Steven Rinella talks with Rosie, Aina, Mable, Haddie, and Janis Putelis.
Topics discussed: Youth hunting; how to keep your spot a secret; killing a big buck on your first ever hunt; and more.
Outro song "Bull Mountain Blues" by Evan Fogle
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The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I t E dot com. Joined today by Big Time Meal deer hunters, Ana, Mabel, Hattie, and Rosemary. Welcome girls, Hi Hi, Hi, uh you guys mind hitting everybody? You know what you guys are still the age where people always asking? Do people always ask you how old you guys are? Ana?
Sometimes it's pretty common.
I met a kid you last night. I asked him what Grady was in. Then he kind of laughed about it, and I said, yeah, don't actually care it grade. You know, I was just trying to make small talk. What Gradeian?
Eighth Gradeay? Mabel, fifth grade? Okay, Pattie seventh grade?
All right, Rosie sixth grade.
You should know that I.
Know what like, I know that you're in the middle school, which when I was growing up was junior high. But here about this middle school. You guys have all been hunting. Mabel's your first year hunting in the state, in your state that you live in. You need to be how old to start hunting?
Ten?
How old are you ten?
Okay? And then you can hunt how many years in Montana with your parents, with your dad before you need to go do hunter's safety. It's a quiz show, Mabel.
I have no idea like thirteen.
No, you can't hunt thirteen years with your dad too.
You can hunt two years as a mentor.
As a mentee, so this is my last year or next year, first year? Okay, but I hunt squirrels with you.
Yeah, this is where it gets cold.
Okay, very good point, Very good point. Yeah, you don't need it in Montana. You don't need a hunting license or be any sort of age to hunt squirrels, rabbits, what else, kyo.
Any non game animal? Yeah? Yeah, so you can hunt in our state and every state's different. In our state, you can begin hunting at ten for game animals like let's say dear. You can begin hunting deer at ten. You can also hunt for two years with a mentor before you have to take hunter safety. You just happen to start your mentor hunting at the age of ten. But let's say you never hunted until the year twelve. You could still do two years with the mentor for you had to do hunter safety. But since your kids all started at the bottom end of the age bracket, you can hunt two years with your dad and then you got to do hunter safety.
So we'd have to do it one more.
Twelve you'll have yep, and I know you've done hunter safety. How'd that go?
It was pretty good. It took a while, but I got through it.
You cheated the system a little bit. Can you explain that to people?
She doesn't look at it that way.
Explain how you. I look at it like, you cheated the system, But she's gonna ros he's going to cheat the system.
Really, he just wants to know how you did it without doing a field day. I think there's.
Virtual field days where you go around and they like show you a video of how it would work, and then you say like, oh, this is wrong, and there's no really you're.
Right around a virtual field day.
Yeah, So you don't really get quized in that part. It's just kind of like a you pick an answer. You don't have to in those video says if you're right or wrong. But some people probably don't care about that and just skipped it the entire thing because there's like three seconds on all the videos that are like five minutes long.
I don't know if you do.
Do you think you'd be able to skip it all and still pass?
We heard the first hand story.
Do you hear my story?
My buddy another buddy, Steven, whose daughter was just watching funny Cat videos as that because you know how they put the little timer on there right so you can't just click all the way through. And then she went to take the test and she failed. She had to do the whole thing again.
My boy, funny Cat videos.
You guys gotta love those.
You you guys know, you guys know, of course, you know. And Hunt with James when James had to do Hunters when he had to do his archery certificate, okay, uh, he did a hunter safety where you go do the actual not virtual field day with the actual field day. He needs to go get his archery certificate and he comes in and it's all online and he comes in and tells me that he failed the archery certification thing by like a point and I'm living. So I sit down with them and do it and me and him fail, and I don't know, man, maybe we really have to go look at the stuff because what they it's so poorly written that it's like it's has stuff like what is a piece of archery equipment you can do without stabilizer fingertabs? It was, you know, and you're like, well that's so subjective. It was like what's the best cookie? You know, They're like nope, wrong, and uh a question about how long should you wait before you start blood trailing? Right? But you got it, you know, it's not what work. It's sort of you just got to go with what was in the thing. It's a bad experience.
Yeah, they're not getting a lot of context around those questions.
Yeah, so maybe you got it done, hattie. Have you had to do hunter safety yet?
I already did it yet?
Did you do the virtual or real field day?
The real field day?
You did? What happened down there?
Uh, you kind of got like showed around and then you practiced different shooting positions on like clay birdies, and then you practiced using a shotgun, and then you went through a bunch of like other things like passing through a barbed wire fence and like practice like.
When you throw your gun over then climb through.
Was it boring though?
It was kind of boring and it dragged on, but it was fun.
When you when your dad, Uh, Hattie's my neighbor. I'm buddies with her dad. When your dad learned that you were coming down here, what did he ask you not to talk about? Remember? Her dad wanted her not to talk about Her dad wanted her not to talk about how he had to curse at or during hunting season this year.
Sorry.
Dad.
It was the heat of the moment, though, wasn't it. Sorry, Yeah, your dad got emotional during the heat of the moment.
I was.
He was there to get some deer.
Killed, and I was sitting right fifty yards from a buck and I was like, just out in the open. Anything could see me, and a deer was fifty yards behind me.
And he had some strong words for you.
Well, he just said get down and yelled at me. But that was about it.
He wanted you to keep quiet about that.
Yeah, he brought it up.
I've been training you guys up. Tell Rosie, tell everybody where you hunt where the.
Deer are no more?
Yeah, and then I'm not I'm a guy and I'm prying you on it, like more specifically, what what what river do you hunt on? Now?
We're nine? Wait where none ya river flows into Business Creek.
That's right, Well it's none of your creek falls into Business River.
But same thing, haddie, uh.
Hattie, you had your school counselor was trying to pry some info audio.
Yeah, but he was just asking like sounds.
He's asking a bit more, which.
I felt, Well, he just like there he asked, Well, he just like asked a lot of questions, like over and over again. He asked if we drove up there and I said yes, And then he asked if we well on a boat down the river and.
I said no, because we were hunting the park.
Yeah, I drove up. We drove up to Yellowstone and then I was like, tell me, right in the park we hunt.
We hunt right in the park where the rangers don't.
Yeah, did you get mate? Was your dad schooled you on this kind of thing?
I mean, yeah, you definitely sat us down and we Yeah, we.
Around the campfire. You had a big meeting about this. Have you guys been pride yet for any location information?
No.
I mean like my teacher he was like, he was like, so where you go hunting? And I was like, oh, I honestly have no idea because it was my first year and I actually didn't know where we went. So that was pretty fair. But then if somebody asked me now, I'd just be like like, either I don't know, or we like go somewhere different every year, or I just do the joke Rosie did I know?
But I like the one better where you say like where the deer are, and like where at the deer are? Where are the deer? Where the deer are?
You know?
Deer camps? Yeah, deer you go to deer camp?
We went.
We just drive the highway until we see one of those signs that shows the deer crossing the road, and then they were wait.
There and then when one comes and crosses the road, we just get that one.
Do you guys feel that? Iron and Mabel? Do you guys feel that if your dad if your dad quit hunting right now, would you guys you feel like you'd keep it going or you feel like you'd quit too.
I'd probably keep going. Really, Yeah, there's a lot of really fun benefits.
They actually have an opportunity. This weekend. Jennifer and I went for a walk looking for Pronghorn yesterday, only day we have for her her tag, and didn't happen. We didn't see a single one. And uh, but this weekend seasons still open. I'm gone, but these girls might go and uh sort of kind of eyed and try to help their mom get on a prong horn.
Really, Dad Seth's wife Kelsey went out by herself and got one, and then she had like a Dolly cart, like the kind of dolly used to carry boxes around in the store. She was carrying on one of those tied to a Dolly cart.
Brilliant.
No, she's having a picture, bros. Tied to a Dolly cart like a stack cardboard box.
Those dollary cards aren't light.
I mean I got to pull it up and take a look. I'll show you.
Am I allowed?
Tone, Well, I think you gotta be twel Yeah, you gotta twelve. Yeah, in this state, you gotta be twelve.
