Brown Gold w/ Martin Brose

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Join Brian Krebs and Martin Brose in this captivating episode as they uncover the fascinating world of shed hunting. From the art of finding antlers to the entrepreneurial journey behind Martin's acclaimed book, Brown Gold, this episode dives deep into the nuances of shed hunting across North America.

Learn about the differences between shed hunting in Canada and the U.S., strategic approaches to locating antlers, and how understanding deer behavior and food sources can enhance your success. Martin shares personal anecdotes, tips for connecting with landowners, and his experiences with using technology like drones to revolutionize shed hunting.

This episode also explores the challenges of publishing and marketing niche outdoor adventure books, offering inspiration for aspiring authors and hunters alike. Whether you’re a seasoned shed hunter or just starting out, this conversation delivers valuable insights and actionable strategies to fuel your passion for outdoor adventure.

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Brian Krebs (00:04.177)

usually just wait till it starts uploading. Boom, looks like we are off to the races.

Martin Brose (00:11.416)

Awesome

Brian Krebs (00:12.547)

Alrighty, let me get this kicked off.

Welcome back to another Western Rookie podcast brought to you by Go Hunt. This is actually going to be another great podcast for both of our shows. So you might be listening to this on the Western Rookie podcast. You might be listening to this on the two bucks podcast, but I'm really excited because I've got Martin Bros on the podcast today and we're going to be talking shed hunting. We're going to be talking a lot of fun stuff. We're going to be talking some hunting. We're going to be talking a little bit of entrepreneurship. And it's exciting because it's that time of the year.

I mean, we're recording this December 11th, but this will be out towards the new year. So once that roll calendar rolls over, it's application season and it's shed season and two of my favorite things to talk about. So I'm really glad you were able to chop on the podcast, Martin, and let's talk some antlers.

Martin Brose (01:06.062)

Yeah, 100%. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Brian Krebs (01:09.071)

Yeah, so you, I think you actually found me by happenstance. Reached out and said, I found you on, was it Bow Hunters of America?

Martin Brose (01:20.173)

Yeah, Bull Hunters of America, you're one of those like recommended podcasts that a bunch of people were talking about. So was like, check this out. You know, was looking to connect with some podcasters and your name was highly recommended.

Brian Krebs (01:30.415)

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate that. I didn't even know I was getting tagged in those, but I did see, I saw someone Spotify wrapped that they posted in their like top five podcasts. And I was, I think number four, but I was like honored to even be on the list. mean, it was like the Rogan podcast, meat eater, Sean Ryan, the Western rookie, somebody else. like, wow. Like that's yeah, it's really cool. Yeah.

Martin Brose (01:47.286)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (01:53.92)

Whoa, you're up there, Yeah, 100%.

Brian Krebs (01:57.649)

And then I looked at my Spotify rap and the podcasts were like, well, I haven't listened to that podcast in months. So I don't, you know what mean? I listened to my common ones so much that like four and five were kind of out there, but still very cool to be mentioned. It's, nice to know that like I'm helping people and people are recommending like, yeah.

Martin Brose (02:15.276)

Yeah, it's cool once you kind of get that coming back to you like that, the reputation or something like that,

Brian Krebs (02:19.685)

Yeah. Yeah, I'm also an avid shed hunter, so maybe that helps too.

Martin Brose (02:25.318)

Probably, yeah. mean, I'm personally starting to get that reputation, I think, among people as like the hunting guy or the shed hunting guy for sure.

Brian Krebs (02:32.273)

Yeah, yeah, they're probably like his podcast sucks, but he finds a lot of antlers. So, so you wrote a book, you wrote a book Brown Gold, the guide to shed hunting in North America. What got you into shed hunting, because it's usually not people's first experience with the outdoors. So what, what for you was that aspect that got you started?

Martin Brose (02:36.351)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (02:42.378)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (02:57.099)

Yeah, it's kind of funny. Like I grew up like not a hunter at all. Like my grandpa was a big time hunter. I still have some of his like racks and stuff like that around that he had stored in his garage. But like I just never got into it that way. My dad was not a big hunter. So I was about 22. And I remember he kind of sat me down. was like, Hey, Martin, if you ever get your gun license, like I've got a shotgun for you. And this is about the same time as like the walking dead was a big thing. And so in my head, like, yeah, I could use a shotgun for like

Brian Krebs (03:07.281)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (03:23.462)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (03:26.763)

just in case, you know, the zombie apocalypse happens. So I went and got my license and then I happened to working in Northern Alberta and the fire chief at the time actually was like, well, why don't you come out hunting? And sure enough, yeah, went out hunting. We saw one doe that year. There'd been a pack of wolves that moved through the area. So like nothing was moving or anything like that. Shot a chicken. It was great. And just since then kind of grew and I guess

Brian Krebs (03:29.081)

you

Brian Krebs (03:38.299)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (03:53.727)

Probably the reason I got into shed hunting is I was kind of looking at everyone else's trophy walls and being like, I'm kind of behind here. I need to put some bone on the wall. And I was like, well, my experience, like just looking on Instagram and social media was I'm like, there's gotta be antlers everywhere, right? And so I started shed hunting and I was very wrong. There's not antlers everywhere like it seems like it is on social media.

Brian Krebs (04:09.371)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (04:17.401)

Yeah, it's an interesting kind of dichotomy. Because you've probably found it's a lot harder to get into. But then once you start to get some experience and you start to build some spots, then it can be like, yeah, we found 27th Antlers today.

Martin Brose (04:33.579)

Yeah. yeah. It's like, once you start, you're like, man, I suck. walked all day and I found nothing. Like I probably spent like 20, 30 hours just walking around the bush, not finding anything. And, know, just kind of being lost and not knowing what the hell I'm doing. And then all of a sudden, you know, it kind of clicks and you start finding them and then you're like, there's like kind of a pattern here. Like I understand what to start doing here.

Brian Krebs (04:38.586)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (04:57.103)

Yeah, yeah. And are you in Canada?

Martin Brose (05:00.926)

Yeah, I'm in Alberta.

Brian Krebs (05:01.807)

Yeah, figured when you said the Bush, it's a very fine line when that transitions from like back country or timber to Bush, which is awesome. I've heard.

Martin Brose (05:12.658)

Yeah, yeah. We're lucky in Alberta, we kind of have like the northern part of Alberta is bush and then like the western part is like your mountains and so you got all the like backcountry stuff if you want. And then like the eastern part is like farmland and fields. So we kind of get the best of both worlds. Like whatever you're into style for hunting and shed hunting like that, you can do it. It's awesome that way.

Brian Krebs (05:29.723)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (05:36.209)

Yeah, I've heard a lot of stories about shed hunting in Alberta and Manitoba and just like some crazy stories about if you can get in the right spots, finding like hundreds of antlers. And I've always wanted to do it, but I don't know what the implications of being a US resident and like the public land is very different in Canada than it is in the US. And so I was just like, I feel like I need to know somebody before I just start tramping around.

Martin Brose (05:48.503)

yeah, yeah.

Martin Brose (06:01.642)

Well now you do, you got a connection up there.

