Jonny Stewart and Hunting in Pennsylvania

This week Paul and Andrew give a recap of a FANTASTIC event down at Archery Hike this past weekend. The course was amazing and thank you very much to Justin Ross of Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry for an outstanding experience.  A couple other news and notes from around the state including controlled hunt applications being taken now!

The meat and potatoes comes from Andrews discussion with Jonny Stewart. Jonny is a big woods white tail slayer, who has hunted across the country for deer.  Jonny’s experience is extremely valuable but on this show we talk about hunting opportunities in the state of Pennsylvania.  If you’ve ever considered traveling to our neighbors to the east, Jonny gives you some tips on what the season looks like, geography, bag limits, etc. Lots of great knowledge on this one!

Have a great week and enjoy the O2 if you get out into Ohio’s great Outdoors!

www.theo2podcast.com

[00:00:00] And what's up everybody? Welcome back to the oh two Podcast, the Ohio Outdoors Podcast. Andrew and Paul are here with you tonight. Paul, what's up big man? How you doing, man? I have to say this. Have birthday Andrew. Months. Thanks buddy. How old are you at? One day. Closer to death. That's about what I feel like.

One day closer to death. It's real, real optimistic. Look on life, huh? No. You look good, man. Now you survived archery hike, so hell, if that doesn't kill you. Holy crap. 37. 37. So we're moving. There you go. Yeah. Let's go ahead and hop into that man. Recapping the archery hike. So you and I got the privilege to go down there Fri was it Friday with Brandon?

Friday? Yep. Do a little shooting. Man, Justin, he put together hell of a course, didn't he? Man, it was a [00:01:00] blast. It really was. It was a good lifelike hunting scenario. I feel like hunting, like you plan it out oh yeah, this is where the deer elk moves. Whatever it is gonna step out.

Turkey never works that way. And so there was some really interesting, my favorite shot, and this is a great example, there was a lay down log and there was a mountain lion that was

in between like the branch going up and so you had the cup to this thing. You don't realize how covered it was until you get up there. It was cool. It was a great setup. Very Challenging a lot of fun. Fair. Just a great test. I really enjoyed it, man. I had a blast. So anybody who wasn't able to get out there this year, put it under your calendar for next year because it is an event, man.

And so I shot it last year, Paul and Justin revamped it this year. So last year it was 12, 12 stops along the way, and I don't remember how long the hike was, probably a mile and a [00:02:00] half or so. This year I tracked three miles long and there's 25 total shots. Last year it was 12 stops. But you went through the course twice.

There was two shots at each one, so when we went down this year, I had this idea in my mind we'll go through it once. I'll wear the heavy backpack because, the challenge was put out there, so I had to do it right, wear the 50 pound pack on my back, which almost killed me because I'm not a Rucker.

I think I'm in shape. But man, that got after me. And I was planning on shooting the course, going to lunch, coming back and shooting it again. And I don't know, swimmer, were probably around the three hour mark. I was like, there is no way in hell that we are going to shoot this again tonight. Oh, man.

You the, that heavy challenge, so yeah, 50 pounds in the backpack there. And you did not have the appropriate backpack to be doing 50 pounds through the woods like that. No. So Justin set it up frameless. He wanted you to bring a big frame pack like you were hunting in the back woods, and you had your stuff on your back. My dumb ass is 50 pounds, I got 50 pound dumbbell in the barn. Let's go [00:03:00] ahead, throw it in his backpack and let's roll. And that wasn't smart. 85% humidity. And you were regretting that like through the first five stops, you're like, this sucks.

What? Don't, what if I tell, I don't remember who said it, but it was about the fourth or fifth shot, and somebody's are you squinting with your peep eye? Yes, because I have sweat just pouring down my face. Oh my God. I've have never seen. A human being, sweat that much. And I played sports for decades and I never saw you sweat that much.

Anyone sweat that much? It was incredible, man. It was great. I'll give it to you. It was a, that was a true test. And you, you got through it. I was, I was very impressed man. I think we all lost because one arrow I could have. Yeah. We all lost one arrow. Our buddy Brandon did Really?

Yeah. He put on a clinic. He did a good job. We all did a good job. Yeah. One arrow at one point. I think I was the, I think I was the first one to lose an arrow. And Brandon's we need Paul to lose an air. I'm like, Hey man, I'm already there. [00:04:00] Stop. Don't put that juju on me. No, and it's funny, you were, you shot great the world.

I shocked myself, honestly. World worst bow hunter. But you shot just fine. Yeah. What was your favorite target out there, man? I think so the. The bobcat behind the tree was probably my favorite. Just because it was like, what was it, 12 yards or something like that? 15 yards. But it had, it was uphill.

It was like straight uphill. You had the trees in the way, you had the brush in the way it was, that was cool. That was probably my favorite. I'd say the next one was that big elk that was V by the trees. Was it 81 yards? Something like that? It depends which rain finder?

Which rain finder? Mine and Brandon was 81. I think yours was like 85, 17. So yeah. Stupid, but that was my favorite. What was your favorite target? So I went back Saturday morning and shot it just, I took the wife and kids and they hiked and loved it. And we, I'm trying to think.

Some [00:05:00] of those really long ones are interesting, but there is a point where it's just kinda pull and pray. Yeah. But the. Full in praise. Is that trademarks? I don't know. That was probably not. You better trademark that. That's good. I like that next T-shirt. There was one I was just thinking of, that betted Dough, that one was tough.

The betted dough was cool. That was, yeah, that was cool. That was real tough. And it was like 49 yards or something. 45. My rain. I, but it was tough, man. It was a really tough shot and to get through the branches and everything. So that one was cool, but kudos to Justin for setting that up. Great event. Fabulous.

Raising money for farmers and hunters feeding the Hungary. He had a lot of people out there. He had people from five states yeah. That's really cool. One guy was there, I think you might have left, he was come up from Kentucky and he's going on an elk trip later this fall. So this was his first chance to get out and test the water so to speak.

Yeah. And I think it was good. He had the big pack and everything, so man, it was, yeah, it was a ton of fun. Good sponsors. Matt Schoen Hop, I believe was his name, realtor. [00:06:00] Land guy, check him out. Vance Outdoors was a sponsor. A couple other ones, please forgive us. But yeah, thanks to those guys for the support of Justin's event, archery hike.

So thanks for Justin, his wife and and mother-in-law putting all that together. Man, that was a lot of work and they did a great job. Lot of work. Andrew? Yes, sir. July 21st to the 23rd. What are we doing? Must and the marsh must and the marsh Muster And the marsh.com. M U s t E R B H A, back Country.

Hunters and Anglers. Cover, bridge, outfit, fitters and Conant, Ohio. This is gonna be a ton of fun. Live music Beaver Trapping classes. We got live podcasts we're doing with with Cow from Meat Eat and Kevin Murphy from Meat Eater. We're gonna be telling some stories around a campfire on Friday night.

Man, this is gonna be a ton of fun. Can't wait camping. And it's a cheap event, man. It's it's just, it's, it is a couple of bucks, man. For the entire weekend camping on site. It's gonna be really neat. So kid friendly. There is, they've got national shooting sport or National Archery and Schools [00:07:00] program will be there.