It's prong horn.
So Corey, how old are your youngsters? I have one six year old boy and you're taking all this in I am yeah.
It's loving hearing you guys and hearing how excited your kids are to be out there, because I'm pumped. I got four more years.
Yeah, I've had. So the way it works is because we can do youth season. Our youth season just this year was well, every year, our youth season in Montana is two days long, depending on the calendar. We had a couple of years where they kind of lined it up with some days like when.
Teachers are off beautiful good so they.
Don't have to miss as much school. They still got to play a little hooky, but not as much hookey as they would have to otherwise. And then for the last couple of years though, the youth season lined up with General so we could just yeah, we could just roll right into General. And we've had good luck killing bucks like in the general season because you can work the kinks out for the two day youth season.
Because youth day youth season is Thursday Friday, and then General would open on Saturday.
But this year they separated again. Now they're separate by a week, and so we had our youth season this year was two days long.
Yeah, you guys were youth hunting during archery season.
Yeah, they was so off that it was yeah, we even saw. Yeah, there was people bow hunting while we were youth hunting. But we got our crew. We had six hunters, and how many bucks did we get?
Guys six six six, But one o'clock on day two.
Everybody like, well not know, most people got a buck at like around that time.
It was I got all four of you girls killed box within like ten minutes.
I know about those were the biggest ones.
I got the award for the smallest one.
You get the smallest bucke, smallest buck. Hey, I got a question for you, Haddie. You uh went out. So you got your first buck last year? Okay, you got your first You got a meal to your buck last year? No, no, what'd you get last year? Get a white tail buck?
Right? I got a meal deer?
You got a meal your buck. L Sorry, you got a meal your buck last year. This year, I want to get into your head a little bit on this. This year you went on the first day of the season. My understanding is you passed up a four.
Ky mm hmmm because there was a big buck at the top of the hill and I wanted that one over at four ki.
That's what was going on? Okay, the second day you came in with a porky. Okay, walk me through what happened there, Like, walk me through your mind, your thought.
Process the first day that I passed it up, both the evolution of your thoughts. Oh well, my dad and I were glassing and we looked and there was like a huge buck at the top of this spot and I don't know what's called, but and then I was like, let's go up there. And he probably like just bedded down in like that shady ravened kind of spot, you can say that kind of stuff. And uh so we were hiking up the hill and my dad tells me to sit down because he thought he saw it. He saw a bunch of doughs that we I think we flushed.
I didn't curse at you, no, Yeah.
And then and he like came down to me and was like, there's a there's a buck right there. And I was like, is it a forky? And he said yeah, And then it came broadside for like a minute. So I had like the like I didn't have like five minutes to think about shooting it or not. I'd like, right then and there shoot it. And I passed it up because I felt like really rushed and I didn't have enough time and I wasn't in that good position, and I really wanted to get the huge buck we saw on the top of.
The totally understood what makes you want to kill a big, huge buck for the fun of it.
I don't know, show that counselor they look at that bad boy. Uh So then the next day you go out and your thought changed. M last by this point, last second season.
Yeah, And I was like, I wasn't gonna be picky because then I saw other people shot four kies, so I would I would have been like fine if I shot one because other kids got one. So then I like, I also said, like, first thing in the morning, I'm not going to be so if I see a buck, I'll shoot it.
There you go.
I think it would be okay. Even if everybody else killed three pointers and you kill the four ki, it'd still be.
Okay as long as you got a deer.
That's right. Yeah, they all taste the name.
Maybe you got your first buck, yeah, okay, tell us tell us about that buck. How big was that buck?
He was a four back four.
Corky perked right up there now, Cory's card is one where you're a hunt. Yeah, okay, tell what happened there?
I mean, I don't know, my dad, we like army crawled on our like, you know, like on our hands and knees.
For something must have happened before that. You wouldn't just be crawling out of camp.
We like, so we you know, took off from camp and we were just hiking for I don't know, like ever, yeah, a lot of time. And then I feel like my dad he just sees he sees some doughs like on the top of the ridge kind of up there.
Uh huh.
They were like on a ridge a finger that was coming down into like this valley hilly sort of place. And so we just like, you know, we're just sitting down and glassing for a minute. And then we decided, well, let's like get a little bit closer to the dough so that if a buck pops up over there, then we can be ready and be able to be like set up on on the doe so that if a buck is with them, then we can get that.
I gotta I gotta bring your sister into this little bit because you guys are together. Yeah, okay, So so you two are hunt with your dad. You guys are hunting as a three pack?
Yeah?
Have you two at this point because you see these doughs, but you guys are both packing guns, right?
Yeah?
Have you guys at this point? How have you guys determined? Like who's up? Who's first?
I got the first shot for the first day, and so we decided that it'd be better if she got the shot for the second day, because why would you.
Get the first shot for the first day because you've already hunted and killed it. Huh, this is your idea.
No, you guys should explain this because people are gonna wonder.
We also kind of agreed that I have got into turkeys and more squirrels than her, so she should get the buck shot. I don't know how that works, but we decided that. And then like the first day, we were just kind of all hunting together and you know, because that's we're all together, and you know, she would she had she had her shot and.
Stuff, and then she had an opportunity.
She had an opportunity, and then she was just dry firing.
A little bit and the buck slipped away.
Yeah, the buck, it wasn't spooked by us, but it just slipped away.
I know when you were dry firing, I mean you were like you were getting ready for the shot. Yeah, that's a good trick.
It's uncomfortable.
Yeah, it's a really good trick when you can afford just get so shaky. Yeah, I got you.
Yeah.
But then second day we decided it would be mine because.
Because you stabbed up abbles and yeah, I guess.
But yeah we had I had the shot second day, and.
Well, so we're on our way to try to get in there near those dos. Oh no, we actually got on those doughs.
Yes, we were on the dose and I was, I was set up and my sister was like behind a sage brush bush and and then uh we saw on the ridge line two bucks, a four by four and a two by three on the ridge line, and they were coming down. Well first they were just like looking around in the valley searching for like danger, So we just stayed really really still, and then they were just like they decided, I mean, I guess they decided they were gonna come down into the valley. So we decided we should like go around the hill like behind it so that no, no deer sauce and nothing would be like spooked. So we were just army crawling, like up to the next hill or maybe next.
Were you army crawling?
I mean, I don't know.
I was kind of crawling on my knees because.
Well, as long as you kept lower than him.
I mean I am lower than him because I mean I'm just like smaller human. But I did try to do on my on my feet and it was just like like I don't know, I don't know what to call that crouching.
Yeah, it's like it's like walking in a squat position, which is the classic thing that everybody likes to do when you tell him we're crawling, now stay low. I don't know.
It's harder to because then you just won't stand up, and it's easier to just stand up.
Yeah, I don't know why.
I mean I I was still lower.
Than my dad's So did you have to watch out for cactus?
Oh?
Yes, Oh it's lot.
It's bad. There's a lot of cactuses.
That part of the park full cactus. Okay, so go on.
So we were army crawling for a and then we like kind of came up around like a hill and there was like sagebrush around us. My dad tried to help me get some grass out of the way of my like, you know.
My shooting your shooting lane, yeah, my.
Shooting lane, and we were both set up. I was like up a little bit higher on the hill, my sister was, my dad was between us, and then my sister was a little bit lower on the hill, and there was like a road going by us, like on the other side of the hill. And then you know, we're just washing the bucks. I could not find the bucks anywhere because my dad said, oh, they're at the tip of the sage brush, and I was like, well, there's a lot of sagebrush here. I didn't say this, but I was like, there's a lot of sage brush here. I have no idea what sage brush you're talking about. And then finally he had to just look into my gun for me find them, and then hold the gun for me so I could get behind him. Yeah, and my sister had actually called the bigger buck, which was the four by four, But because I guess the bigger buck had been doing a lot more broadside, like standing broadside, a lot more than the two by three, my sister, because she's so nice, decided to give me the bigger one, because I was like, let's just get they run away, I'll feel even worse. And then my so I just I was, you know, set up on the bigger one and on the road beside us, like I don't know, I guess a group of cows had been like walking and yeah, and they were like going over the hill. But then they were all staring at us the entire and I was so scared that the bucks were gonna look at the cows and then try and look at us. And oh that was like the cows were just staring at us the entire time. But then it was, I guess easy to forget about them because then just like looking at the bucks.
