't like that.

(44:27):
I don't like not able to likescratch my nose. It takes away
from some of the adventure that butto each his own, right, Like,
if that's what they like to do. As I get older, I'll
probably love doing that. Well,sure, right, as we've become less
mobile, right, Like, youknow, that doesn't look that bad.
You know, I still want thatexperience to see in those animals, right,

(44:47):
Yeah, But while I'm young,I'm gonna like try to stay as
mobile and move around and and dowhat I do. You know, Like
it's it's almost like when I'm huntinga new area. I was hunting pa
this year, and I just Ithere was times where I was like,
man, I should probably just goback there, but I want to see
what it looks like on that otherridge, you know, I want to
see what that saddle looks like.And it's like I was hunting like a

(45:10):
seven thousand acre spot and it waslike I just I moved around somewhere every
day, and it's like, youknow, maybe if I would have just
I bet if I would have juststayed in the same spot the whole time,
you know, I probably would haveyou know, killed a nice deer.
But I was like so excited tosee the property, to see everything,
and so I did. I gotto see a lot of deer and

(45:31):
got to move around, and youknow, there was times where I was
like, man, this is gonnabe a good spot, and it sucked.
And then I was like, thisprobably isn't going to be a good
spot and I saw five bucks comecruising by that day. Well, and
then to that point, it's likewhen you're going into some of those areas
new, that's where you have tosort of start to build your instinct,

(45:52):
you know, reservoir. Like whenyou went into that spot that you didn't
think was going to be good andyou saw five bucks, then you kind
of ask yourself why was that?Like why does this happen that way?
You know, all my all,my well as there was a hot dough
right there, could it was justa hot dough came cruising through there and
now like all these other buck Butshe's not going to do that tomorrow.

(46:14):
I mean she got chased out ofsomewhere, out of her bedding area,
so she just decided to go thatway. You know, like the next
day you go, where do yougo now to sort of like like where
are you consuming content or consuming informationto sharpen yourself? Like before you go
on a trip like this trip toPennsylvania, what was your prep from a

(46:35):
strategy standpoint? I mean obviously wecould go into your physical prep, but
mentally, like how are you figuringout maybe where you want to hunt?
Are you looking at spots or yourprep are you know, what are you
what are you doing? Yeah,so I'm looking at maps, you know,
I'm looking at mapping apps. I'mlooking at topography of the area.
Usually, if I'm going into anair to hunt that I have a buddy

(46:57):
that's hunting that too. It's alreadybeen hunting it. You know, a
lot of times I'm not just goingin blind to places like I know that
he you know, they're keeping aneye on what's going on a little bit,
and that's the best Like, that'sthe best information you can get is
by somebody that's been in there.Yep, understands kind of what's happening there.
And it was funny because the spotthat this it was an Appalachia.
The spot that I was at,I mean it was like steep ridges and

(47:21):
swirl and wind. And I waslike, well, what are we gonna
do about the wind? He's likeanything. Like He's like, you're just
you know, you're not gonna You'renot gonna do anything. It's you're kind
of screwed. And I was like, oh, this sucks. But but
when it when it comes to likeelk hunting, people do not give up
their spots, like people are notgonna tell you where they see Elk,

(47:45):
you know, because because it's socompetitive. Sure, so you have to
make all these decisions on your own, and you don't get to use you
know, you don't get to uselike the mapping stuff just kind of tells
you, like, oh the thingsthat the thing about Elk is like people
are like, oh, where theElk at? And that's like where you
find him because they can cover somuch ground. And I'm talking it's not

(48:08):
like a white tail where he's like, oh, he just went to the
next county or something. Now thesethings are going twenty miles and it's just
like nothing for them to do that, and they're going up and down these
ridges like it's nothing. And forme to get over there, it's gonna
take me four hours, you know. For them, it took him twenty
minutes. So it's like you haveto like you have to try to You

(48:29):
might spend three days of a fiveday hunt just locating Elk. So now
I got to maximize it. Ifound him. Now I gotta find a
bull that's worth you know, tryingto get a shot on. And now
I gotta hope he plays he playsball. So it's like a whole different
game, you know. And thenit's the same thing with with mule deer
when it comes to like spotting agood mule deer. So you're you're high
country mule deer hunting, You're sittingaround and you're glass and NonStop, and

(48:52):
you're and it's like this, You'relooking at shadows and you're looking into that.
That's where they're laying is in theshadows, looking into the shadows and
just hoping you see some antlers.So you might look at a thousand bushes
and boom, finally you found whenyou're and you think your mind's playing tricks
on you, you know, sameway with bear. It's the same thing

(49:12):
with bear hunting. When you're bearhunting out west, when you're spotting stock
and bear, you are glassing alot. So you spend a lot of
time just sitting there glassing the landscape. So it's funny because while I'm doing
that, I'm always thinking, like, how would I put a stock on
an animal right there? I wonderwhat the wind's doing over there? Yeah,
you don't know until you get overthere. There's no way to just

(49:34):
guess what the wind's doing. Youcan look at the leaves and stuff and
be like, oh, it couldhave blown a little bit like that,
you know. But it's like,you know, the wind is doing something
here, but if you get down, go down the mountain a little bit,
I bet it's doing something different.So it's the wind is constantly changing.
So he was playing the wind islike everything out here west, you
know, and it's uh, itwas always everything with whitetail. But you

(49:58):
could just play your thermals. Youcould be like, hey, my wind's
going up right now. My thermalsare coming up, so I could just
stay here and I'll be fine.They're not gonna smell me unless they get
right underneath or right next to me, especially when you're elevated. But when
it comes to these elk and deerman like they if they smell it,
they're gone. You know, they'rejust not gonna. Yeah, I've heard
that that it becomes really apparent inopen western areas, like the wind and

(50:21):
their use of the wind and theirnose. And you know in the mornings
when you get that that dew andthat colder air and then it starts to
heat up and rise up the mountain, you get you know, you get
that the humidity in the air istrapping more that scent molecules and it's rising
it up and you're getting a lotof that different stuff playing off. I
mean with white tail hunting, thereis there is a lot of that in

(50:44):
play too, but you don't alwaysget those least in Wisconsin. We don't
always get those ranges. I mean, you can a little bit in western
Wisconsin, but not that vastness whereyou're they're having them wind youw frou.
You know, a lot of timesif it if a white tail wins you
from several hundred yards away, youprobably weren't seeing it anyways. You know,

(51:06):
you didn't even see them, youjust heard it. Yeah, And
that's that's just the way it goes. It's a fun game to play,
man, It's it's it's part ofit, and it's frustrating, and it
teaches you patience and it teaches youhow to like really evaluate a situation.
There's sometimes where you're just like Ithe most frustrating spot you can be in
is when you find a good agood animal like a good mature bull or

(51:28):
a good mature buck, or andthey're just in an unhuntable position. There's
just no matter what you do,you're going to ruin it if you try
to go after them. There's nogood way to go in there, and
that is the most frustrating position tobe in. You're just sitting there watching
it and you're like, well,hopefully we can find them tomorrow in a
better spot. Yeah. And there'sa lot of a lot of animals I

(51:51):
know, you know, I haven'thad experience hunting out, but with white
tails, like they will bed intheir core areas, where sometimes those core
areas are very much like that.You can't get in there without blowing everything
out. Yeah, And you don'talways know that until you go in there
and try to hunt it sometimes becausewhen you're looking at it on a map,

