Corey Tart w/ Grand Ciel Lodge

This episode on Michigan Wild is with Cory Tart from South Dakota. Corey is with Grand Ciel Lodge and is an avid outdoorsman. Corey discusses how he got to where he is today which was a dream come true for him. It came with dedication, hard work and a willingness to leave Michigan. 

Not only does Grand Ciel Lodge have great opportunities for Upland birds they also have whitetail and mule deer hunts. Even with an option to have an adventure hunt out of canvas tents. 

Overall a great episode getting to know Corey and the opportunities he offers hunters. If you or anyone has had an interest to go on an out of state hunt chasing upland birds or whitetails give Corey a shout!

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Michigan wild podcast.

We're just here walking around. We're going to go set a tree stand. Don't worry. My dad's weird. He never shot a huge buck. I just shot a fricking big buck.

Oh, you got a. Go get that one Henry. Right here.

The size[00:01:00]

of that deer. What's going on guys, welcome to another episode of Michigan Wild. I am still on cloud nine after shooting my buck October 22nd. I haven't hunted again since this is, less than a week later, but doing this intro for this podcast, because this is one that was recorded a few weeks before you're going to listen to this.

We're right in the thick of approaching the November rapidly and the end of October. So a lot of guys are starting to get out of town and take their hunting trips and their rutcations and all those things. That includes the people of Sportsman's Empire, guys got trips planned. So we had to bank up some episodes to have some stuff launch while we were all gone doing, chasing her.

Our passions and our hobbies. And I think I got a couple of podcasts banked up. I don't know if I have enough. I think I might be one short, but instead of, dragging on the last seven days, week three, I decided to have that get launched the same week that Finite Fred did just to give, updated info as quick as possible.

But [00:02:00] you will hear my no, my redemption podcast that you guys hopefully already listened to that. That podcast is all about the Buckeye shop. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that and learned a lot of things. That's, that's what I like to strive to do for people is just tell the story as much as I can, as well as I can to hopefully help people learn.

That's how I feel like I've learned, over the years here and other people's success stories and. The non successful ones, and maybe you have a property that's similar, or you can look at properties you can hunt differently, and they can give you an opportunity to, capitalize on the things that you do know.

So this podcast is one with Corey Tartt. He's a guy that I went to high school with. He was a grade or two older than me. We were not friends by any means. We just would, every time we'd run into each other, we always had good conversation and I think he knew, and he knew I loved hunting and fishing and being outside and I knew he did too.

So we we're just very similar minded in that. And then we, when you're kids, there's a lot going on in sports and stuff like that. But it [00:03:00] was, he was always that guy. I was like, man, he likes to be outside doing stuff. If we spent more time with each other, it wouldn't be a bad thing, but it just never happened.

But, fast forward all these years, following them through social media. And I'm running into him occasionally in town, when he's in town, just seeing what he's done with his life and his career. It's quite, quite the cool thing. He started raising dogs and training dogs and doing those kinds of things for like upland and waterfowl hunting.

He's got a company that does that. And then he also has a lodge Grand Celio, I think is how you say it lodge. It's out in South Dakota. And he offers a lot of cool things. He's got a lodge that people can stay at and he's got other property where you can do the more of an adventure hunt with a canvas tent.

And not only does he do waterf er upland bird, I don't know if he does much waterfowl, but he does like the pheasant thing, the sharptail grouse. He does that. He also has the whitetail and mule deer hunts. This is the perfect time of year for you guys to listen to this, cause if you're like, man, I would love to go out west or do a hunt.

The Dakotas are just a wonderful place to do that and some really good opportunities for, whitetails [00:04:00] and mule deer and even like a pheasant hunt. Like I've been to North Dakota twice and. That hunt was always end of October going into November. So I've given up some of my bow season to just go and experience the prairie, take a dog and chase pheasants.

To me, hunting's no matter how shake it down. If you find a passion, if that's small game, like my buddy Tyler, he loves doing that, that's his big commitment or, other guys that like, chasing stuff with their hounds, like Tony Hill. You just got to find something you like and.

If you can bring someone, me and my cousin went one, one year out there doing that. It's just some great memories and just some good, clean fun. And, in the world of today, we have a lot of social media, so you have quite, quite the reach. But the vet process for an outfitter, doing that kind of thing they're not all created equal, unfortunately.

But Cory is a guy that you can just tell, hopefully listen to him talk. He's tore up with us and... He loves seeing his dogs work. He loves seeing his clients being happy and doing those kinds of things. So if it's something you've ever really wanted to get into and, [00:05:00] don't be afraid to reach out to him and, let him know that you heard the podcast and you want to give him opportunity for some business and go have a fun time.

Not going to lie that, that canvas tent kind of hunt he offers is something me and my wife have been thinking about even before I did the podcast with him, I've reached out to him before, I think that's in my near future hopefully next year, but I i'm totally down with supporting someone I know and can relate to so yeah, hopefully you guys enjoy this episode.

Like I said, I might not have enough I'm, not sure exactly how many weeks I had I needed to be but this should drop at some point in time and then Yeah, definitely going to be recording some podcasts for, gun camp because November 15th is coming quick to have some updates from Illinois.

Hopefully we got a couple of bucks in the ground by the time this podcast drops. Hey, I appreciate all the support guys. Hopefully you liked like we've been hearing last few weeks. It's been quite a fun ride through this fall so far. Both hunting and doing these podcasts and I love it and hopefully you guys do too.

Enjoy the episode. Thank you.[00:06:00]

We're somewhere in the teens of hours apart. But yeah, welcome Corey Tartt. How's it going, man? It's going good. How you been? Good, dude. Like we touched base a little earlier. I've been just. It's been hectic last couple of years. I know we we've just know each other for a while, but we haven't really spent any of our adult life hanging out at all.

It's all back when we were teenagers a thing, but I've been busy and it's been good. Construction games booming and with October, so I'm happy. So it's a good time of year for me. Yeah. Grew up together a little bit, same school, [00:07:00] obviously same town, but when are separate ways.

But I think. Even just catching up here a little bit before this started having, the common ground of the outdoors, it just brings you right back. That's the cool thing about the outdoors for everybody. And especially what I do now is. There's always some way to find that common ground between who you're in the field with.

Yeah, and you just make me jealous on social media, you got doing this, what you do for your job with dogs and working on a lodge and all that, like you're doing something that I think a lot of guys, when you look from where we live, you're out West. You're in South Dakota, correct?

You're out West living that life. And I've been out there a couple of times and it's man, dude, that's so cool that you get to do that. So why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your upbringing, hunting and like how you got to be where you are right now.

Man, long story. I don't know if we have enough time for that, but bullet points, man, bullet points. Yeah. I grew up in the outdoors just like everybody. My grandpa, my dad taking me out all the [00:08:00] time. Squirrel hunting is what I started out doing as soon as I could. Safely hold a pellet gun, and then, that turned into bunny hunting. With my dad and his beagles to turned into bird hunt with my grandpa and his pointers To deer hunting and then fast forward to like high school and everyone grilling you about what you want to do for a living and not really having any idea.

