Boondocks Hunting Podcast
Welcome to the home of the Boondocks Hunting Podcast Family — where real stories, raw experiences, and the outdoor lifestyle come together.
This is your hub for everything Boondocks Hunting, featuring our shows:
The Garden State Outdoorsmen Podcast, Chase the Unknown, and Echoes of the Hunt: Behind the Hunt — a deeper dive behind the story of the hunters.
From New Jersey whitetail woods to out-of-state adventures, we dive deep into hunting, fishing, conservation, and the mindset that drives it all. Join us as we break down tactics, share unfiltered stories from the field, bring on incredible guests, and showcase the passion behind the pursuit.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just getting started, you're part of the family here.
Tune in… and get ready to Chase the Unknown.
Boondocks Hunting Podcast
Going Wild: From Corporate World to Adventurous Wilderness with Andrew Gavrun
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Get ready to embark on a thrilling adventure with us and our special guest Andrew Gavron, the avid outdoorsman behind 'Gavrun's Wild'. Picture this - trading in your corporate tie to cast fishing lines and to chase the wild, sound too good to be true? Well, for Andrew, this is his reality. He spills the beans on his journey from the corporate world to the wilderness, offering valuable insights on brand building in the outdoor industry, and the art of consistently churning out engaging content for the digital age.
We'll take you through the captivating world of hunting and fishing, exploring our personal experiences from the tender age of 13 months old. We'll talk about the challenges of gun and bow hunting, the adrenaline rush that comes with it, and the pure joy of turning our harvest into food. We invite you to listen in as we discuss the strategies and patterns we use, the unique bond hunters develop with individual deer, and how hunting can be a therapeutic escape from life's adversity.
And the journey doesn't stop there. We'll take you through the dense forests of Maine and New Jersey, sharing our experiences of hunting moose and bear. We'll talk about the thrill of the chase, the grit needed to navigate the terrain, and the satisfying sense of accomplishment after a successful hunt. We'll also share our dream hunts, hunting preferences, and upcoming events. Get ready for an episode packed with engaging conversation and invaluable insights. So, come on, let's go wild!
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Running a Hunting and Fishing Brand
Speaker 1Welcome back to the Garden State Outdoors and Podcast presented by Boone Nuxhunning . I'm your host , mike Nitro , and today we have Andrew Gavron . I said that correctly ? Oh yeah , perfect , and you go by the name of Gavron or Gavron's Wild , yeah .
Speaker 2Gavron's Wild . That's how you can look me up on Instagram , youtube , tiktok all the great social media platforms now .
Speaker 1Well , welcome to the show . It's a pleasure to get you on . You know what we're going to . Hit off real quick , and usually you start with the . You know the backstory , but , real quick , you know you're doing this or we're talking a little bit , so you're basically doing this full time . You know you're going to be working part-time and everything like that , but you left your job and you're now picking this up full time . What are some of the difficulties ? You know running a social media platform and hunting and a brand that you weren't expecting before getting into it .
Speaker 2Yeah , so there's just so much that goes into just running any sort of social media platform for a brand , and especially when you're trying to start a brand in the hunting and fishing space , there's just so much that goes into it . But , to you know , track back a little bit for everybody else that's listening . I was working in Midtown Manhattan for quite a few years . You know , just normal corporate jobs , working for fintech companies , recruiter , auditor , little things like that . Just to you know , have a career and make it how everybody else makes it in this you know world , especially in our metropolitan area in New York , new Jersey . But I was going into work every day and I was just after so many , you know , months and months and months of just getting onto a train and going into the city , walking a couple blocks in the rain or whatever , getting into your building and sitting there with people that are completely disconnected . They're not the same type of people that you and me are , mike , they're just they don't have a grasp on what life is you ?
Speaker 2know , what our connection with our food , for example , or connection with nature , connection with anything to do , with anything that's not in the city or work related . These people were just so disconnected . You know they would talk about these great skiing trips that they might go on and things like that and it was really great . But you're doing one thing a year and you're just putting yourself in this tiny little place , a little apartment in the city , walking over to your job and then working inside these four walls all day , not seeing the sunlight and all that stuff . And you know it just got really like kind of emotional for me at a certain point , where I was like this is not it . This isn't what life is . We're not supposed to be caged up like this . I got to do something else that's going to make me happy . So I took the time , I really researched it , I talked to my fiance about it and came up with a decent plan to say you know what ? I have enough money that I can set aside for a little while and I can give this a try . And this is what I want to do .
Speaker 2I want to try to make it in the social media world Start a brand for hunting and fishing . I see so many people that are successful at doing it . Let me give it a try , and it is not easy at all . If you're thinking about trying it , think again . Try something else first . You know like it's not easy . I'm sure there's other people that have had way better success than myself that are just flying through it Like it's nothing and it's just second nature to them , but for me that's just not how it's been . The grind is there and it is just a slow grind . You talked about a lot of people that are big in the hunting and fishing industry . For example , like deer meat for dinner , who's down in Florida . He was out for , I think , like six or seven years making literally no money and then all of a sudden boom blows up and he's a multimillionaire . He's getting boats just given to him for free and things like that . I want to cut to the pie , so I wanted to get into it .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , it's an absolute grind when you're looking at it , you know , and pretty before you get into this , you know you really have to . If anyone's looking to get into this , I don't , it's , I don't . We don't want to discourage you because we want as many people to get into the outdoors and everything like that . But you know , in the beginning it's hard to grow unless you really what I know , especially on Instagram , youtube , you got to be posting every day . So that means you've got to be able to get out and get content almost every day . Or if the days that you are getting out , you have to get enough content . That's going to last you maybe the rest of the week until you can get back out again .
Speaker 1You know , when we're filming our hounds , we have to get enough film right , and I'm not talking about B film , which everyone . If you guys don't know what B film is , you know it's , it's the you walking in , it's you know , a shot of your bow here , the sunset . Whatever it is , your main film , your A film right has to be a beer bear , turkey , you know , but you have to get a lot of it , you know .
Speaker 1And if you're not , unfortunately , if you're not seeing deer , if you're in a state where you don't see deer , a big deer , whatever it does get harder , you know , if you're out fishing and at the end of the day you've got to be , you got to be pulling it , you got to produce . You know , and it's a part of it , you have to grind , so you have no choice but to get out there and do stuff . You know , and it as much as it sucks . If you are unsuccessful , it's not for hunting . I don't think it's the end of the world if you're unsuccessful , but for fishing I think it's a little different . You can correct me if I'm from wrongs , but if you don't catch a fish , it's harder to produce a episode versus with hunting because there are so many animals and there are .
Speaker 1You know you can still , without shooting a deer , you could still video a deer . You can video a bear , you can video a hawk , turkey , whatever it is . You know you can get and I mean you know you get the little bugs and if the clock crowning up your sand like , you can film that and it's a pretty neat thing , you know . So I think it's just an all just an absolute grind and that's just filming . You know that's just filming it all . You know , when we get into the editing , these videos have to be edited correctly . The podcast you know , if you do a podcast they have to be edited correctly . Like it's just a world where you never thought and it does . Yeah , it does take you looking almost anybody and it takes some time , but then once you do get on , you know it's pretty worth it in the long run .
Speaker 2Yeah , I can't agree with you the worth it in the long run yet , because I'm not in the long run , I'm just my first year in . But I agree with you on a ton of points , especially that fishing is actually a lot more difficult to produce a show for than hunting . I could go out and I can still catch five or six fish that I'm looking to make a video about , but if it's not filmed perfectly correctly , whatever the case is , you're out there with a camera that has X battery life and X memory life . Okay , so you're not just going out there and setting up a camera in a position pointing it towards you where you're standing and fishing and just letting it roll all day and if you are , send me what you have .
Speaker 2I need to know what you're using , I need to know what you're doing and it's probably going to be super expensive . And you know , affording that sort of thing always was really tough for me Getting into this . You know you're spending you know a few grand on your camera equipment . That includes your camera , your audio , your stands , your tripods and things like that . Then a really good editing computer there's another thousand at least . That doesn't even go into a little bit of things you know like for hunting and everything else like that . It's an expensive , I would almost call it a hobby , an expensive self-filming hobby , and then when you want to get into the editing , like I said , that's even more money .
Speaker 2But going back to my point about fishing versus hunting and it being easier to film a series or film an episode , for hunting I mean , people get into what you're doing to attempt to get something , versus like for fishing . You're attempting to get something and you don't get it . Is that even worth doing ? Versus with hunting ? You're attempting to . You know , do a deer drive to a buddy or you know you're just going to be hunting this valve . Whatever the case is , you're scouting , you can show sign . You could show anything there that's going to have people interested in what you're doing Versus fishing . If you're just sitting there talking about fishing , it's really not going to work as well as if you're showing them how to do it .
Challenges in Filming Fishing Videos
Speaker 2So I found that actually my fishing videos are so much tougher to film . They're insanely hard to produce and I dropped like a $1,500 camera in the water during trout season . I hate trout fishing , so it just made me that much more upset yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's not easy .
Speaker 2You know , because you could go out one day fishing and have really , really great success just per se . You're on a trout stream I know you like to trout fish . You're on a trout stream , you fish this specific run and you bang five trout in like a half hour and you're like , awesome , cool . I'm coming back tomorrow and bring my cameras . I'm going to have everything set up . I got my audio equipment and I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to teach people how to do this tomorrow .
Speaker 2Well , you come back tomorrow and you cannot produce a fish in the same pocket . You just produce five fish in the day prior and it is so frustrating . That's what's so much harder about fishing versus the hunting . You know hunting is difficult because you're going after a mammal that has insane intelligence that can do anything it wants . It's going to walk there , walk here . This thing is in a stream that's five foot wide and the pocket's 30 foot tall whatever you know 30 foot long , and you cannot get that fish to hit , and it's so much more frustrating than hunting for sure , filming anyway .
Speaker 1Filming wise 100% , producing content 100% . But if you've noticed this , filming videos , once they're done , do better than hunting and for at least me and a lot of the people that I know just in the fishing industry the anti hunters they don't crucify fishing like they do hunting , you know . So you have to be very careful with your hunting . You're going to get a lot more backlash with hunting , but it gets a lot more people . Like . Most of my biggest videos have nothing to do with killing a deer . They're usually fishing or it's a review for some hunting clothes , like . I think our biggest was . Our biggest was a one minute clip of our podcast and it's a bunch of guys just for uncle Larry's outdoors talking about fishing and I made a quick little clip and that was at like 30 or 40,000 views . But then I get a hunting .
Speaker 1One , all well and done , shot pretty well , just kill a deer , maybe a couple hundred views . Then I did a we Joe did a SICK review that 15,000 views , 20,000 views , whatever you know the cases . No hunting involved , no , nothing . But then I do my buck video and I kill a big , you know big Jersey buck and the you know five , six hundred views , which is not bad . I'm not , you know five percent , I will take that . But still , like it's just night and day , like even a you know my trout fishing videos , they have way more views because it's it's not frowned upon . And I think also social media platforms push more of the fishing content than they're going to do as the hunting content .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I don't know if you notice the difference between YouTube and Instagram . A hundred percent . Youtube is not going to be pushing your hunting stuff as hard as you can and push your fishing stuff , and on Instagram you can put up you pulling the heart out of an animal and showing how great it is that you have this , and the process from the second you pull the trigger all the way until that thing is on the plate . Instagram will allow you to do that . Youtube is going to flag it , is going to take it down , is going to ban you from the platform and ultimately , you're not even going to have a chance for a career on YouTube . If you do the wrong things , you have too many strikes against you . So that's that goes into our editing process .