Uh.
But then I, you know, like took my shot, and I think I shot my dad. I moved away from the scope like after I shot, so I had no idea where my buck was because I still didn't know where on the hillside my buck actually was. I just had no I knew that in the scope that was my buck. So I had shot him and I shot him dead, and then he just he rolled down the hill somewhere. We actually did have a little bit of a hard time finding him later, but like maybe five seconds after my shot in a shot. Her shot was a little bit low because my dad's range finder had lost all of its battery.
Sour.
But yeah, like we shot like two seconds after each other. Yeah, and then maybe like maybe two minutes later, I think I shot again to shot to shoot hers, and I got the glory of watching hers fall down the hill.
Very kids are laughing too, right, Yeah. Do you guys, when you're telling stories, when the gun goes off, you go bouch likes, No, you know about that?
Yeah, yeah, we knew that.
If you're a Latvian and a Laban hunting story, a gun doesn't go bang or it goes bouch.
I mean my dad. My dad has that written on his orange.
A lot of laughs about that, bouch.
Yeah, but I guess I have never said that in a story.
Can you start? Please?
Wait?
What? Oh?
Okay?
But yeah, I shot and then we just you know, stood there for a minute. My dad like slapped us on the back a lot, because kind of what he does with animals.
And then.
I don't know, we got up and got all our stuff. We had actually left our backpacks kind of back there like where we had been set up on the dose. So we had to go back and get those because you know, army crawling is kind of hard with also like a big backpipe on, and my backpack is blue, which I'm pretty sure is a color that the deer can see, and it's like a bright blue, so you know, I left that behind. Yeah, but then we went and grabbed those, and then we're just walking up the hill to find our bucks. As was found pretty easily because you know, like me and my dad both saw that one fall down, but ours mine was a little bit higher up, so I had to look for that one a little bit. But yeah, we we found him in the end, and then we like butchered him and we're.
Gonna come back. We're gonna come back to the butchm Park, trust me. Okay, Rosie, can we move in? You know we've been teasing rosiebout set up, set up, Boddy, so you buy your mic. Okay, we've been teasing Rosie. We periodically remember this and then teaser about it for a few days. When she was real little.
Oh no no, no, no no no no no no no.
When she was real little, we were out squirrel hunting and uh and uh, and all of a sudden, I look and she is little oh three, yeah.
Yeah, better include that part in the store.
And she's back there.
You weren't. You weren't carrying it.
She was just combing the cruising along behind us, you know. And we now and then look see what happened during she's back to going spitting spitting something now. And she had thought she had found some deer ship and thought it was like a little chocolate No.
I thought that was only a jump that happened in real life. Yeah, that's an old guy. She thought.
She thought it was like a little chocolate nugget or something on the ground. They were like, what happened Rosie? What is that she was she had found that deer poot was like someone dropped her candy dropped there raising it. So never remember that we teased Rosie about it. So Rose, this is your second buck, right yep? Okay? And then you got your first buck last year, but not during youth season. What happened during youth season.
Happened?
Oh okay. So jimmy my older brother, had shot a doe and my dad Pinky promised me that the next deer that we got in this mystery place that we were hunting would be mine the next year that we saw like the next year that we could get it's mine.
And there's that was the Rannella family's last meal deer dough. We were now or on a more there's a moratorium on meal der doe killing in the Renella household.
So after Jimmy shot his dough, we went and started looking and we got down in this little area to glass and there was quite a bit of fossils in this area, and I was I was a little more interested in the fossils than the deer.
And I was very pissed.
He was not happy with me.
Hespective on this a little bit.
Yes, the fossils were in the worst skylit part of the day, so I'm trying to train them to when you get to a crest, we slip over very quickly over the top nestle into some brush and glass. So I'm like, you know, okay, I'm gonna go over night over the top nestle into some brush. And these two get right up on the skyline and then low the behold fossils. So we found I get down, I'm like a weird I did the whole thing, yell and whisper. We heard hot we.
Right, yeah, and I said he he was like, okay, well, if there's a do that comes by to your fall, I'm not going to feel sorry for you like you can. He's like, fine, you know, go look at the fossils.
Because I had seen this one in particular, fossil that I didn't I stupidly didn't.
Pick up, and then I wanted to find it again. But right as me and my brother are on the skyline.
Looking for fossils, a humongous for or by for pops right up in this little like goalie staring.
At your like like how many yards away?
Like a hundred yards.
It is staring at.
You so big, and well, you know, the whole thing happens when my dad like get over here. So we get set up on it, and he's already gone by that point. He was not having any of it.
And then my dad's all mad and I'm like, well, we can go find it again, and he's like, we're not going to find that thing again.
So we start hiking up the little we started tracking it.
Yes, we started tracking it, and in front of us probably like how many yards then like three three hundred yards maybe, No, it's just like, oh, three I.
Mean he just got up at our feet.
Well, yeah, we followed him.
I thought it was pretty far away and when he jumped up.
And.
Yeah, I thought he was far away.
No, he was like under us.
Well he like.
Popped out of nowhere, and my brother just takes out his rifle and shoots him, and broadside or anything. He just like shot him in the neck and got him. And I was not happy. I I was not happy with my dad. I was giving everybody the silent treatment because that big buck was supposed to be mine. So I was waiting in this little on this little side of a little mountain, and while they tried to find this deer. Thirty minutes later, they're like, we cannot find it. We need your help. We're gonna go look. So we blood trail it and we find it and it's it's dead and it's really big. And I am still not very happy.
But yeah, so I always say it's not you your season until someone cries, hey, that is not.
And so yeah, he got that, and then I learned to be happy for him because he was really happy it was he got a really nice buck. Then I ended up getting one. I don't even know where I ended up getting one. But that place was called Our.
Friends Our Friends Friends Ranch.
Yeah, I got a nice three by three there.
But then this year came around.
Am I supposed to tell the story of this year.
I'll see it up a little bit. We went up, we got to our looking nob. No, I'm just setting setting scene, you can tell. We got to our looking knob.
And and we see these two Wait, where are we starting from in this story?
Like after I spotted the party meadow?
Oh okay, okay. So we had been chasing these two deer and we got up on a skyline and they were there, but they were like far away. I wasn't zoomed in. I was not ready to shoot it at all. So they ended up running away. And then all of a sudden, deer started coming out of nowhere.
You know what we now know?
You know what spooked them? What was? Oh?
Tell us girls shooting shooting scared.
And they didn't even know where shots came from. We were like, we're watching them, and all a sudden, you and they just got up, like the does got up and were looking over and they just started milling around and milled off. Its just it was enough to Yeah, they were I mean I mean she got up and she just like it was it was a ricochet sound, and she just got uneasy and want to leave you.
But yeah, so I was I had one of the bucks in my scope, but like I wasn't zoomed in. I just wasn't ready. Then they got spooked and deer were coming out of nowhere. But they were everywhere like there was bucks just like almost seemed like they were running out of the hills. Yeah, there's so many of them, and they all ran into this one little meadow that we called the party meadow because all the big bucks were having a party there. So we end up starting to follow this little We go on the side of this little mountain. No, no, no, no, no.
What we watched four bucks okay, name was the ones name?
Okay one one of the ones name was Houdini, And there was.
Three bucks that we didn't name, and we watched them until they bed down.
Okay, so there's a bunch of us.
Did what when they batted down? And what did we do? We walked, well, no, not before we what we identified where what our shooting perch was going.
Okay, yeah, so we we found we from this ridgeline. We found a good place to get set up on that we.
Knew where we had three bucks bedded, and we knew what our our shooting perch was, right, and we even like dropped little pins on the map. We think they're there. We're trying to get here. Yeah, So and then we started walking.
Now we start walking on this little side of the mountain where they can't where the deer can't see us, and I end up finding in deer shed and we see this really really old dough just like betted down in this nice little shady area.
Don't tell everybody what we called her. Oh yeah, you didn't tell anybody, I know, but.