I literally sent out some emails to go guide for some people. I had trained, got help training some pointers when I was younger. I had a couple of dogs and I wanted to go help. Train and learn how to do it guide and move to Georgia when I was 23. Yeah. Let's say you're young.

Early 20s. Yeah. I had some odd and then jobs obviously out of high school and everything. But packed, sold everything, sold my truck, sold everything basically besides guns and packed up, moved to Georgia. I lived in a guy's garage for a year for free. [00:09:00] And they took me in. I stayed there for three years.

And then they had an opportunity in upstate New York to run an outfitter and a dog kennel there where I went more the dog training route versus hunting and guiding. We still did a little bit of it, but it was all about field trials and hunt tests. And we did that for three years and then started our own company the dog park, which was formerly known as Great Lakes Retrievers.

And then got an opportunity in South Dakota to come out and guide. It was just for to help out a buddy who used to guide at a lodge. He was having some surgery and I helped out and then it turned into what we have now where we took over management. We moved out here and now we have ownership and.

Yeah. So awesome. And how long have you been doing that? Where you're at right now? Five years. This is the fifth year I've been in South Dakota. So cool. So you still do like the dog training and stuff like that? What kind of, what encompasses your like [00:10:00] year, yeah. So we'll start off around April.

I get all our dogs in for training. When I was in Michigan, we had a, it was like almost 40 dogs, 30 to 40 dogs. And that was field trials every weekend trying to stay, top of the game. When I moved out here and took over the outfitting part of it, we downsized the kennel obviously, but we get all our dogs in around April, we start training, we got, we built designed dog training ponds and we have all the cover in the world for upland.

And so we do that throughout the summer and early fall and then then comes hunting season. So part of the training season is done with, we do a lot of farming as far as like cover and food plots, not your typical farming. We're not doing like ag or anything like that, but a lot of property restoration, property management for birds and deer and everything we can do.

And then we jump into [00:11:00] right, right into our hunting season and lodge season. Very nice. And like you do, like when you're talking about like your hunting season, that's upland bird, that's waterfowl, that's whitetail, mule deer too, right? Yeah. So we don't do a lot of waterfowl. That's as far as guiding is concerned that's all personal.

Okay. But we do upland. Prairie chicken. Hold on one second. Dude, prairie chicken. I shot, I've shot a couple of those. That was my first my first experience in North Dakota. I got to shoot a prairie chicken and I got one mounted on the wall here by me. Those are fun to shoot. Yeah. So we have about 800 acres here on East river, South Dakota.

I don't know if anyone. recognizes how South Dakota is split up. It's split up by the Missouri River there and they break up the entire state licensing everything East River, West River. So where our lodges we have about 800 acres. Then we lease another 700 for Upland and Whitetail. And then West River [00:12:00] over by Rapid City, I lease 13, 000 acres for Whitetail, Sharpies.

Grouse and mule deer. We spanned the whole state a little bit. It gets a little crazy during hunting season between our West river. I call it West River camp. It's a wall tent setup. People fly in to Rapid City. They come stay in a wall tent. We bird hunt, we deer hunt. It's the whole gig.

And then when you come over East River at our lodge we've got a 12 bedroom lodge. We just put a new addition on this year for big great room and everything. And do a lot of our pheasant hunting and whitetail out of here. That's so cool. But that's what I like about going, like when I went to North Dakota, the first couple of times, I liked it so much because it was so different, but there was like so much space, to do things and we're shooting pheasants, we're shooting prairie chickens, we're shooting Hungarian partridge, and then everywhere he went, there's whitetail.

Run around. We, I saw some just giant bucks, like the biggest probably score non typical buck I've ever seen was in North Dakota. And he popped out a [00:13:00] sunflower field, and you like, it's in the middle of nowhere and this just giant deer is there. So it's like that, the planes like the river bottom area, it's just so unique and so cool being from Michigan to go there.

And Michigan's a lot of cool areas in Michigan, but you don't quite get that vast feel in Michigan, yeah, it's a different feel. It's hard to get. Hard to get used to bird hunting falls into place with dogs and everything that I do Professionally with the dogs before we came out here, but as far as deer hunting, it was a little bit of an adjustment we're not taking I mean we have a rifle area or rifle zone in Michigan, you could probably do most of it with a shotgun.

Absolutely You get out here and you can see 15 miles and like you said, you see some of the biggest deer you've ever seen. I think personally, and I, you call it bias if you want, but South Dakota, North Dakota, huge sleeper states for big white tail, obviously big mule deer. That's well known.

But. As far as white tail are concerned, you can't drive around for three days and [00:14:00] not see the biggest deer you've seen if you're coming from the east coast. Yeah. And it's constant. They're all over the place out here. So the genetics are good. Obviously there's a lot of food and then you get more west river type and it comes into like the river breaks and creek bottoms.

All the Southern river shoots that come off of the Missouri like a Cheyenne and any of the creeks that feed out of the mountains. All that terrain change out there is, it's unreal to be able to hunt it. And it's different. It's not your typical blind hunting. It's everything we do out here is spot and stock and it is.

It's it's hard to do. It's not impossible. 100%. It's hard to do, but it is, I wouldn't go back to it. If you paid me to I don't mind sitting in a stand. I don't mind sitting in a blind, but being able to spot and stalk a whitetail, which I thought was impossible. I could barely move in a tree stand when I was a kid without them seeing me to be able to spot and stalk them on the [00:15:00] prairie.

Unreal there's no adrenaline rush like it. Yeah. I've yet, I've shot some deer on the ground in Michigan and like in Illinois, we had a property we hunted a couple of times. And I did try sneaking up on some deer, like a grassy, field. And I actually passed a buck at 18 yards and he had there was a doe that had, we got worked through by another deer.

So I just moved up and I caught this buck, working, through this grass. And I was like, this is some tree, mixed in. So it was like optimal for me to be on the ground and make a move. So I saw him probably 150 yards away. And I'm like, I bet he's going to go right where those other deer went.

So I made it like, 30, 40 yard move. And that buck came by 18 yards, tongue hanging out. Breath is just you're, you felt like the 18 yards felt like eight. Feet, cause you're just like not used to it. And what yeah, I should have shot the deer. Cause it'd been so cool, but he was probably only 15 inch deer, but still, it was just like a cool experience.

And I can't imagine waking up, for multiple days in a row, being able to have opportunities like that. And granted, like you said, it's not a guarantee it's really hard, but. All day you're peaked. Like you're constantly like, especially when you're like, I'm going after that deer. [00:16:00] You have that adrenaline pumping for much longer than tree stands, a lot of weight in and you try to keep yourself up, and be ready for the moment, but it could be there and gone in 30 seconds, so that's a cool thing, but I want to dig into the bird aspect of it. What is your favorite kind of dog to like pheasant hunt and do stuff there? Do you have a set, like what you like to do or like you like to do for. The clients or what kind of, how do you attack that for pheasant hunting or upland bird hunting?