Speaker 2My editing process takes forever to produce a simple , like eight to 10 minute long video . I'm super I'll just call it anal about what I do when I'm sitting here at the computer . I've been working on this same video from last November . Right now I'm trying to finish it , produce it this week , and it is taking just forever because , no matter how much you like it , you say you know what , there's a little bit of blood in that scene . Let's go in and let's darken this up , change this . Let's do that , you know , because people don't have the mental or what's it called when you're they get distracted so easily . You get distracted so easily by the next video . You just want to move to the next thing . So if it's not fast enough , it's not catchy enough , if it's not quick enough , these people are just going to move right by it and that's frustrating for me and it's frustrating for you .
Speaker 2Like you said , you got this great deer on video . The second that you pull the trigger and the person knows that you got that deer , they're going to swipe to the next video and not even wait to see it . Nothing like that . And that affects your percentages on your videos . If you for people who don't know , if you produce a video , you publish it and you get 100% view on that video , meaning that , mike , you view my video . It's a 10 second long video and you view the entire 10 seconds . That means I got 100% view for that video .
Speaker 2But if you only view 20% , that means that they don't want to push it as much . So if it gets 110% view or 100% view or 90% view and keeps on going with that consistently throughout the day , it's going to push your video more and more and more , Because that means people want to watch it . And if it only gets 20% , then it's not going to get pushed . And that's just one of the frustrating things , Because I spent no time whatsoever to produce a 30 second long video , put it up on social media and it gets thousands and thousands of views because it's natural . It's normal .
Speaker 2But then I edit a video . It takes me three , four hours to edit it . It's the same length . It gets no views and it's not because of anything I did or anything you did . It's just because people didn't find it catchy enough right in the beginning and they decided to swipe off of it . That's probably the most frustrating part about long form content for myself , and it's definitely pushed me to be more on the YouTube . Shorts , Instagram Reels , short stuff that's less than 60 seconds has to be like less than 35 seconds for most people to actually want to view it . So I really want to be in the long form more , but people just they don't have the attention span for it .
Speaker 1It's definitely frustrating because I've noticed that as well . Yet again , my shorts do a lot better . But the one thing I don't like about shorts is it's for your phone , basically , and so when you do film like we're doing , we're filming with your main camera , your GoPro , maybe your Tapticam . Whatever you're filming with , it is a wider image . So then when you put it onto the phone , it has to fit in the phone .
Speaker 1It's like that's so frustrating because now you have to re-edit it . Maybe you have to change something or maybe it misses something that you wouldn't normally . So that's the frustrating thing about shorts . But that's what makes shorts so great is because 20 seconds , 30 seconds the attention span and the attention span of people now with because everyone has a phone and everything like that is so small and limited . If right away you have to get something that is going to catch them and bang , you want it as quick as possible because it's not scroll right up and it is a frustrating thing , but it's a part of the grind and it's just a challenge that we gladly accept and hopefully we can overcome Right .
Speaker 2I totally agree . I don't have that same mentality that other people have about sitting there on their phone or watching YouTube videos . I can watch an un-cut Angling video from like eight years ago a hundred times . I love this guy . He's got great content . He teaches you something and he produces this really awesome fish or maybe he produces a decent fish or something .
Speaker 2I can go back and re-watch that video 10 , 20 , 30 times , but for some reason now I saw it one time and I don't ever want to see it again . So that video that you produced gets pushed for 24 to like 72 hours and then after that it almost gets wiped off the face of the earth and , like you said , very frustrating to have to deal with . But yeah , it's difficult overall to try to make it in this industry . I would really love to figure out more . I want to get sponsored by companies and things like that so I can get into the affiliate marketing and ways to actually make money .
Speaker 2It's very difficult when you're not making money working on a video for , like I said , 20 , 40 hours to produce a 10 minute long video . It's very frustrating when at the end of it , you get no dollar value back except for the amount of views that you're seeing in front of you and the hope that that's going to turn one day into something Very frustrating . But it's part of our process . It's part of your process . I don't know if you work full time and do this on the side , or if this is your full time gig , but regardless , either way , it's tough .
Speaker 1Yeah , and now I work full time . I've made it so that my schedule kind of works out in my favor , but I still work full time hours . And this is I do this full time without . You know it's a full . We have this joke with a bunch of the guys that we talked on a daily basis and kind of work with it . It's a full time job without the full time benefits you know .
Speaker 1So , which is another thing you come out with , and I will 100% say if you come out with great content , you know from fishing . You know especially the fit . I love the fishing . That's what you've been doing now since Huntington . So you know just the fishing content alone . I mean the catching . You know the cooking to . You know one of your posts from right , the wild game , and you put I'm looking at right now wild game every day , like that all looks incredible . But you know the fishing from the . You know the lake trout . You know to or Lake Lake , sam Sam , what the hell they called you Landlock salmon , landlock salmon , she's brain fart there . You know to ice fishing , bass fishing . You know , like , whatever , whatever you're doing , you know it's , it's , it's an incredible you know .
Speaker 1And then , once you get to hunting season , the grind and everything like that of hunting . You know it is great content , it's all put together , it's it's putting in you know the due time where you know you got to look at it this way . It's it's going to pay off . You know as sometimes , as frustrating it is , and you know same thing with me . It's like alright , like it's going to pay off , like relax , we , we got this . The more you talk to sponsors and when you stuff like that , it's definitely going to help .
Speaker 1But you know it's the best thing you can do is just not sit on the couch and go out and do something . And then , you know , when you are sitting on the couch , at least edit . You know , do something . You know , make a post , whatever the case is , do something to to better the brand and everything like that , basically . But um For sure , yeah , it's all , it's all grind , people , it is , it's a serious grind , but you know let's , let's get into .
Hunting and Fishing Journey
Speaker 1You know , tell us a backstory how you got into hunting , fishing and and everything like that . You know , give us a little backstory . How old were you ? Things like that .
Speaker 2Of course . Yeah , I'm gonna definitely do that . I also I'm gonna bring this into , like the food aspect that you brought up . Really love turning some of something that I've harvested into food .
Speaker 2But so to start off with your question about how I got into hunting and fishing , I was 13 months old and I caught my first fish . It was a ladyfish . I was in a stroller . Obviously I don't remember this . I'm telling you this through stories and pictures that I've seen and stuff like that . But my dad is super addicted to hunting and fishing growing up . At this point in at his age he's not really into hunting and fishing as much . He just doesn't enjoy waking up early to go out and do things and the grind of like dragging a deer up a hill and then down A hill and then up and you know things like that . But , um , yeah , so I started at 13 months old Fishing . You know I was as early as you could possibly start with fishing all Local stuff until I was probably six to ten years old , and by local I mean trout fishing , bass fishing , sunnies , that sort of thing all around my house .
Speaker 2I grew up in Pompton Lakes , new Jersey , this small town in North Jersey , and Tons of rivers , streams , lakes and things around for me to go have fun with all the time . And about ten years old is when I really started getting into saltwater fishing tons of Florida fishing , because my grandparents lived down there . That was really fun catching redfish , drum snook , all those sorts of things , groupers going offshore and that's that stuff . And then by the time I was in high school my dad started bringing me out to fishing and shark fishing and I was at 13 , 14 years old . I was hooking into 200 pound tuna and Passing them off because I wasn't even big enough to hold the rod , just barely hold none for dear life and passing off these amazing , amazing fish and going every single week for Probably the entire summer every year of high school and that really got me into the fishing scene . I started working on some fishing boats , working on some striper boats and things like that .
Speaker 2But to translate it over to to hunting , I started hunting when I was 13 , 14 years old and this was gun hunting only back then and it was always super cold . I never remember a day where it was nice out . I only remember days where I was freezing to the point that my toes felt like they're coming off . My fingers felt like they're about to fall off . But I don't know if you remember this guy from I think it was like dual survival , cody London . He always would travel just in his socks or barefoot , and One of the lessons that he taught was about your mitochondria training your mitochondria .
Speaker 2In your bloodstream , you're in your cells and stuff . The more you expose yourself to cold weather and things like that , the more your mitochondria understands what its job is to do is to keep you warm and , for whatever reason , I kept that going from the time I was a teenager until now . I don't care how cold I am , I'm gonna rock out and keep it going . I'm gonna do what I need to do and Get that deer , or sit there and wait , or hold the bow with freezing cold hands while that deer is walking in . I was just telling my fiance a story about that the other day . Your fingers feel like they're gonna fall off and you're just waiting for this animal to come walking . It's so primal , it's so like natural .
Speaker 2So yeah , 13 , 14 , super into deer hunting , love , gun hunting , shotgun , muzzleloader , that sort of thing . Get it done one year . The next year , I get six deer . The next year , I get six deer , the next year gets . I'm like , oh , I'm into this , I'm really loving this . And then I figured out that bow hunting Was a warm weather sport and I can enjoy myself and not be in total pain while I'm out hunting , while I'm out hunting . And I just took that and ran with it , so Got my bow hunting license .
Speaker 2I was 15 or 16 and I just started going out by myself and sitting in the woods all day . I'm just really enjoying it and that's where my hunting skills really came in . All the summer I look over to left and there's just a big buck walking in . The whole time from 13 to 16 , I did not see bucks . I mean like maybe like one a season or something like that . If I was lucky . That's just part of gun hunting .
Speaker 2Here in New Jersey gun hunt , gun season doesn't start until like December 1st and it runs through to , you know , the beginning of February and during that time Bucks aren't really up on their feet , move in the same way that they are during the rut and bow season . So it was frustrating not seeing any bucks , and my dad would get whenever , once in a while , my uncle would get whenever once in a while and I wouldn't even see him . But then as soon as bow season started , as soon as I started bow hunting , holy crap , I went out on the most ruddy day I've ever had and I was like one of the first days of bow hunting I ever had . I probably saw more deer bigger than anything I've ever shot in one day , chasing this one group of does around my stand all day and I have my entire life and I didn't get any of those deer . I did take a shot .
Speaker 2You know it's like young hunting . There's I don't know if you know any movies that are about like little kids who are first getting into hunting . They're shaking like crazy that click . They didn't even load stuff into their gun . You know that's how it was for me , just figuring it out . You know , boots on the ground doing the work . It was never for me about being the best
Hunting Strategies and Challenges
Speaker 2bow hunter . I wanted to have just a really great interaction and a relationship with the deer that were in front of me , and this is something I didn't Want to talk to you about was your relationship with individuals .
Speaker 2Deer , I noticed when I go on to your social media . I see that you're talking about Mufasa and this guy and that girl , whatever . I am not into that . I don't do that , so let , if you don't mind , I get your take on you chasing a single deer . Um .
