Show Notes
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 199 of the Antler Up Podcast!
On this week's episode I was joined by Owner of Spartan Forge, Bill Thompson. Let’s get straight to it everyone, Bill is an individual that loves data and improving daily. From improving as an individual and hunter, Bill does what he can to do so. Over the last couple of years since starting up Spartan Forge, Bill has been able to share camp with some outstanding hunters of the likes of Levi Morgan, Seek One, Johnny Stewart, Beau Martonik, Taylor Chamberlin and more. We get into some real good topics during this episode. Topics include, what is happening for Bill thus far during the season, updates to Spartan Forge, common questions and underutilized features of the app and some straight up fun topics regarding improving as a person and deer camp!
We begin this episode by hearing Bill share his story about his elk hunt and some things he has learned from some of the hunters he has spent camp with. Bill was on episode 65 and back then Spartan Forge wasn’t even an app yet. So a crap ton has changed and developed since then! Bill covers some really cool updates to the app, little tidbits of what is to come, underutilized features and more! From there Bill shares how he is going to be using the data from the app and personal past history to hunt PA during this timeframe in November. We wrap up this episode by Bill talking about areas he has grown as a person since starting Spartan Forge and bringing back the importance of deer camp!! Be sure to check Bill out online and download the Spartan Forge App today and use our podcast code antlerup to save on your membership today! Enjoy this fun episode and see you next week!
Thanks again for all the support and best of luck out there and Antler Up!
Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Antler Up podcast brought to you by Tethered. The world's best saddle hunting equipment, and we have a fun show for you all today.
What's going on everybody. Welcome back to this week's episode of the Antler Up podcast. We're on episode 199. Holy cow. This is unbelievable. 199 still can't believe that and I'm having a blast doing it, but this week's. Episode I was joined by Bill Thompson owner of Spartan Forge and let's get straight to it, man Bill is an individual that loves data and improving daily during his everyday life So he wants to improve obviously as an individual and a hunter and Bill does what he can to do So so over the last couple of years since starting up Spartan [00:01:00] Forge Bill has been able to share camp with some outstanding hunters of the likes of Levi Morgan, the guys from seek one, Johnny Stewart, Bo Martonic, Taylor Chamberlain, and so on and so on.
And we really get into some really good topics during this episode. Topics include what is happening right now for bill during the season updates to Spartan forge, common questions. underutilized features of the app and some straight up fun topics regarding improving it as a person, as well as the importance of deer camp.
So we begin this episode by hearing Bill share his story about his elk hunt with the guys over at Seek One, when he went out with Drew, where he also has been able to share camp with, like I mentioned earlier with some great hunters and has been able to improve as a hunter, but also as an individual from these people.
But. Bill was on episode 65 and back then Spartan forge wasn't even an app yet. So a crap ton has changed and developed since then. Bill covers some really cool updates to the app, little tidbits of what is also to come. And like I [00:02:00] mentioned earlier, underutilized features and more from there, Bill shares how he is going to be using the data from the app and personal past history to hunt PA during right now, this timeframe during November.
And we wrap up this episode by Bill talking about areas he has grown as an individual. And since he started Spartan forge and bringing back the importance of deer camp, so be sure to check bill out online and download the Spartan forge app today. And don't forget to use our code, our podcast code antler up, and you could save 20 percent on your membership today.
And if you haven't. Checked it out or seen it online. The price will go up. So now's the chance to lock that in for you. Use code antler up and you'll save 20%. So enjoy this fun episode, everybody. Best of luck to you. I can't wait to share some of my success with you this year. Talking with some friends and I can't wait to bring some really cool episodes to you during the rest of this year.
Best of luck to you. And if you like what you hear. Please go leave that five star review over on iTunes, on Spotify and write something to as well. Here's what I'm going to do. [00:03:00] I am going to pick a couple that do write this and I'm going to get ahold of you. I'm going to say something on the podcast.
We're going to get a prize package out to you just, as a thank you for that support and writing something down. I don't know what, whether. Who knows we're going to get Exodus to kick in some stuff. We're going to get a Spartan forge membership. Just some really cool things that have people that support us, maybe discount over at America's best bow strings.
So some things that we're going to head to your way, all you got to do again, just go to iTunes, write that five star review and podcast, I really appreciate it. Thanks again, everybody for reaching out and we'll see you next week. Antler up tethered is a team of saddle hunting fanatics with a passionate addiction to whitetail hunting, designing and engineering products.
To be a more efficient and confident hunter tethered produces the most mobile, stealthy and safest elevated hunting gear on the planet built by saddle hunters. Ford, the saddle Hunter head over to tether nation. com to see for yourself. [00:04:00] What exactly I'm talking about
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You have deer prediction, journaling, and the best maps on any hunting app platform there is. Use code antler up to save 20 percent off your Spartan Forge membership [00:05:00] at Spartan Forge. Dot ai. Hey everybody. Before we get into this week's episode, I wanna share some exciting news. The Exodus crew is now launching the Exodus Vault.