(52:13):
you're kind of looking how the predominantwind plays out. You're like,
well, I maybe can get inthere, and then then you start going
in there and you realize it's justa thick briar patch. Yeah, You're
like, this is extremely hard tohunt them. They have all the advantages
because of what I got to walkthrough or what I I Often it's interesting

(52:37):
to me to talk to other peoplewho you know, are saying like,
hey, take a look at thismap or this is how this hunt played
out, and look at how thisset up, and this is what this
deer did, because it's just like, well, I don't really expect that.
Why was he Why was he doingthat? That's or just it amazes

(53:00):
me how these animals in a highlypressured situations they still find ways to slip,
to slip cameras, to slip allperfect. They're not stupid. They're
not stupid, you know, likethe people think, oh, it's a
dumb deer. How hard is itto kill a deer because they just see

(53:21):
deer all the time out in theiryard and all this. They're not pressured
there. That's why they're there.Yeah, if I was allowed to sit
in your back porch and shoot thesedeer, they wouldn't hang out there,
right, Like, they're not stupid. So when they smell human scent on
that camera. Perfect. I'll tellyou a good story here. So I
was it was right after the season. It was late January. It was

(53:43):
like right at the end of thewhite tail season in Ohio, and I
was my buddy, my buddy athome was sending me pictures of all these
deer that he had, and thenthey all just disappeared. He's like,
they're not even there's nothing showing up, you know. And I was like,
I had planned on I had liketwo days to hunt. I could
stop in Ohio and hunt after theseason was over, and then I had
to come back out to Colorado withmy family, you know, so like

(54:06):
just two days I could hunt.And I was like, I don't care,
I'm coming anyways. And he waslike, well, where are you
gonna hunt? I was like,I'm gonna hunt that spot that you that
you told me about. He's like, well, there's nothing showing up,
but does there And I was like, that doesn't mean there's not bucks skirting
it, right, and he washe's an old timer and he was like
yeah, whatever, Like you don'tknow what you're talking about, but you're
going to sit there. Fine.I sit there, and it is like

(54:27):
thirty mile an hour, Gus,and it is blown. I mean it
is ripping up out of this Imean the at least it's coming up out
of there, out of where Ithought they were coming. And what do
you know, into January, herecomes this buck we called Forky. He
had these two huge he had ahuge fork on one side and like good
five on the other sure, likeone hundred and forty inch deer, Like

(54:49):
one hundred and forty undred and fortyfive inch deer. Oh he comes,
he comes, like perfect comes bustingup out of there. He was hot
on a dough. They're just someof these does come in late yep,
coming up through there. And therewas a whole nother trail away from where
he like where he had his camera, there was a whole nother trail coming
up through there. So I'm like, there's deer just skirting your camera,
dude, Like they know that yourcamera's right there, so they're just skirting

(55:12):
it. And this dough comes upand skirts it. And she was a
mature dough. And I tried everythingI could to get this deer to stop.
I'm like, finally, I justyelled at him, and he stops,
and his vitals are like right behinda tree and I'm thirty five Like
I'm like thirty five feet up inthe tree in a saddle and just getting
I'm holding under the tree, justblowing and I got my boat. I'm
like this going back and forth,and he finally takes a step in front

(55:36):
of it, and I'm just likelike, as I went back, let
it go and hit him like thattoo far forward, and it ended up
because he's quartering away. He's quarteringaway, so I brisket shot him yep,
and he ended up showing back upon it. He showed back up
to that spot on the camera twodays later. We saw him on camera.
Two days later. He let youwas on that pattern seeking because the

(55:59):
door were moving through there. Yeah, because they were coming through there.
So it's like, okay, wherethe does are just because you're not seeing
that. If you're seeing a lotof does, I guarantee there's going to
be a buck hanging out around theresomewhere. And that's gonna be the one
kiss of death with cameras too,because if you rely on him like I'm
not going to go out until Isee something, well, you have you
realize that they're moving around him,or maybe your camera's not in the right

(56:20):
spot or whatever. You know,it's a delicate game with those cameras.
You know, they give deer likeI like knowing that there's deer coming there
right Like, there's deer that aremoving in there. You know. I
had a buddy that hunted the samedeer, this big he's a pushing two
hundred inch deer pushing two hundred inchesand that is a giant. He'd been
hunting this deer for four years nowand this year was the first year he

(56:45):
had an opportunity to get a shotoff, and he made it, just
made a bad shot. The deerlived because that deer was so smart that
like he would just wait till heleft. He would wait till he left,
and then he would leave in twentyminutes later, show up on camera.
Yeah, these bucks are not stupid. It's I had. I had

(57:05):
a property in Ohio. I washunting a buck this one hundred and sixty
inch year. It had to beone. I mean he was one sixty
one seventy all day crabby. Hehad crab claws coming off of his uh
what is g two's Yeah, thetwo's just right here, like these huge
crabs, and he had split brows. He was just his beautiful buck,
cute, big wide deer. Seeinghim all the time because I had cameras

(57:27):
all over the property and I'd seehim all the time. I knew where
he was bedding. And the problemwas is that the way the property came
down, the property was like this. So I had a food plot up
here. The property came down toa creek down here. He was bedding
over here and this really thick stuff, and my stand was over here trying
to catch him coming from there.He would watch me walk down to my

(57:49):
tree stand, get in the tree, and then all these dozes would come
up through there, smaller bucks thatI wasn't after that was letting grow.
And then I'd be like, wellit's dark, so I'd leave and I'd
have to come out the other wayso I didn't blow them all the field.
I'd come up and around and thisdeer would come. I mean,
I would get I'd get to mytruck. I'd get to the truck and

(58:10):
or in the house and boom,my camera go off, and that was
him. He would wait for meto get up out of there and watch
me walk out and then come.Yeah, that's one of those situations where
it's like you you almost you know, you almost have to force them out
of their comfort area to get themto repattern so you can get them a

(58:31):
different way. But if you havehundreds of acres to do that, great,
But I'm dealing with neighbors to hunttoo. I bump them off the
Yeah, I got a nice buckthat's on my property. I'm just like,
well, I don't know what todo, and I get limited time
to go hunt him. So it'slike, you know, even my buddy
that I was letting hunted all thetime, He's like, did I can't

(58:52):
get this deer down right? Sohe ends up bumping the deer off the
property, just trying to change doingdoing, trying to change his change his
pattern. We were hoping he wouldgo to the property that was just to
the west of me. Sure hewould go there, because it's like another
like three four hundred acres that nobodyreally hunts, just one person hunts it,
and he doesn't really know what he'sHe didn't really know what he was

(59:14):
doing over there, so we knewthat he would live, you know,
so we were hoping to go there. No, he goes across the street
to this to this like fifteen acreparcel where this guy hunts every day,
his kid hunts, his neighbor huntsit, like he just has everybody hunting
it. And he goes over thereand gets killed. And I'm just like,

(59:35):
no, like I can't believe thatthat happened. But it's like,
you know, that's what it takes. It's like, you know, maybe
that that had that could happen inmy favor as well. You know,
the neighbors could bump a deer,you know, And I thought that was
gonna happen because the guys, there'sa cornfield when like I said, it
came here and I had the foodplot here, there's a cornfield up here,
and that's not my that wasn't myproperty, and they would be up

(59:59):
there just black all the time,and I was like, hopefully they bumped
something off there. Never never bumpedanything off. Yeah, there isn't pressure
and patterning with whitetail. It's veryinteresting because as much as someone possibly can,
if you own your own land,you know, you want to try
to be I grew up in centralWisconsin and my mom and dad were partners

(01:00:24):
in land that we worked with thefarmers to have access to and stuff.
And what was interesting is like Ihunted that place for twenty years and never
fully understood till maybe the last coupleof years that they owned it that we
were over pressuring it and overhunting itbecause it was small, it was sixty
seven acres. But when you're excitedand you want to hunt. So you

(01:00:49):
get out there and hunt, butwe would have been much better off just
hitting more of our public land spots, you know, in the surrounding area
and bouncing round and then you know, what I learned is like if you
waited and slid in there during realspecific times of the year, there was
a specific window in the early season, a specific window in the pre rut.

