Reflecting on a Year of Outdoor Tales and Preparing for New Adventures in 2024

Speaker 1: 0:00

seven, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year. Welcome back to the Going State Outdoors in Podcast presented by Boondocks Hunting. I'm your host, mike Nitray, and today, guys, it's just me. I haven't done this in such a long time, just recorded by myself, and I think no other perfect way to record our New Year's Eve episode is to just me myself and I. It's been probably about two years since I've recorded something by myself. So welcome, guys.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Happy New Year's Eve to everyone out there. If you've listened to this the day before, because we're going to be dropping this a couple of hours before, I think people are going out to New Year's Eve party or whatever they're doing. So if you are catching this, you know, happy New Year's Eve. If you're catching it the next day, or whatever the case is, welcome to the New Year. It's 2024 and I hope we have a great New Year.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Guys, it's going to be real simple. I'm not going to keep this long. This is going to be like a short special. I'm going to go over some of the numbers and the best things, episodes and stuff like that the fan, the listener vote, which competition is still going on. I kind of screwed it up and had it a day behind that I wanted to, but so let's get into it. For you guys who know I want to say thank you. Without this and without you guys and the listeners and everything like that and our guests that we've had on, none of this would have been possible. You know we're three years or over 100 episodes. You know well over 10,000 downloads I think we're close to 20,000 downloads if I'm not mistaken. None of this would be possible without you guys. So you know I appreciate every single one of you guys who've listened, tuned in, gave feedback and then for the people that come on, like you know, our guests, like thank you guys so much for coming on and spending time to sit down with us and talk. You know we may not be the best podcast out there, but you know it's one thing for sure Our listeners, you know they have fun listening. They learn a bunch of valuable stuff, especially like a lot of the newer guys and the rookies and stuff like that. Like I've gotten a lot of feedback in the last like couple months. Thank you guys for tuning in and you know we have a hell of a time recording and it's always a blast with the guys from Andrew, dustin Peyton, you know, from our team, you know, thank you so much for the ride. And then you know for the for, like American Mike and Kyle, and you know Dave and Chris, and you know the guys who come on, you know, more frequently, you know thank you so much for, for being a part of this and I, you know, couldn't want to, wouldn't be. You know where I am without, without, without a lot of you guys. So thank you, you know.

Speaker 1: 3:04

And for anyone who knows our podcast and you know, has gone through the episodes, we have a dream hunt. We have a segment that we always go with dream hunt and, like you know, I always ask everyone what's your dream hunt? And you know money's not a price two weeks anywhere, where would it be? You know, this year, for 2023, I actually wrote down, you know what people said and everything like that. And years in the past we've done this and I can tell you elk was kicking ass for the longest time, like elk, elk, elk, elk, elk. Well, I don't know if elk isn't the lead anymore. And you know, from just this year alone, you know we have roughly, I don't know 20, 24 new, new guests that we had on, so. So we did this with 24 new guests. If you've been on before, we really don't go over it again, but when it's your first time on, we always go over this.

Speaker 1: 4:04

So you know, I'll give you the animals that people put down for their dream hunt. We have one for caribou, one for mule deer, one for red stag, one duck hunt, so, like waterfowl, one bison, one mountain lion, one bear, then we have two for white-tailed duck, two for a sheep or goat, and after that it gets to the top two, which, of course, most people would understand, is Elk and Moose, and for the first time in 2023, our guests said Moose. Moose was the majority answer with seven and Elk was the majority answer with five, and everyone who knows us and everyone knows who knows me, moose is my number one. There's no doubt about it. As cool as it would be to do a Elk hunt, I think Moose is, if you're looking at the dreams, elk is a lot more achievable than Moose is. And what I believe you know and I would love to do an Alaskan hunt for Moose. So that's right there up there. So I'm happy to say 2023, moose was the winner. But yeah, so that is something that we do.