Brian Krebs (06:04.505)

Yeah, that would be awesome. I don't know if you can export them. Can you do any of that?

Martin Brose (06:10.149)

Yeah, like I've sent antlers across the border down to people in the States and the basic rule in Alberta is essentially as long as there's no skull plate attached, it's like free game. Once there's a bit of skull plate attached, then it counts as like a skull or a dead head and then you have to apply for permits.

Brian Krebs (06:27.597)

Okay, to find them and to like have possession.

Martin Brose (06:31.59)

Yeah, to have possession is the big thing. You can find them all you want, like legally until you get that permit, you're not even supposed to like bring them out to the woods.

Brian Krebs (06:34.992)

Right.

Brian Krebs (06:40.579)

Okay, and then do you know how it affects like, like if someone from the States came down to or came up to Canada found a whole bunch of antlers and had like a pickup box full of them going back through customs, would there be any impacts there?

Martin Brose (06:54.404)

I don't believe so. know people who do that on the regular, like the shed antler buyers who will come up to Alberta and just kind of do a big circuit and pick up a pickup truck box full and then back across the border. I know some people who like have made businesses out of shipping sheds and that kind of stuff.

Brian Krebs (07:01.221)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (07:10.543)

Yeah, I wonder if you have to have kind of like a bill of sale for customs to be like, didn't steal these, right? Like I bought them from my friend Martin for a dollar. Yeah, I don't know. It'd be something to be interested to look into. as far as land goes in Canada, you guys don't necessarily have public land in the same sense that America does, but there's a lot of crown land, right? Yeah.

Martin Brose (07:17.006)

Yeah, very possibly. I've never shipped enough chance that that's a problem. Yeah.

Martin Brose (07:37.123)

Yeah, yeah, I think like crown land would be like the best equivalent to public land that you get kind of out west. Like it's just kind of, you know, in theory it's owned by the Queen of England and, you know, that has a whole big historical thing, but it's basically, yeah, public access land. Like there is still like docks unlimited owns a bunch of land. There's still kind of other like, there's a bunch of weird like, you know, lease quarters, which is like it's crown land, but it's leased to a rancher who then

Brian Krebs (07:57.296)

Okay.

Martin Brose (08:06.046)

usually has to allow public access with certain conditions. So there's all sorts of like little ways you can gain access to a whole pile of land and then there's lots of land that's just like fair game.

Brian Krebs (08:09.99)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (08:18.051)

And is that fair game for like non residents of Canada?

Martin Brose (08:21.892)

yeah, it's like literally just if you go to Northern Alberta, like 90 % of the country up there is like Crown land and can just be freely accessed. Like lots of people who plotting and hunting and everything like that up there for the specific reason of you don't have to really worry about access. The tricky part comes when there's like, you know, those borders of, you know, Crown and public and then the next quarter over is again like.

Brian Krebs (08:35.31)

Interesting.

Brian Krebs (08:39.129)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (08:48.895)

someone else's life so you have to be aware of that but there's kind of a a certain point where it gets to be less of a concern that way.

Brian Krebs (08:55.183)

Yeah, I know here in certain regions, it can be very successful asking farmers for permission to find shed antlers, because they typically run into problems like popping tires. And my father-in-law was just up in Manitoba, I think it was Manitoba, deer hunting, they had a outfitter, the group of five guys went up there and they see

So many deer. It's insane the number of bucks they see and it's a lot of like the bush with field edges And so I'm looking at that like man those fields have to be littered with antlers in the spring and I'm like I wonder if the farmers have problems with that

Martin Brose (09:27.009)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (09:34.7)

They do, yeah, lot of them like they run into like tire popping is the big one. And then like when they're bailing me and stuff like that, it gets caught in the machinery and they, yeah, they really don't like that. I have a couple of farmers who've given me like boxes of sheds that they've kept in. Like half of them have like broke off tines and you can just see where they like got into something and snapped it.

Brian Krebs (09:38.513)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (09:50.096)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (09:53.633)

I have a shed on this wall here. Actually, it's that one. I'm not sure if you can see it. There's a this one right here. Boom. That five pointer that that one has disc marks in it because it got ran over by a no till planner. Yeah, so you could tell and I'm like, I'm surprised that held up because that's a lot of down pressure.

Martin Brose (10:03.735)

Okay, yeah, I think I can find the seat.

Martin Brose (10:10.706)

amazing. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (10:17.805)

on that antler. But yeah, it sounds very interesting. I feel like Canada is going to have to be one of those trips that I do eventually shed hunting because it's just so unique. And especially the mule deer. I think there's a lot of awesome mule deer. I know the cover of your book is a mule deer shed. And so that was at an Alberta antler.

Martin Brose (10:36.979)

Yeah, that one, like I can almost remember exactly where I found that. Like that's, that's back when I was doing a little bit of like social media and taking pictures for some companies. was like, let's dig out the camera and take a picture of this. So it came in useful a couple of years later. Now that I wrote the book, there's tons of melees. mean, our area, I feel like the population, everyone's noticed that it's kind of on the decline. There's been a lot of extra tags issued and stuff like that, but there's still some like absolute crank or deer go find that's for sure.

Brian Krebs (10:44.592)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (10:51.311)

Yes.

Brian Krebs (10:57.893)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (11:03.973)

That's awesome. That's awesome. where all have you gone shed hunting? Do you stick to the provinces? Do you come down to the states ever? Kind of what's your like, what species do you like the most and kind of where do you spend most of your time finding antlers?

Martin Brose (11:19.86)

Yeah, most of my time is probably targeting mule deer, just because it's like close to me. Just where I live is primarily mule deer country. And then like there's a good mix of everything around me. So that's, pretty fortunate that way that I can just kind of almost decide what I want to focus on every single day. I've definitely gone out into Saskatchewan because I'm not far, far from the border. Nunavut I've done a little bit in the Yukon.

Brian Krebs (11:36.603)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (11:46.1)

a little bit in Alaska, a little bit in BC, although I wasn't successful in a lot of those bigger bushy areas. Plans are this year I want to go down to Arizona or something like that or New Mexico and try and get a couple sheds from there.

Brian Krebs (11:52.229)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (12:00.417)

Yeah, I can tell you New Mexico is a, it's such a different landscape that it's kind of almost like a shell shock at first. And like I would typically like I have a friend that brought us out and I would have been like, that's where we're shedding. I there's not gonna be any antlers there. And he's like, I'm telling you, there's gonna be antlers there boys. And it's just like, it's just a crazy difference of like,

I'm used to finding food sources, yarded up deer, lots of scouting with the pickup, know, cover and food and a trail between them. And this was like, I don't even know what they're eating out here. Like there's nothing like New Mexico is a desert. Like there's no grass ever unless you're like in the bottom of a creek valley. It's just like dirt.

Martin Brose (12:42.557)

Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Brose (12:50.441)

Yeah, you're kind of looking for like stage flats and like just like the little patches here and there.

Brian Krebs (12:56.067)

It was like benches off the side of a tape, like very distinct, like Mesa's, which is Spanish for table. but it'll be like, it could be as narrow as 10 feet wide and you just rock that bench all the way down and then try to find a way to get down to the next one. And like, that's where there are. And I'm like, how can elk even get in here? But they find a way. Yeah.