I almost did. Well I didn't almost, I didn't almost, but like yeah, so we see this really old dough and we're like worried because we need to get We need to like kind of go near her to get to where we're trying to go. But we're worried that she's going to scare the deer in the party meadow, so we like take our chances. We're like, well, it's gonna get hot, so we should probably get going over to these deer, So we take our chances. She does end up spooking and then she ends up spooking another buck that we didn't even know about. But he was gone so fast, like.
They didn't blow through. They didn't they go.
Through where we were trying to get.
They didn't spook our bucks.
So we find our little perch and army crawl over to well it wasn't even army crawl because we were so close to them.
We had to snakes.
Yes, we had to be very very very careful. We had to be very very careful because they I think it's really easy for them to spook. And so we're in this little part where I don't know. Somehow my dad sees a bunch of antlers poking up, but I do not see those, so I take it. Takes a little time to find them, but they're all bedded down, and I'm lined up on the biggest one because you know, why just take this moment when you can up the big one and the other one that I'm not another nice one stands up and I'm not even on him. So I get on him and I cannot see his shoulder blade because of the glare in the sun.
I want to clarify this point too. Okay, we're talking. I'm saying now, remember where you're gonna shoot it. I said, you got to see that, you know, you see the back of the shoulder, that little crease, so right in that crease, halfway up and down, And when the deer stands up, there's nothing in front of it. But she's saying, I can't see it shoulder, So I can't figure out what she must be looking at, like she sees some other deer. But I realized, tell what you meant when you said you can't see its.
Shoulder, Like there was a glare in the sun where the whole deer looked like this dark gray color. So I couldn't like see it.
You couldn't see the actual please, So.
I was like.
My dad was like, just like try your best. Just think about, like, think about where you're gonna need to shoot it. So I took my best guess, and I ended up shooting it in the right place.
We'll tell him what happened to it, what was missing out of it? It's heart, Yeah, I believe the bottom right off the heart nice.
So yeah, And we waited a little bit ate, some lunch got over there, and we couldn't find him for about like five minutes, and my dad was making me feel very doubtful about finding him. I was like, are we gonna find He.
Was like, I don't know.
It was just too many, it's too many questions.
Hey, no, but you did say that. You can't deny that I did.
But I knew it was in there somewhere, but I couldn't figure out where it was. So I just like, just give me a second. And it was laying right there, tall sage brush.
Our friend showed us where like he found the deer, Jeremy Romero. Yeah, and we all went over there and he was actually like bigger than we thought he was.
Yeah, I was telling Rosie. Normally they get small when you find him. You never find a bucket. He's bigger.
He thought he was ground shrinkage.
Yeah, we had ground growage.
He did not look that big from when I was lined up on him, but he was. He's actually like a really nice three by three.
Yeah.
Great. Now, Butchering, what you guys take on butcher And you want to start out just your general impressions of Butchering.
I personally really love Butchering. I find it very satisfied.
You got to get on the mic.
Sorry, very like order a lot orderly and satisfying to just get it all chopped up and stuff like.
You appreciate you appreciate the orderly in this up. Help me understand what you mean with orderly.
I don't know, it's just very like I personally find skinning animals very very satisfying, which is probably pretty weird.
But do you do you appreciate that there's like step one, step two, step three. Is that that's orderly?
Yeah, there's like the things you do and then it like just all kind of falls into place for the end result.
Do you enjoy cooking it?
Yeah?
Cooking really fun.
So you like that too?
Yeah? Have you cooked any any meat?
Yes?
Yeah? Yeah when I'm gone.
Oh yeah, you guys help out in the kitchen, but.
Not when he's here. He's our personal chef. When he's home, he can do it all.
Mabel, what did you think about that? Was this your first butchering job?
Yes, I mean other than kind of like Scuross, But I do not like butchering even a little bit.
You don't like you know, I don't like this.
Mells.
We're getting dirty.
I don't know.
It's like if you like, once you get blood on your hands, everything sticks to your hands and then like a smell of the stomach and then yeah.
Did you notice that your farts smell like the guts? Afterwards?
I mean I feel like I had like called maybe.
I don't know, like I don't I don't normally try to smell my farts, but I guess it.
Happens on accident.
I mean, yeah, but I don't like butchering, especially like the stomach, and that it smells really really bad.
When she gets done. Before she leaves, she needs to cut the stomach open. Yes, which is the boringest stomach in the world. She thinks there's gonna be something in there, like a like a mouse or something. It's just chewed up grass.
Well, I don't think that there's gonna be something in there. I just like I want to think that there's also how do you have some stuff to finish off a dear story too?
Oh we'll get Yeah, we're getting there where we leave it with your dear story?
After my dad told me to get down from the top of the hill.
Oh, we didn't finish the getting it deer. No, ok, maybe finished telling us about how you don't like it. Well, I realized we missed the end of the deer story the job. Thanks for reminding me you don't want nothing to do.
I mean, I like, it's like cool because I know that, like I'm gonna eat it, and it like tastes really good when I ate it, of course, but like it it's never been like the thing. And then when you're carrying it back, like there's just like the juice everywhere, and like there's just like such juices everywhere you look, except for the fact that the one thing that I really liked about butchering is I brought up the idea of hot buttered buck nuts and bringing those back to camp, which was still that was the whole thing.
Yeah, that's a lot.
What I recommend that as you as to get older, you and your sister continue to hunt together because you're gonna have a hell of a time with the butchering. But if she likes but yeah, it's like Jack Spratt would eat no fat, his wife would eat no lean. So someday make a poem like that about you, and I.
Know, yeah, probably you're a good leg holder.
Like I don't really care, but like I don't like want to like stick my hands in its guts. I don't like that I get your pretty close dirty Hey, okay, you put you actually put blood on my vants.
Well, yeah, that's all right.
Maybe you'll grow into it, maybe you won't. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
That's good though. Okay, so hattie, I'm sorry. We didn't get to the we didn't get to I don't know what that was bad hosting. We didn't we didn't get to the buck. Okay, so there we are. Your dad's screaming and yelling at you.
It was like, okay, but by the way, sorry for sorry dad for bringing for Steve bringing that up. But after he did that, he told me to get down and then he started like glassing and trying to find it. And then he said get over here, and then he found it. So he was like, take your backpack off and put it in this spot and carry the tripod. So and he was like, we're gonna get to the top of that hill and you're gonna army crawl all the way up there. So we did, and then he told me to set up the tripod. So I set up the tripod and then he was like glassing it trying to find it from there, and he was like, we're busted. It sees us and I was like, where is it?
I don't see it.
And then that went on for probably like six minutes of me not being able to find my buck. When I was staring right at us like one hundred yards not bad, okay.
And.
Then I like find it. And then I was watching it for a while and I didn't see it move, but my dad didn't, and it moved broadside because it like saw us move, so it was like, oh, I'm out of here.
Got it?
So then he went up onto this like hill kind of spot and went broadside, and my dad told me he stood up, and I was like where, I don't see it, And then I found his like white nose and then went off of that and just moved and right where I lined up his foot, I found his foot and went up, and right as I got on the top of his shoulder, I shot him. And I thought he like ran forward, because that's what my last buck did. He ran forward, but he actually felt ran backwards and fell into this like ravine. So it took us ten minutes to find him because he all was like clumped up in like a doughnut.
He was he was hidden away in there.
Yeah, So my dad thought he was a rock for a while until he like took a second look when he went back around and then pulled him out, and I was like, he's a lot smaller than.
What he looked like in the scope ground shrinkage.
Yeah, and then he pulled and then my dad pulled him to this like shade spot cut him up my dad's knife.
Did you help cut him up?
I helped the leg my dad.
Yeah.
But my dad didn't want me to cut myself with his knife because they're really sharp, so he let me cut open like the bladder and like the liver and stuff and look at the heart and all that.
So do you like the butcher and process? Uh?
Yeah, next year he said I could help him with it. So then I just learned how to do it myself.
So when you go hot with your friends, you could be the person the butchers. Mm hmm, got it. And then what about did you carry some in your pack?
Yeah? This time I was actually able to carry a lot because I got an actual backpack. And last year I was using like a school backpack and it was an actual backpack, and like this was an actual hunting backpack and I was able to carr a lot more, which for my dad, he said it felt a lot better on his back, but it.