Speaker 1I wish it was a single deer . It's multiple , it is multiple deer like , yeah , mufasa is is one of , then there's Kong , and these are a few public land deer that I have my eye set on . I like setting goals and that's really what it is . I like the , the intel that I collect during the off season and the intel that I gained during the season and interaction with these deer . It's , I tell people all the time , hunting is a game of chess , you know , and it's who's gonna make the first mistake first Right , and if I make that mistake , I'm gonna make it . That mistake games over . If he makes that mistake , games over . So that's why , like , I do Love to target specific deer moose , the deer that I killed last year , that was a specific deer and I'm a big analytic guy . You know . I was on the Whitetail bloodline podcast Recording yesterday and that's a big . We know that we were talking about that . Like I'm a huge analytics , like I am a I'm a more of a conservative hunter and but I Am working on getting a little more aggressive . When I need to , I'll be aggressive what I need to , and that's that's a part of it . Like , if I know , you know , move fossils most likely to be on that ridge . When I , when I need him , when the wind correct and everything like that , I will get aggressive and I'll go . I'll go hunt him .
Speaker 1It's just this , this cat , cat and mouse game kind of , and who's gonna make the first mistake ? I get obsessed over it . I think a little , some , I can't say a little too obsessed , because Andrew , um , he , he gets full blown like he will only hunt like one , he will go full bananas after , after one deer , but I don't know it's . It's really just like I said , the cat and mouse , you , you grow this kind of . They don't grow , but we grow this kind of like relationship with , with these specific deer where it's like that's that's the deer that I want . Like I see him in the awesome offseason growing his velvet , I'm like that's it , right there , let me , let me go after them . But don't get me wrong , a good looking deer steps out that I've never seen before . Best believe , like I am gonna . You know , I'm gonna take . I'm gonna take that deer because these old , mature deer , they've been around for some time and there's a reason why they've been around .
Speaker 1So you know I'm also not gonna pass up , you know , an opportunity and to smack one down in my doze . Tell people my dozer for my doze . That's where I get a lot of my meat from . You know I can go out and shoot two , three . You know if I really eat two , four , five , six . If my freeze is getting , you know it's the benefits of hunting New Jersey . So I don't also mind .
Speaker 1You know , passing a lot of deer just because of of that reason . You know , opening day , opening weekend , hopefully I'll have . You know my might go out the way . Boom , that's , that's brand new meat to the freezer . If I need to add more , you know , boom . You know we got the bear hunt coming back up . I still have some bear meat , but you know we're looking for some more more bear meat there with the bear season . So there's always a chance of Having plenty of meat . And you know , just like you , you know you got fishing , you're doing all these different things . So your freezer is , you know it's going to be diverse . So , like For me , it gives me less , it gives me more of a reason to pass on on certain deer , yeah .
Speaker 2I get that . I get that . I love filling the freezer . It's such a great feeling , man , such a great feeling . Yeah , no definitely , I just um .
Speaker 1I was like you .
Speaker 2I was , you know , or Andrew , you're talking about Andrew Fitzgerald , right ? Yeah , yeah , he , um . I was a lot like that when I was younger , where I would just have a goal set in mind that I'm going to shoot this one specific deer . Um , I would have . I ran a bunch of cameras . I loved running cameras and you know , this is before cell cameras and this is when you were driving an hour to go check in one direction and I was 17 , 18 years old , like barely enough gas money to put in the truck . But I'm going to go out there and I'm going to put down some corn or I'm going to put down some feed and I want to see these deer . You know , a month before the season , two months before the season , um , but I , no matter how many pictures I would get of these deer , how hard you would hunt , you really wouldn't see the deer .
Speaker 2Um , it's , it's kind of what was happening with me and I get it . A lot goes into it . You know , wind , direction , time of day , moon , whatever you want to say , it is so difficult . I don't know if you're in north jersey , central jersey , south jersey , but northern new jersey Is so difficult because everywhere you go there's hills , valleys , pinch points , everything like that , and the wind is never consistent for more than five minutes .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I'm a north , I'm a north jersey guy . We'll be more down south central , I guess this this year too as well , but I'll still be cutting north jersey and it is um , it is definitely a challenge . It's very thick . I love those thick swamps and everything like that . Um , but it's , it has its own challenges in its own . And then you have to remember private too , you know , and those deer , if you're hunting public and your , those deer are going to be on private as well , and that makes it another challenge .
Speaker 1I've noticed some of my , some of my public spots I've run . The difficulty is they are the older , mature ones . They're on private and they will move into public At night or early morning when they know it's safe . Because the other guy , like I said , these mature deer , they're mature for a reason , they're big for a reason , they know what they're doing , they know how , they know how to survive and everything like that . Um , so it's a uh , it's , it's a challenge . It really is .
Speaker 1I will definitely agree . This will be my first time down , you know , below past north jersey , so I'm gonna I'll be able to give more intel on on what it's like hunting , and I do want to hunt like south south jersey , if I , if I get a chance , hopefully I'll be in the midwest and everything . This it's not this year , next year , but you know it's there . There are tons of challenges and I definitely agree . That's why North Jersey is definitely very diverse and jersey alone is a diverse state . You know you're hunting , you know you got basically every type of those topography , geographic , you know outposts that you can really look at .
Speaker 2Yeah , I , I got into south jersey last year . I hunted wortonsake forest . It was really awesome . Um , I want to go back this year for sure and give that a try . Uh , during gun season it turns into an absolute chit show . I just took a drive there . I drove through and it was literally I'm not even kidding people in buses like a bus . So it must be like Drive drives of like you know , 40 , 60 guys Getting together and a big rent of us , and they drive to a spot and they unload some people and then they drive . I've never seen that before .
Speaker 2I've heard I know it's like that in other states you know north carolina doing deer drives with dogs and you know other states just 30 , 40 got . This is the first time I had seen actual people Uh , getting dropped off in buses and things like that . So I found that to be pretty interesting . It's , it's wild , but down there the the wind was consistent . It was really nice . Uh , you know , you can get set up where you think the deer are going to be coming out from , in front of you and as long as the wind isn't blowing in that direction when you get set up , it's most likely not going to change for an hour or two hours , three hours , versus any of my spots in north jersey . I'm sitting there for 15 minutes and it's blown 10 different directions . It is not consistent , it's very difficult . So that's a lot of the reason that I got rid of Running trail cameras like crazy . Um , you know you have it on a tree , you're pointing it out of trail and , for whatever reason , the deer doesn't walk in front of the trail camera . You , you know why because the deer can do it and if , whatever it wants , it wants to go left around that tree today , it decides to go left around that tree today , I get it . You can put it in a spot that , no matter what , it's got to go in front of that camera . There has been so many times that I've set up a camera within eyes . I distance , you know . I sight of my stand and I'm sitting in my stand and I watch a deer Go behind the camera . For whatever reason , it was about to go in front of the camera and it decided to go behind the camera . You know what that means . Every single time that I sit there and I look at a picture on my camera , it it's a fluke , you know like there's no reason that that deer could have went this way or that way . So I got rid of my cameras when I was 18 and all through college I really didn't run as many cameras , and only over the past like year or two I've started running cameras again . And the only reason I'm running cameras , as compared to you , is to say Are the deer going to be there when I need them to be there ? Not , are not . Is Mufasa going to move through At this wind , at this specific time , or whatever the case is ? I'm simply looking for activity . I don't care if there are five deer on camera and one of them is a giant buck , or there are 30 deer on camera and none are bucks . I care about the fact that there are deer in the area . I know it's a deer area . I'm going to have a chance to go there and see deer and get action and , like you mentioned before , you want to fill your freezer . That's why I do .
Speaker 2I I'm not into having relationships with animals . I'm into , you know , this is , this , is God being put in front of me and I'm having the , the chance to harvest something that's going to nourish my family and support my family for , you know , weeks , months to come . So that was in in college . I really started getting that mentality of caring more about the animal and caring less about the Sorry bullshit part of hunting , which is I need to show this deer off . I need to be worried that this deer is a two and a half or three and a half or the four . Who cares if it's a trophy to you ? That's what's good enough . That's that's all that matters is does it get ?
Speaker 2your blood going ? Do you have a crazy adrenaline spike ? And if you don't have a crazy adrenaline spike , that's fine , maybe you just really enjoy it .
Speaker 2For other reasons I cannot get out of my head the first time I ever shot an animal I don't think I stopped shaking , I'm still shaking , you know like it's the most wild adrenaline dump To have this animal coming in and looking at you as it's coming in and then looking down to do its thing . And then looking at you , you make one Small move , you move your pinky , you smile , you open your eyes and close your . That deer from 40 , 50 yards away can see , can tell what's going on , knows what's happening , understands what's happening at times , doesn't understand the time , and all you have to do is make sure that you put the correct shot in the animal to make sure that they expire quickly and then you can harvest that animal and be successful . So that's a lot of the reason I got rid of the cameras , because I wanted to have a more natural interaction with these animals , you know you know perfectly said I mean Multiple things to say about what you said is one , trail cameras and we talk about this a lot .
Speaker 1They're great , but so much they're they are very misleading , you know , as at the end of the day , like you said , they can use the trail behind , they can do this , they can do that . So there it is Fail camera than not the end . All be on right First , second , and I love how you said you wanted , when I get to a new spot , that's what I do ,
Deer Movement and Shooting Smaller Deer
Speaker 1is what you do . I wanna know that there's just deer here . I don't care about finding a specific deer . Honestly , I'm really looking for does right and that's what , like I'm really looking for does to be done with . I have my doe spots , I have my , you know , my big buck spots , but as long as I have does , that's all I need right For many reasons one for me , two , who doesn't ? Like ? I just love having deer around .
Speaker 2It always makes me happy , and you know .
Speaker 1I love just seeing you learn a lot just from watching just deer . You know , does , nanny , does like even younger doe . You just learn a lot . You know , if I'm gonna go out and say right now , you know there is deer out here , I have my camera , I get to video of them , right , I get to look for myself at you know how they interact when they don't think of predators around . And then if I need to go back at this , look at the film now I get to study it in a different angle , Like okay , damn , I miss that . Like I must have . Like maybe I move my head , maybe I was focusing on one other deer and I didn't see that . You know that deer in the back , you know , and how it was interacting with the rest you know .
Speaker 1And then you know , of course , if you don't have does I mean if you have does and don't have bucks , don't worry , because then during the rut , when things start hitting off that pre-rut , you are going to have bucks that are coming in . You're gonna have all different age class of deer . You're gonna have your young ones , you're gonna have your immature , you're gonna have that little spike that you know he's getting all ready then you're gonna have your , your two and a half year old , your three year olds and then your year . Eventually , whether you're in that spot or not , you're gonna have your very mature four year olds plus deer . You know , with all different sides , all different whatever . Whatever gets your heart racing . So , like you said , some people may not get that huge adrenaline rush and there's a different reason for they do it . Maybe it's just for food , maybe , whatever the case is , whatever gets you to that spot . Then you're gonna make your decision on what you need to shoot .
Speaker 1You know , and social media has kind of pushed this agenda on , we need to shoot big deer . And don't get me wrong . Right , shooting big deer is great , right , but it doesn't , it's your tag , it's your , it's a goal , right , if you are someone who's gonna stick by that goal and you need a tag suit , listen , I'm a full believer , listen . And that's okay , because at the end of the day , I tell people you're not , you're not paying for my tag , you know you're not investing the time that I'm investing in . So if I decide not to kill a buck , because you know what , I know what else is out there and I wanna , I'm chasing a certain thing I'm always trying to improve from the year before , you know . So whether that's me upping a bigger deer or shooting two bucks next year , that is , at the end of the day , that's a , that's an improvement and that's a , you know , a new goal .