My favorite dog to hunt over is an English pointer. I grew up with German short hair pointers, but the English pointer for me, as far as guiding, if. There were eight days in a week, they'd sign up for nine. They just, they go all day. They don't quit. I can finish an entire guide season here in South Dakota and head down to Georgia and guide quail and then jump to Texas.

And they're just as fresh as they were day one. It's unreal. But a lot of our stuff depends on the bird too. So pheasant hunting. He can do a lot of pointer stuff like if we're at our lodge and we've got like a [00:17:00] corporate goop or something like that We're gonna have Typically we're going to use labs, which is a flushing situation.

So it's like controlled chaos The dogs are within range within gun range You don't really know when a bird's going to get up unless you're watching the dogs constantly and you know what's going on, but then you're just surprised with the birds, identify, take a safe shot.

And then you get to see the bird, the dog work after that as well with retrieving and possibly handling and things like that. Smaller groups five and less. I like to break out the. The pointers it's a little easier to get limits. , when you got five or less to do with the pointer, if you got 10 guys, 12 guys in the field to do it, one bird at a time is that's, that'd be a long two weeks and no one's staying here for sure for two weeks straight.

For sure. Yeah. You pointers, but. The times I've been out there, we've went as a pretty, decent group, like four or five of us, and we've had pointers typically, but I brought my lab, the one year pointer at passing at a white German short hair pointer. And yeah, like it's super [00:18:00] cool because all right, he's covering a bunch more ground than the lab does by some point you got to hustle over there and then it flushes a bird, but there's a good chance it's a hen.

So you can't even shoot it. So then you got to restart that whole endeavor again. Then we took our lab out there, we're hammering these slews and he, the labs are not as finesse, they're more like, just like blows through this. Yes. Like you said, perfect. And you're just like me and my cousin, we're partnered up and we're like, all right, man, send them in there and you're just waiting and you're walking, like you said, it's like rabbit hunting with birds, like all of a sudden there goes one, yeah. And yeah we did actually did have a lot more opportunities that way. Granted, they weren't as like good of an opportunity.

'cause like when you walk up to a pointer, you feel a little more confident and you can prepare yourself. But it's a lot of fun when there, it's a lot of fun both ways. So I think that's cool that you do that, have that technique. Now, when you like transition to like, when is there time for you to get out and do this kind of stuff?

Because you always hear the guidings, the it's awesome. And you hunt through your clients [00:19:00] and do that kind of stuff. Do you get opportunities yourself to still get out there with a gun in your hands and enjoy it? Or how does that work? If my clients are missing quite a bit I'll break out the 28 gauge and, knock a few down for them, see how it's done.

No. Yep. There you go. Oh. Loaded super light, BBs, yeah. Yeah. We're talking skeet shot group cylinder. Yeah. Just to show them how it's done. Yep. Oh, no, it's a. We started off this talking about, there's envy and watching guides and possibly dog trainers out there and stuff like that, Upland or big game, whichever one it is, but it's a grind.

My favorite time of year is the time of year that I'm the busiest and I never thought that was going to be that way growing up, but. I know people I grew up with you're one of them probably better outdoorsman than I am, but there's no hacks on my side or your side or anyone else's side that we grew up with, but Some people have to pull the trigger and some people don't I enjoy every bit of the hunt and as far as the bird side of it [00:20:00] comes being able to watch the dogs is really the only thing that I care about watching the dogs.

That's why I've been training for 12 years now, professionally. That's the only job I've had. It's not a side job. And then the outfitting business as well now, but to be able to watch the dogs, it's taken place of the field trials that I used to do, spend so much time training these dogs and then going out and competing.

Now I get to spend all this time and still showcase them to people, but through a hunting situation that they get to take a memory home with. So I went to hunt, every once in a while I'll go scout in between trips especially West river when it comes to Sharpies and prairie chicken.

When I go down for quail down South I'll go get the dogs used to the heat, things like that. And we'll take a couple of days and obviously I still want to have, the dog success as well. So we'll shoot a couple. I do have a trip in the works here coming up. Hopefully it'll be about a five year.

It's only going to be a couple of weeks at a time, but I want to complete the upland slam. And [00:21:00] I want to do that with all my dogs. So we're gonna, we're gonna try to accomplish that here in the next couple of years and try to document it as much as we possibly can. Deer hunting is few and far between.

I get a couple of times a year to be able to do things. My biggest thing is a spring bear. I like going in the mountains and that's my slow time. So go stay in for, 10 to 14 days. Trying to kill a spring bear in the mountains, either Montana or Idaho or something like that. But I got the opportunity to take my dad out.

He's the one that got me into the outdoors. He came for the first week of archery this year for spot and stalk. To either or for archery. In South Dakota, so either mul deer or white tail. And he got to kill a really old, cool eight point full velvet. First one. I got to guide him, but it was still a father son hunt.

That's so cool. Dream hunt for me. So that was really cool. So there's a lot of benefits to it, obviously, but yeah, as far as time being able to get out just strictly by myself, it's not, I guess we just look at it a little [00:22:00] differently. Time in the woods is time in the woods for me.

And I think that like my first like real guided experience was in a Wyoming on spring bear this year. Ashley went and did that, had a guy full guided, huh. And talking with them guys and spend, a week in the mountains with them. I like, it was very apparent that to do that for a job, you get the fulfillment and like exactly how you were saying, like them dudes loved it. And the whole time I'm just there, like walking around, smiling on my face, like just happy to be there and do that. It was just the coolest experience. And my wife was joking with me. She's I, she's I literally felt like super sad that. The reason that you were able to be a guide is because you married me, and I was like, Hey, come on, you can't do that.

I'm like, I'm a dude that loves the outdoors. And of course I'm going to be like that cause I'm there one week, it's not like it's got an opportunity to be like talking to them there, they still love it, but they're like, we don't even really. It's hard to appreciate the mountains when we see them every day.

The same as like you guys do. So every time we take clients or you guys fly in from the, east side of the [00:23:00] country and you see these mountains, just seeing how much you guys love it, like refreshes us and keeps it, keeps it really exciting for us. We'd love to do it. But, and then, you're touching base on like how dogs work, I have beagles I've had for quite a few years and did a lot of rabbit hunting. So I have two beagles and I've had a German short hair pointer and I've had a lab. And now I have one of those Frank, he's a wired hair pointing griffon. He's a working dog and it's really hard to, I almost feel like bad because I can't take him.

Out as much, if I lived out West, you can do a lot more opportunities with them, but it's like hard to explain to people that aren't used to seeing like hunting dogs, how like much fulfillment you get out of watching them do what they're made to do. And it's really tough to, it's really tough to explain, but if you just take someone one time, I think the light bulb just goes off for people.