Martin Brose (13:03.742)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (13:16.828)

Yeah, it's tricky. Yeah. A lot of our like mule deer hunting and like shed hunting is kind of like that out here with the badlands. So you get a lot of the like, like big like creek fingers and you're just kind of going along one or one plateau kind of staying away from the top. But every so often you're like, I got to check up top there. Like there's got to be antlers up there too, right? Because they all live in those little fingers and then they just pop up into the fields.

Brian Krebs (13:25.872)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (13:37.795)

Yes.

Yeah. I've never I've never found there's like, there's a couple of things shed hunting like when you Google shed hunting, and now AI is probably really bad at it of like, go check these spots, right? And it'll be like food sources are an important part of a deer's life like check food sources and fence lines is on every list. Every list of every shed hunting how to guide includes a fence line. I have walked

Martin Brose (14:01.34)

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Brian Krebs (14:07.023)

miles and miles and miles of fence lines. I've walked fence lines that have like unpicked cornfield on this side and woods on that side. I've walked just endless miles of fence line and I have never definitively found a shed where it was like boom boom there's a shed like right where that deer jumped the fence. Not once and I've found a lot of whitetail sheds not a lot of anything else but a lot of whitetail sheds.

Martin Brose (14:31.323)

Really?

Brian Krebs (14:36.259)

And so I'm like, I don't know who came up with the whole fence line trick, but I mean, I understand it. I've seen deers drop their sheds and videos jumping fences. Like I completely believe it's legit, just not for me.

Martin Brose (14:52.125)

It's like the basic, basic like tip to try, right? Like it's like if you don't try anything else, like, or don't know what you're doing, like try a fence line, right? And I remember like when I was first starting off, like I asked like people who don't even like shed hunter, hunter, I'm like, I don't know where to find these things. They're like, well, try a fence line. And like same thing, I tried fence lines for a long, long time. Now I've started to kind of pick it up where I'm like, okay, like they do knock them off if you cross along a fence line, but

Brian Krebs (14:58.022)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (15:02.673)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (15:21.478)

The other thing is that's a lot of times where people will quite easily ride a quad because they're bush mowing to keep stuff away. it's like, they're definitely there. And just this last spring, I found a big old elk shed right at the fence line. And that was pretty cool.

Brian Krebs (15:26.203)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (15:35.973)

Yeah, that'd be sweet. Yeah, so the fence line thing to me, I don't even think about them anymore. Like I'll walk them if I have to walk the fence line anyway to like get back to the truck or something, but I do not go out of my way to find fence lines.

Martin Brose (15:49.591)

Usually my strategy is like cruise along the fence line until you find that trail that's crossing it, like that really beat down heavy trail. And then you're just like, okay, back on that trail.

Brian Krebs (15:54.17)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (15:59.153)

Well, one of the trails that I've had, there's a spot, it's on public too. And there has been places where I have seen legitimately, like in a all in adapter, did just go video hundreds of deer in one video, just panning. And there's a fence line that they come in out of these private bluffs, come down through this flat, hop this fence and it's a cornfield. And I'm like, okay, well, there's going to be like,

Martin Brose (16:14.628)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (16:28.763)

two piles of sheds on that fence, right? From like that one trail that they, no, multiple years of not finding a shed. I've found sheds in the cornfield, gritting the corn. I've found sheds all over the place, but not jumping that fence. And so that's where I was just like, I don't know. It's one of those things that like, I feel like keeps getting propagated and like there's just enough smoke that people believe there's fire.

Martin Brose (16:31.365)

There should be,

Brian Krebs (16:56.603)

but it wouldn't be on my top 10 list of places to check. If someone was gonna ask me, I wouldn't say like, you should go find a fence line.

Martin Brose (17:00.569)

No, I would say it's underweight, yeah.

Martin Brose (17:05.657)

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a whole lot of fence land that you have to walk, you know, like snow drifts and through a bog and this and that before you get to like those two places where those deer are crossing. So I kind of talked a little bit about that in the book where it's like, yeah, like just go where the animals are and then, you know, ranch out from there.

Brian Krebs (17:12.656)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (17:23.985)

Yeah, I don't, I recommend people just fill up a tank, gas tank. Like that's the best way to find sheds is like drive until you find the deer. I have always struggled because there's a sentimental value of finding a shed to a deer that I can hunt either on my farms or our family farms. And we have hundreds of acres of private land in our family. We do food plots, there's egg, there's cover. We find so few sheds that it's like hard because I still want to walk those properties, but we don't, we don't find sheds there.

And I think that's maybe the first trap people fall into when they get into shed hunting is they go out to their 40 or their grandpa's 40 or the place they hunt and they say, we shoot deer every year. So I'm going to go find some sheds and they don't find anything.

Martin Brose (18:05.839)

Yeah. Yeah. It's just like that natural assumption of you're like the deer are here at a certain time. So they've got to be here all the time and you get kind of trapped into that. And you know, it is true. Like they, there's spots where like, you're like, this is the hunting spot, but then come springtime, it's just the food sources have changed. The pressures have changed. Like they just go to where is more comfortable for them.

Brian Krebs (18:13.318)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (18:22.736)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (18:30.031)

Yeah, certainly. And it changes the re like what region you're in, I think can drastically change things as well. We've done a little bit of shed hunting in the West and there I think it's, I think in the West, it's a little bit harder in one aspect to kind of figure it out. Because there's typically not as distinct food sources as there are in the East. In the East, unless you have like,

Martin Brose (18:57.856)

100%, yeah.

Brian Krebs (18:59.997)

Pivot but if you have a center pivot, it's probably private something, you know, like I don't really think of that But it would be a great spot to find sheds I know people that shed hunt pivots out west and they're like, yeah, we just drive around with the Ranger and scoop up And it's awesome. It's like I'm jealous but In the East you can have a food plot you can have a cornfield you have more hay fields And it's like easier like there's the tree. There's the food source. There's a huge trail in between

Martin Brose (19:12.474)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (19:28.079)

I can figure out the shed hunting. If you're in the Pennsylvania forest, very difficult, because there's no distinguishing factors that determine the winter range. And that's part of the problem on our farm here is everything is so thick, and there's no great food source that they're browsing, like on willow and things, they just go wherever. They don't yard up. In the West, I feel like it's a little bit harder to find those areas. But if you find them,

Martin Brose (19:40.057)

Yeah, you're.

Brian Krebs (19:57.285)

That's where you can get into some magical days because you get a whole herd.

Martin Brose (20:02.401)

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And like I found that same thing, like those, the, you know, food and then trail and then bed, like that's, that's like the easy go to, like, if I want to have an easy day shed hunting, like that's what you do. I want to really turn up the difficulty level. It's like go out west or go up north. Cause yeah, there's just nothing to like concentrate them in a spot. And even the people who live up there quite frankly, like are just like, I don't know, they're around and yeah, they're just kind of moseying around and you know, this little hillside melts off first.

Brian Krebs (20:14.662)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (20:22.81)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (20:31.991)

So there'll be deer there and then they might not be there the next year because a wolf comes or something like that, right? So it's very inconsistent out west and up north, that's for sure.