(01:01:12):
Then obviously the rut, like thedeer behaved a certain way, and
as long as you didn't get yourscent all over the property, you had
a really good chance of seeing amature buck in these You know, it
had a hill country ridge that ranall the way through it, so there
was a little area where they betit. There was a little area where
they corralled dough, there was anarea where they fed on the oaks.
And if you sort of left thesethings un pressured, you could work those

(01:01:36):
patterns. But it took I mean, maybe someone smarter would have figured it
out sooner, but I it tooklike twenty years to figure that out.
You know. It's like if youhad are you even a white tail hunter?
If you didn't overhunt an area,like right, yeah, who hasn't
done that? Who hasn't been sojacked up and just been like, you
know what, I like this spot. I know there's deer in there,
so I'm going to go there.And it's like you didn't care about the

(01:01:58):
wind, you didn't think about anyof that stuff. He just went and
it's like, Man, I didthat a lot when I was young,
and I did it a lot whenI just got it. When I when
I went to Baltimore to play,I rent The place I rented was on
seventy acres with a soybean field,and it had good timber and there was
deer everywhere. I mean, you'dcome, I'd come back from practice and

(01:02:19):
I'd and I'd look. I'd lookout in that field, like right at
dusk, and there'd be eighty deerin the field, like eighty of them,
just everywhere, and like obviously itwas too dark to tell what was
a buck or not, but youknow there's a buck in there, at
least one. Yeah, and Ijust over. I hunted that place so
hard and it was only like itwas seventy acres, but it was like
fifteen acres of timber, and Ihunted damn near every tree in that and

(01:02:44):
that fifteen acres. Yeah, Imean, I just like I did,
because there was a buck that Iwas after that i'd seen from the road
and he was out in that field, and I was like, dude,
where is he coming from? Hehas to be coming from, Like there's
there's people hunting over there. Theywould have known that that deer, he'd
be dead already, that he's gotto be coming from over here where nobody's
allowed to hunt. So I justlike I found every deer trail I could

(01:03:07):
find and set up on it,and I do I couldn't. I mean,
I over hunted it so much thatby the end of the season I
wasn't even seeing deer. I wouldsee like fifteen twenty deer sit because they
just are everywhere. They're like ratsout there. And I got to the
point at the end of the seasonwhere I wasn't seeing anything, you know,
I was like, Okay, I'veover hunted this for sure. They
know, they know the wolf iswalking into the woods. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:03:29):
Like I'd go walking. I hadlike a nice trail cut back through
there and everything, and I'd gowalking on that traun and I just hear
deer running away everywhere like that.I did barely make any noise, and
they're just like they didn't care.They're out of there. So what is
now with you? What is oneof your most interesting hunts that you've done
of late or something that you've youknow, now that you've had more time

(01:03:52):
to focus on this, Like,what's been an adventure that's been memorable?
And I guess compared to maybe onethat you did when you were younger,
you know, you know, Iwould every hunt has it is like his
own adventure, right, Like youknow, the Mountain Lion hunt was an
adventure in itself by the bull elkthat I was able to knock down in

(01:04:13):
New Mexico, not this season,but the season before. Man, it
was just like so rewarding to me, and so it happened so perfect the
way I wanted it, the wayI wanted my first Bowl to be,
is the way I went down,you know, to I had to hike
hard for him. I had togo through you know, wearing wet,
soggy boots. I had to youknow, wake up, wake up,

(01:04:35):
you know, four am. Ihad to hike twelve miles a day.
I put like eighty nine miles onmy feet in five and a half days
or something like that. And itwas on the last day, the last
afternoon like of the hunt that thatwe made it happen. And you know,
he came up out of we hadtwo bulls that were bugling. He

(01:04:55):
came up out. He was abig five by five. He came up
out of this, out of thisbottom and just like boom, just like
came right to where I was calling, came right forty two yards broadside,
stuck an arrow in him, raneighty yards and died. And I was
it was like the greatest feeling ever, you know, it was. It
was just like this feeling of accomplishmentbecause I was like, man, this
might not happen, like this isjust like this is tough. This is

(01:05:18):
tough hunting, you know. Andthen you know, I think of that
that mountain lion where it was likephysically I wanted to quit the whole time
because it was it sucked. Imean it was straight up and down two
feet of snow, up and downthese up and down these mountains and then
get you know, dropping down onthe road accidentally going the wrong way and

(01:05:41):
then having to climb another nine hundredyards straight up to get to the lion.
Like that was So how did youguys locate the line? I mean,
how did you guys locate so youknew that lion was in there?
Obviously, no doing so no,no, we just were cutting tracks.
So we're just driving back roads,cutting tracks and wait, hoping we find
good mature lion to to get thedogs on. So then once you would

(01:06:03):
cut tracks, then you would backtrackthe tracks with the dogs. And well,
no, you just you tell bythe track if it's a mature lion
or not, or if it's afemale or if it's you know, you
don't go after a female. Youdon't go after a sub adult male.
You're looking for big mature tom tracksand you can they are very just like
they stand out right, it's justlike a like a like a buck.

(01:06:24):
Right when you see all these littledough all these dough and fun hoof prints,
you see a buck track, yousee a buck print, You like,
that's a buck. That's a bigbuck. You know, you know
it. And it's the same waywith these lions, same way with elk.
Everything has a track, right thatit leaves in the mud or the
snow. And you hunt these lionswhen you get a good fresh snow that's
what the best time to hunt.It's the best time if they hold their

(01:06:45):
scent. There's their tracks hold theirscent. And yeah, we found that
that that lion track, and Iwas like, that's a big that seems
like a big cat, because theones we had seen earlier were just not
we're not that big, and Iwas and it was like, I mean
they were. It was a bigtrack. Yeah. Well, you know,
we finally got to hold of thelandowner that because we had to go
through his land to get to thepublic to hunt him. If not,

(01:07:06):
we had to go like two milesaround him. By then, the dogs
are going to lose his scent.And sure we were going to try it.
But luckily this guy came out andwas like, hey, he goes
lion hunters And were like, yeah, dude, we've been trying to get
a hold of you forever. Andhe was like, he's like, you
got you see these line tracks?How big he is? I was like
yeah, he's like, he's gota mule deer buried under this tree over

(01:07:27):
here, full grown four by fourmule deer up under the tree. You
know that he had killed that earlierthat day, earlier that morning, so
we knew he was amazing, thepower that those animals possessed to carry an
adult mule deer into a tree,up into elevation, like it's just it