And that's why I like. I went to North Dakota two years and when we get to go there, you were touching base time before we started recording, but it's like the third weekend in October, like you're saying, so we would always be there like October 30th, 31st, [00:24:00] somewhere in there. And then we'd stay there for eight days.

So like I was missing out. I was not bullhunting whitetails. The first few days of November, and I was okay with it because watching dogs work and doing that out there was that fulfilling for me and I loved it. Like it was like, I wasn't even that sad that I wasn't home bow hunt because it's just such a great experience.

So anyone who's listening to this, like I wanted to do this podcast, even right now, no, it's not going to be like a whitetail focused podcast, but there's opportunities for guys to get out there and just enjoy something different. Yeah, maybe you're missing a couple of good days of hunting possibly, but when you go out and experience like the Prairie and watch dogs work, it's all day fun.

Like it's, we walked miles, like we're driving all over. We're like, we were doing the whole plot program thing. You're just bombing to this part of the state and you're staying in these little motels. And we just, it was just a great time. So that's why I want to do that because that's an opportunity for you to get out there.

You can take like a cousin who I've never hunted with before. We got to go do that. You're going with people that you've never been before. It's lax, [00:25:00] daysical to an extent when you're determined, but you're just out there just seeing country. We walk over this like small little hillside, get up on top of it.

And it is like the most pretty view. But I can't even explain, you just look, like you said, you can see 15 miles, there's not a light, there's not a building, it's just wide open, and then there's snow geese fly in, there's, ducks and spots, there's, you hear pheasants, sounding off or whatever they do when they're, oh, gosh, it is just.

It's just an experience that you haven't done it, it's awesome. Whenever I get a free time from guiding, an off day from bird hunting or something like that, running the dogs, even when I'm guiding, but running the dogs and taking them into a spot that may not have a whole bunch of birds, but being able to look at that property differently just because I'm running the dogs, but I'm also looking for deer and possible sheds or anything like that.

Bird hunting for me has always been I've killed some of my biggest deer because I've scouted an area while bird hunting [00:26:00] and then returned to that area later to try to capitalize on either, a scrape or a shed I found or something like that, knowing that, hey, this is probably his bedroom.

This is probably his travel corridor to food. To water, everything like that. And to be able to look at the land differently like that, but you're doing it in such a, you're not just out there scouting for your hunting and enjoying other parts of, and you can do that squirrel hunting and stuff.

I grew up doing that with just squirrel hunting and bunny hunting as well. You're taking it all in. You're like you're being an outdoorsman, which. You hear a lot of people talk about this would've been ship thing that's lost nowadays, but I think all it really is just like getting out there, enjoying, being outside, but just like taking in your surroundings and learning how all animals use different properties.

And if you learn what kind of like terrain, like rabbits like to run in or like when you flush a rabbit and how it, like the dog circle, it's okay, they really hanging out in this kind of a cover. And so you're walking properties and you're like, like me and Tyler Thompson, we've gotten to the point where.

We like can drive [00:27:00] by a property from road and we have a really good inclination. If that's going to be a good deer hunt spot or a good rabbit hunt spot, just because you learn those things. And then you can check stuff when take on like a big chunk of state land, we're going through and looking at the map or like just checking off spots.

And it's as a rabbit hunter, like, all right, good rabbit spot, terrible deer spot. Good deer spot, terrible rabbit spot. Like you can just go through and you just become a really well rounded outdoorsman. And then all these, you just get to enjoy it. And I think that's at the end of the day, no, one's going to care how many mounts I have on the wall.

You know what I mean? No, one's going to really care how many stuff I've shot. It's all personal thing for me. That's what I enjoy out of life. I think as you can take advantage of those opportunities, that's. That's pretty cool. But on the flip side, when we're looking at you from a distance, it's man, Cory's living this life where he's guiding and out there doing that, but you don't see.

On social media, you don't see all the work that goes into what you do. Like I've like Tony Hill, he's got he's getting, he started getting these bigger dogs. So he's like trying to do the bear dog thing and chasing coyotes and do all these things. And [00:28:00] I see what he goes through, like in a summer, just trying to train his dogs.

He's got to drive hours to find it and do the, when you just see a picture of a deer or a bear in a tree was dogs going crazy. You're like, man, that's so cool. But you have no idea the backstory to that. And you're doing this as a full time gig. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of work.

There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that like, you just can't appreciate until you actually like, live it, you, I'm not better than anybody else. It's just hard work and how much I want to be here. It's, To be able to not really know what I wanted to do coming out of high school besides, mess around and hunt.

I wanted to hunt fish. That's all I wanted to do. And how can you do that? Just being able to do that probably wasn't going to happen. So I found the next best thing for me and it worked out. But yeah, the hard work, we talked about it at the beginning. I literally just packed up, said, see you later.

I'm taking it off on a chance. And lived in someone's garage for a year. Yeah. It was a I love it was a well known out outfit. It was a well known outfitter. It's not like I just picked some southern country [00:29:00] guy and did it. But that was, it was the deal like, you can live here for free.

It's basically a, a twin bed in the garage. That's what it was, but I wanted it so bad and I pursued it. But yeah, every day to get better every year, get better. I had my clients stop messing with the dang lights around here. Hey, you're fine. Keeps it entertaining for me.

I like, I got a little light show. I think they lost some lights here. We put in our new addition, and give me a second, I apologize. No, so you need me to come over there and do some construction work for you, is what you're saying. Oh my goodness! Our building blew down once, yeah. Just to let you know about that.

Oh, jeez. Yeah, that was fun. Nice. Nice. Our addition, we put in our addition, our blue down works and then it gets windy out there in the Prairie. Yeah. That's that is no joke. Dude. I remember when I was in North Dakota, we [00:30:00] had the first few days we were like hunting in t shirts, it's nice getting sunburned and wake up the next morning.

There's like snow on the ground, trucks are ice shut, and it was like the most miserable I've been ever hunting. Cause you're like, you're here, you might as well hunt and it's drizzling, sleeting, windy, and you're just... Frozen salad. I was like, what literally less than 24 hours ago, I was like getting sunburned.

What is that? We just had it for a a youth hunt out here. So the youth season starts and then the resident season starts and then the non resident. So we had a youth hunt and it was full of mentored hunters. Which are so in South Dakota, you can do a mentorship. So I like mentor my child when I'm in the field, if I feel that they're safe and they can hunt I just can't carry a gun.

So we had a whole bunch of those. We've been doing those for the last four years out here. It's turned into a huge group. It's one of my favorite hunts of the year. But when we did that, early October, South Dakota is a little [00:31:00] different, but early October is usually pretty nice.

And it was like 38 and downpouring for the first two days. Oh man. And it was the worst. Okay. So now we're trying to balance, like we want the kids to get out and shoot. We want them to hunt, but at the same time, I don't want it to be a miserable experience either. So we're picking our. Our terms to come in to get warmed up and, have hot cocoa and then go back out and it's, rain and sleet and it was It was a big to do for a three day, three day hunt.