They got some really cool stuff. So check that out. Muster and the marsh.com. Get signed up for that. Get you tickets, bring your family fly fishing demonstrations. Yeah, there's social media games. Some fun. Yes, sir. Get some clever marketing. What else we got Paul? Let's see. News around the state.

So if you haven't already, the month of July is your time to apply for controlled hunts across the state. There are a bunch of 'em, lots of mentored opportunities. I think I signed up for a bunch of those this year for my daughter. Did I tell you about, She said, asked me if she'd go on a hunting trip.

And I'm like, sure. And in my mind I'm like, cool, I'll take you to one of the properties I have and we'll put a, put a blind or double ladder up or something like that. She pulls out the map and she's like, how about Kentucky or maybe Virginia? And I'm like, Nope nope.

You've got you've got a budding hunting douch there at home. So yeah, she's got, that's awesome, man. That's her reading challenge for the summer. She finishes enough pages reading, she can go on a hunting trip with me. So yeah, there you go. See you've said [00:08:00] our reading challenge is you're reading enough books, you get Nintendo Switch.

Wow. Look at you guys. It's you should put top maps in her hand. Yeah. All right. I got sure. How to, that'd be great, right? Read old school topo maps. Download OnX onto your iPad. Oh. No, not OnX. Like actual, like paper maps. She wouldn't know what to do. That. That's a Yeah. Here's a compass and a map.

Get outside here. Here's story for you all. So we're at a party it the other night, and I apologize cuz people are gonna hear stories that I'm not very good storyteller and whatever Paul, you'll enjoy this. We're at a kid's birthday party right down towards Lancaster, and they pull out the quads, right?

They got, this guy's got, he's got little kid quads and every, next step up. So all these four wheelers running around, the kids are on him and stuff like that. My son loves it. He's absolutely enamored. So he comes home the next morning and he decides he's gonna write me his Christmas list.

Now he has some issues with throwing temper tantrums and he's seven. And yeah, it's probably bad parenting. That's fine. But it is what it is. So when he [00:09:00] makes his Christmas list and I'm like, all let's see. It starts number one as a quad. Number two is a dirt bike, and number three is an Xbox with Fortnite.

So of course, nice. It's I don't know, three, four, $5,000 worth of stuff right there. And I'm like here's the deal, bud. Not happening. First of all you need to change your ways cuz your little fits and stuff they gotta stop. And the other thing is, this is six months away. I'm not worried about it right now.

And he then proceeds to throw fit and walks in the living room. I'm watching him like, literally, dude, we just had this conversation. You're not throwing fits anymore. He punts a ball. So we have rules that you don't play with balls in the house, right? Cause things break. There's a ball sitting there and he just kicks it.

It goes zop, like straight up and drills the deer head on the wall. And I'm like, oh. Like the wrath of God just came down in that house. And Annie, my daughter, said to me later, she said, dad I've never seen your mood change so fast like that. I'm like cause all three things that he knows he is [00:10:00] not supposed to do.

You don't touch the deer. You don't kick balls and ask, you don't throw fits. Oh my God. After he gave me his Christmas list for you know what he wants for Christmas. Oh my God, I would've lost my mind. Child services almost got called to my house that morning. Come get 'em. I'm done with 'em. Take them.

Oh, man. What a mess. It's time to go wa.com. Andrew friends of ours, Kentucky great app. You know what's funny, man? I was, I'm trying to find a clarifier. I thought I needed a clarifier for my bow. My eyes are getting weird, right? So I put a comment out on Go Wild, said, Hey, have you guys used Clarifiers?

And Mike Larson hops on there and he's do you need a clarifier or a verifier? I didn't know what the hell a verifier was. Boom, our boys at go wild. Got 'em on there. Good prices. I was Googling stuff. And who pops up? Time to go wild.com. Good price. They got a ton of stuff for the hunter. Great social community platform.

Tons of fishing gear if you're if you're still fishing, getting geared up for that. So time to go wild to come. As you mentioned, it is my birthday today. This will air after the fact. But the I got on there this morning and after the 3D [00:11:00] archery shoot last week, weekend and pulling arrows out of the plastic deer legs that I have, I decided to buy myself a new.

Target that I got off of there. So I got a Reinhardt foam deer off Go wild this morning. That was my birthday. Oh, there you go to myself. Nice. Yeah, no I need to, I go ahead. I, the other thing I'm tell you, cuz I don't know how much they pushed it lately. If you guys are getting into mobile hunting stuff and you haven't checked out Timber Ninja.

Timber Ninja's new on to Go wild. And Jason Red, who we've had on the show a couple times as the founder and stuff highly encourage you to check that out. So on Go wild. You can find it. Stuff's legit man. Yeah, it is awesome. Super light. Yeah. Very cool stuff. So yeah. Good stuff.

So first light.com. You got any sales going on right now, Mon? They got the summertime kits, scouting kits. What do they got? They got something. I dunno. Probably. Oh, probably doesn't matter. Keep looking. I love, I gotta get, I gotta get like gloves. I gotta get new hats. I gotta get pants that fit my, none of my first light [00:12:00] pants fit anymore.

I've lost so much weight. I gotta I got some serious legwork to do on firstlight.com. I will be on there. How you holding up with shorts? You got plenty of shorts. Every time you see it, you got hat you got first light shorts on. Oh my god. Man, those look good. These guide light shorts are the best man.

They're super versatile, but yeah. Yeah. And then man, they're dropping all kinds of new stuff. We gotta get caught back up on that. The timber camo, they came out with some of the 2023 waterfall stuff. But yeah, we'll work on that one there. There's new stuff. Those guys are on it, man.

They're pumping out some good stuff. Who else is pumping out some good stuff? From up there in the Northland half rack, half rack.com, Ohio Outdoors. 15. Save yourself 15% on all the gimme, gimme good product. You gotta have something. I'll tell you what I like the wild cap boat case.

That thing's badass soft sided. Lon is storage. Big fan. Big fan. It's not that much money, man. Did you see the freedom Hangers? No. So they got their hunter hangers, but they put 'em into like red, white, and blue and there were some Damn they did. That's America. There's something they, they posted [00:13:00] on their Instagram the other day.

And I might have been a few adult beverages deep when I saw this post come through, but it was like, give us a one line comment of what, where these best would go, or something like that. And I was like, in a comm's heart and yeah, probably not my best choice of words, but I got some likes, so there you go.

But it looks like they're sold outta the freedom hangers. Imagine that. Oh, of course they're America. There we go. Ohio Outdoors. 15, save yourself 15%. If you're also in the, on, in, in the mood for a deal and a ton of really good selection. Midwest commonworks.com or Boy Cameron out there putting out some really cool videos.

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Save yourself 5% on that. What else you got? We got you still shooting hogs with the thermal ion? No, I'm not shooting hogs cuz we don't have hogs around here and in my neck of the woods. Oh, thank God I had three coyotes on a camera. I know Backyard. That's how crazy was that. I drove by your house and I was like, dude, there's a huge coyote in your backyard.