(01:07:47):
just blows my mind. It blowsmy mind. And then they and then
we got the dogs on him,and then we thought he was going to
get treed right at the top ofthe hill because I thought he was close
because he had to be watching hiskill, so we assumed he was close.
Well, he was close, buthe didn't go. He didn't jump
in the tree at first. Hejust took off. So the dogs chased

(01:08:08):
after him, and we went upand over and up this drainage and then
back up and then back down andthen all the way back up again.
And if we were smart about it, because we thought we've been trying to
get on him quick, we assumedhe'd get treed quick. We were smart
about it. We went to thetop and just worked that ridge and waited
for the dogs to get him treatedthen came down on him. But no,

(01:08:28):
my of course, my dumb assgoes up and down and up,
and I'm just like, I didn'tknow what I was doing. You know,
work harder, work smarter, notharder, you dummy, you know.
And I ended up doing a lotmore work than I probably had to
do. But it was worth it, man, because it was it was
so rewarding, you know, especiallywhen you're like, it's funny because as
we were leaving with that lion,as I got him out of there and

(01:08:49):
I was exhausted and we're getting himout of there, there was a whole
herd of sheep, all these allthese users sitting there just looking at us
like, thanks, budd. Youknow, he's been I think I've been
terrorizing us. They have been terrorizingus as I took Fred and Bob and
every last night our friends away.Yeah, restored some balance. So all

(01:09:12):
my all, my uh all,my wrestling comrades are gonna you know,
they'll they'll beat me up if Idon't ask you. So with the sport
of wrestling, so you competed whenyou were younger in high school. I
believe you said you were a statechampion as well. Right now, I
got I was, I was,I was all. I got fifth of
state, fifth of state. Okay, okay, howly wrestled my junior and

(01:09:34):
senior year, junior and senior year. So with what you did with football
and everything, Like, what doyou think what did wrestling give you when
you compare it to like the otherstuff that you went through athletically. Well,
first of all, wrestling is thehardest sport that I've ever done,
Like it is the hardest sport you'reyou'll ever do. It is the ship

(01:09:56):
you got to do to be inshape for wrestling, and the hours you
got to put in, the grindyou gotta put in. But the one
thing that I learned from wrestling wasthat there's no one else to blame.
It's on you. If you getbeat, it's on you. There's no
one else to blame. There's noone How did they get you to go
out? If you started like thatlate and you're what was the situation?

(01:10:18):
So the family that I started livingwith, so I can't say I did.
I wrestled a little bit my sophomoreyear, but I didn't wrestle.
I didn't like take it serious untillike my junior senior year. I wrestled
a little bit my sophomore year,but I was just kind of in there
helping guys get ready, like justrolling around with them basically. And the
family that I was living with,they were a big wrestling family. I

(01:10:39):
said, stay with us, You'regonna wrestle. And I was like,
all right, fineal wrestle, Yeah, make that that was the deal.
Yeah yeah. I was like finalwrestle. You know, They're like,
you don't. We don't this household. Dude, we're wrestlers. You're going
to wrestle in this house. Iwas like, all right, final wrestle.
So it was funny because I hadlike longer hair and they cut my
hair with horse clippers and one ofthe wrestling tournaments we were and they wildn't

(01:11:00):
be wrestled with my hair, andI was like, well, now it
doesn't matter. You can have afull beer in your long hair to be
able to Yeah. Yeah. Butthe one thing I learned was that like
you know, which is true inlife, man like if something when things
go wrong, the best place topoint the finger is right back at yourself
and look at look in the mirrorand figure out what you could have done
different. And that there are aspectsof like being a defensive lineman. Because

(01:11:25):
I still help out coach at theat the high school level, and we
kind of get into this debate allout with football coaches about the hand fighting
equation. You know, the benefitof being able to hand fight and be
in your face, like understanding leverage, understanding body position, understanding how to
like use your hands and use leverageagainst like fight pressure with pressure, when
to give, and when to likefight back, like all those things.

(01:11:49):
Playing playing double teams wrestling made mea better a better run stoper one thousand.
Creating angles on people for takedowns,that's pass rushing. You're creating an
angle on that offensive lineman. There'sa you're cutting the corner on him.
You're trying to create an angle andan opening to take. And that's wrestling.

(01:12:09):
You're creating. You're you're circling totry to create angles, like you
just circle circle, circle, tryingto create angles. And that's that's what
That's what pass rushing is. IfI was an offensive lineman, I think
basketball would be better. Yeah,like a tackle, if I'm a left
tackle, being able to like coverspace and stay in front of somebody like
that and move like side to side, yep. But if I'm like an

(01:12:31):
interior defensive lineman, it's you know, interior defensive line. You know you
should wrestle. Wrestling is what youshould be doing. Because that's what it
is. It's a hand fight anda wrestling match, and it's like this
violent game of chest that goes onin say, in those trenches. So
that that's my like, my suggestionfor interior guys is always wrestling. Yeah,

(01:12:55):
very good, very good. Sowhat else? What does what does?
Uh? What does a regular workoutpattern look like for you? I
know you're a pretty busy guy withyour family and everything, but what do
you try to hold yourself to now, you know, as kind of a
standard thing to either maintain or ifyou're training up to an event, kind

(01:13:16):
of wrap wrap it up. Iknow you like to share a lot of
your workouts and you do a lotof different dynamic stuff, But what does
a regular day look look like foryou? Yeah? So I so I'll
wake up, get my daughter readyfor school, take her to school,
eat some food, then I getto the gym about ten am, and
then I'll do some days I'll dolike a it's like mondays, I'll do

(01:13:41):
like a full body strength day,and then I'll mix like a little bit
of cardio in there at the end. And then when you're doing a full
body strength is your pace a lotslower and you're no, I get I
get a lot of I don't.I take like the longest i'll take it
between a set is like ninety seconds. That's the longest, and that's if
I need it. I take asmuch rest as I need when I'm doing

(01:14:04):
those strength days, but like sometimesi don't need a full minute, you
know, So I'll just go wheneverI'm ready, you know. That's when
I go, or if I andthen I do, and then I'm like,
so Monday, Tuesday, I'll dostrength, like push. I'll do
like a pool day on Tuesdays,so I'll do like cleans, like heavy

(01:14:25):
cleans and heavy trap bar pulls,and then some auxiliary work and stuff like
that. And then on Wednesdays,I always do conditioning, heavy conditioning,
so it'll be like push the sled, push the sled down. And then
in the first so I'll do likeemms, so every minute on the minute,

(01:14:46):
so I'll have to get something donewithin that minute, and so I'll
usually get like twenty seconds of restbefore the next thing. And it could
be like you know, jump rope, or it could be burpies, it
could be push ups, it couldbe there's a kind I'll use these heavy
sandbags and like lift those up andcarry them, have to carry it back
or something. Do you have atendency like when you go in because obviously

(01:15:06):
you've had a full career of doinga variety of different workouts, like where
you'll just you'll have stuff that's scripted, you'll have it written on a board
and then you'll just go through itand then the next day like you kind
of mix it up like that,or you're or do you have stuff that's
like written out that you know,like every Wednesday going to hit this set
of exercises and no, no,I usually I like to I don't like

(01:15:29):
to know what I'm doing when Igo in there. Okay, yeah,
hey, I like to have anidea of like, okay, you know
we're probably going to do like Iknow that there's gonna be a trap bar
on this day, or I knowthat this is a conditioning day, so
it's going to suck. And Ibring that up because I think for a
lot of like former athletes or peoplethat have been working out for a while,
it's there's a bit of you doget into. It gets a little