The last day we tried to make the most of it, get out early and knock some birds down and have the best time as possible. But yeah, it was the weather always plays some sort of trick in there, but, mother nature is your worst enemy and, also your blessing, like how that works.

Like you can have just an amazing fall because of it and you can have just adversity every day. That's pretty cool. You get to do that. And, I like think back to all the times that I. If I look back, some of my like core memories of being in the outdoors ice fishing, maybe grandpa or, chasing [00:32:00] deer, my dad or whatever it may be.

I remember just sometimes some days you're just miserable, but then that might be a day someone shot something and it sticks in my brain. Hey, we toughed it out. Like you did something, you feel like an adult because you were able to overcome some of this adversity. And I think it and maybe some kids, we'll, live that life and they might not, want to continue. But I know for me, it just made me want it that much more. And it helped mature me as a hunter and outdoorsman. So pretty cool experience to get to do that every year. And, you don't know you're, you might be in, inflicting like generational, change in families, like helping them get into it and their kids will get to it.

And you're doing your part, which is pretty, pretty cool to be in that position of, to have that opportunity. Yeah, I getting people in the outdoors for all of us as I was outdoorsman, not just guides, but anybody who enjoys the outdoors, whether it's fishing, hunting, even hiking and camping, everything like that.

It's, it's about being out there. And there's a piece that comes with being out there. I think that you can probably speak to [00:33:00] obviously as well. When I go for spring bear I'm not guiding, so I don't, my job is it, I stress myself out. It's not a stressful job, but I stress myself out trying to make sure everyone's having a good time.

And obviously successful at the same time safety, we're dealing with rattlesnakes, which I didn't grow up with. So that learning that whole thing is all over the place. Dogs getting bit, trying to figure out how to do that. But there's a piece, whether you don't have to hunt or fish to get out in the wilderness and find the peace out there into reset.

And if you can even give just an ounce of that, whether they continue to hunt like they do with us here for generations or not it's a pleasure to be able to just hope to instill a little bit of wanting to get back out there. What I get for using a computer from dude, it might be 2014. I bought this MacBook Air for my wife way back when she worked at a job.

And I was like, yeah, we'll buy it for you. And it's been a good computer for her. She got through her BSM [00:34:00] program. And then when she She started her masters. We needed like a little bit more reliable computer because she was having the same issue. I just had a randomly freezing in turn off. So I like took this computer over and have used it for work last few years.

And now it actually works pretty good for podcast. If it wouldn't, if it wouldn't freeze on this Google meet thing, but I has two USB ports still. So I can connect two mics to it and this mic I'm using, if I have someone come in, so I'm like, dude, I don't spend any more money on this. If I have to, I'm rocking it.

And I know how to use it a little bit. So we're just using it. But thankfully this, thankfully what we did do before this recorded in it, I got a notification that it was processing, so we didn't lose it. Which is a good, but I wanted to like, what can I use as a transition? Can I go more into like your whitetail hunts?

Like you touch base on how you have early season, velvet hunts, which is like a spot and stock thing. Which I almost, if I wasn't already went to Wyoming this year and have Illinois lease and the Iowa hunt, I was totally wanting to go with me and Ashley, like really wanted to go this year, but it was [00:35:00] just like, we should, maybe do a different year because you already got everything else going on. But now I want to roll into I'm assuming you have some rut hunts that you that you do, or like during the rut time, cause there, the gun season, stuff like that. So maybe if you want to like.

Cause you have a different experience, like you're seeing these deer rut from a distance and like over, you can get eyes on them. Maybe if that is the case, a lot of spot stock stuff, I know there's some like bottoms and things like that they can hide in, but maybe if you want to bring us into like, when you start doing some of your whitetail hunts during the rut if that'd be gun hunting primarily, if that's bow hunting, I want to like touch base with like how you do that.

Yeah, for us out here to go into the rut to compare the rut for Michigan to South Dakota is just a... It's a learning experience and I don't mean that like you're far behind if you're from Michigan and then come to South Dakota and you just don't understand it. It's the fact that you can watch it from afar has given me so many tools to learn versus, the quick [00:36:00] bursts of a buck chasing a doe in a field or a buck chasing a doe in a bottom in a timber area or something like that in Michigan.

I can watch the whole sequence, everything. For hours it's unreal. I get to watch the big buck chase a doe, and then I get to watch from, 800 yards away, two doe, or two little bucks trail that doe that buck just pushed an hour beforehand. And then. That those two bucks get too close and that buck comes up and runs 'em off, and then he goes back to his, I get to watch the whole process out here.

It's a learning experience, meaning that you get to learn so much about whitetail by watching that happen out here because you can see forever. Most of our rutt actually happens. I see a lot of things happen, obviously early, you're going to see your young bucks always try to chase early.

That would be no different than seeing, a young dog versus an old dog chasing female. They're going to start fairly early. They don't know [00:37:00] really what's going on. But that first in November has been special for me with, and I'm not saying I haven't killed a giant, but one forties, I've got a mid one 50 that we've put on the ground a one 62.

All happened archery that first week or that first week and a half in November where they just hit the ground running and get after it. And that's just doing it in Michigan, and maybe I was taught wrong, but the rut happens and it's always like right next to gun season and that's when the rut is.

And you, and then you start watching it as you grow up, obviously, and you learn that it changes a little bit and there's different things that can set it off and the patterns and, your cold fronts and everything like that can set everything off. But out here, it's definitely, it definitely happens, I think, earlier, more consistently here in South Dakota.

But yeah, it's a lot of spot and stalk. It's a lot of sit and watch and wait. If [00:38:00] he's got a doe and he, he takes her back somewhere and beds her down for a couple of days and tries to figure out how to keep his bucks away how to play that scenario. We've done it with decoys.

You're sitting three, four or 500 yards away, watch him put a dough away, watch a little buck come up. And all he does is pick his dough up and take off. And that's not a time to run a decoy. And then there's other times where, a spike comes up and he goes and runs after it.

And it's okay, let's try the decoy. And he comes, he'll come right at you. And that makes it as easy as possible. Crazy adrenaline rush, but as easy as possible. If you can pull off. The right alignment. You're not outside your decoy and everything like that. But being able to watch all that's the thing is like, when do you do this and how do you do this?

We get to actually watch it and play the whole game out in a scenario. When you're spotting and stalking, hunting in South Dakota. But like even more specific to the rut, a hunt [00:39:00] isn't your typical hunt in Michigan, right? You usually have a, you have a morning hunt and an evening hunt, and that's your day.

A hunt is you've located a deer and now you're going to dedicate That day and possibly another day and another day, depending on what it is to get it done, whether you're doing it for private or personal use on private land or public land or if it's, me guiding or whatever it is it's a chess match that.