And he then he was there like 10 minutes later. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild. Man. That was pretty cool. Didn't take care of that. I've been our buddies sounded serious archery. I was talking to them. I, they, I have you, you've listened to this. I know I've listened to it a couple of times, but the serious talk, s i r i u s talk, their podcast.

That's a pretty cool show, man. They had the episode today was spear hunting with a guy named Steven Robbins. Dude, how crazy is that? Sounds crazy. Spear hunting. That's like the ultimate I, I feel like that's something like you really have to practice and be ready to kill some stuff.

That's intense, man. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Check that [00:15:00] out. Serious talk. Great podcast. And let's see. Last one, but not least, exhibition optics your go-to for all your thermal and night vision. They got all kinds of stuff on there, man. Monocular scopes, binos range finders, all that kind of stuff.

It's great stuff and I haven't been out shooting hogs, but, or coyotes lately. Probably need to life needs to slow down a little bit, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Also, they're over on go wild as well. But exhibition optics, if you wanna check out their website yep. Let's see if there's anything else around the state.

Let's see. You got a new accessible trail at Baroque State Park. Some boating infrastructure grant that improves dockage and draws boaters. O D N R unveils the first Haiku Trail at Ohio State Parks College Corner. Where's that? Houston Wood State Park. Yeah. Oh, this was a new one. Cool.

One new treatment plant to process acid mine drainage into paint products. And that's down in [00:16:00] Millfield? Yeah. Oh, man. Millfield that's my stomping grounds on here. Little area mind disaster town there. Millfield mine disaster. If you're intrigued by that, Google it. That's a crazy story, man.

Sad story. Yeah. What was the one you had a lot of work on earlier, Paul? It was not from OD n r, but so it's the National Deer Association nda. They've done, there's been a 30 year research project on hunters and the longest known C w D zones in this country. So Wyoming, Colorado, Wisconsin.

And, I was, it was conducted by Dr. Joe Abrams of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. And he just recently presented preliminary per preliminary data for the survey of the hunters and some of the oldest C W D outbreak areas. So I'm gonna read this here. The Colorado and Wyoming studies reviewed data going back 30 years and examined records for over 2 million hunters, including [00:17:00] hundreds of thousands who hunted in C W D endemic areas.

It is likely that over decades, many thousands of these hunters knowingly or unknowingly eight venison from c w D positive animals. And this is quote from Dr. Abrams. There was no indication of these hunters dying at a higher rate of prion diseases than the general population. He goes on a little later in the study to talk about the Wisconsin study that was conducted also.

20 year. 20 years. So two decades long study. They found, they tested 642 hunters that had, that were known to have consumed C w D positive venison in that in that 20 year time period. And not one of them tested positive for prior disease or die from prime disease during that timeframe.

But so the CW or the Thery disease in humans crutch Feld, Jacob's Disease, Andrew, we've talked about this. Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, they said that the annual rate for someone dying of that is is one in a million. So [00:18:00] it's a pretty rare their point was you found one in 642, like that'd be incredibly high.

So right now, preliminary evidence shows that there's really no correlation. It seems to be between C W D positive animals. And humans consuming those animals. So that is interesting news. Keep your eyes peeled on that deer association.com. We got a ton of information there about that.

Good stuff, man. It is, yeah. I thought that was an interesting an interesting study. There's so many, there's a ton of conversation about cwd. There's a ton of concern about C W D and I think that this is the way that we start to figure it out is those long-term research projects and it just sucks that we gotta wait.

But that's how it's yes, sometimes you just gotta wait. That's it, man. But you don't have to wait any longer for this week's show because now we are going to continue down our little our plan here of doing similar topics once a month, but with different guests from different [00:19:00] areas and walks of life.

This is going to be our first show for out-of-state hunting. And the guest we have is Johnny Stewart. And Johnny is from North or, let's see, he's from Western Pennsylvania, but the guy's hunted all over the place for Whitetails. He's very good whitetail hunter, but he is lived in Pennsylvania for a long time.

And he's gonna give us a rundown of basically the, what the Pennsylvania hunting season looks like. So if you've ever considered hunting out of state, which I would encourage you to do because it will make you a, I think it'll make you a better hunter. And I think Paul, you would echo that.

It gives you new opportunities. See different things, opens your eyes to different things that maybe, if you're always stumbling down the same path in the same woods that you've done for 40 years or 20 years or whatever, you miss stuff and you get comfortable and this kind of makes you a little bit more alert and a little bit more aware of your surroundings.

But anyways Johnny's gonna give us a rundown of what the Pennsylvania season looks like. The things that make it similar to ours different than ours.[00:20:00] This conversation I was able to give it. I was able to participate a little bit because I've hunted over there for quite a few years now.

But I can tell you as of July 10th, non-resident antlerless deer permits went on sale today. So if you're a resident of Ohio or another state besides Pennsylvania and you wanted to go over there and have a opportunity to antler list permit, they are now on sale. You obviously have to buy also your hunting license, which should come with your antler deer permit.

And obviously read all the regulations in their book and all that kind of stuff. But it's a pretty cool opportunity. Pennsylvania has lots of Public lands, so it's not something where you're gonna have to go lease or buy, or find knocking on doors, anything like that. So there's lots of opportunities over there.

And it's big woods. It's not farm fields for the most part. Yeah, I think it's a pretty good show. Hopefully. Ah, can't wait till, listen, I was not there for this talk yeah. Interested to hear. I know my out-of-state hunting, I'm a different [00:21:00] level of focus and a different drive when I'm on an out-of-state hunt, cuz I've got money in it, like a lot of money.

It's exp it's, it can be expensive to hunt outta state. And you've got a short window and man, I'm like a freaking man with my hair on fire when I'm out Turkey hunting outta state. Yep. Hunting. Anyhoo, this will be Pennsylvania. We've got some other states on the line there coming up.

Maybe if you get. Yeah, look at one of those too. So anyhow, I hope you enjoy it and have a great week. Get out there, do something good. And yeah, we'll talk to you soon.

All right. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the O two podcast. Tonight I've got a very special guest, Mr. Johnny Stewart from over to our East in Pennsylvania. Johnny, what's going on, man? Creeping up on here, the 4th of July. Nothing much happening deer wise, but always thinking about deer.

So you're not out [00:22:00] doing fireworks tonight. We're recording this on July 3rd No, this is more important, right? Absolutely. We ain't got time for fireworks. Fireworks are in November. I like that. Yeah, I think the best meme I saw all week, and this is, we shout out to Dan Johnson for this one.

No, there's some people in United States that don't realize this is their last weekend with 10 fingers as we lead up to the 4th of July. Yeah, anyhow, happy 4th of July. That will, this will be later, but Johnny, you're over in Pennsylvania and Beau Marek that is good friend of ours that suggested that we needed to reach out to you and be educated.

Oh, is that what he said? Huh? That's what he said. He said he that, that's cool. He said he taught you everything. But yeah. Here I, here's how it goes. I taught Bo everything he knows, but I didn't teach him everything. I know. Okay. There you go. There you go. I like that. But in our little summer series here, we're gonna cover some different opportunities for hunters, around the state of Ohio and where they can go outta state.