Brian Krebs (20:40.761)

Yeah, it is and it's hard. It's hard when you don't put in the time. But that's why I recommend like stay in your truck. Like don't leave your truck until you know where the deer are. Right, like I don't walk things to see if there's deer. Very rarely. Sometimes if there's like, I'll start doing it more here now that we just bought this 40 acre farmstead and there's a lot of, there's publics around and then there's also just like a lot of, I think I'm start scouting.

Martin Brose (20:52.309)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian Krebs (21:09.061)

mission pieces locally. cause I'm still chasing a hundred. I'm still chasing a hundred shed season. that's my goal. I know a lot of people crush it every year and I'm very envious. but I don't get out of my truck unless I know there's deer, you know, I've done that so many times. I've spent so many days walking, pounding snow to not even see two deer tracks that I'm like, okay, well that's, that doesn't, that's not sustainable.

Martin Brose (21:11.063)

Thank

Brian Krebs (21:37.093)

for the amount of time I have available to do this activity, right? You know, like if you're like laid off or you just don't work winters and you're, whatever, you don't have kids, maybe you have all kinds of time and you're like, this is my exercise. I don't really care if I find one. I'm just gonna walk a lot. It's like, okay, then you can do whatever you want. But it's like, have like, I can't go tomorrow. I can go on Saturday, but then Sunday we got a family thing and I got a job. It's like, if I want to find antlers, I got to figure out a better way to find antlers than just walk.

Martin Brose (21:40.675)

yeah, for sure.

Martin Brose (21:54.474)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (22:06.166)

Yeah, yeah, I know,

Brian Krebs (22:06.819)

And so I believe miles put piles, but it's with my truck.

Martin Brose (22:10.774)

And I like I'm probably the opposite of you where I have like the time where I can just be like, okay, I'm just gonna spend all day walking and no big deal. I find one it's like, I always say to myself, I'm like, if I find one like I didn't waste the day. But you know, that gets really old when you hike for you know, eight, 10 hours, and you're like carrying this one lonely little forky and you're like, this sucks. So the trouble that I find sometimes is like some of those places where there's deer in there, you know, they're

Brian Krebs (22:18.235)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (22:23.375)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (22:38.345)

there's just in like a giant tract of wilderness and you're like, okay, like somewhere in here, they're there, but it's like, where are they? And you only get, you know, really to see them an hour of light and you know, they're that sunset sunrise time, right? Like you're like, I can't quite scope everywhere that I want to look. And then even then sometimes they're down in the valley and you'll never see them there. And that's just like, like I've come into a valley, same thing as you and you're like, there's a shed, there's a shed, there's a shed, there's a shed. Like it's incredible.

Brian Krebs (22:43.321)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (22:52.602)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (23:05.99)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (23:06.944)

But you'd never see that from a road or from a trail or anything like that. So there's, there's utility in both of them, that's for sure.

Brian Krebs (23:09.946)

Yeah.

Yeah, that my advice is whitetail specific for sure. And when you're in the West, you kind of have to leave the road because there's not that many roads and you have to kind of get in there a little bit. I want to start using a drone. Like I want to. I want to get a drone and I just want to be able to fly it like, you know, because there's pieces where it's like, hey, depending on what that food source was, it might be worth it to walk in. If that's a standing corn field, maybe worth it. If it's picked soybeans, probably not worth it. Right. And so it's like

Martin Brose (23:25.897)

You have to always go with that. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (23:42.353)

You know where I shed hunt, there's a lot of snowshoes. I hunt a lot on snow snowshoes. And so it's like, it's a lot of work just to walk a mile over there. so I'm on a put up drone up, fly it over, get down low. And I could like probably fly that thing down to 10 feet and even see the deer tracks. When I had white tail hunt, like I'm looking for like snow that is so covered in deer tracks. It's like cement, like you're walking on two feet of cement, not two feet of snow. That's the kind of sign that I'm looking at.

Martin Brose (24:08.878)

yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (24:12.101)

for when I'm trying to find antlers. If I'm looking at a specific deer that's maybe a sentimental deer, either like a public land giant or like a buck on our home farms, then I'll like switch gears and I'll be like, know, grid everything, cover everything, walk forever just to find these two sets of antlers. But on public land, especially for deer that I can't hunt, I'm just here to find antlers and have fun, right? And so that's where I'm trying to find these higher odds places. And that's tough.

Martin Brose (24:34.803)

Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Brose (24:38.772)

Yeah, 100%. I think a drone would be useful. I I'm like, I can see the utility of it, but I'm also a big advocate for like, you know, kind of keep it simple, stupid, right? You don't want to end up with a dead battery drone and then you're hauling it around a backpack and you're like, this is silly. Like I've done that too, where I'm like, bring all this stuff and you're all kitted off and then you're like, none of that was useful.

Brian Krebs (24:48.219)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (24:53.659)

They're pretty light though, man.

Brian Krebs (25:00.879)

I don't think I'd bring it with me. I think I'd leave it in the truck. Like if you're out West, you're kind of, you know, what would you be looking for? That would be my question. Like what's the drone? Like what would be the positive result from the drone in the West? Cause you're not like, if you see, if you see elk, it's like, well, unless they just dropped, that might not be that relevant. Like you're not looking for a specific field to check a field and see if it's got standing corn in it. Cause there's, there's no fields. So are you looking for actual sheds?

Martin Brose (25:15.878)

Yeah, sort of like.

Martin Brose (25:29.265)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (25:30.577)

Because then it's like, well, probably might be very difficult to do with the drone. Looking for. Right.

Martin Brose (25:35.444)

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. wouldn't, I wouldn't take it out West. That's for sure. I'm just thinking even like you're saying our crop fields around here. I'm like, maybe like good, but I'd also, you know, like I usually wait till the snow has melted off like just a little bit. So there's like, you know, an inch or two. So I'm not snow shoeing anywhere because I find that you're kind of avoid those like snow shoeable areas anyway. They're just on the like the thinned out snow.

Brian Krebs (25:50.512)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (25:56.657)

Well, a lot of times I'll take the snow shoes off. A lot of times it's like getting them in, getting in and getting out. Like I might have to cross a mile of 16 inches of snow, 24 inches of snow, which just sucks. But once I get back in there, then the snow is like blown off a field or there's a field edge that's just hammered and they, you know, they, they packed it down or a trail system that they've cut in. But I've done it before where I don't bring them and then I'm post-holing for like a mile.

Martin Brose (26:07.804)

Yes.

Brian Krebs (26:25.219)

out of there with a pack full of sheds and then that's that's kind of like my insurance policy if there's a lot of snow I just throw them on my pack and they're light compared to the effort they help with but yeah that's that

Martin Brose (26:36.179)

That's true, yeah. Yeah, especially when you're post-holing. I have done that way too many times where like, this is actually like miserable.

Brian Krebs (26:43.097)

Yeah, yeah, that really does get old fast. Yeah, well, I also shed on the lot when it's like five below zero degrees, like our deer start dropping in February and, know, for us, February and March can be like drastically different. Like it could be 60 degrees with no snow and it could be five below with three feet of snow. I feel like elk like typically don't drop until like that

Martin Brose (26:47.793)

Yeah, you get so hot and so sweaty, it's crazy.