I'm hyper competitive. I always have been as a kid, and now I get to go up against, not you a white tail and try to make this, oh man, not you were competitive. Come on, . So to, to be able to go up against a white tail and walk up within 60 yards of it and get either myself or a client an opportunity.

Is man, and it's a drawn out process. We all know that like we have places to be in deer, don't right. They just have to survive. So [00:40:00] to be able to play it out like that and use the wind constantly, and it's a big chess game and there's nothing more fun than doing a spot and stock on, especially, I'm an archery guy through and through, I have nothing wrong with rifles.

I own a rifle. I rifle hunt. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not one of those guys, but if you gave me a choice, it would be archery every day. I just can't imagine like the anticipation that builds from like, whenever this starts, when you locate a deer and you have you don't, you locate deer in Michigan or in these other states through trail cameras, like you, it's so hard to glass.

There's spots in Michigan you can glass, but you're not locating bucks like the way you guys can. I'm just thinking if I locate a buck, it's like, yep, that's a deer I'm after. He's mature. Who cares what, maybe if it's a one 40, if it's a one 30, gnarly old eight point, like whatever that is, once you have acquired your target and then you have a days and hours invested in seeing this deer, and then you [00:41:00] finally, that anticipation builds the closer you get, the closer you get, and then for all that to come.

Through dude the fist pumps and the celebration you have to have with your guides or your clients has got to be just unreal because I barely see I barely see a deer that I'm going to shoot. The amount of time I see him is like. We're talking like, I'm lucky if it's minutes, it's usually seconds and it's either comes and goes like that.

It's drawn out. Like the way I explain it, and this is I wanted to bring this up earlier, the way I explain it with when we're doing spot and stock or when you're scouting in Michigan. Or any kind of anywhere, East coast area, Midwest, further East Midwest. But you're doing that through a long drawn out process.

It's, you're putting a lot of time in the woods, just like we are out West trail cameras, walking trails, shed hunting, maybe in the spring, trying to figure out, everything you're sitting on the roads, glass and soybeans, whatever you can do. When we do it, [00:42:00] it's all compacted into possibly like a week.

We find deer. Now I go out, I'll go out in August. I'm out in a tent, two weeks, I'm home for a week, then two weeks, I'm home for a week. And then, August or September rolls around. I got a pretty good understanding of what's on that. 13, 000 acres out there and what we want to take and what's management, what's does what's trophy.

But there's always surprises. I didn't see it all. But at the same time, when it comes down to the hunt, that particular week is you guys know, when you're, every week in October is different, every week in November is different. It's the same thing when we take clients out, like I can scout all I want in August.

All it does is give me a body count and what I want to pursue. When I get there, we're trying to do all the scouting in a week and hunt at the same time. And it's, it could be, you could take it as a little harder. You could take it as maybe a little easier because we can see far and we can [00:43:00] locate them.

I just take it as you're doing everything that we love and throwing it into a week at the same time. And it's just, you get to scout. You get to figure out that deer, you get to learn the deer and then you get to pursue the deer and hopefully, you don't make a silly mistake and yeah, the wind doesn't do something stupid or you can play that right.

There's so many things that up with the wind. Yep. The biggest thing for us is always when we locate that buck like day one. It's always like, how do we get there? Let's go. And it's Oh, we might stay here two days watching this thing. It's wow, he's right there. I'm like, I know, but we don't know what he's going to do.

When we go 500 yards, it's going to take us six hours to get there. I could run 500 yards and be, dead tired. But the way we have to move to get there and not bust out deer on the way to them, it could take, I want to figure out a pattern. Is there some sort of pattern? Mule deer are a little tougher than white tail.

White tail play the same game as what you do in Michigan. They have some sort of a pattern. They like to [00:44:00] stick to what they know. Mule deer are all, they're wild cards. Sometimes they have a pattern and then like they'll have a pattern for three or four days. You got them.

And then one day they just up and do something different just because. Yeah. I don't want you to undersell, like how hard, yeah. I don't want you to undersell how hard it is to get close to deer in that kind of terrain, because when I was as a hunting, we would like, there's terrain, like it's not just always flat there's rolling Hills and there's like these, I call them like hidden slews, where you park the truck, you got to walk three miles and you come over this little rise and it's there's just a slew just and slew just sometimes has water and cattails and you like barely crest over this hill and you're just standing there and you're like hundreds of yards away from it and you look and white tails are just running away.

I'm like, what that's so far away. How did they pick me up that quick? So I've always like just been an astonishment that you can, obviously there's tricks and you've learned through experiences, but yeah, you can see a long ways, but you have to get your butt within bow range of that animal.

Wild animal. That's got [00:45:00] way better eyesight than us. And they want to survive, like they don't want to die. So I, every time I see a success, picture in the Western States or whatever, and no one like a spot on stock, it's I've been out there, I've spent, I've drove the last time I was in North Dakota.

We, I drove a thousand miles there. And then in the week of hunting, I drove a thousand miles and a thousand miles back. So like we covered all over North Dakota. Like I've been, I've drove all around that. And and it's just, I can see the addiction to it. I can see why hearing you talk about this, like knowing that, and like you said, you're, you do your scouting and stuff, but you can't just set a trail camera.

In a river bottom and be like, yep, he's going to walk by this little camera that only has a small point of view because it's so vast, like you can't really get that intel, like that where you guys are at. So yeah, you really have to rely on intuition or know what deer like to do.

And I'm sure then when you start that hunt, that first morning when day breaks and you find that guy, you're just like. Yeah, let's go. We got this. We're [00:46:00] in the chips, cause you don't have Intel. Like we had like right now on my phone, every three hours I get updates on my cameras.

And I have a pretty good idea of what's going on in multiple properties from that. You don't really have that, that, that lifestyle out there. I can put some stuff out. I do have trail cameras. I do, or, we're talking an expanded view, 13, 000 acres our West river property.

Over a thousand acres on our East river property to own that many cameras, I'm not we have some sponsorships game cameras is not one of them, unfortunately. Hit them up. If anyone wants a good, a good area to run a lot of cameras, Corey's got the space. So anyone want to help me out?

And then right after that, Yeah. And right after that you need a battery sponsorship because, jeez. No kidding. Yeah. But being able to set up a camera can work in certain situations with whitetail, even mule deer. But, I have, I've not found anything [00:47:00] better than sitting on a hill and glassing for 12 hours.

And then the next day going to the point where I couldn't see and glassing for 12 hours and finding them. And then just watching, when I say glassing, we're watching deer for a while, but it's not like sitting in a tree stand or in a blind and watching deer that come in at 200 yards.

We're talking 800 yards, 1000 yards. We're watching them. We're picking them off. We're getting a little closer. The next time we go out finding the manures, I'm trying to figure out where they're moving. And, over the time that I've been out here, I know where they like to be, but it's still 13, 000 acres.