So Pennsylvania is [00:23:00] probably it depends what part of the state of Ohio you're in, but I've been over there for numerous years. You guys have lots of public land and opportunity. The tag for a non-resident is relatively inexpensive. It's very reasonable. I love certain aspects of it. But I, we kinda wanna cover some of this.

So how long Johnny, how long have you been over Huntington, Pennsylvania? Oh, so I'm 44 this year. Since 12 do the math with that 32, I think. Yeah. It was a quick math. Is that right? And do you wanna give every, everybody quick background of you and what you, what your, yeah. I'm 44, grew up near Pittsburgh.

Was fascinated with deer. My dad wasn't a huge deer hunter rifle hunt. And was just super intrigued by deer. So every time he went, I couldn't wait till he come back and asked him questions, this and that. And then evolved into him taking me and got my first deer with a gun, was just a dough probably around 14.

And then my first buck with a bow at [00:24:00] 17. It took a few years. I started shooting bow at 14. But it, I was just fascinated by these creatures. So yeah. Evolved into, Taking a lot of game. At that age 14 up into my twenties. I loved hunting, killing, harvesting deer and everything about it.

And then evolved, evolved from that into just set my sights on bigger deer. Then traveled, probably started my twenties traveling to different states mainly just maybe knocking on doors or word of mouth hunting areas. And back then nothing was like managed and it was more just more loose maybe how, you went about hunting and just talking to people and then a lot of public land and so yeah, I was able to harvest a lot of animals and quit.

All the other just really got serious about deer hunting. And I used to fish and I was big in a small game and just that all fell to the wayside and stayed with the white tail and hunt, matured deer. And probably the last, now 12 years, [00:25:00] just strictly public land. I usually hunt five states, I guess a year.

And yeah, I think more the last few years was more about learning. I think you evolve as a hunter, as I said, I hunted to kill deer, harvest deer. I enjoyed that than mature deer, than I got to a point where I liked helping others. I still do helping others hunt and have success.

I like to see other people enjoy success. And then I got to a point where it's just about learning about these animals and these harder hunting public areas or these mountainous areas, which there's not, it's not predicate, don't live. Predict they're not as predictable. They're more nomads in some of these areas and not concentrations of food or what have you.

Just really even as a young age, I just started learn learning from the animals, not so much at first. I would read magazines and learn as much as I could and wrote notes down and it just didn't, I guess maybe [00:26:00] when the person, the people that wrote articles then didn't really pertain to the hunting I did, and that was a big mistake I made.

I think more were like midway West based hunters and writing articles and there's just and after being in so many states, there's so many, it's so diverse. The habitat, the land, terrain, there's so many variables. So even when people ask me now, I tried not to give them that black and white answer.

It's situational, so I did at an early age, quit reading articles and just learn exclusively from the animal in my quarry, and watched learn, asked myself a bunch of questions, and before mapping, I just walked through the woods and really obsessively know as much as I could.

And I still now talk about knowing everything you can about these animals that are fascinating. And I feel like every time you go into the woods forest or timber and you're always learning, it's always evolving, changing, whether it's the habitat or the deer themselves, how, deer die off, new ones move in and hunting [00:27:00] pressure, just, it's a learning curve that never ends, and I think that's a big part of it here in the last five to eight years was learning. It wasn't always about killing. I think I've done the killing and then I haven't had, I got into hunting just single or just one mature animal. It's, you get really la laser focused and learn their habits or tendencies.

And I haven't had an animal really lately specific that I've wanted to hunt. Some good deer, but nothing was like, oh, this is the deer I wanna hunt. And so just more like bouncing around from deer to deer or just maybe where good deer are, but just pretty much l I was, I'm like a sponge. I have been the last few years and with these animals, and I just wanna learn everything.

I think it's the learning curve that I'm attracted to and that, I think you just go through stages as a hunter. You know what it's like up and down, maybe like a rollercoaster maybe. And at this point you're doing this and down here and up and different. It's, for me, it's that way.

I guess I'm not just [00:28:00] stagnant in, in what I'm doing out there. It's yeah, I wanted to kill deer and okay, I just wanna learn there's years I just sat in the woods re recently in the last few years and just didn't care if I killed a deer. I just, I hunted all through, all the way through to January and, I tell everybody else, oh, I'm burned out, I'm done hunting.

I said, man, you can see how the woods evolve and the snow and this and that and what's left, and you can just learn so much. So yeah, that's that's about, a big part of me, all right, so we're gonna cover the whole idea of hunting in Pennsylvania, but you covered, you hit on a whole bunch of things there that I was just like writing notes down.

So the first thing I want to talk about with your career, when you say you went from 14 to 17 without killing a buck, right? Is that what you said? Or yeah. A deer with your bow, whatever. Can you talk a little bit about that? My background, I did not grow up hunting. Everybody that listens to our show knows this story, but I think it was six years before I killed my first deer and it happened real quick.

It was on a deer drive, [00:29:00] which love 'em or hate 'em, whatever. It happened and that was, it got me over a hurdle, but six years man, and I am not a patient person and even so three years. And from somebody coming from a state where there's, 500,000 hunters and everything else that you guys have, the history and everything over there, can you talk a little bit how you overcame that and just got over that hurdle of getting my first deer, you mean?

Yeah, with a bow or, yeah. I think it was just persistence. I wanted it bad enough, but there was, in that timeframe I had my opportunities and that's what's great about hunting is mental and physical, mentally it's a tough. It can be tough. It could really, even in recent years, I've had times where I missed a deer or maybe if you wound one or whatever, and it just feels like you're never gonna get one.

So that's where I was at 14, I picked up a bow shooting and this was a great shot every day. And there was, read what I could about hunting and just friends. And there was no one was like some seasoned deer [00:30:00] hunting, bow hunting like there are today. And but which was great too.

It was just the beginning of my learning curve. But yeah, just yeah, there was a lot of like mishaps or missed opportunities, but it you, if you're mentally wired to where you, you have a focused on a goal and you're just gonna learn and take steps to get to that, and you might take two steps back or one forward.

But then when I did get my deer was like, I was happy, but it was like, man, I should've I said I should have had one years, it's took me so long. But I think even now, you could use little tricks, when you're hunting to keep yourself out there and keep motivated. Cuz I think where I was when I was 13, I, 14, 15, I just, in my head I was defeated, but I kept going that I felt like I wasn't gonna get it.

It's not gonna, it's never gonna happen. Like it's an easy feeling for even people to get in today, but you just stick with it and keep telling yourself persistence. Keep going [00:31:00] out there and do your best, but be optimistic. And now I look at for instance, I'm thinking about moving the tree for whatever reason.

Sometimes, like you said, I am also impatient at times and I think I put so much time into an area that I feel like it needs to happen right away. Cause I know this area. Day goes by, two days, three days, and then you start second guessing yourself, which is same mentally as maybe when I was 14, but different, but similar to where I tell myself, what are the good reasons, outweigh what are the, does the bad outweigh the good or vice versa?

To where it's okay, I got it. I know this is a good area and I just need time. And I didn't spook any deer. But on the other hand, I might be like, okay, I bumped some deer, they winded me, da, or someone else hunting. Then maybe it's time to leave, so be optimistic, but also realistic to where it says, where you say to yourself, it's time to move.