Brian Krebs (27:11.973)

March, April timeframe. then depending on where you are, like that can really look different as well. Like where you are, you could probably still have just as crazy of variables. But in like Colorado, New Mexico, where we were, there was, it was 80 degrees and we were shed hunting. So it was way different.

Martin Brose (27:26.682)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the elk, like I don't even bother really looking for elk until like the snow is pretty much gone. Like just cause I found it where you, you know, come across like a bunch of elk and you're like, they're all still carrying. And then you're like, well, now am going to bump them? Like what's going to happen here? So I usually try and kind of back off. My early season is definitely like white tail and muley focus where you just find those crop fields and kind of hammer those.

Brian Krebs (27:34.704)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (27:49.615)

Yeah. Yeah. What do you do with all the sheds that you find? Do you keep them all? Do you sell some of your extras and surplus?

Martin Brose (27:59.69)

Usually I'll sell like a couple, like I tried to make a big goal of like selling a whole bunch and just found it was like difficult, like Facebook limits your ads and that kind of stuff. And I was like, I just like looking at them mostly. So I've done like almost like a shoulder mount. I'll send you a picture of it. It's like a shoulder mount, but it's got like a dead head that I found. So it's like the shoulder mount is made out of sheds and then like the skull kind of mounts on top of it. That was probably my favorite thing that I've done with it.

Brian Krebs (28:10.459)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (28:19.121)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (28:23.663)

wow. Yeah, that would be cool. I just got my wall back here and then I've got a couple of unique sheds scattered throughout the house in other places like a mantle shed or I have a four by mule deer shed that's in the pedestal of my elk mount. A couple of things like that.

Martin Brose (28:41.21)

yeah, that's cool, yeah. I just put up like this afternoon, did the like, everyone always asks like, are you gonna make a Christmas tree out of those sheds? And I finally gave in, I was like, okay, I'm gonna take all my newly singles and stack them all up and I made a Christmas tree.

Brian Krebs (28:54.159)

Yeah, it's hard to do. You need a lot of sheds to especially white tail sheds. You need a lot of white tail sheds to make a Christmas tree. I've done it before and it makes it turns into like a four foot tree and it's not that impressive.

Martin Brose (29:00.974)

Yeah, like hundreds.

Martin Brose (29:07.064)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like even a four foot tree is like, because they all have to like cone out and then slowly build up. It's a lot.

Brian Krebs (29:14.107)

takes hundreds of big sheds. doesn't, not just hundreds of sheds, but hundreds of big sheds. Like three year old deer. No, they don't. The elk, they add up faster. Like I think 50, 60 elk sheds can make a pretty decent tree.

Martin Brose (29:16.432)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, the small ones don't add much mass.

Martin Brose (29:31.524)

That's true. don't think I'm not the best at elk shed hunting. Like I haven't focused on it that much, but I'm getting to where I'm like, I might be able to make something out of it.

Brian Krebs (29:40.687)

Yeah, I want to find more elk sheds. want to find some big mule deer sheds is actually on my list. Both elk and mule deer. have, there's a couple of unique goals that I've had that I'm just like shocked that I haven't achieved them. So I've never found a 70 inch whitetail shed, which is bonkers to me. Cause it's not statistically, it's a large deer to hunt and shoot, but shed hunting. Like you don't, you're not after just one, you're after a lot and you can hunt so many different herds and like, you know what I mean? Like

You should be able to find bigger sheds. think unanimously across the board, you should be able to find bigger sheds than you can shoot, statistically speaking.

Martin Brose (30:10.904)

Yeah, and we're like, once.

Martin Brose (30:18.124)

Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, like, because you're not like searching for like an animal that can run away. Once the sheds on the ground, like it's there, you're gonna, you just have to put in the time to find it, right?

Brian Krebs (30:27.417)

And bigger ones are easier to spot and it's easier to get access. So many different reasons. Well, I've shot bucks that I think I have a buck on the wall that has a 70 inch antler on it, but I've never found a 70 inch shed. And so I've found four or five 67 and 68 inch four points. This shed right here that I showed you would have been a 70 inch shed if he didn't break off his two.

Martin Brose (30:50.957)

Nice, woo.

Brian Krebs (30:56.977)

Cause he's got like a six inch brow. He's got a 13 and a half inch too. He's got mass. He's got decent beam length. He's got a lot of things going for him. He would, if he would have had this one out here, he would have been that he probably would have been about 72 inches as a four point. And so he broke it off and now he's that now he's like a 65 inch, you know, four and at three and a half point.

Martin Brose (30:57.41)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (31:20.063)

Yeah, like just terrible coincidence that he broke it off. Hey, you're like, why did you have to do that?

Brian Krebs (31:23.727)

Yeah, this one here, this is a 68 inch four point that I found. Same thing if you went to Brock broke that drop time off, you might if that would have been the two inch drop time, he would have hit 70 for sure. This buck has like the most massive ever had on a white tail. This is like a seven inch base. Yeah, I can't even put my fingers around it. Another one, just a toad of a deer.

Martin Brose (31:46.015)

Wow.

Brian Krebs (31:51.345)

68 inch four point if he would have had this being a you know just a two inch G4 I would have made it But yeah, so just I think this this deer here had like 18 inches of mass or 20 inches of mass It was just like and these he had these

Martin Brose (31:58.187)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (32:06.98)

Yeah, that's a sweet per-related chat too, yeah.

Brian Krebs (32:09.957)

Yeah, yeah, it added a lot of mass, like those bumps right here. And it's kind of bladed.

Martin Brose (32:16.639)

Yeah, the perlations on them, yeah. They add a lot of mass because they lift the tape up, right?

Brian Krebs (32:21.551)

Yeah, so and then these are really close together. So that was a good one, too. So it's just like bummer. So I haven't found that yet. That's the one that's the most surprising to me just because of the sheer number of whitetail sheds I found. I found a 12 or six point shed, 68 inches, like as a six point. So it's just bad luck. I haven't found a big set of elk sheds, which I've only really given it one serious weekend of like I could actually find.

Found a bunch of big whites, big hard chocks, know, stuff like that, but not a fresh set. And then I haven't found that big meal that you're set yet. And I want to find, those are my goals. Those are, and then the hundred sheds a year, which that one's going to take some work. That one's just kind of inexpensive.

Martin Brose (33:07.433)

Yeah, 100 sheds a year. I remember it took me a couple years to get to it. And by the time I finished finding that 100 shed, was just wore right out. It was when I wasn't as good at sheds. Now I've probably hit close to high 90s a year and I dedicate a lot of time to it. that first time finding 100 sheds, was like, yes, this is amazing.

Brian Krebs (33:23.696)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (33:30.895)

Yeah, that's where it gets expensive for most people because it's either a ton of time or a ton of travel to find, go to the sheds. You know what I mean? Like that's the one thing about shed hunting is you have to go to the sheds. They will never come to you, which is like kind of a play on like you can call deer in, but you can't call sheds in. But also back to like the

Martin Brose (33:41.765)

Yeah, yeah, I was all over doing that. Like it was nuts.