Was did you take some of the weight?
Yeah? Sure, And then like you put it on my back and I almost fell backwards because I wasn't ready for how heavy it was going to be, and then he had to catch me. But then I was fine. And when I took it off, I felt like a fleather, like a feather. Oh when you got When I got back to camp, I felt like a feather.
When I was packing my dear it, my neck and shoulders hurt so bad like it, and we were.
Like a mile so we didn't We didn't do your waist belt quite right either. Yeah, so all that weight was on your on your shoulders.
How many legs did you pack out? Rosie?
I packed out everybody's.
She carried all the gear in the head and we carried everything else.
The head was surprisingly heavier than I thought it was, well, especially you know, we packed him out with part of the neck tach that we could take them.
In and get them tested. And those heads get real heavy when you're packing them out like that.
You guys, has everybody here done the have you guys all had did you ever come to do the trivia show. Now you never did. Okay, so these guys of Aina, Mabel and Rosemary, you have to come. We're gonna do some more soon. Have all done?
Have all?
If you listen to our Kids Trivia Show, our kids podcast, you guys have met you listeners have met Aa, Mabel, Rosemary, you haven't met Hattie. But these guys are all contenders on Kids Trivia, which is part of our Kids Trivia Podcast. We're gonna be let me pull this up. When we started the Kids Show, we always said, hey, we got to see how it does. We know we're gonna make more. We're gonna make more of the Kids Podcast. Season two of the Kids Show. Season two of the Kids Podcast We're not done with you guys yet. You got more questions? Season two of the Kids Podcast launches Monday, November TWI here's deal. It's on its own podcast feed. Before when we did the Kids Podcast, the Kids Podcast was always put into the Meat Eater podcast feed. It's gonna live on its own feed going forward, we'll probably do one or I don't know, maybe one on the regular feed. I don't know. So November eighteen, so.
To find it, you just searched kids trivia.
Well, I'll get to that in a minute. What is the feed called. That's a good question, you honest me Eater Kids Podcast, good question if you'd like to listen to this, if you're listening right now, on the day this episode dropped, November eighteen, we just launched the season two trailer and we posted season one so so uh, we got a season two trailer. And also we're moving episodes one to five over to the kids podcast feed. So now that we're getting serious about the kids podcast, it's gonna have its own feed. We're gonna move episodes one to five on that feed and start adding to them. Every week. We'll have a new drop of a new kid's episode going forward for five weeks. It'll run through December twenty, third day before Christmas. So we're kind of lining it up so when your kids are home for the holidays, whatever, you got the podcast feed, and then the next time we drop more will drop it off, maybe the beginning of summer break or however.
We do it.
We also got a new Kids Podcast t shirt available in the Meat Eater store right now. Now, I got a new line of question for each of you we're gonna go back to Aina and then we'll see what kind of questions. Corey might have some questions because as a person who's got kids coming up, he might have some questions. But here's my question for Aina, what is the one piece of advice you would give to moms or dads whoever taking kids out for their first hunts.
I would probably just say make it fun, like, don't try to push too much. It's good when you have it, like when you have the capability to be pushed, but if you're taking like a nine year old out and they're just hunting with you or something, and they're like, oh, I'm so tired. And if they're like younger than kids, you're like us, who we can be pushed. We're old enough to be pushed, but it gets like un fun where then you're like, oh, I don't want to go hunting because I know it's gonna get so so hard that it's not going to be fun anymore.
M that's fine. I asked you. I don't agree. I don't agree. So that's your opinion. I asked you for your opinion that you have it. I bet you got pushed.
Oh yeah, but it makes it makes you a better person and a better hunter.
Uh huh huh. But your piece of advice is don't you really get pushed a lot? Yes, she just gave him a look.
Uh.
One day we had it where Aina was gonna hunt with a different Aina and Mabel, we're gonna split up. Aiah was gonna hunt with someone different. She wanted to know if they walked faster than her dad, and she's glad to hear that they did not walk faster.
Long enough lugs where I can keep up with him. But if you go faster than him, I'm him. I'm gonna be left in the dust.
But he's one of the faster walkers I hang out with. Oh yeah, so you're you're training at top level. Yes, Mabel. Piece of advice for mom's dads taking kids hunting, I.
Mean, like.
Like honestly, like make sure that like not that I don't want to go hunting. I love hunting, but like make sure your kid like really really wants to go, because if they don't want to go, and then you think that they do, and then you push them to go like every single time, then they're gonna not want to hunt at all. You think that, Yeah, I mean that happened with like my like my cousin, like his dad. People at him duck hunt like all the time, and he didn't like it because of I think the cold. But then like now he doesn't like doing it at all because he was like pushed.
To do it too much. I mean, I love hunting.
I love that my dad pushes me because otherwise I probably wouldn't do it. I'd like in the morning when he wakes me up, I'd be like, I don't want to go, but that because he pushes me, like he like makes me like want to go. And then I realized, like how fun it is when I'm out there. But like, like make sure they do have interest in it, because otherwise they'll just like be pushed onto it all the time and then they don't want they don't want to do it at all.
That's something I'm really paranoid about, is overdoing it, over pushing them.
I disagree with WHOA, I disagree that's your opinion. I'm glad you have it. I just don't think it's true.
Well you've had good luck. Well it's still early, but with your three kids, they've accepted pushing very well. But in my universe. I just know too many that pushed and it wound up not working out. Really, yeah, and it's sad.
Because I feel just plug your ears, Rosie. I'm not like at a certain age, I'm not interested. I'm not terribly interested in what they want to do. No, I mean it's true. Well, like we'll say we're gonna go camping this weekend. Inevitably, inevitably, this is gonna be some Oh I can't. I didn't want to. I was supposed to. I was gonna all right, or like it's just we don't need of us cares. Speaking me and my wife, you know, like need of us cares. We're going camp this weekend, go camping, come home. Every had a great time. They don't want to leave so much fun. They're they're exhausted from physical activity. Right. And if we had said, like, you know, to little kids, do you want to go camping? Like, oh no, because I was gonna go to Billy's house and be like, Okay, I guess we'll cancel that plan, you know what I mean?
Oh yeah, if I were to ask my kid, what do you want to do this weekend? You'll say, I don't eat fun dip and stare at my tablet.
Yeah, exactly, so we're doing that. Yeah, we just haven't. I know it changes later, but early on we just we kind of like we made a plan and that was the plan.
And you're able to mold them still.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a point at which I agree. I'm sure it's true, and I there's a point at which agree, But I think that I see people too often. I don't know, like like cave, it's hard to get every out the door. I agree with that, it's hard to get every out the door. It's a lot of clothes, it's a lot of gear, it's a lot of complaining. You gotta have just like you gotta be like the force of a tornado and just be like, dude, we're going. We're getting stuff. Maybe it's not perfect, but we're gonna get enough stuff packed and we're going at a point.
Yeah, No, I think there it's a balance, right, because that depending on what scale you're using, what you're describing might only be a three in someone's version of how much you pushed or didn't push, right, but maybe you escalate that to a seven, and then all of a sudden they're just like, you know what really I'm done camping, bro.
Yeah, yeah, we're not like dragging them out. We're not like dragging them out in and loading them in the cot.
And you're like, hey, kids, you ever heard of winter camping? It's negative ten. It's still almost as fun but cold.
Yeah, I got you, hattie advice, and I might disagree with you. Well, what advice you have for moms and dads who want to take the kids out hunting? From a kid's perspective? Seasoned the kid?
Okay, if your kid wants to take a break, just take like a five minute break and let them, I don't know, catch themselves instead of just saying no, we're gonna hike one mile and then you can take your disagree with you and also bring more food than you think you will.
That I agree with everything you just said.
I agree with that.
I don't think and I'm speaking of kids general. I don't think kids have a great sense of when it's time to take a break.
Well, also miss their whole entire Okay, I guess Yeah, I've been hiking for my whole life. But you're like fifty years old, you I should be.
I'm on the downward slide.
Yeah, but think about this. You've been doing this your whole entire livingness of fifty years. So it's different when you're like a little kid.