Because of all these factors outweigh this side, but I think just being pers persistent [00:32:00] and wanting it, how bad do you want something in life? I think, and mentally I was in my mind, I was never gonna get, I'm never gonna get a deer, but I just kept, you enjoyed it. And I kept going, just keep.

Keep driving keep going. Especially if something that you're passionate about, yeah it'll, like you said, it eventually happens, then you're like, then you're like the king killer. Like you're the best killer and hey, and this is the easy, I got it. But it's so weird how that does mentally change you to, once you have that success, you're like, and I've met guys in the past that said to me, oh, John, I can't get, they just wanted my help p and o to get a deer.

And I try helping them. And they just felt they were in that rut where I'm never gonna get a deer. And then they would get one the next year and following year, then they're like giving me advice. You know what I mean? But that's weird hus But that's the game of hunting. It's mentally tough in, in some ways.

It is. And I think it's a nice little microcosm for life, right? You don't always succeed the first time. I think we all know the guy that went out the first time and sat in the, the stand and shot a buck [00:33:00] or whatever. That happens, but it, and we have some younger listeners. I know, if last year wasn't your year, don't give up.

Go out and do it again. Learn from what you came up with. My first one I ever shot with a bow. I didn't know what was going on. I shouldn't say I didn't know what's going on. I've learned a lot from there. So I went actually back the other day. My kids shoot that bow now and the arrow weight was like 380 grains.

Yes, you can probably kill a deer with 380 grains. I'm not gonna start that battle, but like to me, I, when I shot that first deer with the bow and it didn't die, I didn't understand what happened. I thought the shot placement was good. I've been practicing so much and for all the off season and I've shot thousands of arrows.

Why did that deer not die? For whatever reason, I must have hit a shoulder bone or something. That happens and don't quit. Keep going. Learn from your mistakes. And I think part, like that whole idea within hunting to just overcome obstacles in [00:34:00] today's day and age, we can go down that rabbit hole, but yeah.

Just keep per being persistent. And stay at it. And if you have people like that are successful when they have the same attitude I talk to Beau a lot and we hunt with each other, or we call and, man, I don't know what to do. Should I go here? And is someone optimistic too?

And give you a little, all right, let's go here. Like having other people that are similar and that's, who you'll, you will be if you have people around you that are helping you along the way and have the same issues, but, or optimistic and talk, help you through it, that's a big help.

If they're saying, just keep at it. Keep going. And some people get down on it, I missed one deer. I said, that's right. Just go shoot another one. Just like that. And they look at me like, okay, like why are you thinking I can't just go, I've been here hunting, this is one deer for a month and I missed, or I wound, I can't find go find another one.

Stop it. You know what I mean? Just go And they look at me like, and they shut up and they're like, [00:35:00] yeah, I don't want to hear your bs. You know what I mean? It's done. I give you gotta give it a little comedian. Okay, shut you down and go shoot, go find another one. And a lot of, and that's another thing that I usually have enough areas, if something like that happens, have a backup plan, another place to go, another deer to hunt, or another area to hunt this deer, and just, I always talk about knowing, know as much as you can and just keep going. Don't, it is. Yeah. Go shoot another one. That's what I say. Absolutely. One other thing you brought up there earlier, you're talking about when you were younger, reading magazines and kind of the media that you took in to learn from.

How do you think that's changed over the years? When I look at things now, cuz I was with you right? It was field and stream. I had a subscription. They put the big buck on the front page and somebody that harvested some monster deer. That's completely unrealistic. Whatever. Nowadays, I think with YouTube and there are bigger names that will still bring in these [00:36:00] monster deer and it looks, Sportsman's channel alike or whatever.

I'm sorry I'm not knocking anybody, but you also have the guys out there that are doing self videoing and showing you the not as glamorous side of deer hunting. Do you think that the media and stuff has changed for the younger generation and people that are not even the generation being younger, but like people that are newer to hunting and how they can learn.

And what to expect when they get out in the woods. Yeah, I think, just the internet and YouTube and podcasts and there's people that are doing the same thing as me and being vocal about what they've learned over the years and their situations, and it's readily available to everybody.

Then you can associate with that situation and help you on your journey. Not just thinking this, read a magazine article and think that guy's situation gonna fit your, it's like the wrong piece for the puzzle, and you're trying to fit this piece in this puzzle, and you're like trying, no, this is, he said, this is how to do it, and you keep doing it, and it doesn't fit, [00:37:00] so I think yeah, there's a lot of, lot out there from a lot of different people that had success in their own ways and they're vocal about it and yeah, there's, it's, there's a lot of good hunters today for those reasons, yeah, it's out there everywhere. Take in as much as you can, I think.

But don't believe that, just don't, I'm not saying don't believe everything you hear, not exactly that way, but don't think, I always talk about analogies. I always use like it's a toolbox. You put another tool in your toolbox, and when you start maybe just have a handbag of tools in your hunting career and then down the road 10 years, you got a whole tool chest full of every tool that you need for every situation.

So just, learn from people but don't think that it's, is a nine 16 syringe is gonna take off a half inch bolt. It doesn't happen that way, yeah, that, and that's a good reminder. I what I was thinking, the magazines and stuff, it's the Photoshop idea, that they can take out everybody's blemishes and put you, [00:38:00] they can put you and me on the front cover or something and we'd look great.

YouTube is better. I think as far as giving there's a wide variety. It's open to everybody. It gives lots of different opportunities for people to post stuff. But there's still the edit button, right? So you still might not see everything that happen. Yeah, you're right. That's, it's, I feel like YouTube, unless you're looking at a scouting YouTube or something, but the actual kill, I feel like it's not, it's more entertaining than it is informational type deal.

Like I think podcasts are a big thing. And you, yes, I think that's pretty huge. You could just readily look up and scroll through what type of hunting you're doing and have someone talk. A buddy of mine's 50 some years old and he just started listening to podcasts like three years ago, and he's picking up stuff and he is hunt all his life, and he just scrolls through and find what he, and he is just, Like I said, a tool in a toolbox, just put another tool.

What I really did like about the magazines [00:39:00] back in the day, the one thing I did was when they interviewed a guy that killed a buck that was in a magazine. It was his actual so I would like I still do like actual articles on how Joe went out and how he scouted and this deer, he never thought would come in and came in.

It's what happened to Joe in this situation? And maybe just learn. He's not actually telling you how to hunt, but how his hunt played out. If you read enough magazine articles about how people's hunt play out and they've had success, you're gonna pick something up. They're not actually telling you, this is how you hunt, this is how you hunt a scrape.

This is how you hunt a bed. They're just, Telling the story how it happened. So it happened to Joe, could maybe happen to me. So I still like them type of articles, absolutely. The thing about those magazines I can't read, so I just had to look at the pictures, so I missed all the scouting details and stuff.

All right. Johnny, you've hunted PA for a long time, PA our Neighbors to the East, and [00:40:00] I've been over there for a lot of years. You guys have a unique opportunity over there and we want to talk a little bit about the state in general. The bag limits the season. You guys have something over there that we don't, which are antler point restrictions.