Brian Krebs (33:56.337)

40 acre farm like your 40 acre farm might not be sheds you have to go to the sheds like you can hunt your 40 acre farm as much as you want there just literally might not be an antler on your 40. So is that what you guys go by acres up in Canada you go by hectares?

Martin Brose (34:05.894)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (34:10.542)

yeah, yeah, like when I talk about a corridor that's like 160 acres, like that's pretty well how everything's divvied up land-wise here.

Brian Krebs (34:14.435)

Okay. Okay. Gotcha. I just was curious if you guys were on the Hector system, because I know like, Mexico does Hectors from work and then a lot of Europe does Hectors.

Martin Brose (34:25.978)

Yeah, yeah, it was originally surveyed with like miles. So everything's like half mile increments and like that's kind of how everything is fenced essentially until you get to those huge ranches where they just said, you know, forget having a fence here and then it's just wide open.

Brian Krebs (34:32.933)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (34:40.803)

Yeah, yeah, those are the ranches I like shed hunting where you can just get lost in them for a while.

Martin Brose (34:45.68)

yeah, like all day and you're like, I've only seen half of this land. Perfect.

Brian Krebs (34:49.433)

Yeah, yeah, there's some big fields up in Canada. That's for sure. That is that is for sure. So what part of your shed hunting career did you get the inspiration to write Brown Gold?

Martin Brose (35:02.286)

think it was just kinda, you as you're walking through the woods, you know, you're like, like how would I, like in my mind I'm always like, how would I like narrate this to someone or like what's the like cool part about it? And like trying to like put why I like shed hunting and like some of those like little pieces of advice that like I picked up through the years or like people kinda hinted at like try to like explain that to people, right? Cause a lot of people ask me like, I'd love to find some sheds. how do you do it? And I always have like, like, yeah, do I save fans?

Brian Krebs (35:09.542)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (35:30.733)

Fence lining, like, probably not. And then you go out with someone new and you're like, okay, we're go look for sheds. And they're like, well, where? And you're like, okay, how much of this do I wanna tell a new person or how much, a lot of people who go out with me are just like, I just wanna find one or two, because it'll look cool on a bookshelf. And how to put that kind of knowledge down to someone who's wanted to go more in depth. And it was kind of where I started just being like, I'm gonna write a little bit more about this. And so yeah, I just started like,

Brian Krebs (35:32.527)

Right.

Brian Krebs (35:47.11)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (35:58.47)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (36:00.013)

typing out something and it kind of came together over like two and a half years of just like writing down stories and writing down like advice and yeah, it kind of all came together all at once and then I published it.

Brian Krebs (36:14.213)

Yeah, that's awesome. So published it this fall, September 3rd. Did you go through the Amazon editing and publishing process?

Martin Brose (36:25.3)

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I did. I initially like reached out to a bunch of like publishers and tried to find an agent and stuff like that. a lot of those like they'll honestly just ghost you for most books because they number one have like very particular like set rules. A lot of them are like, we will not touch anything with hunting. And even like the outdoor publishers that do are very like particular and they all say like, you know, send us your manuscript.

Brian Krebs (36:44.71)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (36:52.785)

and we'll get back to you in three to six months. And so you send it to them, you're like, well, what am I going to do for six months here? Right? Like, so I eventually just said, you know, I think I can publish it myself here.

Brian Krebs (37:04.869)

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's a good option for people, especially in the niche categories, there's, you know, it's just hard. Like, Penguin isn't going to be interested in a hunting book, right? You know, it's.

Martin Brose (37:20.203)

You never know. mean, I'm hopeful. I'm holding out for a publisher to get a hold of me. But it's very true. It is a very specific book, right?

Brian Krebs (37:24.538)

Yeah. Well, I think it's.

And I just, I don't think they want to. Like, I don't think it'll, I mean, like if you're a New York based publisher, they're not going to be interested. Like they're not going to have a common set of beliefs and cultures that align with publishing a hunting book. I just, you know what I mean? Like, I think it's a good opportunity that allows people to then, you know, still write books and that people that are interested in those books to have them available. I really like it. Like I have a friend that did a ice fishing cookbook.

Martin Brose (37:42.465)

That's very true. Yeah.

Martin Brose (37:53.099)

absolutely. Yeah.

Brian Krebs (37:56.463)

which it's it's very hard as any new book writer to get a deal. mean a lot of times it's like a gamble on the publisher. So they're like, you who am going to invest my money with? Brian Krebs that wrote this book or the guy that has just done seven books for me that are consistently New York Times bestsellers. You know what I mean?

Martin Brose (38:15.439)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I like I have a brother-in-law who published like a fantasy book about like dwarves and elves and that kind of stuff. And same thing, like he did find a publisher, but he said it was very difficult. And I like I even talked to his publisher and yeah, they're just like there's they have kind of a set list. They're like we're interested in fiction only. And so that's kind of where a lot of those conversations end.

Brian Krebs (38:35.451)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (38:39.781)

Maybe you could write a fiction book that has a storyline of shed hunting.

Martin Brose (38:45.053)

Yeah, very possibly. That might be the next project. Who knows?

Brian Krebs (38:48.345)

Yeah, that would be fun. I don't know how you would pull that off. That would be a hard one to pull off. But you don't see...

Martin Brose (38:54.097)

Yeah, some sort of like romance novel or something like that,

Brian Krebs (38:56.633)

Yeah, you don't find a lot of hunting fiction.

Martin Brose (39:00.817)

That's true. It's kind of gone on the wayside. Like I know some people who wrote like children's hunting related fiction, but not not really like adult based. Most of it's like true stories.

Brian Krebs (39:10.671)

Yeah, and I definitely the true stories are cool. Don't get me wrong, but I just I don't read a lot of fiction to be honest, like I just Most of what I read I got a bookshelf right over here Where did they go they all disappeared I must have moved them but it's like the intelligent investor got that book right there looking over in this way It's like David Goggins Gary Vaynerchuk Dale Carnegie

Martin Brose (39:19.292)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (39:40.643)

all kinds of like that caliber of books. Like I'm trying to learn something if I'm going to read this book. You know what I mean? It's like I have enough hobbies to distract me as entertainment that I don't need a book as entertainment. I think that's a big difference. Like sometimes people like they looking for books as entertainment and that's where the fiction just takes off and runs. Right. There's a huge runway there. I just am like if I'm to want to be entertained, I want to go ice fishing.

Martin Brose (39:45.881)

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Brian Krebs (40:05.551)

Or I want to go hunting or I want to go shed hunting. Like now I'm trying to learn something like I need to get better at marketing. Okay. Who are the seven best books on marketing? Like who wrote them? Right? Those are, that's what I'm trying to like read in a book or a guide to finding sheds in North America. Yeah.

Martin Brose (40:07.269)

Yeah, 100%.

Martin Brose (40:21.915)

There you go. Yeah. Like, like Steve Radella, his kind of book on like the American buys and was like the best book that I've read for a long time. Like I was like, started that book and was like done in two days. I was like, this is an incredible book. And so that kind of probably, yeah, like it's, it's such a good book. it was definitely one of the inspirations for when I started writing. I'm like, okay, how can I kind of take that tone and kind of emulate it, but like add my own stories to it. Right.