Speaker 1: 5:22

That's one of the segments. We're gonna roll with that segment in 2024. We're gonna be rolling with also another segment. It is going to be our round table segment where I get a bunch of people on and we just go around round table sharing advice, things that we believe in, stuff like that. So if you guys any kind of questions, topics on that, please let us know. If you want to be a part of it, please DM us and you know we will add you in Also. Another thing that we'll be moving forward to with 2024 for a segment is the what would you do segment. So I'm really excited for that. If anyone's got any scenarios that they want to bring up or hear what we would think about, please let us know. Please DM us, text us, call us. Whatever you got to do, you know we could always use the scenarios and situations like that, but that is a big plan for us as well, moving forward in 2024.

Speaker 1: 6:20

And while we're on the 2024 topic, the plan is and we're hoping, once the season ends at least, we'll be coming up with either another segment, at least another segment run by somebody else, or we will be introducing, hopefully, a brand new show. That's as much as I'm going to give right now. We hope that the Boondocks Hunting podcast will, or the Boondocks Hunting page will be moving into a network of podcasts. That's the goal. If anyone is interested and they would like to start a podcast or something like that, please feel free to DM me or text me or call me or whatever, and you know I am always looking for people. If you got an idea or anything like that, that's the big part. Like Boondocks Hunting, I want to move to a marketing where it's going to be a bunch of networks for podcasts and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's definitely look for that on the move and what we're going to be moving forward in 2024.

Speaker 1: 7:26

What else? I know you guys want to hear the top five, so let's get into the statistics. Like I said, this is not going to be a long episode. This is going to be really short episode. So for 2023, the Garden State Outdoors and Podcast wrap up, we had 48 episodes. I think that's an all time high for episodes. If I'm not mistaken, we were a what Buzzsprout considers a weekly warrior. We average.92 episodes per week. We are hammering a lot in the last since hunting season, almost two episodes a week. I do like to take a break after the hunting season, so yet again 2024. After the season, I will be taking a short break and then we'll be getting back into recording and everything like that. So, yeah, I'll be taking a break and then I like to take a break sometime in the summer, usually for 4th of July, so I'll take a little bit of time off and everything like that. So that is that is what we're going to be doing, but besides that, we're rolling out and podcast at least once a week.

Speaker 1: 8:31

For the most part we were in the number one most popular actually the top areas or cities or whatever you want to call it downloads for our, for our podcast is. Number five was Swedesboro, new Jersey. Number two is Philadelphia. Number three was my town. Number four is New York, New York, and then number one and I may have just screwed up that number, I don't know how I just did that number two was New York, new York, and number one was Vermont. Vermont was a hotspot for us this year with the most downloads. I don't know who's listening out in Vermont, but you know, let us know like reach out to us. We would like to get somebody on from Vermont. I would love to go out to Vermont to hunt at some point, eventually being, you know, hunting in Maine and stuff is not too far away. So you know, thank you to to everyone out there, like I said, who's listening, but shout out to Vermont at being the number one downloaded city for us, obviously, with countries we've been we've been in 14 countries, which is great.

Speaker 1: 9:48

The top countries Taiwan, canada, qatar, germany and then, of course, united States is not even anywhere close. Taiwan was an interesting one I don't know if there's anyone in the military any like that, that's where you know people were stationed but a very interesting one. Qatar, if I'm saying even correctly, we've always gotten like a few out of there, so that's not. Germany is not a strange one to pop up. I've used to Germany. Canada is yeah, but I wish there's usually more. I'm surprised it's the number four. But yeah, I mean so far, hell, hell of a year for podcasts and we only continue to grow. We're going to have a whole bunch of episodes and everything like that.

Speaker 1: 10:37

I plan to get to 50 episodes for 2024, and, you know, possibly, at least hopefully double double our downloads and now that we get the video option and everything like that. I'm hoping that we can double our downloads, get into the 200 mark for the year and, you know, keep going from there for our top downloaded episodes for 2023. And before I get in, actually I'll get into the number five. I'll do the top three and then I'll get into the honor honorable mentions Top, the top five. Number five seek wilderness part one episode that we did with them, the collab that we did with the seek wilderness boys and the episode actually that is one of my favorite ones that I did love talking to those guys. Can't wait to get them back on and everything like that and hopefully do some an event or something like that, being the two top podcasts, I guess from New Jersey or whatever, if you, if you want to say that it's the only ones I really want to talk about for hunting, there could be more, could be mistaken, but I'm getting getting those guys up and doing something with them. That would be extremely fun.