No, you guys want to take breaks in the dumbest places. We'll be down in some little ditch bottom where you can't see a single thing. Let's have a break. Like, let's have a break while we're up looking at fresh ground.
That's true.
Not true.
Also, don't push too much.
I'll be like, we canna have a break. See that spot up there. We get to that spot, we're gonna nestle in and we'll have a break.
That's that.
Then that thought likes to take breaks in the right.
That you're talking out there, and then we can take a break. That certain spot that you see is like five miles away, and you're like, you're like, oh, roum is there.
No, we're not.
We're not almost there.
Yeah, you got your kids and everything that's happened with you kids, you'll appreciate this someday. They've trained you like, this whole thing with you guys in the water is out of control.
Well, how don't we saved that? For what I'm what my advice is, Yah, I would like to talk, No.
Kidd, I mean, just think about it. It sounds like a Roidney dangerfield thing. But like when I was a kid, no kid had a water bottle.
No gotta save this from when I'm talking about like what like advice.
Okay, all right, but uh, I'll get to your advice one second. I want to go back to this. The food thing I think is is I I agree hundred percent. I agree with breaks, but I think you guys don't have a well timed sense of when to take them. The food thing, You're exactly right, put way more food in your pack than you would ever think anyone could possibly eat, end of a greater variety, right you guys hearing me, Yes, huge variety, huge quantity.
But don't worry about the water.
I think.
I think about like the kid thing where the kids have like a bad sense of when to take a break. It's like, but if we get up to a good spot where we could take a break and it'd be like a good spot, then my dad is like, oh, let's take a break, instead of me saying I want to take a break here, It's like we only like take breaks if we wounded the bad parts because we like are tired down there for like some odd really bad.
He wants taking a break.
Yeah, like yeah, but like I'm.
Yeah, like when we're in a good spot to take a break, like I would say take a break, but my dad's like he like knows when we're like about to say let's take a break. And then he's like, all right, well, like you see that perfect spot up there, we'll take a break up there before us saying it. So it's like, yeah, so we're not.
Yeah, I agree with your They don't choose the right time to take a break, Like you'll be in the middle of a and they'll want to take a break. But I feel like it's also depending on your age, Like you could be yeah, like fifteen years old and no one to take a break because you've been hunting for like five years. Yeah, so you'd understand like a sense of when to But like when you're when it's like six thirty in the morning and you're hiking up this gigantic hill when it's pitch dark out, you don't don't really know where you are and it's six thirty in the morning, so you don't want to take a break.
But everybody else knows you got to get somewhere yeah, but I'm not opposed breaks because the best part of my youth hunt this season. I was with Rosie and her little brother Matthew, and we got to be noon and we were just staying out. We weren't going back. We're just you know, everybody stayed had the plan to stay out and hunt all day until dark. So it was noon and Rosie laid on my left shoulder and Maddie was laid on my right shoulder and they fell asleep and they didn't wake up till two. And I'm used to taken like I'll take a power nap with the best of them, but I'm not used to the two hour power nap. But that was very relaxing for me.
No, it was. It was almost three hours because we munch about at like eleven thirty and then woke up at like two.
So yep. And you know, we had a magic We had a magic secret bullet in our packs. We brought a couple of mini cans a pop soda so after so after naptime, you could bust out one of them cans a pop and that just gets you gets you ready to rock. All right, Rose, what's your Rosemary? Hit me with your advice to moms and dads taking their kids hunt. And then then we're gonna see what Corey's gonna have some questions for you guys. I'm guessing because.
He's got a kid coming up, all right, So just like like what I just said, like make it fun, Like I know this ruined my chance to get a big deer, but maybe maybe do a little like like not taking like a break, like sitting down, and like maybe going in just like looking for like bugs or something like anything like fun to get their minds off of like hiking for a little bit. And then also my dad definitely disagrees with this, But drink water. I mean I don't even see him drinking water anymore, and yet he's almost against it.
Well, you've been to where he grew up, right, you've been there, right all water, Yeah, it's all water, and it's flat, and so it's not anywhere near the same thing as to where you're growing up. And why you had required, you know, to be packing around water and drinking water because he could he literally just like he just diverted and then he would just scoop his hand up into the lake and drink.
I know, but like if I go to school and I'm like, I'm gonna get a water bottle. He's like, Hey, you don't need water bottle. You're fine. Back in my day in the fifties, we didn't have water bottles.
My kid's got like ten water bottles. Oh, it's insane.
No whoever had the idea that it improves cognitive function to be hydrated.
It's very very Yes.
Being hydrated actually helps you live, So it helps if you're taking your kids out, make sure you.
Bring lots of water, lots of food, and just like take like not breaks, like sitting down breaks, but like breaks to just do get your mind off of, like hiking, and then get back to it. And I almost think that your kids will do a lot better if they've had like a little mind refresh.
One time, I have packed a school bag full of I don't know what kind of books and puzzles and games and coloring pencils, and we went down into a radene under a shade tree where you couldn't see more than ten yards in any direction, and we spent an hour there just coloring, and then we climbed out of there and lo and behold, there was some pronghorn up on the flat that we were about to hunt. So the timing was perfect.
Can I add something to mind, please, because I feel like the pushing it's really good, because like, you don't love hiking when you're six ' five, like nine years old. It's not the best thing in the world. Yeah, but it makes you, I like, a better hunter. I mean obviously it makes you like it pushes you for like everything in life. But then also it makes sometimes it's not fun, so taking the correct breaks, like not too many, because then it's like obviously you're caving in is like a not like just letting your child do whatever they want, but then not pushing so hard. Warre It's like, I never want to come out here and do this ever ever again.
What do you guys think about this? Idea?
Wait? Wait, I got one thing do so somebody very wise told me this. She is a very athletic woman. She is our family friend, and I was running the rut with her and she we were like, me and my friend were like, this is not fun. We're like so tired, and she's like, it's secondary fun. So when you are out hiking, it may not be fun in the moment, but later you're like that was really fun. I did really cool stuff.
So yeah, yeah, I got you.
And you'll like the fact that you just pushed yourself really hard and you just did a bunch of it, like you went all that way and you know, you're not thinking about it because you're like, oh my gosh, my leg hurt. My leg's hurt. But then when you get back to camp, you're like, oh, yeah, I walked like four miles or something.
And you're like maybe, but like you got pushed, you pushed yourself, and you're like, it's like secondary fun even though you hated.
It in the moment.
Let me hit you guys with an idea. What if a parent was thinking to themselves, well, I'm gonna go for broke. I'm gonna I'm gonna either have a super a kid that's obsessed with hunting and fishing, or I'm gonna burn them out and they never want to go again. And you're like, I don't care about the middle ground, So I'm gonna push as hard as I can push. I might get a die hard hunter and angler, or I might get someone who never wants to go again. I know I won't land in the middle. Is that a good approach? Or a bad approach and just push it hard.
Bad bad, bad, that's bad.
I'm listening to them. I want to know, like the what's the favorite part about hunting in general? You guys can look it back at our recent trip and say, oh, this was a real highlight and this is why I like doing this trip and going again, or just generally why you guys like to go out hunting.
Well, I feel like when I'm hunting, it's I mean, I've always like been I guess, like push to go do things, but like not in a bad way. Like my dad gives me the option, like if I say I don't want to go, he's not gonna meet Sometimes he's not going to force me to go. But I feel like what I really like about hunting is that even if it's like a little sad that like killing things, but like in the end, you're like feeding your family and it's just like really rewarding.
Yes, I agree with that a lot.
Yeah, it's like it's rewarding to like your like I guess, emotional state, like your ego that like I went out and I killed the animal, and I'm like feeding the people, like I guess my family and and then I like hiked all this way, and I like carried meat, and I like did all the steps and now I'm happy that I did it all. And it's like just nice to think about.
I guess what I think about is uh, that you're spending time with like your parent that way with you Like I went with my dad and I liked spending time with him and killing an animal with him, and like being able to feed my family also while spending time and having like and creating memories.
It's great.
Also just like being in the outdoors with like when you go back to camp, there's you're not gonna go on your phone and you're not going to do this, like you're just going to be in the moment more of and thinking about what you're doing then and not like what's gonna happen or what you did, and you just kind of get to be in the moment of I'm.