(01:15:51):
boring sometimes when you have like acontrolled pattern. So when you have all
this stuff that you can throw inthere and then you can mix it up.
It helps help, yeah, youknow, And on those conditioning days,
I always take my bow because it'llbe I'll have to get because you
got to think I'll do on thelast exercise of like we'll do four exercises,
right, so you have twelve minuteblocks, so you do three to

(01:16:13):
four rounds of four different four differentsuper sets with every minute on the minute.
So in that last movement I'll doit might be a sled push,
right, so I'll push the sleddown and back, and then I got
the sled, I got to knockan arrow. I got to push that
sled down and back, knock anarrow and make a good shot in that
minute. And that's you know.Or I'll do like step ups, or

(01:16:36):
I'll do like some kind of carry, some kind of farmers carry for that
last movement, or you know,something that's getting my heart rate up and
making me tired and shaky and uncomfortableto where I'm making shot. I'm taking
a shot. And that's just likeI like to do that because I feel
like it helps me. I feellike when I'm out there and i'd go
to full draw I'm not like freakingout, you know, because I'm like,

(01:17:00):
oh shit, I'm so tired fromhiking up here. Like I don't
ever want to feel that way.And that comes from wrestling, because I
I've I lost when I was young. When I was young, like my
sophomore year, I lost matches toguys because I just wasn't in good enough
shape. And I was like,man, I'm never gonna lose again because
I was out of shape, likeand I'm never gonna not get I'm never

(01:17:20):
not gonna not be able to takeadvantage of my opportunity out in the mountain
because I'm not in shape. Likethat's not gonna be the factor. That's
not gonna be the reason. Sothat's how I look at it, is
like I'm not gonna make it.It's not gonna because I couldn't go up
there because I couldn't. I couldn'thack it. I couldn't make it up
there. And that's why I thinkit's guys come from me from the East
Coast and they come out here outwest and they're like, oh, I'll

(01:17:42):
be fine. I've been walking onthe StairMaster and this night, well,
when you when that altitude hit youyou're at like ten thousand, You're at
like nine to ten eleven thousand feet, Like it sucks. I don't care.
I'm in really good shape, reallygood shape, cardiovascular shape, Like
my cardiovascular is like on another level. And I still get so gassed hiking

(01:18:02):
at like ten thousand. Once Iget past nine thousand, it's like it
might as well be twenty thousand.I'm dying. Like it stucks. I'm
breathing heavy. Every step sucks.And then when you're big, all the
oxygen that you have to I needlike three times the oxygen is the Yeah,
the dynamics of that work differently.Move my legs, you know,
And I need three times the water, I need three times the calories,

(01:18:24):
so I have to carry more shit, and it just it is a disadvantage
to be big out there. SoI just want to make sure that I'm
not going to be too tired todo it. This is another thing you
mentioned when we were talking earlier aboutbeing in the zone, and you know,
you mentioned like your heart rate beingat an increased level, having that

(01:18:44):
like a little bit of weak feeling, and so would you say that in
these bursts of training when you're intrying to be focused with your bow after
doing hard physical exertion that that replicatesthe adrenaline rise that can sometimes happen when
that animal is coming in and you'rein that Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:19:09):
absolutely, that's what it is.And it's funny because Western it's so difficult
to like keep yourself calm when you'resitting in a tree. Like for some
reason, when I'm out like onthe ground walking around and like bulls are
running around everywhere, and like cowsare everywhere, Like I don't get all
jacked up about it, but whenI'm in a tree and this buck is

(01:19:31):
coming in, I'm like I'm likelosing my mind right, Like I'm like
it's like this, I'm trying everything. I'm doing everything I can to stay
calm because I want to. LikeI'm like, oh, fock is here
finally like always coming and you're likeyou're just every movement feels like you're just
making so much noise, like justlike your your shirt brushing up against your
ropes, and like your testing suchan advantage when you get out, when

(01:19:57):
you can get out and hunt multipletimes and have of any age class deer
come in, Like it's because youcan practice that response that you have to
it, yeah, because otherwise youmay only get like this ten seconds a
year of a response to your biggestbuck that year that comes in and however

(01:20:19):
that played out, it determines yoursuccess. Well, well I'll do I'll
even I'll even when I'm in atree if there's a buck coming by or
I feel like it has to haveantlers on it. Yeah, like get
your cuts, because any little buckwill get you going, right, Like
any little buck will be like,oh there's buck, Like you know,
I guess little ones start making youknow, I'm like, what is going

(01:20:42):
on? Why is my leg shakingthis little I'll practice getting my bow because
like when the deer coming in,you should have your bow in your hand,
like you should take your bow offthe hook and get ready to because
you don't know what's coming after thatthat buck. Right, So that's what
I'm already in position. I'll drawmy bow back and just like anchor on

(01:21:03):
him and just think like okay,that's where I would stop him, you
know, and then I'll let mybow down. Right. It's like I
like I know that, like there'san opportunity to make a lot of noise
there. But I also think it'sreally good, really important to practice that
feeling of like this is what itwould feel like, you know, to
like drop and really look through yourpeep and put your dot right on those

(01:21:24):
vitals, like and and not toand to not do it, to not
release the arrow. There's a there'ssomething about that control that whenever the time
actually comes, it's like, oh, okay, do the same exact thing.
Don't pay attention to the horns,like you've seen the horns. That's
the one you want. That's allright, Now, let's let's execute a
good shot, you know, inan ethical shot. And I think a

(01:21:46):
lot of people, a lot ofpeople, I think they take unethical shots.
I think that happens a lot becausethey're so jacked up and they're like,
I'm just taking any opportunity I see, I'm taking it. And sometimes
they get into full draw and theyjust can't hold it. They just can't
help themselves anymore. It's a splitsecond decision. They can't. Yeah,

(01:22:08):
it's taking unethical shots, and they'rewounded wounded deer, which sucks. But
that's the only way you're gonna learnis by by taking shots a deer,
like you have to do it.You have to. You have to,
Like, the only way to getgood at anything is to do it right.
I don't care. You can goout and sit in the tree all
you want. You can go outand hike the hike the woods all you

(01:22:29):
want. But until you've actually releasedan arrow on an animal, you haven't
really practiced it. So you haveto do it. You have to do
it to get good at it.And unfortunately and hunting, your opportunities are
minimal there, you know, sowe do things like shoot at three D
targets and shoot it blocks and shootit all. You know, shoot at
targets. And you know, theother thing I do is I will get

(01:22:50):
down on my knees and shoot.I'll get down, you know, I'll
sit on my button shoot. Likeyou never know what kind of position you're
going to be in out there.Not everything happens the way you want it
too, so you have to putyourself in awkward positions. And then when
it comes to like tree saddle hunting, that's like a whole other way you
have to the way you have tocam up there in that in that tree

(01:23:10):
is just like it's so different fromstanding on a platform. It's so much
different. There's a lot. Yeah, it's it's much different. I've done
it a small fraction of hunting,mainly during gun season, but there's a
lot of different mechanics there. Andyou've got all this in front of you
that you know, I still prefermy my bet stand, but each his