Speaker 1You know I'm a huge believer if you're in a slump , and bow hunting is all about confidence , and I had to do this a few years ago . I was having terrible luck with shooting big deer and I shot a few and I just could not find them . So what I did ? My confidence was gone . When it came to shooting bucks , I could still shoot does , but for some reason , the buck's fever , you know the shakes my mind would just go blank and I'd make stupid decisions .
Speaker 1So when I was like , all right , let me go back , and this nice six pointer came out nothing's crazy , we're not looking at it . You know , I smoked him , smoked him and I am extremely proud of that deer , like , extremely proud of like . I was like God and you know , at first I was like damn , I wonder what people are gonna say on social media . But then I was like you know who gives a rat's ass what people say in social media ? I posted that deer and you know I did , my followers I give my friends , I give you know the people who I interact with .
Speaker 1You know they are some of the best , because there was not one bad comment set and you know it could have been set behind my back , but whatever your goal is gonna get that no matter what , but everything was great and respectable . Where that shows somebody else , okay , well , he shot a smaller deer . You know what ? I could shoot a smaller deer too . And you know , hey , and if you're somebody who shoots a smaller deer and there are people and we've said so this if people are giving you shit , send us the pictures , dm us , let us know , cause then we're don't worry , we'll go and we will .
Speaker 2We'll support you .
Speaker 1Hey , you will support you 100% . I will post you on my page . I don't care , it's about the joy . It's about , you know , it doesn't matter whether it's the biggest deer in the world , whether it's the smallest deer in the world . It's all about getting out and drawing what we do , shoot whatever . Eat it , you know it tastes amazing , like I've had the day . Like there's so many different recipes .
Speaker 1You know , and there's an endless yeah , there's an endless amount of things I mean that you can do and you know , if you're one of those people who are hard hard core , that you know they take the , you know the hide and everything . There's so much you can use in animals . It's truly amazing .
Speaker 2No , I agree with you I actually did . On the topic of shooting smaller deer and getting shit for it , I shot this actually really nice four pointer going back a couple of years ago and I grunted this deer in . It was an awesome hunt . He came charging in all bristled up ready to go whacked him . Really great tracking job by me and a couple of friends . It was a lot of fun , like a really 10 o'clock at night findin' a deer , no blood kinda thing . It was really great , a lot of fun .
Speaker 2I sent that picture out to a couple of people . The only person that gave me crap was my own cousin saying something about being like a young deer , like a one and a half or two and a half year old deer , and I was just like I'm not even responding to your message . You know like you . Just you gotta kinda block the hate out with the hunting community , even your own family sometimes . But something you talked about earlier was deer movement , buck movement .
Speaker 2Just wanted to touch on that real quick and that's another reason I don't go to nuts during the summertime scouting for specific deer . Yeah , I get it like . You can get an idea of what's in this whole general 20,000 acre area , a few miles by a few miles area , you know what the general population looks like . If you show up at a field , I see you at fields all the time , looking at these 20 bucks all on one field , you think that they're all gonna be there in a month . Hell , no , they're not gonna be there mid-September . The second that corn gets whacked they're out of that field , they're back into the woods . And I noticed a lot of times the bucks . They just they have a summer pattern , they have an early fall , they have a mid-fall , late fall , early winter . They change their location based on what's happening in the world and they do not stick around . They don't at all . So that's just something I wanted to talk about was just overall buck movement .
Deer Hunting Patterns and Styles
Speaker 2They move . So all these great pictures .
Speaker 1I was having during the summertime they ain't there .
Speaker 2There's one specific spot . I gotta say this there's one specific spot that I hunt . I set up a camera in July or late June . Camera is there for a full month . I don't even get a picture and I'm just like there's something wrong with the camera . Let me go out and check it . Go out and check camera's fine , okay , it's working head home , literally a whole another month goes by and I've had one picture of a group of bucks come through . I decide you know what , I'm gonna let this just rock out I'm not even kidding like clockwork .
Speaker 2October 2nd , all of a sudden , every day the same groups of deer are on camera . They weren't there within miles for the entire summer and all of a sudden , this October 2nd comes , the fall comes and they are there every single day working a different food source . And I just found that to be so interesting to not wanna have to go scout all summer to find these deer and think that they're gonna still . They're not . You gotta find deer when they're gonna be able to be hunted . So in October , say the season starts October 2nd I might be out there from September 28th to October 2nd every single day scouting trying to find those deer . I'm not gonna be out there in July and August trying to find the deer that I'm gonna hunt in October , because they're probably not gonna be there .
Speaker 1Bless , and I definitely agree . Once a deer turn hard horned , those patterns are gonna completely change . Everything does change and that's why those bucks that you're talking about we're hoping to kill at least one of them within that first week or two . Things are gonna change . Those bucks are gonna move out , there's gonna be new bucks that are gonna move in and stuff like that . To learn the area it takes time and we're doing a pod vlog . I can't remember what's here right now , but it's stuck with me ever since he goes .
Speaker 1When you pick up a new piece , a new property , new public , whatever it is , goes , it takes a good five years to really learn that property through and through and learn that new area through and through , because there's so many different scenarios and , like you said , they have a southern pattern , they have what I call the early hard horn pattern , they have the fall pattern , they have the rut pattern , then they have their post rut and then their winter pattern , which usually does go back to their early season pattern . But you do have like five different patterns that we at least know of . That . We know there's always something new to learn in the White-tail Woods , so there's gonna be reasons that we have no idea why deer hit certain areas and stuff like that .
Speaker 1We may think we know , but at the end of the day , it's they are the survivalists . They know what they're doing and then hunting pressure , as , at the end of the day , we could be doing certain stuff but we don't know if the next person is . You don't know what the next property is doing . So , yet again , that's a whole other factor too as well , you know . So I definitely agree with you on that , and it's something these are all good learning lessons for people out there , to hear the other side of it too , to understand why you don't do certain things and why you do certain things . Everyone has a different style , and that is , yet again , the cool thing about what we do is there's so many different styles and everything like that to do things as well .
Speaker 2And I just wanna say to everybody that's listening you shouldn't be knocking somebody else based on their style , unless they're doing something that's illegal or found upon in this industry , in this world that we're in . Like , for example , you're not a great fisherman If you go out and you toss a snag hook and just start snagging fish and catching fish all day . It doesn't make you a good fisherman . You're still catching fish , but you're not gonna be looked at as a great fisherman . Same with hunting . If you're a good hunter , it doesn't matter if you sit over corn all day in the same fucking stand or if you're moving around spot and stalking and track and deer with hoof prints in the leaves . It doesn't matter what you do . You shouldn't be knocking what somebody else is doing . Unless they're not kosher , they're not doing the right things . They're coming in at sunrise and blowing out your spot and sitting 20 yards away from you . You know like that's part of public land hunting .
Speaker 2You deal with idiots , you're gonna make a mistake , somebody else is gonna make a mistake . Maybe together your mistakes turn into a deer . That's just how public land hunting is . So one of the things that I did wanna mention as well was just why my connection with deer changed when I got to about college age .
Speaker 2I had a little bit of a kind of a tumultuous upbringing at my house family getting separated , divorced and things like that and I had to leave my house . One day I had to make the decision to say I need to move out , I'm gonna live on my own just to be able to make sure I have a safe upbringing and shit like that . And on the day that I decided to leave , what do I do ? I pack my crossbow in the back seat , I throw my hunting clothes in the back seat and one backpack filled with all of my belongings . So pretty much my truck is filled with my hunting stuff and a backpack with my stuff .
Finding God Through Joyful Hunting
Speaker 2I go out into the woods and I have maybe like two hours to hunt and I literally am not expecting anything . I go out and I sit in my stand and just that's where I found God . That's where God came to me and said hey , don't worry , everything's gonna be okay . It's not that I heard a voice coming from a tree and not something crazy . Right , I had the biggest deer of my life up to that point come walking down the trail an hour and a half , two hours before nighttime for no reason and walk within 10 yards of me and say go ahead , everything's gonna be fine , just do it . And I got to shoot and harvest this amazing buck and that , for me , was just a way that God spoke to me through the hunt , through the animal and things like that , to say that your life is okay , everything is gonna be fine .
Speaker 2So I decided from that point on to really care more about the animal , because I didn't just see this animal as just a deer with four legs to walk through the woods . I saw this as a really like almost like a spiritual connection , just that animal being there . So I decided I wanted to start harvesting as much of that animal as possible , from nose all the way to tail and everything in between . I started eating the heart , I started eating different organs , trying things that I would normally not try , and my love for the animals and for the hunting and for food and everything really came out . So I've been cooking up some amazing meals probably a thousand different ways to cook venison moose and everything else in between .
Speaker 2I got to do a great moose hunt this year and the moose pot roast that I made after out of that brisket was out of this world . It's so amazing and just makes you wanna do it more , makes you wanna harvest this stuff more , but doing it at the right speed , not just going out and shooting 20 , 30 deer , shooting what you need , harvesting what you need for you and your family , to make sure that you don't have packages and packages sitting in the freezer for a few years that eventually get thrown out . So that respect , that love , that balance for the animal really kind of shine through in my early 20s and I've just been holding onto it ever since and just making love to the process is the way that I think about it . I love going out , I love doing it all , I love just being out there one o'clock in the morning . I'm waking up at one o'clock in the morning , driving an hour , hiking an hour , setting up a stand in the middle of the dark in the middle of the woods that I don't even know where the hell I am , just because I like the sign that I've been seeing and tossing it up and sitting there all day and not seeing a damn deer going back . The next day not seeing a damn deer going back . Three weeks later , all of a sudden I harvested the first doe out of the area and you're just so happy . You're just like thank you , thank you for doing this .
Speaker 2For me Like the whole process , from the second that I got my bow to the second that I pulled that trigger and then that deer is in my belly . It is such a respect driven process that I want to show my friends and my family . So I've gotten them all into it . I've gotten as many people as I can into hunting and into fishing and I really dislike the idea of people being like solo or I'm a solitary hunter , you know meaning like I only hunt by myself . You know that's not . I mean , maybe it's cool to you , but it's not cool that you're not showing people what this is Like .
Speaker 2If you have something great to show people , I believe that you should be sharing it . You should be sharing this insane addiction that you have with people Like that . Just to put it bluntly , it's an addiction . It's not easy to shake . I mean , all of a sudden it's August and I'm like my entire room is just blowing up with bow equipment and targets and I want to show people , so much so that I'm willing to just take them out when they want to go and do it how they want to do it . I know that my fiance doesn't love to wake up early in the morning . She doesn't like to be out in the woods when it's dark out . And I'm not even kidding the very first time I brought her , we got a deer together . You know how many times you sit in the woods 10 , 15 times before you get a chance at a deer . This is one day . Oh yeah , that's amazing , that's amazing .
Speaker 1And that's exactly like . That's exactly how it goes , like you have no idea what's really gonna happen . You know , and that's why you know we say over here we're chasing the unknown . You know , because at the end of the day , when you step into those woods , you don't know if you're seeing a spike , you don't know if you're seeing a doe , you don't know if you're seeing nothing , or you don't know if a 200 inch deer is gonna come over or a bear , or whatever , or a New , Jersey Anything's possible , like I've seen some of the wildest things happen and it's that you would never see if you were just sitting at home doing nothing , or even doing something that had nothing to do with hunting .