It's a place to lock in significant savings on their website over@exodusoutdoorgear.com, Exodus Vault will feature some of your favorite products or Exodus gear you haven't considered checking out. Varying from limited run products to last chance savings on customer favorite products, which is one of the Exodus render where you could save 95 on one while supplies last, because once they're gone.
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So again, the final opportunity to purchase this render, but you could get also some [00:06:00] second chance arrows. Or you could also get a memory card holder and real quick, there is no. Additional coupons that will be allowed to put on this, but to show your support for the antler up podcast, go ahead and put antler up in your order notes that will just show that you heard it from me and it'll help me out with those guys as well.
So definitely check out the Exodus vault, because again, some great savings on some phenomenal gear, because once they're gone. It's gone. So check it out over at Exodus outdoor gear. com. What's up everybody. Welcome back to the show this week. I'm joined by founder of Spartan forge. I got Bill Thompson on the podcast, Bill.
Welcome back to the show, dude. Oh, doing really well. It's been a bit we just got done saying it's been a busy October. For me at this moment, I am five for five with five deer down really cool because obviously with the bow, but all five bill I've been able to actually watch drop or like within vicinity of them dropping, which has been phenomenal, like this year in a nutshell.
My [00:07:00] goal was to get back to the basics and have fun and just enjoy it. And my buddy, when I talked to him yesterday, he goes, here's a question for you, Jeremy, because did you. Not shoot a deer that you, that wasn't by you. And I was like, other than a fawn. Yeah, pretty much every other deer I did shoot and put down, which is good.
I donated some meat to the the hunters for hunger program. I did that here in PA, which has been good and working on my own and send some to get some meat for my, for our family and also some of our other families that I can give out to. So it's been a blast and I got one more trip coming up, so yeah.
It's been a pretty good fall so far for me, man. How are things going for you?
Good. I just did my second hunt this morning of the year or maybe third, second or third. I guess third. So I did my third hunt this morning of the year and had some bucks this morning and got held up coming here, so I apologize for that.
But yeah, I had some bucks this morning and, ended up, let's, two hunts before this, I had opportunities on deer both times, but I was in the area for [00:08:00] different animals. Ended up seeing a really nice, on my last hunt, my second hunt of the season, ended up seeing like a really nice 140. That daylighted in an area, I actually made a reel about it the other day, but they were fighting and everything, it was, they were all tuned up, but just couldn't get it done, but I'm feeling good this'll be, like, I'll get it done this year, since I started Spartan Forge, I haven't tagged, put a tag on a good deer since I started Spartan Forge, it's the year before I actually got serious on this.
Yep. With the last time I took what I would consider a good buck and just haven't had the time for anything otherwise, but it's, I'm not complaining. No,
Jeremy Dinsmore: man, listen, and here's the other piece about that. It's funny because back in 19, when I started antler up, I killed a nice good mountain buck and everything like that.
And since then, I've been on like a. Three year, like a mishaps last year was probably the first year where I actually did not have an opportunity on a buck, but the two years prior to that, I either messed up or something along those lines. So it was gosh, dang it. You know what I mean? It couldn't piece it together.
And man, like I said earlier, I just [00:09:00] going through the motions again of just enjoying it, having fun and, I'm. Obviously just having fun and it's amazing how much your mind will reset a little bit and just enjoy that process. And that's what I've been able to do. And it's been a blast so far.
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Good to hear.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Here's what I want to ask you though, Bill, because man, I've Even though you've been busy, which has been, I guess it's that good, busy, and got married and all that type of stuff, man. It is so awesome to see the growth of Spartan Forge. And it's amazing.
And some of the hunters and the camp that you have been able to surround yourself with dude, with all those, I w if you could think of like either. Let's start with this one. Let's start with a fun one. Let's start with a fun story over the last couple of years of a hunt or camp, something along those lines with all the people you've been able to rub shoulders with, obviously Taylor Chamberlain and Levi and you got Snyder and all the guys from seek one, what's a memory or a hunt that really sticks out to you?[00:10:00]
It's just recently happened, but I just did this elk hunt out in Montana with Drew Carroll. And Drew has become, one of my best friends. We talk almost every day. He's just a great dude. And we went elk hunting and I learned a ton. I was only out there for only, I was out there for eight days, nine days.
And you have an idea in your head about how things are going to be having never really done a bow elk hunt before or not, I'd never done a bow elk hunt before. You have, an idea of how things will go. And it just never, in my life, at least I've never been able to predict these things and how they're going to turn out.