(01:23:34):
zone, well I'm looking. Ilike. The reason I like the saddle
is because I don't have like Ifeel like, especially because I have somebody
with me filming so we can getup in that tree quick, yeah,
you know what I mean. Andit's just because I haven't found And I
also feel like because I'm so bigthat like on a platform, sometimes I
stick out like a big blob onthe in the tree, you know what

(01:23:56):
I mean. So it's like Iat least I'm using the contour the tree
to kind of like maybe I'm abranch or, you know, like you
know, maybe I'm just an extensionof the tree instead of just this blob
off the end of the tree.You know. So it's that's the other
thing man, that like I'm stilllearning, Like I hunt it out of
a climbing stand when I was akid, you know, it's my buddy's
climbing stand. And that's how Ilearned how to hunt white tail. And

(01:24:23):
now that I'm like saddle hunting andmobile hunting, I'm like, man,
where am I expecting these deer tocome from? So where should I position
myself? Because that's the thing aboutLike on a platform, you have the
disadvantage of things behind you, right, so now I got to stand up
and turn around. It it's evenworse in a saddle when things are coming

(01:24:44):
from behind you, Like you haveto like stand on that little platform with
your back to the tree, andin order to do that, you have
to make a lot of movement.And it is like, I mean,
it is just I hate it.I hate it whenever I I put myself
on the wrong side of the tree. It takes it's practice, right,
it's practiced and thoughtfulness of where youset up and when with a tree stand

(01:25:08):
or a saddle or a climber.I experienced the same thing. I used
a climber a lot when I wasa kid, and kind of through my
twenties, like when I was incollege, and now I almost exclusively use
you know, a hang on,And it really is about like it gives
you. It gives you the abilitywhen you're mobile, like you don't have

(01:25:29):
to look for a certain type oftree, like I get in all kinds
of different types of crazy trees,some that are probably not ethically trees I
should be climbing. But that waslike tree, the tree you need to
be in for that hunt. Andyeah, I think it. You know,
you're not always going to get itright. But the more that you

(01:25:53):
put yourself in those different situations,I think you start to see the patterns.
You're like, oh, if Iset up here and now I'm looking
at how that little change in thethickness in the area, they're gonna come
through here. Sometimes it takes onesit in an area and you see how
the deer move through it. Ilove when I can see, even it's
if it's not relatively close up.If I stage, if I get one

(01:26:15):
hunt and then I can get onemore hunt like a little closer, and
I actually see how animals move throughan area. It's such a advantage that
is that is such like I lovethat you said that, because that's like,
it's it's true with all of theseeven Western big game like how like

(01:26:39):
especially during the rut with these withthese elk, Well, where are the
cows moving because that's where the bullsare going. Like, the bulls are
going to follow those cows. Thecow These bulls are so like so horned
up and stupid that they don't likethat's their alarm system. Whatever the cows
are doing, that's their only reasonthey're going to leave. The cows leave,
they'll leave. So like where arethe cows going? What do they

(01:27:00):
do? Like how are they movingthroughout the day. So like that's how
I'm paying attention to it. Right. It's the same thing with whitetail if
I can get one good sit,right, because there's not a lot of
glassing in white tail hunting, right, So you're not like getting on a
ridge and glass and a whole herdof whitetail because they just it's not that's
not the way it goes down.Yeah, there's not. I mean for
the area I'm in, unless youknow, in the summer you get summer

(01:27:24):
glassing, but it's not during thehunting season, right, Yeah, which
there was shining at night. Ithink there's completely right, you know because
because you got to think when theyhave that velvet on their antlers, they're
avoiding all the all the prickly shit. Yeah, the pattern is completely different
and you're just your proximity hunting.But yeah, I know what you're saying.
So yeah, yeah, you knowthat that deer is over there,

(01:27:45):
right, but he might be hemight be way out of there, right,
he might leave there completely, orthe rut might hit and he might
be gone. He might go twentymiles away. Yeah, you get these
very very small windows where you candraw a proximity between the summer feed in
a field and the opener. Imean, we're lucky here in Wisconsin we
get that September opener. So yougot that. There's like five days there

(01:28:08):
where you can get them in thatpattern. But the kids that are successful
doing it, they like they figureout exactly where that deer is betting and
how they're getting up and moving,and sometimes it takes some years to do
that, and they lock in onit and they can be very successful in
that first week. Oh yeah,and it might You're right, man,
they might hunt them for years.But but I what you said about like

(01:28:30):
being able to get into an areaand just do like if you know,
like, hey, I'm gonna huntthis area for like three or four days,
right, especially if I if Isee deer like moving. Then I
know that like, Okay, thenext day I can go over here.
That's the beauty of mobile hunting isthat you're not stuck in one spot.
Like I didn't go in there anddo all this cutting and trimming to get

(01:28:54):
these stick get these these big ladderup and or a ladder stand or something.
Right, I'm gonna I have aI'm either in a plot. I
have a platform, because that's whatit comes down to, is you have
a platform and you got four orfive sticks or maybe three sticks or whatever
you carry. You're carrying. Theseguys that do the one stick or they're
just out of their mind. Tome, that's just crazy because I'm not

(01:29:14):
hanging upside down on a tree doingthat. I just can't do it.
Yeah, I don't see that either. Not safe to me. I'm trying
to come out of that. I'mtrying to come out of their lives still,
yes, or without a broken neck. But more power to them because
they've figured it out. But youknow, I'm carrying four or five sticks
with me. I got a platform, and whether I'm saddle hunting or I'm
hunting from a regular platform, it'sall the same. It's the same way

(01:29:36):
you set up damn near the same, Like it's all the same shit.
So it's just what you prefer.And it's funny because as I get older
here, I'm thinking more of likeI need to be standing on like a
solid platform, you know. Ijust feel more comfortable there. I feel
like I can do more while I'mup there, especially for filming purposes.

(01:29:58):
Like it's just just better, yeahthing. And anyways, if I can
see what the deer doing the nextday, I can go. It's not
a huge deal because I'm pulling myship anyways, right, I'm pulling my
shit down out anyways, Like becauseI didn't plan on unless unless I was
in there, unless you something miranculouslyfound the right spot to be in for
the next day and you leave themthere, which has happened, you know.

(01:30:20):
I have just left sticks there andpuild the platform just in case,
you know, because the platform isthe loudest part to put up in my
opinion, you know, So ifI take the platform down, you know
whatever, because I could get thosesticks down so quick. It takes you
know, five minutes to get yoursticks down. But but if you could

(01:30:41):
be up and up a tree,you could be up and set up in
ten minutes. Mm hm, likethat. It takes ten minutes. It's
not like it used to be whereit was like I need a whole afternoon
to set me the whole afternoon toput a heavy hang on up, or
a ladder up, or I needa guy to come out here and help
me. That's why I think,you know, it's become very popular because
it's you can be independent. Youcan you can practice your system, like

(01:31:03):
I'm sure you have a system,Like your sticks are in a certain spot,
your saddles set up a certain way, you look for it to go
up the tree a certain way,and it's boom boom boom, boom boom.
You're set and right a hunt.It's what I like to tell people
is you you know, you kindof got to get in. There are
hunts that you will have at theat whatever point in the season. And

(01:31:25):
sometimes you're sweating your ass off andyou're like you dropped, like you dropped
something and it made noise that youdid. You know it wasn't part of
the plan, and you thought likeyou thought you got up in a tree
and it looked like it was theright perspective. But now it's got your
hang in sideways and you're not ableto get shoot to that point that you

(01:31:46):
thought you could. I mean,these things happen to everyone, you know,
Oh yeah, it happens. I'llnever forget the first time. So
I watched the hunting Public and sawthose guys using tree saddles, and I
was like, that's that's the wayto do it. So I like got
on, ordered a tree saddle,got some sticks, like so, I

(01:32:06):
don't even know what kind of sticksI got, just like some shitty sticks
and I'm not gonna they were muddysticks. They weren't shitty, but they
were like, yeah, not whatI needed, not made for like my
kind of weight and everything. AndI go out and I'm like I already,
no, I'm going to get thisdeer killed the first day, Like
already, this is the this isthe way I'm going to do it.