There's still stuff that I. I know I haven't touched every bit of it, but definitely stuff even that I've touched that I don't have memorized about how they access. There's, case in point, there's a fence I wanted to be on for a stalk just to start the stalk as long as the deer turned the right way and the wind was right.

And I thought they were going to come over and hop a fence and [00:48:00] we were going to be right in it. And 3 weeks prior, we had broke through the gate, or through a fence I don't know, 800 yards to the east of where we were sitting, like 2 weeks prior. And those deer came up to the fence, they were going to do exactly what I thought they were, all the grass was beaten down, that they've been jumping it.

This entire time and they walked up to the opening instead of jumping the fence just because the opening was now there and it, it just, it, it changes so fast out there. And then even having to deal with the cattle. These are cattle ranches that we got to deal with. These are, 1200 cow calf pairs.

I've got an idea of where I want to go and I, I know what paddock they're in, but that doesn't mean that the deer are going to be like, Hey, the cows are here. I can't be in this paddock either. And one ugly thing about cows is for some reason, when you're out there, they want to, they draw interest real quick.

They want to be right next to you and make noises and draw attention. And every other animal is [00:49:00] like, Hey, what's going on over there? Yeah. We've seen, some of the biggest deer, and I'm not saying this just because they got away. The fish always get bigger when they get away, but not the biggest year, but some of the biggest year that we've had Where they're in the middle of a cow pasture, and it's, there's no way to get there when there's 1, 200 cow calf pairs.

There's, it's just, it doesn't matter which way the wind's blowing. Doesn't matter if it's blowing 50. And that's another part of spot and stalk where, we're sleeping in wall tents at our West River property. And calm days are days that I don't look forward to. And river breaks, everything swirls, your thermals are just as bad as they are in the mountains.

Obviously, they intensify in the mountains, but. You get a little lackadaisical in a river break because you don't think about the thermals as much. I've killed all my deer out here in 20 plus mile an hour winds and it's, you spend a lot of time on glass being really cold and you find a deer, you get [00:50:00] downwind and I mean you can get, I mean it's, and I don't want to make it sound like it's the easiest thing in the world.

You can get. Within 20 yards of them. They will sit there and hunker. The winds in South Dakota, North Dakota, they're no joke. It's been an eye opener for me the last five years being out here. 50 mile an hour winds, 30, 40 mile an hour winds. And then doing it archery, you gotta get 20 yards.

There's not much you can do about it, but. A pheasant can go really fast in a 30 mile an hour wind. I found that out. Holy moly. I think they've been clocked at like 25 miles an hour. That's without wind. And you watch them like turn sideways. Dude, you can't leave them far. It's not even worth wasting ammo.

You can not. I have clients, we'll be hunting in wind and they'll be like where was I? I'm like, you're behind them. Are you sure you're across the field? How'd you see that? I'm like, I just know it's 35 miles an hour out here. You were not far [00:51:00] ahead. No, you were not leading them enough. That's for sure.

That's great. Yeah, I'm super intrigued by like your, your whitetail hunts because of what you touched on, like that wall tent kind of thing. So if you want to. If someone like wants to have the adventure, like hunt, you guys offer that, which is pretty cool, and you get to do, you get to get out of, your comfort zone and kind of work your way West.

That was one of the reasons why we did the bear hunt, because I didn't, I really like to go on an elk hunt someday, like that was like our, that's something I think a lot of people from like our Michigan Midwest area want to do that. But that's a really big financial commitment to go do that and mountains and traveling and logistics and all that.

Like where you guys are in South Dakota, you can drive that if you want. No, no big deal. You can, but you can also have the opportunity to fly in and do that kind of thing. But for someone who's like a Midwest guy that wants to get out there and have that, middle of nowhere feel, like you're just out there hunting, this sounds just up your alley, doing that.

There's an adventure to it. Whether you're staying at the lodge here, East [00:52:00] river or, the West river camp. It's definitely a little more adventure in the West River camp in the wall tents and everything. But you can pick and choose what you want to do. Obviously there's more mule deer, West River.

It's a little more rustic, but. Yeah, absolutely. It's within driving distance, I think, to get back to Grand Rapids from where we are here it's 13 hours and I've got two kids. You could push it if you're by yourself or with your hunting partner. Easy.

I've got to make stops for two kids. Yeah, dude, you can do that. No problem. That's what's awesome about that. You get to that. It's a whole different world in 13 hours from, Grand Rapids, which is pretty cool. That's a cool, it changes drastically. It's not like it slowly changes through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, just like Michigan.

And then as soon as you get past Sioux Falls of South Dakota, it starts changing quick to the prairie. And. I love the mountains and everything and I, I'd give anything to own some property out there or a cabin somewhere. We're looking in Idaho trying to find something, but like everything the prairie offers [00:53:00] is, it's fun.

Now the wind can beat you up a little bit, but. I have a little ger, to get through it. What'd you say? You're how many people are in the town you live in? Would you say 700? Yeah. So there's, you're outnumbered by cows and pheasants for sure. And in wildlife, that's just in the pasture next to us.

Yeah, exactly. So it's definitely a different experience. So what yeah, so I guess if there's any kind of other, like maybe a little tidbit that you can give from like someone who like me, let's say like I've, so maybe I'm not the best example cause I've been hunting out of state for 10 years.

So I've been to Missouri. I've been to Iowa. I've been to Illinois, Kentucky, all these States. And I, we try to do a hunt every year. Someone who's like maybe on the fence. That's never, done a guided, whitetail thing or a, out of state journey from my perspective, looking at this, I have spent quite a bit of money.

Me and my dad, we've never done a full guided whitetail hunt, but we've done semi guided and we've done, we've [00:54:00] always tried really hard to vet, before we go, like either using social media or lots of phone calls. And we've been burnt. Like I've spent a lot of money, me and my dad for that five or six day hunt.

To get to a spot where we were told no one's hunted here yet this year. And then, yep, you can hang your stands wherever you want. And then we do a little scout around and it's dude, this place has been pounded, there's human sign everywhere. Trees that have, stands in them that they, the people left and, we got tracks and all that, and then it's just, you're hunting, it's almost worse than hunting in Michigan because it's been just blown out.

And you don't know it either. That's exactly, it's a new thing. So this kind of a hunt is super intriguing, I think. And you can probably back this up, but you're going to go to a place that's vast, that is, you can't just blow it up. Like you're seeing stuff from a distance, and you're, if you do that rut kind of hunt, you're finding new, you said you get surprised sometimes with bucks.

And this is like a different kind of an experience. It's almost like if you're going to spend the money on something. Give this a shot. Like [00:55:00] I there's good opportunities in the prairie, like situation where you're at to have that kind of land that you can just go and enjoy, and then you get to do the rustic side of it, like wall tent, kind of thing.

It's just, there's a lot more things to offer with that kind of a hunt. Yeah. I think doing a more spot and stalk, especially white tail obviously mule deer, that's how a lot of people do it anyway, but. A whitetail opportunity to do spot and stalk is a, it's a once in a lifetime that will keep you coming back.