Speaker 1: 11:50

And then number four is our 100th episode. Our 100 episode, which was is me, justin, andrew, I think that was it, maybe somebody else, but, like, I think it was us. And you know, we told some, told some great stories, we told some highlights, because that really, I think was at the end of the year and everything like that, and our end of the year wrap up episode, if I'm not mistaken, the frozen duck stories on there, so, or the zombie duck story, which is one of my favorite stories, and everything like that that's on there. So if you haven't already checked that out, go check that out.

Speaker 1: 12:33

The number three is the urban pursuit episode with Dave, and I kind of figured that this was going to be in the top. Dave's got a such a great following, very loyal following. Everyone wants to really hear Dave speak. He's done so well with this social media and being an advocate for hunting and doing stuff correctly. I'm really happy to say that he's, you know, become one of my great friends and everything like that. And you know we love doing a collab with Dave. We love going on there there Instagram live and what they're doing over there pursuit like pursue, energy live and and everything like that. So great stuff from over there. If you have not checked out that episode, I highly recommend and go check them out. Go check out urban pursuit. Go check out their Instagram lives. It is honestly amazing. Every Friday tune in. It's some. It's some great stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Then we're going to go into the honorable mentions. You know, for honorable mentions, one of my favorite episodes recording was Buckeye Brothers. Buckeye Brothers is a great one. It was with our guy Bradley man, action-packed episode. You know some great hunts, talking about hunting some great deer, some big deer, and hunting with light rain, you know, and how much of a key that was and everything like that. A real interesting episode. So a shout out to Brad for making the honorable mention.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Another one Rockland Realers. I always love having him on. I would love to do something with Dennis at some point and get him on more often or do something with the fishing. I definitely would like to talk to him about that. That may be something that we work on in the future but he's a great guy to talk to. Great stories. You know kills, the pike kills. You know the snake heads like man, everything you know bass fishing, stripers, trout, everything you know and doing in the concrete jungle in New York and everything like that. And I love you know we're talking about where he heard of somebody or knew somebody that actually fished out a body. So if you haven't seen listen to that one, go check that one out because that one is an amazing episode. I highly recommend that one. Then, of course, I had to give it to Rookie Hunting.

Speaker 1: 15:09

I always love talking to her as well, you know, and she's real, she's down to earth, you know, and she tells me exactly how it is. And you know, the episode that we did, you know, was after a season of you know, after such a successful season. It was more of a I don't want to say a struggle, but it was just a. She went through new situations and, you know, she had some opportunities on smaller deer and everything like that, and she held true to what her beliefs are and everything like that. So that was a real unique episode. I do love talking to her. I imagine she'll probably be back on for 2024. So, you know, look out for that.

Speaker 1: 15:48

You know, and I can't not mention after that, just out of the number six team, buffalo Outdoors real, family oriented, real, real, truly amazing and inspiring, inspiring backstory and everything like that. So go check out that episode. Like there's no way you could just see how the bond and everything like that that they have over there. So that was a really unique one and real, more of a personal one. Now that episode got personal, deep and everything like that. So a real good one right there.

Speaker 1: 16:26

So before we, before we move on, I mean I gave two of my favorites with Dave and Buck. I am, before we get to top two, downloaded. You know every episode was amazing, every episode I truly loved. Everyone is unique in their own ways. Every episode has a different story to tell. People have a different story, different experience, different strategy, so there's just so much to learn. So it's harder to give like my top episodes because, honestly, I love them on. This is why I love doing this. I get to talk to people about hunting and fishing in the outdoors and everything that I love, so it makes it very difficult to write. But, for instance, I will give, like I said, urban pursuit, buckeye Brothers, probably our most recent downloaded, if you guys have yet to listen to this, and this one dropped. When did we drop this? On December 22nd, so it's fairly new.