(01:32:28):
And I get out there on theedge of this field and there's not a
single tree I can find that makesany sense for me to get into.
They're all super skinny, yes,like skinny ass trees with like vines everywhere.
Like I'm like, oh shit,so I'm sweating my I mean,
I am sweating my balls off like, I am dripping sweat before I even

(01:32:50):
get my first stick on the treebecause I'm like freaking out. They're like
I'm losing light, Like I'm onpanicking. Are the lights it's getting dark
or it's getting light? So thelight's coming up. So I'm gonna move
in here soon. And I'm fuckingthis up. And finally I find a
tree that I think is going tobe suitable, right, So I get
up, I throw four sticks on, I get up there and I go

(01:33:12):
to dig my platform in and itgoes damn near through the tree. And
I'm like, oh great, there'sbeetle rot all the way up here,
and it like damn near goes throughthe tree. And I'm like, well,
I'm not I can't do this right. So I climb down and it's
light now and I'm like, okay, it's five and two fifty. You
can't do that. Oh that's notgonna work. Yeah. Yeah, Well

(01:33:33):
I was like three hundred and fivepounds ontid that, yeah, you know,
and I'm still like two ninety twoninety five, So it's like eighty
five usually, is what I say. You have to factor that in when
you're picking trees. I mean that'swhat you have to and you have to
think like because I see guys.I see these guys, like these hunting
public guys and like the seq ONEEguys They're hunting these little tiny trees sometimes
and I'm like, how the hellare they doing that? Uh My camera

(01:33:56):
guy, Levi Mayfield, he livesin Oklahoma, and he I mean,
he is a deer killer, Likehe finds them and kills them on public
land, nice bucks all the time. Sure, and it doesn't because he
can get in just about any kindof tree because he's just little, you
know, he's like one hundred andfifty pounds. Yeah, Like he can
get in any of the there's anadvantage. I'm only like one hundred and
sixty pounds, and it does helpto get into some real sketchy trees because

(01:34:18):
I'm not you know, it's worsenow with the ash Like we're in like
the tenth the tenth year of theEmerald Ashboard. The Emerald Ashboard is basically
they're gone, but all the ashis dead and now it's really rotten.
So there was like this winter,there's a lot of trees that fell,
there's a lot of unsaved trees andthese these swamp areas that we hunt,

(01:34:41):
these transitions between the swamp and thehigh ground and it just sucks. But
yeah, so you end up settingup in shrubs and other weird stuff because
there's just yeah, yeah, andit's I even look at sometimes like hunting
off these fingers that have like thesefingers off the fields they have like little
trees in them, and it waslike we had this. I was in
Oklahoma hunt with with Levi this yearand he was like, man, if

(01:35:05):
you just weren't so freaking big,like that tree right there is so perfect
because we watched this buck the lasttwo days do the same thing. But
he's just like once he gets outin that field, he might go that
way or that way, but likehe knows he comes through that through that
finger at the same spot all thetime. And it's like, if we
can just get one day in thatfinger elevated a little bit, we'll be

(01:35:29):
good. But the only tree thatwe could get in was like you know,
like that big around and he's likefor me, that's no problem.
He's like, but both of usup there, we can't do it.
Yeah, that thing's gonna be.Oh, it's gonna be. We're gonna
be bent over this way. Sohe was just like he's you know,
we just found a tree, gotin it and almost made it happen,
and I just couldn't get a shotoff at him. He just kind of

(01:35:51):
hung out in that thick stuff.He's not stupid, right, And then
you know, it was one ofthose situations, was like, man,
if I just wasn't so bit,I could have gotten a tree, no
problem. Yeah, like, noproblem. You gotta hunt some more cat
tails. There's advantages with you beingnice and tall to be sloshing through the
cat tails. Yeah. The problemis it's not advantage when you're short like

(01:36:15):
me. But well the problem isis they're so loud. Yeah, I
just they're so loud, and I'mjust I'm sneaky, but I'm not that
sneaky, you know. Wow.But yeah, man, I I appreciate
you having me on them, andit's sure sure. Yeah. We've been
on for about an hour and ahalf, so it is great having you

(01:36:38):
on. What else is going onthat you want people to know about.
I know you got your podcast,Wolf Untamed. Yeah, check out my
podcast Wolf Untamed. We're gonna revampin that, so we'll start new episodes
March twenty eighth on those iron Clad. I'm working with iron Clad now,
so we're gonna be you know,really pumping on some good content there.
Then you can follow my hunting adventureson YouTube the Wolf on Teams YouTube channel,

(01:37:00):
and then my website is gonna beup here real soon and that's Derek
Wolf dot com. Check that out. Cool merch Uh. I'm doing a
three D archery shoot to help raisemoney for conservation to help stop these hunting
bands that are going on in Colorado. Sure, it's gonna be an invite,
only three hundred bucks to enter,and then it's then it's gonna be

(01:37:24):
a seventy five hundred dollars prize forthe winner of the men's and the women's
and then twenty five hundred for theyouth, which is ages thirteen to sixteen,
three grand for something place, andthen fifteen hundred for third place for
the men's and women's. Uh.Then the top five from all three of
those is gonna they're gonna battle forthe alpha and it's gonna be an awesome

(01:37:44):
hunting package. We got like Origininvolved, I got Kasika involved, I
got Kafaro involved, I got hoighttinvolved. Looks like I'm gonna have involved
now too, so you're gonna geta sweet setup, you know. And
then eventually, so next year,what I'm I'm putting the works on is
I'm gonna start doing you remember PimpMy Ride? Mm hmm, I used

(01:38:06):
to watch that show. Yeah,people are always like, hey, you
should come hunt, come on turkeyswith me, come do this. So
I'm just gonna like do a drawingand pick somebody every year, and I'm
just going to show up very cool. We're gonna just pamp your home,
new Shatka, new bow, newgear, new blind, new whatever,
you know, whatever kind of sponsorsI can pick up on that on that

(01:38:28):
train. We're just gonna hook itup for somebody. That's why a lot
of people relate to you, man. I think you you know, when
I first talked to you, Icould feel I could just down to earth
and you give back. I thinkthat's really important. Thank you for that.
Well, that's the most important partof this is that like, if
we don't pass this on, it'snot going to survive. You know,

(01:38:49):
this way, life is going togo down the drain. Because you know,
we have to get the young kidsinvolved and that's how you do it,
you know, you make it funfor them. You know, I
don't expect and these older guys,you know, older guys that think this
is cool. But I do expectthe younger kids, like these high school
kids and these you know kids thatare coming out, you know, twenty

(01:39:09):
year olds. I'm thinking, likesixteen to twenty is probably like going to
really think this is badass. Yeah, and we're going to show up like
at your spot and be like,hey, we're here, look at all
this gear we brought you. Yeah, let's go adjust to the mindset of
the generation to get them excited aboutit, because there's a lot of positive
stuff that can be had with engagingin the outdoors, for sure, and

(01:39:32):
there's not a lot of there's nota lot of like there's mentor groups for
football, and there's mentor groups forthe basketball and all these other sports.
There's ways to be a mentor tothese young kids, but there's no way
there's it's hard. Unless like you'resomebody in your family or someone of your
close friends, or somebody past thehunting traditions down to you, then you
probably weren't introduced to it, right, you know, It's like more and

(01:39:54):
more these kids are uninterested in itjust because it's not there's no instant gratification.
Yeah, right, So if youcan find ways to mentor kids,
which that would be great. LikeI'm working on that now, trying to
figure out ways to do it.It's it's tough because the organizations that are
out there, boys and girls cluband stuff, they don't really want to
involve kids in hunting, you know, they it's it's silly, but whatever.