Speaker 1You know , at the end of the day , like nature's truly , like just one of a kind of it's absolutely breathtaking , something I really wanna talk about real quick your moose hunt . You know , go over your moose hunt . Where was it ? You know your experience in that moose hunt .
Speaker 2Yeah , so this is a really good one , and I'm not gonna sit here and act like I shot a giant bull moose in a crazy area or anything like that Still was a crazy area , it just wasn't a giant bull moose . So I'm friends and this is part of the hunting and fishing industry , is you just are friends with older people ? You're friends with people you would never normally be friends with . I am now friends with this older couple from Wellington , maine , for probably about 10 years now , and they're in their 70s , and every once in a while Tony will call me up hey , what's going on , andrew , how are you ? I'm good . What's going on ? Hey , we got this crazy trip going on . You wanna come up and help out with it ? And I was like , hey , listen , I really don't think I can
Moose Hunt in Maine
Speaker 2swing this .
Speaker 2It's that it was either the end of September or the end . It was the end of September , going back two years ago , and he calls me up and he says , hey , listen . He calls me at the beginning of September , like a month prior , and says , hey , at the end of September I have this moose hunt coming up . I just got screwed by one of my friends who's not gonna be able to come out and help me . I really need help and I'm not gonna be able to do this hunt if I don't have somebody else . Do you think that you can come up and help me and my wife with this hunt ? I said , of course . So he starts to give me the details . He's , like I said , he's mid-70s . He can't really get out of the truck and go walk a mile into the woods to go grab a moose and drag it out of the woods .
Speaker 2This is , I'm gonna do the heavy lifting . Sheila's got the tag , tony's behind the wheel and I was fortunate enough to be brought in as a subcommittee . So what they do is you can get two people onto one permit . This was an invasive moose hunt , so they're much more lenient with the rules than if you were to go for a trophy hunt . With an invasive hunt they really are adaptive hunt . They really want to get rid of the animals that are there and bring the population level down . So they don't care how they do it , if there's two people or if there's one person , as long as that tag gets filled and not two tags get filled . So , long story short , I head up to Maine . I'm in my brand new truck , which , thank God , I had a nice truck because it was a really tough drive .
Speaker 1But Let me , let me , let me real , real quick . Let me explain , cause this is the roads . The off roads in Maine are tough and they take a beating on your vehicle , but that is one thing I'll definitely like for a little bit of the backstory . It's not just like there's really not many paved roads . I mean , the further you go up , the less there's paved roads . I know I have an idea where you were we're in Moosehead Lake , so it's . I can't remember the distance , but you know , the more North Sea going Maine , the worst the roads get , and I mean they are even some brands making new trucks taking beaten and pop tires . You need to make sure you're bringing your equipment and everything like that .
Speaker 2Right , so you're mentioning Moose Head Lake , right ? So this is the Northwood domain which is just you head up to . I believe the town is Rockwood , or- .
Speaker 1Yeah , Rockwood .
Speaker 2Yeah , Right . So you head up to Rockwood there's the big trading post there , and then you bang a left down this road that just goes from a paved road .
Speaker 2Okay . So you bang this left onto this dirt road . As soon as you get onto this dirt road , it is dirt for four hours . Now I have no idea where I've gone from Wellington , maine , for four hours to get to this entrance of this dirt road . And the second that I get to this entrance of this dirt road , there's no cell service , there's no , nothing . It's all shale and gravel and I'm just following a dust cloud in front of me . I can't even see the truck that's in front of me . I'm just following a dust cloud . So I'm driving . Maybe an hour goes by , and also we make a turn , we make a right . I'm like , okay , whatever road , this is all right . An hour later bangs the left okay . An hour later bangs another right , and all of a sudden , half hour later , we're there .
Speaker 2You would never , ever , ever , be able to walk out of there . You would never be able to drive out of there if you didn't know where you're going . But luckily , with these old timers , they knew exactly where they were going . They knew where they were gonna hunt , everything like
Moose Hunting Mishaps and Adrenaline Rush
Speaker 2that . So we get up there . There's already a small trailer that we're gonna be sleeping in for a couple of nights , and then I brought a trailer up there with just equipment on it coolers , ice , the full gamut of things that you need for a successful moose hunt . So got camp set up , did our thing and the plan was next morning we're gonna wake up early , we're gonna get into the truck and we're gonna go drive to a specific area about an hour further away and we're gonna work these logging roads for the areas that get logged .
Speaker 2Now what happens is the forest up in Maine is extremely dense , extremely thick . You can't even walk into it . In most spots you would think like , oh , I can get to the middle of the woods . You can't like there's just so many of the red whip trees and other bushes and branches that are just , you just cannot walk through it in most areas . So we drive down these abandoned dirt roads and eventually get to an area that got freshly clear , cut a few days , few weeks , few months before , and now there's all fresh growth starting in those areas and that's where the moose are engorging themselves with food . They're absolutely going nuts , eating everything that they can , getting prepared for the wintertime .
Speaker 2Well , we got up to that area and there was some other stuff that happened , but I'm not gonna mention that we got there perfectly for sunrise and we start down this road and we're going down a clear cut , pass another clear cut and then we're just working different roads . There's a lot of people up there , as in if you see somebody at the entrance of a road , you kind of just let them take that whole road . I mean , that road could go for hours and hours towards Canada and you just let them have it . That's their hunting spot . They got here first . Let's go to this other road .
Speaker 2So we went to this other road and Tony's like hey , andrew , look over there . What is that ? Ah , it's just a big giant downed tree . And I'm not even kidding that downed tree's ears started moving and head moved and I lost it . I totally lost it to the point that this old guy had to say to me calm the fuck down . Kid , settle down , get ready . And I'm like I don't know what to do . Just tell me what to do . I'm shaking . I haven't even gotten out of the truck yet . The gun's not even loaded , ready to go . Like I'm freaking out . I get out , sheila gets out . We're just trying to figure out what to do . Like I've never done this .
Speaker 2I was thinking that they were just gonna kind of like take over and say , hey , andrew , come on , walk over here , stand here , all right , put the gun up , get ready . I was in full blackout mode . I didn't know which direction was up , so I was just waiting for them to tell me what to do . If , now that I know what to do , I could have just done it on my own and gone for it . But it's their tag , it's their permit , it's their hunt . I don't wanna take things over . So they kind of .
Speaker 2We got up to the edge just off the road , maybe like five , 10 feet off of the road , and I got a decent clear view of this animal . Sheila was , I think was having a little bit of a tough time Cause , like I said , they're a little bit older . You know like it's not like you just run over , jump onto a tree , grab a tree and go do what you need to do . You know they're hunting with poles , tripod poles and stuff like that . So they threw a pair at me and they're like , hey , do you got it in your sights ? And I'm just like , yeah , now the hardest part comes making sure it's not a bull moose . That is probably the most stressful part of this entire hunt . We are a cow only permit for this entire adaptive hunt . There are no bulls that are allowed to be shot .
Speaker 2They told us when we got in there that a bull moose was found a day prior in a field and that they're searching for the person . They're searching for the people that killed that animal . I don't want to be that guy . I don't want to be the New Jersey guy that comes up to Maine and starts a problem . So I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that that's a cow . At one point I'm like oh , that looks like even just a spike on each side . I'm like I don't know , I can't pull the trigger . 10 minutes later I pull the trigger .
Speaker 2Moose goes down with like a sack of potatoes and we start high five and we're all excited . We're happy that we just finally harvested a moose and it's only a couple hundred yards from the road , so it should be relatively easy to get out . We throw the guns in the truck . Tony takes the truck . He says I'm gonna head back , I'm gonna go grab the trailer and the equipment and I'll be back in a little . While You're talking , that could be two , three hours .
Speaker 2So me and Sheila , we throw our bags on , we head over to the moose . We got to process the moose , get it gutted , get it cleaned out and then start the process . Well , unfortunately we got over there and the moose was still alive . The moose I just completely spined it . I hit it high , right behind the shoulder , but just high . And there was a second moose that stayed within 20 yards and just would not leave and we're just like , oh crap , like this could be a really bad thing that's happening . She doesn't have a pistol on her . I had my pistol
The Challenges and Rewards of Hunting
Speaker 2on me .
Speaker 2Luckily and luckily that bigger moose ended up moving off and we finished up with the moose that I had shot , had to put it out of its misery . It's unfortunate . It's part of hunting and that's one of the most like deep parts of hunting that gets people either really interested or not interested at all and gets them out of the sport is when you hit an animal and it's quote unquote suffering . This animal did not suffer for more than a few minutes at all , which is a really great death , considering the alternative , when your moose is getting eaten by like a big bear or a pack of wolves or something like that and you're just miserable . So it's got this moose all taken care of , cleaned it up , got it out to the road and put it onto the trailer and drove it out and that was like a 400 pound calf . That was a two year old calf and it was 400 pounds and I was so happy with the animal . Sheila and Tony super excited . We drank our asses off that night I'm sure , had a great time by the bonfire and got that moose out of there .
Speaker 2Huge process getting the moose out of the north woods of Maine , because it's just so much dirt road travel , like you said . And what I found really interesting about the whole process is at the end we brought it to get processed by somebody . So we brought it to a butcher shop . This butcher shop was run by Amish people and they were so amazing . They knew exactly what they were doing . It was a family from Kentucky moved up to Maine and they had processed probably thousands of deer by the time they moved up to Maine . So they know what they're doing .
Speaker 2Well , the dad of the family comes out , he's talking to us , having a good interaction with us , understanding what we need from the moose and things like that , and he calls his daughter out . His daughter is this beautiful girl . She may be like 16 , 17 years old , with a dress on , so she looks like she's going to a prom . She goes into the shop , grabs a knife , comes back out and just starts working . This moose up in a full dress , in a full dress , and I was so impressed with how they operate as a family , as a society , like as a culture around there , to just be so into what you do .
Speaker 2This is part of life . It's part of life to pick up a knife and do the dirty work that you have to do , whether you're the wife of the family , the daughter , the husband , the son or whatever . Compare that to midtown Manhattan working on a job . Nobody there is connected to anything , and that's what I really love about this community is just how connected people are to the earth . And that was my moose hunt . It was a really great hunt and I really appreciated the people that I met , the process of going up there , the types of people that are up there , family it was all about family . Those hunts Everybody in the family puts in for those tags for years and years and years and finally you draw a tag . Your whole family's going out , including grandma and grandpa .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , it's a different world up there and that's truly amazing . I really didn't know there . I mean I should have figured that there's a bunch , there's Amish people in there , but they know the nitty gritty , like they know how to everything that they do in life is basically by how they used to do it back way in the day , from probably having cows to milking goats and stuff like that , like making their cheese and everything . So like it doesn't matter who you are in the family , everyone has a job to do and they're going to get that job done . Absolutely amazing . So I mean , I know what it's like being up there . So I am , we're just a town and the Indian training post that I know is probably roughly about an hour away from where you were , where our lake houses . Now it's probably like think , I would say like another , so probably like two hours away and , like you said , more notice the more , the closer you get to Canada and everything like that . It's like it's a whole different world where thickness is just not you want to talk about thick , like you're those moose disappear and it's crazy because , like I remember growing up , like you have to focus on clear cups and everything like that like an open spots because you can't so difficult to navigate in that thick , thick stuff .