In the outdoors right now.
I get to spend time with my family, I get to put food on the table. I get to push myself to be like a better person and like a stronger hunter and a better hunter, and just there's so many like positives. I feel like the hunting, especially after you've done the hunt itself.
Oh great, thank you, Corey.
You got more questions, man, well, I had maybe some more technical gear questions.
Oh it's great.
That's a great subject.
Obviously, you can't kill a deer with mind bullets, so I'm curious what caliber you guys are all.
Using, uh, six five cream more same okay.
And maybe those sig crosses that have like the nice foldable stock. Yeah, easier to carry around.
You're shooting a six five creed More, aren't you.
Yeah?
I think so.
Yeah, it's a tree more something.
Oh wait, I have one more piece of advice too. Tell your kids not to be afraid to shoot a gun because of the recoil. Because most of the time when you're hunting as a little kid, you're not gonna get a big, heavy duty gun. It's gonna blow your shoulder off.
Like, well, kids also shoot suppressed rifles.
Yeah, I was really scared, like for my turkeys, not necessarily for my deer this year. I was last year. Like, it's always the kick that I just get scared about. I'm just scared that's gonna like hurt my shoulder. But I think you should just tell your kids that, Like would you rather be scared to pull a trigger because you're word your shoulder is gonna get a little bruise on it, or like shoot an animal, you know, like just tell them to that it's like okay and that doesn't actually hurt. And then maybe like maybe like yeah, maybe like do it and show them that it doesn't actually hurt, like like pull it once on you and say that like it doesn't hurt, like I'm okay, or don't.
Bring us The first thing is in like oh here's a gun, go shoot it, but make sure but like watch out, he's got a bunch of recoil, Like, oh, here's a gun.
Like I hope you have fun.
That's something in your head.
That's something my older brother would always do to me. He'd be like, oh, Rosie, do gun's got a lot of kick.
And I was well, because he was jealous, I know.
But I was always I was always scared of the kick anyway. And he'd be like, he'd be like that gun's got a lot of kick.
I'd be like, well, I think that could be an example of pushing too hard. Right, there is some minimum amount of caliber gauge that you have to use to kill these animals. And some kids at the age of ten maybe because of their personality or body structure size, like they just are not gonna be able to handle even though a four to ten or a you know really light yeah, you know, six millimeters or whatever. So you're just gonna have to wait and be And.
The mental like pulling a trigger and shooting something like a big mental like I'm gonna take this animal's life with like I'm going to do it myself. And the mental like don't push it too hard. Is in like a you have to like do this right now because if they like need a way, if they need to think about that, that's the thing that you have to kind of overcome in your mind.
Corey On to give you a couple of you want a technical gear advice, Let me give you some technical gear advice. Ear plugs, headset, if possible, suppressed.
Something I was not providing.
I'm not talking about hout field cheating. Cram their ear full of ear plugs, cram it. Put head ear muffs over the ear plugs. Put a couple of layers on, not a T shirt, m pad, heavy rifle, heavy bipod. If you can afford it and get it and do all that to get a suppressor, put a suppressor on it and just deaden, deaden everything down, because I feel that they conflate the noise and the recoil into a sort of package of badness. And and doing that double ear protection and just sort of deadening the noise. I think that you could have the same exact recoil and remove a bunch of the noise, and in their mind it's just a much more pleasurable experience because I think that they're registering the the loudness and the kick into just a generally unpleasant experience. So by shooting like heavy bipod heavy gun, laying down jackets on, we had very good luck, to the point where I would tell people that every we'd go through this two years in a row. When she finally shot a rifle, she would be worked up about it. She'd shoot a rifle and her and she would laugh because she had You would giggle because you had in your head that it was gonna be so miserable, and then you shoot. You're like, oh, that was fun, you know, because we did all those steps right.
Ye.
Well, my kid just gradu raided from his red Rider BB gun to a twenty two. So we've done some squirrel hunting this year. What should I do next? Like six or five scenes a bit much, but well.
Let's not jump away from the squirrel hunting me. That's a I was someone else was talking to me about squirrel hunting recently, and I was saying, Yeah, I think that's the reason my girls are the hunters that they are today and the marksmen that they are today is because of the time that we spent in the squirrel woods, you know, familiarizing themselves with the twenty two shooting a twenty two hunting hard to kill animal. And whoever I was talking to was like, Oh, I thought you guys just did it because it was fun and you like to eat them. I'm like, well it is, but like, I don't know, would you girls agree, Like, you guys got a lot of fair amount of practice on those squirrels, So when it came to switching to a deer, did it seem like it was easier?
Oh?
Yeah, you've already been there.
Yes, the squirrels are hard t find. And I was like very happy when I could get squirrels on my own. That was like a really big achievement for me just to be able to like like go out and like you trusting me to do that on my own and like go out and like set up on a squirrel and shoot it and then have it like fall down from the tree. You hear it hit the ground.
Oh I just sound.
I just thought of like another tip for like the people going hunting with their kids soon, like who are coming of age to it. Like with the kick. If you think if you're like practicing in like a field and you don't know if they're flinching or not from like the kick it gives act like you're putting it around, but don't so then they dry fire and just watch them because then you'll know if they're actually flinching or not. Not good to close your eyes before you shoot the mab also that too, but remind them that. So every time I've shot my deer the adrenaline rush, I never remember having a kick on my gun. Oh yeah, shoot a deer, So like remind them that they're most likely not going to feel the kick when they're actually shooting it.
You don't even think about that.
I know I've said like a lot about this certain thing, but I have one more tip.
Water.
Yeah, I would like to talk about water light later and you're you not liking water. But anyway, what I was about to say was that another tip for well, in my case, my mom, if you if this is just in my case, like if you're a dad and you take your kid out hunting, make sure they're wearing ear protection, because in my case, my mom got very very upset that I was not wearing ear protection and had a pretty much like a whole speech about people losing their hearing and how my dad's ears are so bad to this day because he doesn't use hearing protection and when I got my dear, my ears really really started to ring.
It's not true because it was it was a suppressed rifle.
I could I could not hear us. Truthfully, from the bottom of my heart, my ears actually hurt like they hurt. So make sure you bring ear protection and always have it ready.
Well, in all fairness, you know the suppressor she was using as uh, one of those suppressors meant for ars.
It doesn't.
It doesn't get too much blowback. It's like a suppressor light.
Yeah, so it like amplifies, not even more.
No, it's just kind of doesn't. It's not like a full like suppressed. It's like that's what it like, itsy bits. He suppressed. Yeah, I didn't really appreciate that you ran home and told you mill about that. To be honest with you, I get in all kind of trouble all the time. I don't need you adding to.
It, buddy, Well it was part of my story. How afterward my ears really hurt.
Anything else, Corey. They can help you with this panel of experts.
Well, food is extremely important, So favorite snack.
Important. Water is very important.
Something sweet.
Putting, getting like bars that are sweet but also have good like nutrition nutritions, but you can put it together, like snickers are good because they've got like the nuts. And my dad like actually want to eat because like there's some of the like bars that he brings and like I will not eat ever eat that in my entire life.
I got some junk bars.
Yeah, my dad uses the best bars for hunting there.
It's a nature Valley wafer.
It's good and they have in them because they've got like peanut butter. They taste so good. That's a kid friendly I usually need those for like lunch and breakfast when I'm right.
That's a kid friendly bar. High protein wafer bar maple hot tip for on food.
Well, like if normally a lot of like most of the hunting chips, I like the day hunting chips I go on. It's like the sandwiches and stuff. Make sure that you like before just making them a sandwich, Like, make sure you know that they like the sandwich, and you could like send it to school with them, because like I've made a sandwich for myself and I did I put like a Broadworst in it or something, and I did not like that. It was like the juice of the broadwaysh got all over the bun and it did not work.
So like, so just be clear you're saying, don't just make them a sandwich, work with them to find a sandwich they like, and then task that they actually like that sandwich. Yeah yeah, then pack that workshopped approved sandwich.
Sandwich you don't.
Well understood. Don't be packing some nasty sandwich no one wants to eat.