We'll cover that in a second, but can you just cover for us the general geography of Pennsylvania? As far as. I feel like the whole state's national forester, public land compared to Ohio. But what kinda opportunities would somebody have if they were an out-of-state hunter coming in when they're trying to pick geographies?

Yeah, there, there's a fair amount of public land. They call 'em game lands, which is state land game commission put out. But also national forest government land. And that's a lot of your Appalachian mountain chain. But also Pennsylvania is unique cause there are so many hunters. And there is, to me, a lot of diverse areas, whether it's habitat [00:41:00] or communities.

I feel like all the other states I've been to, I feel like it's easier to manage maybe Midwestern states to where you have your, like your little towns or big towns. Then you're out in the country pretty much I like pa I know, I feel like it's. And it is hard. They put zones for do tags.

So you'll have a populated area around Pittsburgh where you have ample do tags. But then up in the northern area they regulate where maybe a national forest is, where the d densities are lower, they're gonna regulate that. Then like you get over toward West Virginia, you're in a country, or south southwest corner pa and it's country slash mountain.

There's a lot of, there's, it's just different wherever you go. It's hard for, to me, the game commission to, to actually manage when you don't have that one typical type of environment. Where you got cities and you just got country. But as far as [00:42:00] the available lands that are here to hunt public land there's a lot.

I like to hunt the big woods and there's. Maybe a million acres, half a million, three quarters, seven 50,000 acres of mountain land. And that even changes. Its national forest. There's plateaus kind up in a starting point in northern pa, but then there's rugged mountainous area. And there are these state game lands.

I, I talk about, there's little nooks and crannies of, a couple hundred acres here, 300 acres there more they'll put some plots in for the deer or some grasses or what have you for pheasants. But yeah, and your tag is pretty reasonable. You get a buck tag with your, when you buy your license and then you can choose to get a archery permit to archery hunt.

But there's a lot of different habitat. Definitely in Pennsylvania. Lot of hunters though I've learned compared to a lot of states, there and there's a lot of good hunters out there. And there's still a lot of good deer in these part of these [00:43:00] national forests that hunter's a lot of cover and some of these areas that help 'em get away some vast areas.

But yeah, even smaller tracks and game lands, you get around some urban areas just outside that people overlook. But yeah there's a lot of hunting opportunities in pa for sure. Turkey's, plentiful and bears and deer and, it's a great state to, to live in. Be a sportsman, really.

It's amazing. One of the things, it is different from Ohio, from my perspective, at least what I've seen, the agriculture side of things. You guys do have ag, right? Yeah. That don't get me, don't get me wrong. Compared to Ohio, specifically Western Ohio, it's gonna be greatly reduced, right? We don't have corn fields all over the place.

You don't have soybean fields all over the place. There are spots where you do, right? But yeah, definitely. A lot of times it's, it seems to be more the rolling hills, the mountains a lot of the big woods. Now, one of the things I want to say, like your tag system, I really do appreciate. So as a [00:44:00] non-resident, you can buy the tag, I think it's 150 bucks there and abouts for a buck tag, a fall Turkey, and a spring Turkey.

Like those come standard with the tag. Maybe it's 200 bucks, whatever. Now it's reasonable. It's a, oh my gosh, it's super reasonable. For a non-resident. And then from there, it, this is where it gets different from Ohio. If you wanna hunt archery, you gotta buy the archery tag. And you mentioned that.

Yeah. So that's a, an additional thing. One of the cool things that Pennsylvania offers that Ohio doesn't is a bear tag. And if you are in the right you can get the bear tag, right? You can go hunt the bear season. Some of your units actually have bear season open during that rifle season. Your first week of rifle. It's yeah, there are some limited areas that, definitely there's a bear season that comes in before the rifle season, and then some of the places that have [00:45:00] more bears you could hunt in through rifle season. But also they have a archery bear hunt. It, it coincides with D archery Deere probably I think end October, beginning of November, and then one thing that Pennsylvania has was I really is a black powder season that flintlock season that.

I'm glad they have that. And that's after Christmas. The day after Christmas has been that way. It's tradition, but it's not your traditional inline muscle loader. This is really primitive, and I like the archery hunting. I like primitive hunting. I always go out black powder hunting.

So you have the, the friz and with the the pan powder you put on the outside of the gun and the flint. And it makes a spark and sometimes it don't go off. But that's a great time to be out in the woods with, guys and hunting and you have to get that license before, I think you have to get it early on in the ear.

You can't I guess cuz how it works is you get your license, you have a buck tag and then if you don't kill a buck through gun season, you're not allowed to go buy a [00:46:00] Black powder, muzzle auto tag, cuz too many people will be back out in the woods. So you have to purchase that before the gun.

And then you're allowed, if you don't get your, your, with a gun or bow, then you're allowed to go black powder. But it's a pretty neat thing If no, most of the states are in line, but that flint locus, it used to be patched round ball just like the whole 18 hundreds, just ram round ball down the barrel with some some lard and a patch and you go out and shoot a deer, but now you're allowed Sabbaths and they put a little more rifling in a barrel to help tighten your your spin on that Sabbath to be a little more accurate.

You're good to a hundred plus yards, but open sites, you're not allowed any scope. It's iron sight. So it's, that's a lot of fun. Nobody can deny Pennsylvania's traditions. You guys are ripe with tradition over there to the point where it was only a few years ago you started letting select Sunday hunting, right?

Yeah. We're not allowed to hunt Sunday. There's one or two days one day in archery and then one day in gun. But yeah, there's [00:47:00] heavy tradition out this way and they actually just changed and nobody really likes it. I've talked to the first day of gun season would be the Monday after Thanksgiving, and they changed that to the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

And it was just a tradition people would take off school and now it's just, it's weird. It's Saturday instead of the following Monday and takes a little bit of tradition out of it. I guess they say it gets more people in the woods. I don't know. But it's, but yeah, most of the partners are, it's pretty traditional, it's very so talking about and then one of the other things I would point out, I don't wanna get into it too deep, but you guys have with wuss, is that what you call 'em or.

Just management units in general? Yeah, it's, so in Ohio everything's done by the county, right? Bag limits, everything is treated by the county. But you guys have different units. Yeah, they used to like, it used to be county, but it was just too hard to, some counties near Pittsburgh would be just over one run with Deere.

Then other counties would be in the northern counties. It was just [00:48:00] so they clumped them into zones. Like maybe your forested counties would be like a two F zone. I think it's wmu, wildlife management units, which helps, and they'll give away x amount of dough tags for that area and your DO tag's an extra tag that you need to buy and then they'll allocate like 10,000 for this unit or 20,000.

And I think it'd do pretty good. You still go areas that are just. Too many dough, but it's hard to take that many if there's not enough hunters to harvest them. You know what I mean? Yes. And let's talk about those dough permits. So with your general license, you get a buck permit.

Now, that's only good for an antler deer. We'll talk about the antler points in there in a second. But the dough permitting over there, the way I've always seen, there's two ways to get a dough permit. You can do the old fashioned pink envelope that is no longer, right? Yeah. Or you could pick up a dmap permit.