But spending, Drew is a fantastic outdoorsman, I think far better than people give him credit for. And and that eight day period, we had one of our stocks that, to be on public and we had hunters everywhere. We are running into hunters everywhere. To be on public and doing a general draw on in Montana and having as many [00:11:00] experiences with mature elk as we had, I think is really a testament to his abilities.
But we, It was probably like the 4th or 5th day, we had a couple good encounters with elk, where we were within 100 200 yards of elk, and just, we weren't closing the distance, and we were at an area in the morning where, every time I think about it, we should, like I said, it was the 4th or 5th day or something like that, we probably should have stayed where we were at, or at least if you try to consider the situation objectively, you would say, yeah, we should probably stay in this area, because we had, Good elk experience that morning and we went to go eat lunch, I think we, which we hadn't done the whole time and we were like, all right, we're just stressing ourselves out here.
Let's just go get some lunch and regroup. So we did and we were driving by an area that we had we were camping near and we had scouted before, but it just, the way that the area is set up, it didn't look like it would be good for elk. When we drove by, we glassed it and there were there was probably a herd of at [00:12:00] least 50 or 75 elk in an area that we could get to.
And the only reason that we saw it is because we went down at eight and could see from the road where the elk were. If we had been up in our camp, we probably wouldn't have seen them. Or if we tried to hunt that area like we had before, we might not have seen them or by the time we did, we would have spooked them.
But anyway, we put a stock on and I imagine the video will be out here soon. And you'll be able to watch this. I don't know how much of this they include, but we initially, we're like on a knob and I did a stock, basically low crawling with my bow on my side. To a bush that was about 100 or 150 yards away from his elk and they're bedded and meandering and drew is going to stay behind me and call and try to get the bull elk to come up and take a look at what was going on.
And there are huge elk in this herd, but really I was going to shoot like the first non spike elk that I saw because I just, I didn't have any, I wasn't there to do anything other than harvest [00:13:00] an elk and I really didn't care the size. What we did was I got in front of this bush, he started calling, the elk were looking.
And I can't remember if it was the wind had started to change because there was a storm coming in. I don't remember what the reason was, but we decided that it wasn't gonna happen. So we ended up coming back and going all the way around, like shifting south, going all the way around the east. And trying to set up on these elk differently.
And as we're moving, it starts to rain. And then there was some thunder. And then as we're moving, there's like a rainbow above us. And it starts to hail. And we're getting behind these elk. And as we get behind these elk, we realize that there are more elk in the bushes than we thought. Wow. So we end up getting down on the ground and low crawling through this area trying to get to the back side of these bedded elk that were pretty, like the one I wanted to kill which was a pretty good elk.
And then we get pinned down by some bull, some smaller bull elk, and we're like hiding under a log, [00:14:00] essentially, as they try to walk by, and the wind was in our favor, the way that we were working, as they try to walk by, and, the elk were within, at one point, I think within 10 feet of us and they keep moving down, and even if we had bumped them, we still, we knew we could still get to the elk that were up on the field or up in the clearing that we were trying to get to.
And so then we make them. So it starts to hail again. We make them move up towards The the top as we get up there it, the elk had shifted while we were making our move. So we go down into this cut, like this, it's a valley that's also a cut and we see elk at the bottom and the cameraman's his name's Thomas.
He's I don't think we can get on those elk. And I'm like, I think we can make a stock on those elk. I was like, at least I'm going to try. So we ended up getting to within about 50 or 55 yards. And it took forever, what seemed like an eternity. And I got down there and, right as I loosed my arrow, the elk [00:15:00] took a step forward, and that moves, where I was aiming.
Between when I loosed the arrow and when he took the shot, he moved a good three feet forward and I hit him back. And never found blood, never found arrow or anything and searched for two days for the deer and I was just sick about it or deer searched two days for the elk and I was just sick about it.
And then a guy that we ran into later who had an adjacent property to where we were hunting said that another hunter had killed that same elk in an alfalfa field, like a couple of days later. So I was relieved to hear that the animal was like alive and apparently he was chasing. Cows when he was killed.
So he, not a lot of damage was done apparently. And that he was harvested and that there wasn't wasted meat or an elk up there somewhere dead that, wasn't getting eaten or wasn't being harvested. That I've said it before, and I think I even say it in the video. If that had ended with a kill, it probably would have been one of the top five moments of my life.
whole way that everything worked [00:16:00] out. It's still as a top 20 moment of my life. Like just the whole experience and all of everything happening around us just seemed to point towards this thing ending in a harvest and a kill and unfortunately it didn't happen, but it was amazing.
It was one of the best, it was an amazing time of my life and I'll never forget it.