Brian Krebs (40:35.599)

Yeah, I have it right there.

Brian Krebs (40:40.785)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (40:47.921)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (40:51.951)

Yeah, one of the things that I think is crazy is like the number of antlers that get picked up, sold, bought, moved, hung up on the wall every year. Like I would be, it'd be interesting if you could do some numbers on that. You know what I mean? And maybe I'm biased because I'm a shed under so I see like

Martin Brose (41:05.836)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (41:18.693)

you know, Wild Creek antlers and like bone brothers and bone tats and this and that and antler trader.com and you know, people that have semi loads of antlers, but like there are like millions and millions of antlers every year in North America that fall off. It's a renewable resource. And, and so they're all there and a lot of them, think it picked up, not all of them, of course, but you know what I mean? Like it's, it's crazy that the scale of this and like the number of antlers out there, like

It's niche, but it's like millions and millions of pounds of niche. Yeah.

Martin Brose (41:52.726)

Or just, yeah, they're just out there sitting, right? Like that's, I always wonder like, you know, the, people first came out West, like, you know, there's not a lot out here. Like it must have been very interesting to walk around because there probably could have been just antlers everywhere, right? Like I know the like bison were more dominant, but like there'd been deer out here and relatively minimal use, right?

Brian Krebs (42:13.617)

Did you?

Did you hear, I just heard something that like the bison were, I heard a rumor that the bison were not nearly as prevalent as we think for nearly as long as we think. So what I heard, and this is, I think it's a theory, but when the early settlers came, they never talked about like massive seas of bison herds. Then they came back like 300 years later.

Martin Brose (42:28.698)

That'd a new one to me, okay.

Brian Krebs (42:45.327)

when we started settling and then it was like bison everywhere, right? And what they think happened is that the Native American populations kept the bison numbers in check because that was their primary food source across the whole Great Plains. But when we came and introduced all the diseases and wiped out like 95 % of them, the bison had no predators anymore. And then in that course of like 200 years, their populations just exploded.

Martin Brose (43:06.282)

Yeah, okay.

Brian Krebs (43:11.159)

I was like, that's an interesting thing to think about. Yeah, like that wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

Martin Brose (43:11.296)

Yeah, that does kind of crack, Yeah.

Yeah, like there would have been that like greater like mix of animals potentially. then yeah, like just like that population would just balloon, right? Without any predators.

Brian Krebs (43:24.614)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (43:28.431)

Well, it makes sense. They're going to dominate any predator. They're going to dominate any landscape that they can survive on. They're going to push out, you know, the elk, the deer, you know, yeah, maybe they get a little predation, but like their, natural instincts are pretty good at, you know, surviving predation from, it would only be wolves and bears and

Martin Brose (43:47.476)

Yeah, and I mean the bigger the animal, yeah, like the bigger the animal it is, the harder it is to take down. Like you're never gonna see a herd of coyotes taking down a buffalo, whereas like a herd, like coyotes will take deer all the time.

Brian Krebs (43:57.081)

No.

Brian Krebs (44:01.615)

Yeah, and the way that their dynamics work, like when they get one that's injured, which is why they ultimately got shot out is because they'll circle and they'll just keep circling, right? They don't scatter. And so it's hard to kill one by yourself, but unless you have a gun. like as the wolf or the bear, like a bear is not going to mess with a buffalo. They're too lazy and they're too slow. They're going to get disthrottled by like seven, you know, cow buffalo with super sharp horns.

Martin Brose (44:18.077)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (44:28.497)

They're just gonna follow behind the herd and when there's 250,000 of them, statistically one is gonna die every day on its own. Just follow the herd and be like, here's today's meal and the buffalo are three miles ahead of me and then I'm gonna walk, you know what I mean? That's what I think was probably happening. Like they weren't getting predated because they didn't have to. There were so many of them, they were just always dying on their own and that, you know, there's probably more of a scavenger.

Martin Brose (44:28.785)

Yeah, so it's healthy.

Martin Brose (44:41.768)

Mm-hmm.

Martin Brose (44:49.939)

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I can see that.

Brian Krebs (44:52.463)

So yeah, interesting thing to think about, not that it really matters, but yeah, but when the settlers are coming across or the Indians, because Native Americans, a lot of cultures that I've heard in the Native American culture don't really pick up antlers. They leave them there as a part of their culture and their spiritual, I don't even know what the right words were, just their lives. They just leave them, hang them in trees. And so it must've been crazy walking across in the early days, like there's antlers everywhere, 20 years of antlers.

Martin Brose (45:18.951)

Yeah, you'd shed hunt for one day and it would be like, there we go. Hunter shed season. Done.

Brian Krebs (45:22.765)

Yeah, can imagine if there was like an old time. This could be the plot for your fiction book or nonfiction. What's the one that's fake fiction? Yeah.

Martin Brose (45:33.779)

Are you thinking like a time travel type book? Travel back in time with Dead Hunting?

Brian Krebs (45:36.773)

Just like, know how there was like the, for a while there was the richest man in the world was a fur trapper, a beaver trapper. And then like the oil barons and like, you could like create this scene where in like the early country, a shed hunter was like the tycoon. Cause he found like these sheds and he was the only one that found like the off markets or the markets off shore in China and stuff for these antlers.

Martin Brose (45:44.467)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Krebs (46:06.681)

And like, you know, maybe create a universe where that's like.

Martin Brose (46:11.317)

I'm sure there's someone who's doing that right now. They're incredibly rich off of truckloads of antlers going across to China.

Brian Krebs (46:18.671)

I know a lot of people do sell them. don't know if it's incredibly rich because you have to buy them, which is the problem. mean, you're basically just like you're doing arbitrage. There's a price here and there's a price there and you're just yeah. Very interesting, very interesting. So you wrote the book. It's live. What's been the what's been your take on the book? The writing the book? How did the process work out for you? Was it smoother than you expected, more difficult than you expected?

Martin Brose (46:27.669)

Yeah, there's the one guy who's pulled it off.

Brian Krebs (46:47.429)

promoting it, doing kind of that press tour. How's that all been working for you?

Martin Brose (46:51.957)

Definitely writing it was simultaneously easier and harder. The whole editing process was very difficult and very tedious. I'm lucky that I have a bunch of people who are English-led people and we were able to review the book. And formatting and doing all that kind of everything by yourself was very difficult. It was very illuminating to be like, that's why not everyone publishes a book. And then as far as marketing goes, it's been nice. I have a little bit of experience.

Brian Krebs (46:59.963)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (47:14.959)

You

Martin Brose (47:20.094)

doing that with some other like social media and other companies and stuff like that from back in the day. So I kind of have like that a little bit of the basis knowledge. But it is interesting because it's kind like I got out of that realm and now I'm like dipping my toe back in and it's interesting to see how that landscape is like totally changed.

Brian Krebs (47:36.933)

Yeah. Yeah. So the book is available. Is it print, ebook, download? Where can people find the book?