Speaker 1: 17:24

You know it is our the unseen craft of trappers in the Pennsylvania wilderness with Jason absolutely loved it. You know the whole trapping situation is so unique because you don't get it as much, you don't hear people trapping as much. It's something I want to eventually get into is trapping. There's just it's a whole another world in the outdoors that I find so unique and I imagine a lot of people do, because the download numbers are doing really well for themselves. Really unique episode. Highly recommend that.

Speaker 1: 17:55

And then after that, you know how, you know how can I forget Carolina Reaper? Like that was a great one. That was really unique just off, how he hunts and historically, and you know what he goes into his hunting seasons and you know just the work he does before actually even hunting. You know, and it really starts out by finding fun. You know those finding spots that he was talking about and when the funds are dropping, everything like that, so he can kind of calculate and get the historic information he needs of when you're in the area getting hot and all these things. So really unique. He's definitely coming back on where we're going to dive even deeper once the season's done, into that whole situation. So I'm really excited for that one. And then I mean any of the episodes I did with American Mike. You know they're always some of my favorites, so it's great to you know that he came back and came back with a bang and you know just his passion of each episode just kept getting higher and higher and higher. So, like always got to give it to my man, american Mike. Like you know, if you guys aren't following him, you have to go follow him now, because what a journey.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Another one I would say is the round table segment. Just because it was the new segment that we're doing, it was all different hunters is the most people that we've had on for a podcast episode, so I was a little nervous, think it was going to be chaotic and everything like that, and actually turned out really well, found out a lot of great information. You know you get to sit back, relax, you get the guys are talking, going around, kind of like a round table segment, and everyone gets to talk and get their input in and everything like that. So that is definitely coming back on to be doing that with. You know different groups of people, stuff like that. So I'm really excited for that one and then I'll give you guys. I'll give you guys two more. It's really man, it's really hard because you got. You know the one. Of course, I always love recording with Lusk, john Lusk, you know, with the broadheads I'm huge broadhead nerd.

Speaker 1: 19:56

The outdoors and color episode that I did, you know, with Jones J Jones Gosh, what else? The 3D printing one. That was a great one. The turkey talk segments that we always do are great, man, it's just so hard. But if I was going to give one more, you know it would honestly be pine and pine. I had a lot of fun talking about the guys, the guys pine and pine company. They're out of South Jersey, so, andrew, he's been hunting for a while. They're hunting down the pines on South Jersey, as you can know from their name on Instagram and like that. A real great episode. Really loved doing that. Love to get him back on, love to finally meet up with him and everything like that. We hope to be doing some more events and everything like that Moving forward in 2024. So look out for that so we can meet up with some of you guys and things like that. But, all right, let's get down to our.

Speaker 1: 21:01

The last two for top downloaded for 2023. And we have that number two, which was an absolutely amazing episode and I'm so happy that the people enjoyed it and there was so much free feedback was breaking barriers in the outdoor with Megan. I mean, she said she was nervous when she came on and was a little, you know, timid, I guess, or whatever the case is, but, man, the episode went absolutely perfect. You know, I couldn't have asked for anything better from her. She, you know, really got going and really was, you know, talking about, you know how she hunts and everything that she's gone through and you know is now the provider and her family and everything like that. So I cannot wait to get her back on. She is going to be coming back on in 2024.

Speaker 1: 21:50

And then the number one episode for 2023 is 99 problems, but a buck ain't one. And that was, I think, our new year, so that was almost. That was exactly like a year ago when that episode dropped. And let me tell you that one's hell of an episode. That was the series that we're doing with Kyle, our whitetail series, man, sure as hell, one of my favorites, for sure, just in general, from three years that I've been recording, that segment was just a lot of fun. All those episodes were a lot of fun. So we have that with Kyle.

Speaker 1: 22:31

So, like I said, the top five are seek one, the 100th episode, urban pursuit, breaking barriers, with Megan, and the 99 problems, but a buck ain't one with Kyle. And let me tell you guys, I'm not announcing about one of those five episodes. Actually, I'm not even knocking, even say, because it'll kind of give it away. So I'm not even say it right now, but, man, I will. Once we get to the 200th episode, I will be dropping Hopefully it'll be stay the same. I will be dropping some, some news about one of those episodes that I'm really happy and proud about. But, yeah, thank you, thank you guys all for that's listen.