(01:40:16):
Yeah, So I'm thinking about waysto, like, you know,
have the Wolfpack Foundation which works withthat rat risk youth and veterans and do
all cool stuff. So I'm thinkingabout ways how can I like involve how
can I get kids that like justbecause when I was a kid, I
had a hand me down bow fromone of my friends, and when I
outgrew that bow, I had tostop bow hunt. Like that's really why.

(01:40:38):
You know, I didn't have thetime, But I also didn't have
a bow, and I didn't haveI didn't have fifteen hundred bucks to go
drop on a bow or seven hundredbucks or even the cheapest bow as well,
five hundred bucks. You know,I didn't have that kind of money
to do that I was fortunate aswell. I mean, I my dad
was was born in Italy and hecame over to the United States, but
he was big in to hunt waterfowland small game. And then when he

(01:41:02):
met people when we moved to Wisconsin, they introduced him to whitetail hunting,
which then they also introduced them tofishing and all this other stuff. And
then as a kid, it's likethose people like pulled us into this hole,
you know, expanded into this whitetailhunting, and then they would do
trap shooting and then they would gorabbit hunting. I mean I went rabbit

(01:41:23):
hunting all the time with my dad. You know, we do pheasant goose
hunting and all that stuff. Andit's like the friends and the camaraderie that
were built through that. So it'simportant to have those mentors, someone that
pulls you into it absolutely, andyou know, that's the best part about
it, is the camaraderie. Ithink, you know, I just started
getting in the waterfowl too, andthat is like the ball busting that goes

(01:41:45):
on is so much fun. Youknow, like it's like a locker room.
I feel like you're in the lockerroom talking shit to each other.
It's so much fun. Yeah,And one of those things when you're practice.
The best part about deer camp islike at night when everybody's back talking
to each other. Everybody saw agiant buf. I'm like, I know
everybody did not see a giant bar. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

(01:42:06):
It's it's fun to share this stuffwith with others and have that camaraderie.
And it's that's why it's you know, it's not necessarily about the success.
I mean, I volunteer at aconservancy and we have a group of
people that maintain the property and dowork on the land, and it's that

(01:42:28):
same sort of camaraderie. Every yearwe talk about how we gotta you know,
the work we got to put inand things that we got to take
care of. But then during theyear it's constant you know, text messages
and talking about hey, what didyou see and what's moving on the you
know, and everyone's asking about howeveryone else is doing. And that's part
of the camaraderie. The outdoors.It's really cool. Yeah. Being happy,

(01:42:50):
that's the other thing, Like beinghappy for you know, somebody when
they when they are successful. Yeah, Like it's it's I get the same.
It was like the same thing withyou. Von Miller and I were
really good friends and we worked togethera lot. I mean for eight years
we played next to each other andworked off of each other less like if
he made a play is like Imade a play and it was first of

(01:43:11):
for him. So that's the wayI feel about, you know, hunting
is like when when one of mybuddies, you know, is successful,
I feel just as excited. Likeit's like I can't wait to see the
deer, I can't wait to seethe turkey, I can't wait to see
your your whatever it is that youyou were hunting, that you were successful
on, I'm just as happy asif I did it. So so yeah,
there's a lot to be learned fromthis, from this way of life,

(01:43:33):
man, and a lot of good, good life lessons. It's not
just soulless, heartless killers out there, man. It's not what it's about,
you know, to kill a secondary. It's about the journey, and
it's about the fun that you getto have, the camaraderie, the brotherhood,
the sisterhood. There's a lot ofwomen getting involved in this, and
that's that's the other thing. Thissport is for everybody, like it is

(01:43:54):
you want to talk about something that'sinclusive, like this is the most inclusive
everybody, Like, everybody can dothis everyone. There's not the way the
They have people that are completely paraplegicthat are able to use their mouth to
shoot a gun. Now yep,so anybody can do this. Man,

(01:44:14):
woman, white, black, purplegreen, whatever, it doesn't matter.
Everybody can do this. It's foreveryone. And that's the great part about
this community is they the left wouldlike to paint us as these redneck,
racist idiots, ignorant idiots, butthat's like could be further that couldn't be
further from them. Truth. Yeah, I've never seen I've never been to

(01:44:38):
a hunt camp and been like,oh, that was kind of racist.
Never felt that way, right,Like, and I've been in hunting camps
with like all all walks of life, you know, it's just like a
locker room. I never was ina locker room and felt like, Oh,
that's that's kind of racist. Neverfelt that way, never never felt
I never felt like I didn't wantto includ anybody in hunt camp. I

(01:45:01):
never felt like I didn't want toinclude anybody in the sport like it just
anybody can do it, so everybody'swelcome, because I don't think that's none
of that is a point of focus. It's not. It's the point of
focus is like the experience of theoutdoors, the hunt, the camaraderie,
embracing each other's stories. You know, that's what everyone is. How could

(01:45:21):
I make the others around me moresuccessful? Like you talked about in the
locker room, like, hunting isnot much different when when you have your
core group of people that you keepin contact with during the year. I
mean, I for sure with howbusy I am, I am super thankful
for my friends and family members thathunt because they they hook me up with

(01:45:44):
different spots to go to as well. They're like, well, you know,
come try, come try over inthis area. You know, I
did some scouting over here and itlooks good. I haven't had a chance
to hunt it. You go huntit. You know, there's that give
and take that's in the hunting community, and yeah, it's it really is
a place for everyone. And Ithink the outdoors and just being close to

(01:46:09):
what happens in nature when you doa when you do a sun up sit,
or you do an evening sit oryou do an all day you know,
sun up, you move, andthen do an evening sit observing the
kind of the cycle of life thathappens throughout that or over several days.
Everyone's got to experience it. Yeah, I agree, everybody should experience it.

(01:46:30):
I think it's great. Yeh yeah, man, it's it's a hell
of a way of life and Ilove it. Well, thank you very
much. Again, I appreciate yourtime. I know you're very busy and
much appreciated. And uh yeah,we'll keep in touch, thanks man.
Yeah, we got a good snowstormcoming, so we're going to try to
get up on the slopes and catchthem as powder. Nice, nice,

(01:46:51):
very good. All right, allright, brother, take care bye bye
baa A baa A b

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HBG Podcast Episode #28 - Derek Wolfe Hunting Tactics, Sports, Mindset, Fitness, and More

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}HBG Podcast Episode #28 - Derek Wolfe Hunting Tactics, Sports, Mindset, Fitness, and More