Martin Brose (47:47.899)

So far it's just in print. So it's amazon.com, amazon.ca, whatever your local Amazon is, guess. yeah, working on an ebook, that's another whole ball of wax to get into. But looking at doing that probably coming up in the new year, just because I know that that's something a lot of people are into. Like they don't like the, you know, just paper copy. They want to have something they can bring with them.

Brian Krebs (48:01.978)

Okay.

Brian Krebs (48:11.953)

Yeah, or Kindles, like my wife's a big Kindle reader. I like paper books. I want to build a library. I've got maybe a hundred books on my shelf right here. and another probably doesn't spread out across the house that I either just read about to read currently reading. So I want to keep buying paper books, but

Martin Brose (48:30.771)

Yeah, I agree. Like there is something about like opening up the book and like turning the page. That's like way more like I find it sucks you in a little bit more than like a candle or anything like that. So, but I mean, everyone's got their preferences. So I try and cater to all that. I'm thinking about doing like the hardcover too. I don't know. It's a, there's a whole bunch of like extra stuff you can get into once you have a book published or once you even have like that finished manuscript. Like there's lots of options that way for sure.

Brian Krebs (48:41.007)

Yeah, I mean.

Brian Krebs (48:59.589)

That would be awesome. Would you classify shed hunting as like your main sub genre of hunting in your life? Like this is my thing. Yeah.

Martin Brose (49:10.458)

say so yeah like I remember when I first got into hunting and you know shed hunting I was like you know I kind of like shed hunting more a lot of people don't say that like how dare you but yeah I've kind of come to accept that a little bit more like I just that's kind of where my passion is like I would rather and I am so guilty of it during hunting season like I will go out and I am in the woods and I'm hunting but at the same time I'm like but it would be also really cool if I found a shed right now and

Brian Krebs (49:35.333)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (49:37.935)

Yeah, it's almost as exciting even during hunting season. If you blow a bunch of stocks and you come out with a shad, you're like, well, didn't waste my day.

Brian Krebs (49:45.987)

Yeah, no, I like I'm still like preferred to like punching tags because I like shooting deer and elk and I think that's always going to be my main thing. But I definitely spend a lot more time shed hunting because like there's no bag limit. Right. So it's interesting. I always kind of like ask. It's a fun question. Ask like, what would you hope people would describe you as when they're telling you like, I got this buddy, Martin. He's a big shed hunter or like he's a he's a giant elk hunter. You know what I mean? Like, which one would you pick? And you never know.

Martin Brose (50:00.399)

Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Brose (50:10.661)

Yeah, I think I'd be okay being the assistant.

Brian Krebs (50:15.697)

You know, I think it depends on the conversation, but yeah, like for example, I fish, but I don't think many people would describe me as like, this guy's a big fisherman. Like he really, it's like, I just go like a couple of weeks a year. Yeah.

Martin Brose (50:23.513)

Yeah, yeah, same like I fly fish. That's not yeah, that's not why I'm honestly like I fly fish, but it's not my identity. I probably would say my identity would be likely if you talk to people and just based on what's around my house shed hunting 100%.

Brian Krebs (50:38.693)

Yeah, I think mine would just be all over the place. Anything hunting related, shed hunting, elk hunting, deer hunting, just hunting, bow hunting, rifle hunting, muzzle loader hunting. They just described me as a big hunter. He's a big hunter.

Martin Brose (50:52.558)

Yeah, I think that's usually what I get. I think if anyone was like, well, what kind of hunting specifically like tried to narrow it down, it would pretty quickly narrow down to, yeah, shed hunting is kind of my thing, my area of expertise.

Brian Krebs (51:05.059)

Yeah, well, we're getting close. It's only gonna be a couple months, man, and Shed Season's gonna be here before you know it.

Martin Brose (51:13.483)

yeah, I'm already looking at the maps and just being like, okay, like time to start driving around, find those hay fields, you know, find where the deer are wintering. If there's no hay field around, like figure that pattern out.

Brian Krebs (51:23.663)

Yeah, now is a great for anyone listening now is a really good time to start scouting for especially white tails and maybe mule deer, depending on where you are. Start scouting food sources, take some evening drives and bring the digiscope adapter, bring your all in adapters. But it's a great time to start finding herds because by now most of the seasons are winding down. Most of the food sources are kind of where they're going to be for the fall.

I recommend start getting permission now. Try to get permission before Christmas. Don't ask during Christmas because people are with their families. And then after Christmas, you might just run into like, someone's already doing it. You know what I mean? I think.

Martin Brose (52:08.237)

Yeah, usually like January, February, that's when I start like digging out the landowner maps and start making phone calls just because it's like, I don't want to call too early and then they forget by the time I'm going back there during, you know, the springtime, they're like, who are you? But yeah, usually it's like, yeah.

Brian Krebs (52:14.607)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (52:20.485)

Yeah, die double check too. I would always double check when I go with like, hey, do you mind if I shed hunt your property later this spring? And then double check with them like, hey, planning to come out tomorrow, is that still cool? But you want them to be like, when the next person asks, you want them to be like, no, they already got a guy that's doing that. So yeah. Yeah.

Martin Brose (52:33.944)

Yeah.

Martin Brose (52:40.555)

Yeah, you kind of want to be the first. That's for sure. Absolutely. That's why it's like, yeah, you just start calling that regular list of ranches and you're like, hey, still good to go out there. Still good to go out there. Like it does get to be like quite the like time sink. Once you start calling all these ranches and going to all these places, like it can, it can definitely be multiple days if you choose it to be.

Brian Krebs (52:59.654)

Yeah.

Brian Krebs (53:03.012)

certainly can but that's the fun part so man well it's been great having you on the podcast I do apologize I had to this one a little bit short because I got a conflict coming up here in a few minutes but super great to have you on I'm sure we'll be doing follow-up podcasts once shed season really takes off and if we get lucky maybe we could join up somewhere in somewhere between Mexico and Alaska for a shed hunt

Martin Brose (53:27.373)

Yeah, 100 % stay in contact man. Like I'll happily take you out if you want to come up to Alberta. We'll see if we can find a couple of Mealy's. So yeah, keep me posted. Happy to come back on and chat more, whatever you want to do.

Brian Krebs (53:33.253)

That'd be fun. That would be fun.

Brian Krebs (53:39.841)

Awesome. Well, before we do give a break, where can people find the book? Is there like an Amazon storefront that they can find it on and then specifically to your channels and social media content as well? Where can people connect with you?

Martin Brose (53:52.193)

Yeah, just the best spot to get it is just Amazon. Like that's where everyone's buying stuff now at A's anyway. So just search up Brown Gold. I think if you search up Brown Gold Shad Hunting on the first result, there's not too many other Brown Gold books out there. So that's probably your best bet. And then I haven't really reactivated the whole social media thing, but if people want to follow me on Instagram and Facebook, they're more than welcome to.

Brian Krebs (54:06.619)

Perfect.

Brian Krebs (54:14.327)

Awesome, sounds good. Well, thank you once again for being here, Martin, and thank you for listening, folks.

Martin Brose (54:21.077)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Brian Krebs (54:22.085)

Boom, just like that, man. Great pod.

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