Not to bring like juicy meat in the sandwich because then it gets all soggy and that's griss.
Totally understood. Man, that's that's great. You're getting that, Corey.
I'm writing it all down.
Okay, favorite snack.
So this happens a lot because I hear it at Like when I was in elementary school, I heard like little kids complaining about their throats turning after running or stuff like that because like they didn't drink water in their math and their mouth was dry. Bring jolly ranchers because your kids can catch colds, and a lot of kids like me, I don't like certain cough drops for some reason. They're like too strong, and jolly ranchers will help so much. You like suck on it and all like the saliva in your mouth, you like help it. It does like the same thing as jolly rancher, just doesn't have like all the men.
Like green apple, jolly.
Blue, raspberry, cherry and watermelon.
Yeah, that's good. Tip roads best best snack the dried salmon.
That is very okay, Yes, probably that for one of them, because dried salmon jerky. I was very very tired and my head hurt. I did not feel good, and I was just munching on that salmon jerky and it practically made me like walk It felt like I was like in a dream, like I was just like walking along because I was just munching on my salmon jerky.
The effects.
Headache had anything.
To do with I probably did have something to do with.
But I had my own pack this year that my dad got me and.
And I could put yeah, exactly exactly ever wanted.
So I fed you the line about the same and jerky. But what if you had to pack your own snacks. What's your favorite PROA?
Well, I really do like protein bars, but every time I open one of my dad's, like make sure you eat all that, because he thinks that, like I'm gonna he thinks that I'm going to open it and then it's gonna be like really disgusting. But protein bars, I feel like the good protein bars, like the wafer Nature Valley wafer. Yeah, those those really good. And rees Yes, make sure you.
Bring reeses coffee, sugar, and calories.
Along with like the jerky thing. Like I like being able to like have like a big piece of jerky and just like chewing on it while I walk because I can just like walk and kind of think that I'm like restoring energy because I'm eating, but then it's like like chewy, so I'm like doing something and not thinking about just like my legs hurt and wow, this is really annoying and people yeah.
Yeah, Well, let me tell you you guys, You guys uh brought me a lot of happiness this year. Made me super proud to hang out with you guys. It was fun to camp with you guys. It was fun to watch how hard everybody worked. You guys got up way before it got light out, you were coming back way after it got dark. Hiked good, everybody shot good. You guys are fun to have in camp. You help out, you got a long.
Good a lot of dish cleaning. Everybody helped you guys go down.
And washed and clean dishes.
Except for the boys.
Yeah, I wouldn't include him in this compliment. I'm talking to the people in.
The room, but they would you need to write when we were like in the river.
Listen, man, I'm just talking to the ladies right now. Okay, I'm none of the boys, lady, None of the boys are here. Okay, I'm talking to the ladies from my hunting partner. Ladies, you guys did a fantastic job. Made me very proud. What happened.
Nothing got bye buck nuts.
Yes we need.
Can we please talk about the hot butter you mentioned?
But I want to keep comment you for one more second. I'm serious. You guys made me very very happy to be to go hunt with you guys. It was all It's an honor. And when I'm an old man dying and someone asked me listen and someone says, like, what was all of all the hunting you did, what was the best funnest time? I will I already know what I'll say. There's no way, there's no way it's going to get any better. Is hunting youth, dear season. And what makes it so special is you guys coming along.
Kay, thank you.
I appreciate you.
So you can talk about the hot buttered buck nuts. Now. Never gonna wrap it up. You guys gotta go back to school.
Well before buttons, I had something to add to I had, But you had that moment when you were taking a nap, your kids nap twice as long on your chest there. But I think it was the last night we were in camp. You'd already been in your tent for an hour. It seemed like Steve was in bed at eight thirty and the rest of the adults at like nine nine thirty were like, all right, we've had enough. You know, we're going to bed. All the kids are up and I can from my tent. I can hear them. There's no lights on. They're in this cottonwood grove and there's no lights on, and all the adults are in their tents like laying there, and I can just hear. I can't tell what they're talking about, but it's just chatter. And I'm just thinking, man, how great our kids are just hanging out in the dark, you know, in the middle of Montana, somewhere they're safe, there's no screens, there's no phones. They're enjoying themselves. They're comfortable where they are and their surroundings. What could be better?
Yeah?
Yeah, let's just say during that whole experience, me and Mabel went and got ready for bed, but Jimmy and Hayden took the biggest sticks they could. You want there, But no, I don't heard it.
He got a huge log, the taller than him and packed it behind.
His back and they started sword fighting.
They started sword fighting and then almost slapped Jimmy in the head.
That's why those guys are invited. Those guys aren't here. And if we didn't let those knuckleheads come down.
Here and we when we were what you heard was probably well me and Mabel. Like I said, we eventually left, but we were all playing a game that Jimmy made called Scream that got a little boring. It's like where Jimmy and Hayden, which is them every time. It's supposed to be like different people, but it's not. Jimmy made it up. They go into the woods and the rest of the people try to go find them, and if you scream, you have to join the people who are trying to scare you. It's very fun. It can get boring at points when you're not in the right surroundings to do it.
Got let's touch on the hot butt buck nuts, Mabel and go ahead, because your one's that brought them back to camp. Yeah.
So like when we were cutting open the deer, you know, like butchering, we like obviously we we had him upside down, and the bucknuts were like right there because you know, you like cut them off and stuff. So like the buck nuts had been like thrown in the same direction, and I like walked by and I was like, hey, Papa, well like they they had been I think one of like Aina's had been thrown like the bushes. And then we were cutting open mine like we were starting, you know where you started butchering, and I was like, I was like, oh, like, can we like eat buck nuts? I started it with something like that, or like can buck nuts be like like taken and eating and stuff? And my dad he started he was like he was like, oh yeah, and then we started like talking about bucknuts obviously, and yeah, we just like started it. And then I had never heard of from like Hattie like the sign of sex thing, but I mean, I guess we brought them back and yeah, but like we just like I had just said like like, oh, can we like eat those? And then my dad was like, oh yeah, So then we were like talking about them. So I just like put them in a bag and then I put them in a backpack and then we like brought them back and we cut them up and we had him.
So yeah, and then we made a little jingle to it, which is also on Instagram that you can check out. But uh, then after that we had already eaten ours. Me and Hottie both spit ours out because we weren't enjoying them very much. And how he was like, you know, I'll make a funny little video on my phone. Rosie grabbed another bucknut we're eating more so.
That happened.
We ate them. They were interesting.
I had a couple of comments saying that if we peel them even farther, they'll be even They'll be even better somehow, and you won't get that sort of tightness that you're worried about. It sort of generates the exit.
Oh taking the next layer of skin off. Yeah, I'm not familiar. I'll check that out.
Either, but I think next time I do them, I am going to pre slice and do like a breading. Yeah, pan fry or better.
Yeah, you should bring your buck nuts bag. Now.
The oldest thing every year called the Testicle Festival, and it'd be like, wow, I want to go to that. They just fry up all these calf all these steer nuts and then be a big old deal. All right, gal, thanks for coming down to the show. Everybody, No one's aging out right. You got another year?
Oh yeah, two more years?
I thought it. You're sixteen fifteen last year, okay, fifteen, two more years.
We're not losing anyone. We're not losing any hunters. Everybody's still in.
Even if I'm not hunting.
We had I don't know if you guys remember we had to retire one of our guys, Hattie's brother Harrison aged out.
If we have another four day, he'll he could come during general.
Had his brother Harrison aged out. But we got a lot of We got a lot coming up. I got one kid not even old enough, and I said, one day, if I was saying one day, if you could do, if there was a youth elk season, I'd still be having kids. But someday when my nine year old hits to be fifteen, I'm gonna be looking for I'm gonna adopt. Just so you'm gonna adopt a nine year old.
You could just take out friends kids too. Might be easy.
That might be less expensive too. All right, girl, thanks so much for coming down. You guys. You going back to school?
Yep, yeah, going back going back to school.
Okay, all right, let's go get educated. Thank you everybody.
Bye bye, bye bye.
Why why.
Cold cold?
There ain't no damn anywhere on this God for shaken mountains