Speaker 1My cousin just killed last year 10 pointer from Moosehead . It just under 200 , I think 190 something . But that was his first buck , first buck in Maine and he grew up in Maine , right ? That just tells you how difficult the hunting is in Maine , right ? I think we're going to be heading up there in November and Andrew's like we got to take a look at the laws because I know it's way different than here . Bow hunting is not like it is here . They started to open up bow hunting but gun hunting is still like the main thing . You know they're yeah , and you don't hunt nearly as much as you do here and stuff like that . So we're looking at things . But I told them I was like man , don't think it's as easy as you think . You know , this is no joke of hunting you know , it's tough .
Speaker 2I feel like the further you get into the Northeast , the harder it gets . You know , even just from South Jersey to North Jersey , I mean , there's a level of difficulty that goes up as you go further North . And you know I haven't hunted too much of New York State , Vermont , new Hampshire , massachusetts , maine . I haven't done too much hunting in other states in general , so I can't speak totally about it , but from what I know , from what I talk to these people about , it is that much more difficult to get these deer but when you get them it's that much more of a prize . You're talking about a deer here that would normally be 150 is to almost 210 , you know , You're talking about these big body deer , these deer that you cannot even imagine dragging out of the woods and the amount of woods that you have to go through .
Speaker 2I love this one guy that I follow on social media I forget his name , but it's like big woods bucks or something like that and these guys all they do is gun , hunt , muzzle , loader or rifle and they walk and walk and walk and walk and they find a track on the ground and they say this track is a big buck . I'm gonna follow this track for as long as it takes to get this deer . They'll be on that track for days . They won't be on that track for a day . They'll be on that track for several days , if not a week , before they get that deer . I don't know if they sleep out there , I don't know if they go home and then go back to the last spot that they had those tracks , but these guys are getting some amazing deer and all of them are over 200 pounds . You're talking like Saskatchewan looking deer , these massive body deer with big , dark antlers and stuff like that . It's just a totally different animal than we're used to here .
Speaker 2And that's to be said about the rest of the country . You know , one area you go and hunt has amazing deer population with big deer . Another place you go has a small deer population with big deer , another deer . Another place you go has a low population with tiny deer . It's just kind of like par for the course and hunting and hunting different states and I heard you say you were planning on trying to get out to the Midwest at some point and I was planning on doing a Midwest hunt this year .
Speaker 2I was gonna go out to Minnesota or Wisconsin and hunt there at the end of September while I'm out visiting my sister in Montana . But we just talked about it , me and my fiancee , we have a free flight voucher . So I think I'm gonna forego my hunting just to fly out to Montana and enjoy it and then I'll go sometime in October to like somewhere within 10 hour , 12 hour drive of where we are , just so that I can do it and not have to do a 30 hour . It's a 30 hour drive to go hunting some place and it's really not that easy , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah it's difficult . It's difficult and expensive too , because if you drive it's gonna be a little deeper , but , like anyone doing , like , if you fly out , like you have to pay for a flight , then you know where it is . It's difficult and we were running a lot of gear . And if you're filming , you're running even more gear and it goes back to what we're talking about .
Speaker 1When you're doing this to make content and stuff like that , like it just becomes a lot Cause then you gotta bring in your laptops , then you gotta bring your cameras with batteries and stuff like that and then you gotta bring your hunting gear . And if you're a mobile hunter , you gotta bring your mobile setup and it depends , it varies . Like , if you're going to private , an outfitter , then you're paying the outfitter and you have to drop a lot of money on that . If you're doing a public , you need all . Especially you need all your gear if you're doing a publicly in hunt . So there's pros and cons to both . You know the expenses vary but at the end of the day , regardless of whatever you got to shell out some money for , you know these bigger out of state hunts , if you're on from the East Coast or , if you're on from the West Coast , go into the Midwest or wherever you are . You know it takes some planning as well .
Speaker 2Yeah , lots of planning , lots of money and just trusting , trusting yourself , trusting your body , like as hunters . There's nobody else that's gonna be out there that's gonna help you when the time comes . You know you're out just per se , a mile , two miles out in the woods , and you go and you finally shot a deer . It's , you know , six o'clock in the evening . It's about to be dark . You don't even have enough time to get down and check the bloodline before the blood trail , before it gets dark completely . You shoot out a quick text message to your wife or your friend hey , got a deer , I'm gonna be tracking it for a little while . You're not home at seven o'clock , you're home at 11 o'clock . You're home at midnight . You're home at one , two o'clock in the morning and you know who you have to thank you and yourself , nobody else . It's not that you know .
Speaker 2Yeah , maybe you had your friend drive out there to help you out , maybe your dad was available and he was able to help you out . A lot of people don't have that and especially when you're an hour , hour and 15 minutes away , an hour walk into the woods , you're not willing to call somebody to go out to the road to meet them . You know , you're just gonna , you're gonna take care of what you need to take care of and do what you need to do . As a damn man Like you , just manhandle that thing . You get the hell out of the woods , you go home so you can sleep in the bed with your wife , with your family around , and everything like that . You just do what you have to do .
Bear Hunting and Mental Strain
Speaker 2That's one of the hardest things . By the way , I don't know if you have this , I don't know if you have a wife and you're married and all this stuff . But the hardest thing for me is when I wake up , day after day after day and have to get out of bed . When it's warm as hell , my fiance's there . I'm like looking at the clock , I'm like it's 1.30 , it's two , it's 2.30 in the morning . I gotta trap an hour and then I gotta hike up that damn mountain and then , on top of it , new Jersey doesn't know how to control its black bear population and I gotta think about that the whole time . And I'm not that I'm worried about getting attacked by a bear , but you know how it is . You're walking through a pitch black forest at night and your mind runs away with it for a little while , yeah , your mind's gonna wander regardless .
Speaker 1But I definitely agree those . It takes a lot of mental toughness doing what we do and you do have to be in good shape . But go get me wrong , but you can get away with it . So it depends on what type of hunting style you're adopting . But the mental cause at the end of the day , you're in those woods , sometimes most of the time alone , and at the end of the day your mind is gonna wander to the what , if and like . Oh my God , if you know what if I get lean ?
Speaker 2Oh .
Speaker 1I've gotten lost before too and turned around and stuff like that . So there's always this what if ? But like the mental grind of deer season is a lot and you know that those bears are . You know we're not worried about getting attacked by a bear , but yet again it's that what if ? It's like we have so many damn bears that like it's always gonna be a what if ? And that's a north central , north north Jersey problem , really yeah .
Speaker 2I don't know what zone you hunt all the time , but I think you said you got a bear last season .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah but that was off for a private piece up in . That was up in Blair County on our private piece . Okay , cool , I'll be out this weekend figuring out what I'm doing for bear season . I think I'm looking at the maps now and I'm trying to get a bear spot . You know , and it's when you're in the north , it's not hard to get a bear spot Like you can put . You know , whenever down and bears are going to come , you know . But I like to designate , you know , a strictly embarrassed spot that will get the donuts and everything like that and all the goodies and then work around , work around that . But it's a grind because now we have to maintain , you know , deer season and then also bear . Are you hunting bear here ?
Speaker 2I am so excited . It is unreal how excited I am to go out bear hunting in October . They finally listened . They finally did something . Smart man , they finally did it . They have been putting the bear season in December for you know for the entire time that New Jersey has had a bear season . I don't remember if they ever had an earlier fall bow season for bear .
Speaker 1So we did so . We did for I want to say , two years . This was back in Murphy's first term , so the first damn . I wish I can remember . I think they opened it up where it was archery , but I think it was already at private only at that time . I don't think we can hunt stale land , I believe it was private only . Yet again , don't quote me people , I can't really remember at this point . But we did have it for two seasons , right ? I we bow hunted bears , yeah , we bow hunted bears twice , and then they got rid of it completely and then last year they opened it up .
Speaker 2Has the emergency thing .
Speaker 1Yeah , opened up gun only , and then now this year , in the next four years hopefully , it will be open up and bow in October and then a gun season in December , like the normal .
Speaker 2For real . They need to keep this going and if for whoever is listening that doesn't necessarily know directly about the bear population in New Jersey . It is exploded tremendously to unsafe levels , not just for people residents , kids , things like that but for the bears . Like it is too much for the bears to be around that many other bears . You're gonna have small 20 pound , 30 pound cubs getting ripped in half by a boar because they need to make sure that there are not as many bears in the area so that they can be successful that season . They are not gonna be worried about the fact that that's a little cub . They are gonna do what they need to do . They need to do , naturally , to thin out their own population . So if they're gonna do it , we should be stepping in to harvest those animals so that we can enjoy them as well and give them the respect that they deserve , not just to get ripped apart and left out in the woods for dead . The bear season was so needed last year from the time that I started hunting when I was around 13 until I was about 23 . Let's just use that for a 10 year time . I saw , maybe over the course of 10 years , like five bears and then over the past five years . For the first three years I probably saw 10 bears in those three years and over the last two years I have seen ungodly numbers of bears . Last year was well over 100 bears . I was seeing over a dozen bears a day , every single day I was seeing at the least I was seeing one bear , two , three , four , five bears every single sit , no matter where I was in any of my spots that I hunt Like it was just unreal . They were way overpopulated . The deer movement was contingent on what the bear were doing that day . It wasn't contingent on the wind , it wasn't . It was about the bears and what they were doing . It got to a point of being unsafe in the woods . It really did . I have a video out where I wasn't worried about the camera and that was maybe part of not getting the intensity of the scene , but I just pointed the camera straight down . There was a mom at the bottom of the . I didn't even know that she was there underneath me , like directly underneath my feet . I didn't know that she was there until she was in my backpack at the bottom of my tree stand .
Bear Hunting Regulations and Concerns
Speaker 2And now I do not hunt with snacks , I don't bring lunch , I don't bring anything only because of bears . Prior to that , I was bringing out freaking sandwiches , donuts , you name it . I was bringing it out into the woods because I needed to have an enjoyable hunt . I couldn't even do that last year . I couldn't bring a granola bar into the woods because I was gonna attract a bear directly to my tree .
Speaker 2And they aren't the types of bears that are normal , where if you see them and they see you , they run away . These are bears that are not concerned with your presence and actually are curious rather than scared , and that's not good . That is really bad for the bears themselves , as well as the rest of the population here in New Jersey , especially when it's growing at like 200% a year . We needed to make sure that we needed to take care of that . And here's one more thing I wanted to mention on the bears was the fact that we're residents who don't know a damn thing about bears , about the population , about conservation , about anything to do with hunting and keeping a stable population in the state get to make those fucking laws .
Speaker 2It is so aggravating to sit back and just hear that Murphy won governor again and is going to take bear hunting off of the map just because of the people that voted for him want that to be put into place . It's not that the people that voted for him know that it's needed or that it's actually needed , they just want it . So what they want they get , and that's not fair . It's not fair to the population of people who do hunt , it's not fair to the population of animals here , and I'm so happy to see that they actually put forward a bear hunt for the season already and said it's gonna be in October , and they said another one is gonna be in December , that one in October .