So when we talk about the pink envelopes, if you've never hunted in Pennsylvania, I [00:49:00] will tell you this is a very archaic tradition, rich. System that they used to have. And I swear to God, Johnny, every year I'd have to sit and watch a YouTube video on how to fill out this pink envelope correctly. I'd call up Mitchell Shirk.

Mitch, did I do this right? Did I, I'm not sure. And numerous times I had those envelopes sent back to me because yeah. I just didn't do it right. It was, it sounds really easy, but and if you've done it for your entire life, it probably is. But for me I know what you mean.

When I was younger, I've had 'em sent back. I remember looking what? So you had to put your return stamp in, or an envelope or whatever, one of those stupid little silly things you didn't do whatever. So now you guys have gone away from that and I think I think did the resident side of dough permits open up already?

Yeah. Yeah, we sent 'em out or we didn't send out,

I hear my printer back here. You're good. I can't hear it. Anyways. Yeah, this year you didn't send out it was like online. But I guess [00:50:00] so many people tried getting in cuz some of them zones only have so many tags. So people get in and I heard some people were on online for three hours to get it cuz they wanted to get their license and get that tag right.

Right away. That dough tag, you wanna hear a good one. So I got on the opening day to get my tag, just my regular tag. When I hit the submit button, I had 92,000 people in front of me. Yeah. And they told me that they had sent me an email and I had 10 minutes to get on.

10 hours later I got that email. Is that right? Yeah. That's crazy. I went to the Dick's Sporting Goods store after work, just, I'm like, yeah, I better get my license. And I was like three people in front of me. It went pretty smooth, and I got my tag for my zone. Nice. But for non-residents, I think Mitch told me, or somebody told me it was July 10th.

I should verify that. Which I should also know that cuz it's my birthday. But if that is, I will get gladly get in line on my birthday to get a do permit. But outside of that's your kind of, your standard one that you guys set [00:51:00] for the state sets. Now you guys also have DMAP permits, right?

Yeah. And these are variable and I guess what I, my experience with those, it was like you'd show up at camp and you run to Walmart and if they had DMAP permits, you bought one. Sometimes they were there, sometimes they weren't. And it was just up in the air type of thing. But can you talk a little bit more about those?

Yeah. And I've never gotten a DMAP tag but I don't know understand it wholly, but I know it's like maps, so eight north to 22 East or whatever, like this area, you they want some extra deer killed maybe. And it's usually in. If I'm not mistaken, the forested areas that the forestry says, Hey, we need to take more animals in this area.

So they'll allocate these knee map tags that people can pick up over the counter, or send or how you used to send in. But that's how I understand it, is that just you're just there's clusters of deer that they need to reduce the [00:52:00] population and they're putting these I'm guessing DMAP stands for the, maybe do map or d and it's all for, do you know, so I think it's deer's map, deer management area permit or something like that.

But yeah, so they want to take some of the deer out in certain areas. So that's what these DMAP tags are, so depending on if you were to go over to Pennsylvania to hunt, you might check out, the possibility of a DMAP permit, which can add up. We had one year, a couple guys, they got a couple of those permits because they were still there.

And gives you something to go after if you've already filled the other tags. Yeah. Let's see here. I wanna talk about Antler point restrictions. So this is something that Pennsylvania has. When did they institute those? Was it like 2000? Oh man, it's probably 15, 20 years maybe. I don't know.

It's been 15, I'd say. I think the first year I hunted over there was 2007 and they had 'em. Yeah. So it's definitely been around for a [00:53:00] while now. When I would go to camp, this is a camp that had been there for years and back in the day, they would shoot, I don't wanna say it's Browns down, but, they were doing the anybody could get a buck.

That was, it was good. And then back in the day, it was spikes, it was nubs, it was anything. And I kid you not Johnny, looking at that wall. You start in the 1970s when that camp was started and it was these little tiny deer. And then as time went on, it was like you hit that and every year, every set of antlers had the year put on it, 2000.

Yeah. All of a sudden these deer just started growing in size and growing and growing. So I know at first antler point restrictions were not popular because it just totally limited what you guys could actually shoot, what an outta state anybody could shoot outside of youth. But it's, in my opinion, from what I can see on the wall it did a lot for the size of the deer that you guys are able to [00:54:00] pull, especially outta the big woods.

Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah. And I know I've talked to so yeah, you're talking big woods. I think in my opinion When you're talking about the deer were spikes through the seventies, eighties, I think the cause of that is because it was, there was, I think at the turn of the century when they logged the northern, like they raped the land.

It took every tree off it. And as the forest grew, there was so much food up until the, the population, the deer population grew as the forest grew and there was browse everywhere. But when you're, but then you have a X amount of deer in this forested area, a high density, deer density.

And now you have a, at some point the canopy the mat, the trees are mature and there's no light coming. So it's like the food was there and then it was cut off. So they would browse on anything. And I [00:55:00] remember when I was. 18, 20 and I would go to the big woods and if I was there in the summer from five feet off the ground to the ground was brown.

There was nothing that grew. It was a browse line. And being from Pittsburgh, we didn't have that, but going up there and it was really unique and basically they ate themselves all of a house and home, these deer did to where they died off. I don't know, people talk about coyotes and this and that. I just think that they couldn't sustain the high population anymore.

Cuz first I think the deer, I'd say, I've seen pictures of deer in the forties, fifties, the big box thirties, and then you get, like you say you get in the seventies and then population grew and then there was still food there, but not enough to make them large body deer. So they just.

Did what their population did. Their species did. They got smaller with smaller horns, but just [00:56:00] outrageous amounts of deer. You would go in the seventies and eighties and you would see a hundred deer a day in this forested area. And even I caught it maybe in into the nineties, where there'd be a string of 80 deer in a line just come through.

And the biggest one was a six, and you shot that one, but, getting into the two thousands is they died off. I do believe. And then the force had time to come back and regenerate. And when plant life is stressed, it doesn't, come up the next year. It's, it takes years for the forests to regenerate and grow what is supposed to be there.

And then it just took time. And then these deers started, the numbers were down and they're. So now they, the numbers are low and the, and it's how it should be and the species of plants I see up there, unreal that I didn't see a variety 20 years ago. There was nothing when they were stressed and then shortly after and just, it took [00:57:00] time for these, this plant life to come back.

So then they also implemented this point restriction that I think helped. But there was a guy I talked to east of Pittsburgh, kind of farm land. Farm country a lot of private land not large tracks of forest. And he told me he didn't like the point restriction because they were killing all the two year old deer that had four on one side, your a hundred to 115 inch deer, the only thing was left were spikes, fours and sixes. So these are the deer that we're breeding the immature deer. And so that's what I mean, it's hard to, control this state and how it, cuz yeah, in a forested area, there's, it's vast and there's not much food. But there's a lot of cover in some of these areas and these deer themselves are able to get away not just because of the point restriction, but just cause[00:58:00] the terrain and the cover allow and there's other areas there isn't that much terrain and cover.

There's a lot more hunters, like I said, there's tons of hunters and so they're shooting two year olds all day long out there. So he told me that maybe five years ago and I was like, oh. He's yeah, they just kill all our two year olds. So there's certain areas that it don't work well or I think.