It's addicting. Don't, I'm not going to say do it once and you'll be satisfied and you're going to keep coming back. And that's, that doesn't have to be guided. There's plenty of public land out here that's up for the taking as far as like how archery goes in South Dakota.

It is, it's an over the counter and for West River, you can either do an East River or West River or you can get like a state tag, so you get both but they're any deer. So you can shoot a whitetail or you can shoot a mule deer depending on where you're going. It's fairly easy to figure out on the [00:56:00] website.

If anyone, if anybody needed help game fishing parks, anyone can obviously reach out to me at any time, but whether you want to do guided or not, or just get Intel yeah, being able to come out and scout some land if you know a little bit about whitetail You're going to be able to find them Having a guide obviously helps guides who care Nate, you know touched on being burned.

I've been burned before and I'm in this industry. This is what I do Full time and I've met people and want to go out and people that need dogs. And, we trade a hunt here or there and it doesn't turn out the way it's supposed to. And it happens to be able to vet somebody is, if I found out the best way to do that, I would have done it by now because every time I hear a story like that, like Nate just said it makes me look bad, whether directly it does, or I'm just overthinking it.

I put my heart and soul into this and to hear people get burned on it, I feel like makes every phone call that I take that much harder [00:57:00] to, to secure spend the time on the phone, ask them to be on the phone is the best way that I've found as far as if you are looking for a guide, whether it be South Dakota, anywhere else Spend the time with them.

If they want you to come hunt with them, they will spend the time with you. If they don't, and they're busy, which we are right. It may not be, Hey, right now. I may be scouting. If you're calling me for a couple of weeks and I've got zero service when I get back either if I haven't reached out, reach back out and we'll talk, but try to get them on the phone and talk to them.

It's very hard to, unfortunately, with, especially with new technology, with AI stuff, I've seen some crazy stuff this year with These generated responses get on the phone and talk to your guide your potential guide and talk to other guides too. And here's a tip that I don't think anyone's going to but if you have a guide and you ask them about another guide or an outfitter and they dog them immediately, I can guarantee you that the one you're talking to [00:58:00] this dog and someone else is not the one to go with either.

There are plenty of hunters. There's plenty of clients out here for everybody. If somebody has actually done something wrong, sure. But to just go out and out of your way and dog someone for a clientele list, I think that's a solid advice, man. And like you you nailed nail on the head, like I'm in construction, every handyman who has burned a homeowner or every horror story you read on Facebook or social media, every time you've heard, I paid all this money and it only got halfway down the guy left. I feel, I like take that personally, because that's just my, that's just the career I'm in. And it just, I just hate that is like.

You, you, of course you hear the bad more than you hear the good or the bad, sticks around a little longer, but yeah, like that's the last thing I want to do is to have that. And, you guys, as having outfitting and that kind of thing, you're providing the service for these guys and you just want what's best for hunters.

You want a good time. You want to do that. You're obviously you're making a [00:59:00] living doing it, but. If you really broke down on how much time you guys put into what you do and how much money you do make in a year, there's a lot of other things you can do to make that same money and not have to work so much, but you get the enjoyment and you get to live the life that you and your family want to live.

Like you said, you got a wife and two kids and like you're living that. You're living that lifestyle that, that is how you wanted your family to go. And it's just a passion. And I'm looking from the outside in and having this conversation with you. It's very apparent that you, you're tore up with us and you love doing it.

Yeah that's all it takes. Especially now, doing this, doing the podcast. Now we have clients here right now. The opener is the non resident opener is tomorrow morning. We have our corporate group here for pheasants. I just got back from West river. For, from grouse and our last archery deer hunt for a couple of weeks.

I've got guides out there still, but. Yeah. I live for this time of year. It is I'm excited for it. Got me all fired up, man. Like I got, see me looking off my shoulder here. I got [01:00:00] coyotes out here. I'm sitting on her front porch. I got coyotes running through our tree belt right now. I can hear them all.

But it's yeah, I think just, to get back to. Finding a guide. The last thing I want is for anyone to get burned on something that, the business that I choose for sure, not that any other business is easier, but it, we're a lot business. This is something that nobody has to go do.

No one has to pay a guy. They don't have to pay me to do anything. And reputation is everything. And it is with every business. I'm not saying it's not it is something that I take personally when stuff like this happens, I love every minute of it. And if there's any way that I can help, if it's even trying to help you with public land, I don't care.

My passion for the outdoors, Nate, he mentioned Tony his brother, Nick, everyone that we grew up with. I think everyone knows. My passion for the outdoors and how much that I love it. If it's just helping someone get successful in the outdoors, whatever that may have, however that is [01:01:00] fishing, hunting, whatever it is, I'll help as much as possible.

And finding that person is. Tough to do. There's a lot of people out there. There's a lot of good guides all over. But try to talk to them on the phone and vet them as best you can that way. Plug what your place is. I don't know if we've really even talked about that. Like give a little thing, let people know who they can reach out to, what they got to look up.

And yeah, obviously in the show notes, I can, I'll have this too, but yeah, we're what are you? What is your name of your lodge or whatever? What is all that? So our lodge is Grand Ciel Lodge. C I E L Lodge. We're in Plankton, South Dakota, a town of 700. My dog training business is The Dog Park, P R K, spelt P R K for park.

And the website and everything will be on there. We do dog training, pointers and retrievers. And then our hunting business is sharp tail prairie chickens, pheasant. I do head down South and travel guide a little bit after our season here, our wild bird season. But we do deer [01:02:00] hunts, white tail and mule deer.

If you, if the spot and stock isn't your game and you want to do more stand hunting, that's what we have kind of East River where our lodge is. And then if, adding just that little extra adventure is where you think that you sit. Goin sleepin in a wall tent for six or seven days, spot and stalk, and...

The prairies of South Dakota, maybe that's more up your alley. That's a fun time too. Anybody wants to reach out, I'm sure my email and everything will be right on there. Anyone can contact us anytime. So perfect. Let's end it on that, man. I thank you for doing this and hopping on.

I have a very sneaking suspicion. This is not going to be the last time that you're on Michigan wild because I I'm, I love this kind of a conversation. This is something that I've over, I have done for years talking to people and doing this. Now I get to record it and do this thing. So I appreciate taking time and doing this.

And anytime I can help someone out, that's, chasing their dream and doing that, like I'm taking advantage of that. So [01:03:00] thank you for doing this, Corey, man. And hope everyone enjoyed this episode of Michigan wild. And like Corey was saying, just get out there, go out there, walk around.

If you had a dog or maybe you don't just spend time outside and, be open minded. It's what he was touching on earlier. Like maybe your shed hunt, but look at for more things, or maybe you're just out there enjoying the creation and just see what you can learn and just try to be better.

And you will not be disappointed. Thanks guys. Yep. Thank you.

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