Speaker 2I'm gonna be on Facebook Live or Instagram Live , youtube Live , any live that you could possibly find me on First morning , first morning , catch me Like it's gonna happen . I'm not gonna bait . There's not gonna be a single drop of corn , a single cent , nothing within 100 miles of me . I guarantee that there are bears all over me that first day . It's just how it's been .
Speaker 1I'm very excited to see this too as well , and your experience , and hopefully to get one down on the ground . It's been something that's a long time coming . Every word that you said is I completely agree with . We've talked about countless times on this podcast and everything like that , like it's a need at this point , and they've been letting the wrong people make the decisions and still , technically to this day , it's still a management program . The biggest thing that they need to work on is making it become a game animal in New Jersey so that we have an actual regulated season every year . Then the day . I'm not gonna be picky , but the season does need to be longer . But listen , I'm happy for what we got , so I'm not gonna like , oh my God about that and in the future , that is something that like I would like for it to come up of making it a game animal and increasing the season and even at the end of the day , the tags .
Speaker 1As much as I love spending $2 , but our state does other stupid stuff where they penalize people for the wrong thing and for very like dumb things that are confusing , like tagging the deer , and I get it .
Speaker 1We tag it online and then you have to fill it out in the green piece paper , then you have to have a transport paper and everything like that . Or it's easier to know because , like , that's just something that we know . But if you're someone who's coming out of the state or you're a new hunter or something like that , if you don't know that , you don't know . And then if you're biasing , you don't fill out one of those things , right , and most likely you're gonna fill out it online and think , okay , cool , it's filled out online . I got the confirmation ID number , like everything's good . If you don't know and you get hit with a ticket , you have to pay a fine and potentially of suspending your license . Or there's so many laws in situ that turn people off timing just because of how strict they are , and I get it . I'm completely , but there's certain things where it could be used as an educational standpoint . Now , if you're poaching and stuff like that , throw the books that I'm .
Speaker 2I really do think like you know , you're right .
Speaker 1Right so , but if you make the bear , even if I there's a hey listen , you're a resident , so now you're gonna have to pay 35 or $50 for a bear tag .
Speaker 1I'm still paying 35 , 50 , but if you're out , if you're out of stator , should it be a hundred to 200 ? Yeah , probably , because you look at it , it would , because if I go to another state to hunt an animal , look how much money I'm paying . You know what I mean . Make it at least profitable bulls , so you're not killing us with other stuff that are ridiculous . You know it's . There's a lot that I need to work on , and then part of it is because , like you said , you have people who are not hunters making these decisions and on the game council . For what reason ? That makes no sense whatsoever . How are you gonna have hunting and fishing like , and you don't listen to the biologists , you don't listen to the people who do this for a living ? You don't listen to them . But you wanna just just because it's your agenda and that's what you wanna do .
Speaker 1But you know , it's ridiculous , but you know , happy it's back . I'm so pumped that's like you . I was shaking when it came back because I , you know the red-and-rushed bow hunting bears is you wanna talk illicit , I don't care , big buck you get one , don't get me wrong , but an animal that can easily kill you too . And they're so big and so powerful and so majestic , and so bears are . Just I love them . I love them half the time I do wanna jump out of the stand and give them a big goddamn hug because they look so fluffy and like their fur is so soft and I love it . Right , it's everything about bears like I love it , like I am obsessed with bow hunting bears and you know it's last year I killed my bear , you know , and I talked about it a lot like it wasn't a big bear but it was a management bear . I could not go into that . Leave that hunt , not shooting a bear . That was of legal limit because that's how serious of a problem that we have .
Speaker 2Oh , it's so bad . So one of the things I just wanted to mention this about last season's bear hunt and it really upset me , and it has to do with the fact that you know these people that follow Murphy , that wanted to have these laws in place , who got rid of bear hunting from the first place , the PEDAs , or whatever you wanna call them . They are strategic , they know what the hell they're doing . I'm telling you they really know what they're doing and it really sets me . It really does , and I almost don't wanna talk about it because I don't wanna give them fuel to be able to say oh hey , we did a really great job , we got to this guy , let's make sure we keep on doing this . Right , I don't wanna give them any fuel , but what they did last year was so smart I can't , like I applaud a great move by an opponent kind of a thing .
Weather's Impact on Bear Hunting in NJ
Speaker 2Bear hunt was scheduled just per se first week of December and that week of December was still relatively warm weather and up until that week I had been seeing bears every single day , every single hunt , no matter what well , they decided to protest the day or two before postponing the hunt for an additional week , right Once it got pushed back an additional week , the attempts dropped dramatically dramatically . You're talking like a 20 degree swing in temperatures over the course of a week . It was going from the overnight lows in the 40s to the overnight lows in the 20s that week in December last year . So what that did was that got every single bear that was in the area to end up . They all decided to start working on hibernating for the year . So you had bears that were normally traveling a mile , two miles a day , that were not traveling 100 yards in a day . So all these Pita people stopped the hunt and if you looked at the numbers and how they went up this past bear hunt , they did not go up very quickly at all . First four days I think we had 46 bears or 64 bear shot in the first couple of days , and that was just the weekdays . Right , the weekend is supposed to be when the best hunting was gonna happen . The most numbers were gonna come out . Well , think about this . It's the number .
Speaker 2Our state , new Jersey , has some of the best bear hunting . It's a premier bear hunting location , if you could believe that . If you listen to Joe Rogan's podcast , he talks about bear hunting in New Jersey all the time . Bears in New Jersey , some of the record bears , black bears , have been harvested in New Jersey . You're talking 800 pounds , close to a thousand pound animal with skulls that are record size .
Speaker 2So you had people out of staters definitely planning hunts , definitely saying , hey , dude , they just planned a bear hunt for New Jersey in a month . Do you guys wanna buy plane tickets and fly out to Jersey and go hunt there ? Of course let's do it , but let's all take off of work . You have a group of five guys . You have a group of hundreds to five guys coming into New Jersey that are gonna be putting money towards our system to hunt . They postpone the hunt . Those guys are screwed . They can't go bear hunting so they end up just going deer hunting and not putting in towards the bear . They did a really good job , peter , in stopping the bear hunt last year . They did even though we had the bear hunt last year . They stopped it , they proverbially stopped it .
Speaker 1We've talked about this , so I have been saying that from the beginning . But and even when they pushed it forward to begin with , a lot of us said watch what happens . They're lawyers . Everything that they do , everything was calculated . They knew that was gonna happen and , like you said , we were having bear to out the wazoo everywhere , even that opening day of six day . I'm pretty sure all of us would have killed a bear that day .
Speaker 1All right , at least , but not all of us , I think at least 75% of us would have killed a bear , which is a extraordinary number . Right Then I think it was the next day or whatever the day actually opened . It didn't open until two or three o'clock . They didn't make the announcement . In the afternoon it was pouring rain . We were on our way to the hunting deer when we got the announcement right , so there was limited to what we could do .
Speaker 1Then the actual first day and I think I talked about this on the bear episode that we did , but for everyone who's new listening , it was just got done , raining , the fog was terrible . I remember you couldn't see really , and all your preparation that you did before for bear season . Everyone stopped their preparation because it was like why am I gonna do all this when we potentially might not even have a bear hunt ? And a lot of people I talked to they put in vacation days and they actually went back on it and said you know what ? There's probably not gonna be a bear hunter or it's gonna be a half ass bear hunter or whatever the case is . So they ended up going back to work . They didn't spend the money of the preparation that they were doing before because look at what they did . Look at it was calculated , which affected the bear number .
Speaker 1When I brought that bear in , I think I was the second or third person and that was on the Saturday . So that was the end of the first week and they had to extend it the next week because of the numbers were so low . But they were like yeah , this is . And I was like , listen , I'm not blaming you guys at all because it has nothing to do with you guys , I go . But , and just like I said here , I go . If it would have been open you opening day , you guys would have killed it right . And even the next , the following week , the numbers didn't do well . I think the numbers were in like somewhere in the 60s or 80s , for actually , like , the total was so low .
Speaker 1And a lot of that was because of the weather , man , the weather was terrible , but also what you said , the largest bear jersey killed was 829 pounds , right , just shy of a thousand . I imagine it was field dressed at that point , so like it probably was close to that thousand marker , right , and it is the one of the . The hunter was Bruce Healy , so it actually was one of the largest bears ever to come across in North America . So let's see what the size is for .
Speaker 2Yeah , and a lot of these world record bears that you're about to look up or you're about to see are actually found dead already . So a lot of these skulls . So they're going about the skull size A lot of them . Weight is totally different , that's for hunting deer or hunting bears and stuff , but the skull size is what you're going to find . A lot of your Wikipedia searches largest bear ever found in New Jersey , largest bear found in North America . Skull sizes from things that were found dead . It's just crazy , man . They're giant , massive creatures .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's absolutely ridiculous . Let's see the biggest . I don't know if there's a weight . They don't give an exact weight . Let me look for a different .
Speaker 2Did you see that video ? And this is really close to zone six where I hunt . It might have been in zone six of those two bears they were probably both of them were over three , maybe over 400 pounds . Yeah , on the person's front lawn . Come on , that's raw right there .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , it's crazy , but it's unbelievable . It really is . Like you said , new Jersey is such a mecca for black bear hunting , and a big part of it is because of what our population grows .
Speaker 1They would just advertise it . You know , and I get it . You know it's difficult to advertise something when you do have the anti hunters breathing down your neck , and you know we're such a liberal state to begin with . But it would really make this state a lot of money and turn a lot of things around as a hunting , like it's crazy . So the largest black bear in history was killed in New Brunswick . This bear weighed 1100 pounds before dressing and estimated 902 pounds after .
Speaker 2And so that bear just shot last year was pretty much the same size as the world record black bear ever .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , yeah , and it says the biggest bears to ever for black bear are from between that 800 to 899 pound spot .
Speaker 2So we have some of these hubs and he's over 600 pounds and he's going to be there again this year . I don't think anybody got him . At least I don't think anybody got him . I don't really care about the size , like , I just really want to get a bear . I want to get maybe one for me and one for my buddy Dylan . We hunt together that's our little group and I'm getting my fiancee her license this year . I'm really looking forward to that so that she can get her bow hunting license and you know she comes out with me a handful of times a year . Let her hold onto the bow , let her take the shot . You know that sort of thing and if we can get one or two bears between us , I would be ecstatic . You know , just have one . You know I don't need a lot . I'm not here because I want to have 600 pounds of bear meat in my freezer . I want to have like 100 pounds . You know , I want to have like a good amount . Go through it .
Speaker 2For people who don't know Bear is not exactly as good to eat , as widely sought after as venison is . Venison is extremely good meat amazing quality , low fat content , super lean . Versus bear is known as not being as tasty of an animal , and the main reason why is because of the temperature you need to cook it at . You need to cook it over a certain temperature to make sure that you kill off any bacteria and diseases such as trig nosis . Trig nosis is a really bad disease that's found in anything that kind of roots in the ground , such as pork pigs , obviously .