In that situation, maybe you need to get everybody in that, in an area and say, Hey, we just need to let these bucks go another year. You know what I mean? I think with any state I've been in, whatever is the biggest buck you're seeing, you're gonna come home with, at one point you might be seeing, I've seen it in different states that at one point I was seen one 50 s and one 60 s and then as time went on, hunters moved in and then it got to where there was one 20 s and one 30.

So you're on, out-of-state hunt, you're seeing one 20 and one 30, what are you gonna take? 1 20, 1 30 and that's the one 50 for next year. And then for, it I moved out [00:59:00] states in certain areas that happened to. You just if you're not seeing that mature deer, you're just taking whatever, and I think people like. If people would let in some of these areas, let some of these bucks go, I feel like, to let 'em grow. Then when you start seeing a lot of one 30 s to 40 class, then you know you're gonna hold out for them. But yeah, it's a it's definitely helps. But like I said, there's a situation where it doesn't, but yeah, for the most part I think it's a good thing. Johnny as a resident of Pennsylvania if tomorrow they came out and said we're not doing antler point restrictions anymore, what's gonna happen? What would the general consensus be? I don't know what the general population says.

I don't know. If, I don't know that it is, there'd be a significant change cuz a lot of these areas in the northern pa, these deer are getting away. There's still gonna be mature deer out there, yeah, it does allow some of the younger deer get by, but when you have a population of mature bucks, And with people [01:00:00] running cameras nowadays, they know what's there.

They're holding off for them anyways. They're not even shooting these spikes. You know what I'm saying? It goes back to what I said, like if there's good deer there, you're gonna hold off for that good deer no matter what. You know what I mean? Now, if the only thing is out there is spikes, fours and sixes, that's what they're gonna shoot.

Then the point restriction would work and then, it would hold off for the bigger deer. But then it comes into cover and terrain and how they can get away. And then you take a situation of, the guy I talked to, he said they don't get away, they'll just go to the next farm. And even a buddy of mine close to here has a farm that they they can't get away.

They'll let the two year olds go and they just go to the next farm. Whenever the biggest deer, like 1 31 20 s are good. And you can't make it. There's just too many hunters in some of these areas. And that's why I always look for some vast areas, tough hunt hunting areas, a lot of cover terrain.

You'll get a deer, and it's all. And what you want get to them areas that can sustain some mature deer. Yeah, that's for sure. I think one of the other, okay, and just to clarify, in the antler point [01:01:00] restrictions, if you guys decide to go hunt Pennsylvania, you need to check the game regulations and stuff, but it's three on each side in most parts of the state.

And some places it doesn't count the brow sign. Is that right? You have to, you have three? Yeah, like three up high is usually a shooter. If you have the main beam like G2 three and and I don't really pay much attention to it. Some of it is a brow, you, we have to look at the regulations, they define it, but yeah, it's I know definitely a shooter is three up.

That'd be your two three in your main beam. Yeah. And I'll tell you from experience, make sure that. Deer before you pull that trigger has all those points, right? That's not something you wanna deal with. Because in Ohio it's not something like, if you see a deer, it gets you going and that's what you're gonna take.

Go good, go for it, whatever. Hunt your hunt. But over there it is different. And you need to make sure that the ones if you're gonna pull that trigger, it's got what it takes. And legally, and I'm not saying, I'm not advocating for [01:02:00] people to just go out and shoot the first thing they see, but, yeah. It's what like No, your target, people Exactly. Why to know he is running now you gotta kinda know a little better what you're Absolutely. So I think the biggest, to me, the biggest difference one of them in, in, in Pennsylvania and Ohio. You guys have rifle season, we just have a smooth or what a straight barrel rifle that we're allowed to use over here.

And that usually is, like you said earlier, it is now starts like the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And it goes for two weeks, right? Yeah. The fir the first it's, it difference. Don't quote me, as far as dough, harvesting dough, but yeah, definitely you got two weeks of rifle and that's always been that way and yeah.

Yeah. Rifle's been, there's some areas like around Pittsburgh, I know you're it's slug or Philadelphia just because you're in around congested areas where you can't even shoot a rifle, but yeah, it's been rifle for. Forever, so that's pretty cool. It is very cool. And [01:03:00] compared to a lot of, there's parts of Ohio, in my opinion, you could hunt safely with a rifle, but that's the way the rules are that we are not.

Definitely something, if you've got one of those in the cabinet and you want to get out and give something, a poke, gives you a little bit more of a stretch than what we see over here in Ohio. Yeah. Man, Johnny, this has been good. I think very educational. We've covered just about everything that was on my list.

Do you wanna tell people where to find you? I know you're like on, on social media and everything where they can find your content. Oh, yeah. I'm just active on Instagram and post stuff. A lot of stories, when I'm out in the woods and stuff like that. And just but I've done a fair amount of podcasts over the years and you just Google my name or whatever and it'll pop up and yeah, I like helping people.

And I've started recently this year, just help con or helping people by consulting. A lot of people contact me well over the years. A lot of people con and I try to answer everybody. But now I just started a business doing that and if anybody's interested, they could shoot me a message on Instagram or my email was [01:04:00] Stewart 1 4 9 6 7 Gmail.

But yeah, I feel like all the I've got a lot of experience and to me, experience means you've done enough wrong that you know what to do. And I, how I said, I'd sit in the spot and cuz the guy said, this is it and this is what he said in the magazine, and then it didn't work. So I needed to find out what worked for me and where I'm hunting and I've hunted about dozen states for whitetails.

So I've been in enough habitat and situations that and I do believe it's situational and. Some people were really good at hunting a mountaineer in this area or, but it doesn't always, and this comes down to situational where, you take yourself to, a river bottom or something and it's gonna be different.

You can still use tactics, but I, and that's why I found myself in so many different situations and I don't like giving a black and white answer. Usually guys would ask me one question and I'd ask them 20 back [01:05:00] to, to fill out that situation that they're in and put myself there and then make a decision on what I would do next.

Not just just would you need to go find a scraper? You need to do this. Okay. I'd ask 90 questions in there. Yeah, I have lately been helping people and charging them for my time, which is, to me everybody's happy with it. Because It took me all these years to get to where I'm at and in an hour of my time to someone, it's so beneficial.

They guys tell me I've probably learned more with learning, in, in an hour from you than I did what I've learned in, in, in years. Or I've hunted with a few guys that are really new to hunting or and they would tell me that, that man just being with you on a hunt, it's wow, there's stuff I had no clue.

And it's wow. I jumped forward in time just being, so yeah, I've been helping people out that way hoping to help them, hoping I can help them harvest a deer, this year. So that's going pretty good. And but yeah, [01:06:00] that's that's about it.

Andrew, what was your Instagram account? The Johnny Stewart. Sorry. The Johnny Stewart. The Johnny Stewart, yeah. So like the Ohio State Buckeyes, but. The Johnny Stewart. So yeah that's me. All right, Johnny we appreciate you. I know this is a little, maybe different than normal, some of your normal podcasts you do, but we really appreciate it and coming from somebody who knows Pennsylvania, I hope it helps, any of the listeners out there if they decide to take a trip East.

Sounds good. Hey, have a good one and we will talk to you soon.

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