Speaker 1: 23:13

And the reason why I moved to do the listen to 2023 listener vote, which I'm going to be doing every year, so good feedback from everyone, a lot of people had a lot of fun doing that was because, if you look at it, those episodes were all from the beginning of the year, so they had a whole year to to, to gain all this steam and get all those downloads and everything like that. And some of the newer is like newer ones, like the trapping. When I said, like that one only like a week old, you know, so it doesn't get the same, like oh, we're doing the, you know the best of 23, and when it comes just to downloads, like it's not the same. So that's why I moved forward and I did what I did and, man, I had hell of a time designing at all the people that were recorded with us. They had a hell of a time, they had great feedback, they loved it. We are still going on. So right now, let me pull everything up.

Speaker 1: 24:13

So, first of all, how we did it and what I did was I broke it down as I took every episode and I think there was like 12. I did like, after I did a 44444, so I think there's there's 12 of them, and what I did was I had a vote and the top two would move on to the next round. So I did that. You know I would do to every day, right, which one amazing, since it was growing and new, like some of the bigger pages and stuff like that actually didn't do as good as I was going to think. Like some people are like oh man, you put me up, you know, against somebody that's 12,000 followers. Buddy, you may only have two or three thousand followers, but you got some of the highest votes, like. So it didn't really matter at the end of the day, how many followers you had on Instagram. I think the way it worked out it was kind of perfect. But so, like I said, we broke it down. I did the four for each one and then the top two would move on. And how I seed it was by downloads or by votes. So the number one was Mike, who got the most, and he had a bunch of episodes and stuff like that, so I had his.

Speaker 1: 25:33

So it was Mary O's returning to the hunt versus standoff in the wild, and returning to the hunt was one of Mike's episodes and standoff in the wild had Mike in it, but it was one of it during our Bear series. And we had Buckeye Brothers versus Blusk Archery Adventure episode man. That was a tough one, that was really a tough one. Then we had Legacy Pursuit versus Turkey Talk segment. We had Breaking Barriers versus our Mock Scrape. We had our Only Bows versus Buzzer Beater. We had Team Buffalo Outdoors versus the Round Table segment. We had the Outdoors in Color versus Turkey Talk and the White Tail Bloodline versus Archery Strong, and then each of those winners went into face the highest for the next round and it was the final chapter, which was American Mike's number one rated episode for the thing versus returning to the hunt, which is his. Then we had Buckeye Brothers versus Rookie Hunting, which was a back and forth mix up which Buckeye Brothers finally got the one ahead and won that round.

Speaker 1: 26:42

The final chapter won its round. Then we had Corporate to Wilderness versus Gavron, and then Legacy Pursuit, which is a legacy pursuit, one Breaking Barriers versus our 100th episode and Breaking Barriers one by one. Only Bows versus Urban Pursuit, which if I knew that was going to work out the way it was, I would have had it. So it would go on to like they would have met in, like the final four or something like that, because yet again those are too great with, and only Bows only pulled it out by two. So that was a back and forth.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Kept on going, kept on going, switching back and forth. We had the round table segment versus what you would do, which roundtiger was number one. We had the outdoors in color versus team Wackensack, that outdoors in color, one that. And then the white tail bloodline versus nine Aaron Prons, but a buck anyone, and white tail bloodline one that. Then we went to the next round, the final eight or the top eight, final, the final chapter versus buck Eyebrothers, and I honestly think the one who wins this one is going to win. And the final chapter, one that one, yet again, just kept going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Then we had breaking barriers versus legacy pursuit. Which breaking barriers? One we had only Bows versus the round table segment. Only Bows won that. Then we had the white tail bloodline versus outdoors in color. Which white tail bloodline one. We went to the top four. The final chapter versus breaking barrier, and then only Bows versus a white tail bloodline Both the final chapter and only Bows one.