Speaker 1I almost you know , bobcats , anything like that , but it's mainly in pork and bears and stuff like that . But like , listen , everyone , almost everyone I know loves bear and it's so like . To me it's like candy . Honestly , I type people like the bear that you know . I love it . It has a sweet , sweet taste and , yet again , it depends on what the bear is eating and stuff like that . We're a huge believer in that . But like almost , I'd say probably like 90 , 95% of the people that I talk to , love bear , love it . You can use the fat to cook with and stuff like that . Listen , I plan on having a bear blanket at some point . I told my girlfriend I go , listen , I'm waiting for my rug . Hopefully my rug will be done soon this next . I hope I get a bear this year . I would like either a blanket or I mean , if it's a giant , which I'm not , yet again , I'm not looking for a giant , but if it does happen , then I want a full body mount that I want to be 3D or flat ?
Speaker 1I haven't decided yet that will . I'll have to toss the taxidermist .
Speaker 2That's the price .
Speaker 1But like my , I want Andrew at his house , at his dad's house . You walk in and there's this massive bear full , like just right in the front and I was like that's what I want . I want to like someone walk into my house , like the first thing they say is that bear . But I would only be saving that for like a absolute behemoth of a bear . Everything else , you know , I'm either going to get a coat made or , you know , something like that Like , but I love the fur . I'm a huge fur person when it comes to bears , foxes , coyotes , like you know , bobcat we can't hunt bobcat , but we do have bobcats and everything like that .
Speaker 1They're back . Babies , they're back . Oh , I see them every year on the camera and that's a eventual thing , that it's that's going to be next . You know , I know the reason why they have it is because the numbers in Southern Jersey haven't hit and I heard that they were going to capture some from North Jersey , because the North Jersey population is doing actually very well now , and move it down to South . That's what I heard . It's a rumor . I don't know if that's actual . You know situation , but those are the numbers . Are the numbers are looking good up in , up in North Jersey ? For sure I see them .
Speaker 2I see them all the time . Now I probably saw a half dozen to a dozen this past year and that's great . I mean lifetime . My dad's seen maybe one lifetime . My uncle , who's been hunting for 25 years , never seen one . You know like you're talking about people who have never seen one their whole life . And then I go and I see a half a dozen in a season . That's good . It's a lot about the specific spot you hunt to . There's just a small population in the spot you hunt . Things like that .
Speaker 1Definitely . So what we're going to do , we're going to move to our little segment that we do . We're going to do kind of the rapid questions and stuff like that . There's so much that we need to get on like it . It was really amazing . We got a whole lot of fishing stuff . We're going to have to do that all next time we're getting to the market .
Speaker 2And even get the ice fishing stuff going , so I know right a whole ice fishing day .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's crazy . But the first question that we always ask and we've been keeping count is you know you have two
Dream Hunts and Hunting Preferences
Speaker 1weeks . What is your dream hunt ? It's two week trip . You can go anywhere in the world , hunt any animal . Money is not an option . What would you pick and where ?
Speaker 2So one of my dream hunts is a sheep . I would love to get into some high elevation and really push my body and push a long shot you know things like that with a bow or with a muzzle loader . I don't really care to hunt with a rifle as much . A muzzle loader just seems like a way harder challenge than a lot of other things . So my dream hunts revolve around muzzle loaders and bows . I would also really love a bull elk hunt . That has slowly fallen off my list a little bit because it's not as elite as it used to be . Like it used to be , very few people did Because everyone's doing it .
Speaker 1Yeah , everyone's doing it now .
Speaker 2Everybody . So I'm like a little bit like maybe I don't need to do that hunt .
Speaker 1I think the problem and elk is amazing , you know , and it is one of those things like it's out of all the big game , right , when you're talking about elk , moose , sheep , grizzly , paraboo , then it is achievable . You know , whether you're going to see the most animals , you're going to see the most . You don't have to travel nearly as far . It's not nearly as expensive . You know , if you're doing a moose , you're looking at Alaska . If you're doing grizzly , you're looking at anywhere from .
Speaker 1Alaska , or you know you could do , you know you , you , you're looking at caribou , same thing , you're , you're . Those are places that no man's land , like very few people ever go , all right and costs a lot . They it's . You got to fly . You basically have to fly . Then you have to be flying to Anchorage and then you have to fly again and you get dropped on the jumpers . But I think , um , I think elk has become that thing where it's like all right , if we're , if we're doing like a big game , you can go to Colorado , you can go to Utah you go to New Mexico , yeah it's still .
Speaker 1it's still tough and it's tough hunting beyond the mountain , but it's way more achievable than the rest of the big game . Like sheep , sheep was one of the hardest you know , by far one of the hardest to do , and that's why you have so few people doing it .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that's my answer Sheep and elk , but elk has fallen off a little bit from my house .
Speaker 1Love it , love it . Um , what is your favorite ? If you only had one week of the season to hunt one , what would it be ?
Speaker 2That you don't even have . It's don't even not even a question that needs to be asked . You already know . You know exactly what I'm going to say . It's that final three days of October and that first four days of November . I have shot a deer at the last week of October and the first week of November , like every year for frigging years now , and I love it . It is just if you're planning on taking the day off , take off November 4th and November 5th . If you're listening to this , this is your sign to take off this year on November 4th and or November 5th . If your job allows you to take both days , take both days .
Speaker 1Love it . That's a good answer . Yeah , that that .
Speaker 2that ended October , early November and it's so great , like vocalizing to deer , talking to deer and having them do something you want them to do . They are the most batshit crazy that time of year so you can get them to make a mistake so much easier than normal . And they that that week you're walking into your stand and they are following you because they hear you walking into your stand . It is so cool , man , it is really cool .
Speaker 1I agree . Non-typical or typical whitetail .
Speaker 2I have a gnarly non-typical . I shot it actually I harvested it at the end of February , going back a bunch of years ago , almost 10 years ago . Non-typical , full velvet , in February , all broken off at the end of the rack , all nubbed up at the end of the rack , two drop times with splits . I think I would really love to get a beautiful typical buck , like at most to just have like a couple of stickers off of it . That's what I stand by stickers . If I shoot a deer that's got stickers . That's my next goal . That's like really where it takes it to the next level is where you get deer that just have a couple like small offshoots and stuff . A deer with drop times . Like something could happen that deer could have drop times two and a half years old . That's neat to be an old deer . Those stickers don't really show up until like four and a half , five and a half . I'd like that , definitely , definitely .
Speaker 1If you were to get sponsored by one company right now , what would it be ? What would you want it to be ?
Speaker 2Man , that is such a great question . Here's my first one . Verb Verb , energy . Okay , oh , interesting . I was going to ask you at some point what your snack is , your go-to snack when you're in the woods . This is a question .
Speaker 1It's usually my question . I haven't asked it yet . I was going to ask you it's kind of a two , so we just got two questions done is I was going to ask you what your go-to tree stand or hunting snack ?
Speaker 2They're called verb energy bars . It's a caffeinated energy bar . It has each bar as small . It has one equal to one espresso . It's like 65 milligrams of caffeine and granola bar . It is so good . It smells amazing , it tastes amazing . It's probably my favorite thing to eat when I'm in the tree stands . If I had to go back to your last question and get sponsored by an actual hunting and fishing company , I would be happy to . It doesn't ?
Speaker 1have to be an actual thing . You know why . It just has to contribute to . Sometimes that would actually contribute to . I'm going to let you answer the question , because I've had people do truck rain or something like that . I would get really different with things , because at that end a truck would be great , because look at all the driving . Would you look at a cell phone service for the trail cameras and stuff like that ?
Speaker 2I just want to get sponsored at this point . Anybody who's willing to get started with somebody who has a little bit smaller of a following has a little bit more of a niche following . My following is super strong . In terms of my engagement grade , there's a platform that you can use to check out your engagement rate to see if people actually are going to go through with your products and follow your videos and follow everything like that . My engagement rate is pretty high . I'm happy about only having 400 followers , but out of those 400 , my percent is ridiculous compared to somebody with tens of thousands . Their percent is like 2 to 5 percent . Mine's like 20 to 30 percent . I have a really great engagement rate .
Speaker 2I just want to have some subscriber . I want to get sponsored by somebody at some point soon , just so I can get that ball rolling . I don't care if it's a frigging verb , energy bar , a soap brand , a spray , anything like that , just to get that ball rolling . That's probably the one of the most frustrating parts is getting that ball rolling . I have a couple opportunities with some small big companies that just didn't end up turning out , but other than that , the sky's the limit . You want Under Armour , you want PSE , you want Hoyt and Matthews , but verb energy is my sponsor .
Speaker 1Definitely . What's your go-to about Is Hoyt brand new .
Speaker 2That's mine back there . I think it's a Ventum V3 or something like that . I forget which one . It is off the top of my head . It costs so much goddamn money .
Speaker 1It's the entire month of salary type of thing . I'm about to go . Listen , you don't have to tell me , I got the RX5 last year and it cost me a ridiculous amount of money . Oh yeah , I see it . The Trophy Ridge and everything like that , I love it .
Speaker 2The Ventum 30 . The only reason why I put the Trophy Ridge on . I was doing a great hunt . I had an awesome site on there that I purchased with the bow probably a couple hundred dollars a day , and I had a buddy with me . Like I said , I bring out people who don't hunt . I had a buddy with me who needed to sit on the side of the hill at like three o'clock in the morning and just catch his breath while we were going up the hill . I'm not even kidding I logged like a tree fell and took my bow down the hill . It was a very , very steep hill . My site wound up snapping off right there on the side of the hill . Yeah , it was crazy . Just a tree fell out of nowhere and almost kills us , but takes my bow down the hill .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's right , that's my go-to .
Speaker 2My go-to is that bow . Other one I love my crossbow . It's very efficient , it shoots very well . And then my Thompson Center Triumph . Those are my three . Those are my go-to killing machines .
Speaker 1Wow , that's incredible . All right , one more because we're about to hit the two hour mark . It's a long podcast here , but it's been a phenomenal , phenomenal time . Are you a fix or mechanical broadhead type of guy ? What's your go-to broadhead ?
Speaker 2Fixed through and through . I love fixed broadheads . I feel like there's a little bit less that can go wrong as compared to the mechanicals . My two broadhead companies that I go for are Slick Trick and , believe it or not , the old school Thunderheads . Those old school Thunderheads just shred . If you have a bow that shoots those , well get those . If you don't , then figure it out and do what you need to do to get one that flies right .
Speaker 1Definitely Love it . Now I want to thank you for coming on . We're definitely going to have to get you back on . It was like that I will be in contact and stuff like that . Well , I got a bunch of group stuff coming up and everything like that where we're going to be doing group podcasts . We just recorded our first one went well
Upcoming Events, Appreciation for YouTube & Instagram
Speaker 1. I definitely on the next one , I will reach out . I'll probably be somewhere in the first couple of weeks in the season . I think we're going to do another group one and then we'll do one during the rut and then we'll do one in the late to end and all these other stuff . We got events coming . I definitely want you there and meet up in person and all these different things . It was a pleasure to have you get on .
Speaker 1Go check them out . I think it's going to be in the description below to their Instagram page , to their YouTube page . Go , look , check it out . Go support them . They are making some great stuff . Got tons of stuff coming . I really do appreciate their YouTube videos , everything like that . They're short clips on Instagram . Whether you like , hunting , fishing , they do it all . Legit , do it all . Go check them out . I hope you guys enjoyed this episode .