Speaker 1: 28:24

Moving on into our finals, which is going on currently, right now and I will give you a little sneak peek, let's see if it's a crazy, if it's a crazy number, I may announce the winner right here. But I mean an absolutely slug fest going on right now where it's going back and forth. Right now, the final chapter this is live at 3 tournament Wednesday on your Canang matchtime is in the lead, but it's not a crazy lead, so I'm not gonna announce it until probably, maybe next episode or I don't know. Maybe I'll just announce it tomorrow, but we'll see. But right now it's back and forth, with the final chapter in front right there, and the winner of that will get some fruit merch from us. They'll get an automatic, of course.

Speaker 1: 29:12

They're coming back on for an episode and then moving forward in 2024, we're gonna come up every year with maybe a trophy and then you win something or something like that. Maybe do it the top two, top three, something like that. So if you guys got any ideas, please throw them at us. We got all year to figure this out and how we're gonna do it. So we're gonna get it done correctly. And I do have another announcement to make. I'm gonna make this one a little bit of a kind of like a tournament style that we are doing right now and how's it going? Man, our hunting season for me has not been going well, but the tournament definitely has. So we'll be breaking that down and, like I said, there's going to be a bunch of stuff that we'll be announcing more later, but right now, love how everything's going. Everything's really exciting. Thank you yet again for everything from all you guys.

Speaker 1: 30:12

I don't know if there's really anything else that we really need to go for. Like, I gotta start getting ready. I had to work today because I had COVID, so I had to work today. I've never worked on New Year's Eve, but I was like, all right, I'll work, I'm not staying super late. So I just worked the day shift or anything like that. So I gotta start getting ready and getting moving because, like, I think I gotta be at dinner or something like that in like an hour but I still have to edit this and get everything done ready so I can drop this. But I mean, hell, I had a fun.

Speaker 1: 30:45

2023. I'm now 30 years old. Holy crap, I'm getting old. The podcast is on three years, soon to be four years, I believe. I have to double check that and the page is doing well. We got a bunch of stuff going on. We hopefully will have a couple more podcasts and everything like that coming out.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Like I said, big things expecting 2024. Gotta kill myself a buck. Gotta kill myself a deer. I just need meat in the freezer. Waterfowl hunting has been going well, but we'll be getting more into that when we do the season breakdown.

Speaker 1: 31:25

If I haven't killed a deer by the season's done man, I don't know. I'm getting a little nervous, guys. I'm getting a little nervous, but I'm still confident myself. And it's not that I haven't seen deer or anything like that, it's just I like to shoot, trying to get the most meat, especially for doads, like I want to get the most meat I possibly can. So it's back to the winter bow is back to being fill the freezer moment, so that's what we're at, and still trying to waterfowl hunt and everything like that. So, yeah, no, I think that's going to ended.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Just because I don't want to be editing forever, I may have to do this more often and just get on every once in a while by myself because I'm actually having fun. I seem a little crazy because it's so weird, because I'm usually talking to people, so now just talking to myself, kind of, even though people are listening to this right now, but right now no one is listening to it. But as we speak, while you guys are listening, gosh, I'm just confusing myself. But yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thank you guys so much. It definitely means a lot. Thank you to all my listeners out there.

Speaker 1: 32:43

Thank you for everyone that has come on and participated in this. Anyone who wants to come, please just hit me up. Like it doesn't take much, like I don't really care if you're new to hunting and you want to come on. Come on If you shit. If, even if you don't hunt like I actually do plan on getting someone on who doesn't hunt and doesn't really agree with what we do, because I want to get their perspective about it. So that is still a huge goal of mine. I'm open for collabs, anything like that. Like, listen, I'm not, like I don't really care, I just want to have fun, talk, hunting, talk, fishing, talk. You know the outdoors do what we do, make content for you guys and you know you guys get to listen to me talk, you know. But a bunch of plans will let you guys know more in the future. 2023 has been great. Can't wait for 2024, which is tomorrow. Jesus Christ, big things coming in 2024. Happy New Year everyone. Best of luck to you guys and, you know, stay safe out there.