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Use code au to save 15% off your tailored arrow. order@exodusoutdoorgear.com. That's awesome. Now, did you get the, you said that was your [00:17:00] first time chasing elf with the bow and everything like that. Now, did you get the bug for that?
Yes. Yeah. For sure. I'll for sure be doing that next year. No question.
That's awesome.
Jeremy Dinsmore: That's good to hear. Bill, since the last time that we've actually officially talked on a podcast, it was an episode of 65. This will almost be like one 99 for us now. Yeah, dude. So yeah, thank you. So Spartan forge though, in that timeframe has grown tremendously, for starters back then it wasn't even an app yet.
And lately we've been doing some, or I say, we, you've been doing some really great things with on obviously developing it. And like I said, it's grown tremendously, but even more so recently, you've been doing a lot of Q and a on, on Instagram and everything like that, which I think is awesome.
I love reading, what other people might have not just for Spartan forge, but really, when a lot of people do that, right? Like different companies or different people and they're able to provide certain things, over. With reading those things, what's been like your most frequent hitters before we dive into maybe even some things [00:18:00] major talking points for the updates since Spartan Forge has really come into its own.
I guess mostly it's about. And as the product owner, it was my fault, but I think I didn't account for some of maybe the behemoths that were in the market, before me that got not necessarily, I don't think they have a better app. I think ours is the best app on the market right now.
We have some stuff with property and like land stuff that we're still, it's just a research thing where you have to find the sources of data and get all of the data together and then model the data and style it and then put it in the application. So it's a time thing and it's not something I can throw money at, it's just something we need to spend more and more time on.
So that, that was that, besides that right there, obviously we need to get more mature in that realm. I think from a feature usability and dependability standpoint, I think it's the best app on the market. But that being said, what I [00:19:00] didn't account for is, was that people got trained on how to use an on X or a hunt stand or a hunt wise which all kind of use the same.
Way of displaying and interacting with data, which basically is they'll get you with a free app and then they'll sell you a state by state app. And then they'll sell you a nationwide app. And then once you have the nationwide app, you have to go find the layer for that state. And then you download the layer and then you display the layer.
And when you're going through that process, what I didn't account for was people getting used to seeing data and being interacting and data being presented that way. Okay. That my thought was if I just make a customizable map where all you have to do is, hit a gear and hit a chip and it's displaying the data for all of the U.
S. Like that to me is superior and easier because it's quicker and there's less clicks and there's less friction with the application, the less interacting. But as a product owner, what I didn't foresee is that people [00:20:00] were just used to the other ways and I would have to do a better job of educating them on how the new thing was going to work.
And so my, the biggest thing would, I would say the most frequent question, as much as I don't like to say it's the most frequent question is just like, how do I get to this piece of data? Or I saw you did this in your, you showed us in an Instagram reel how to do, how you do something, but I don't see that data or I didn't see this or whatever.
So unfortunately, and it's, it's just something that I think we're getting better at it. The operability and interoperability and the the aesthetic and the UI and the UX. It's getting better obviously from last year, the, even the beta that we had the year before, but that's probably still my biggest question is just, I don't know how to get to that thing or somebody will be in there and not sure, so that's a good and bad news story.
The bad news story is I, as the product owner and CEO, I'm responsible for that friction that users are having, and I'm trying to do a lot to address it, you can [00:21:00] only move some of this stuff so fast. But that's the bad news story. The good news story is that people are seeing what we're doing and they're motivated enough to try to learn something else.
In order to get to that, which I think is the biggest hurdle as a company. From like general overall, I'd say the biggest question is just like, how do I do this or how to do X, Y, or Z. And, we put material out there on our YouTube and on other YouTubes to show people how to do this, but you can't also just sit someone down in front of a screen and say, here, watch this video, right?
The thing about these other apps being first to market was you had to learn it. And you really didn't complain or care that you had to learn it because. The data at the time was so valuable in the presentation and the fact that no one else was really doing it. And how easy maps made it to navigate the woods in the dark and that type of stuff.
You just learned it. You just picked it up and learned it. And you didn't really even think about it. But now that we have all of these options and choices, not only in the outdooring realm, but in every realm product owners need to first [00:22:00] be conscious of, what is, how is this problem being solved now that you're trying to solve?
And how do you account for that during your user interface? Development or when you're trying to model these solutions, but then secondly, do that, but also make the data new and innovative and better than what came before. So you've got now a separate incentivization track to get people into the application.
So those are the, that's the major question. And then. Beyond that, I get tons of questions about deer movement. People have listened to podcasts where I've talked about looking at GPS data and, when there was a moment when I was. Still hunting and using GPS data and looking at GPS data and learning a ton from it and it impacted The way that I hunt tremendously First initially not for the better, but then in the final analysis for the better And then that I would say that's the second most [00:23:00] frequent is I'll make a reel about how I use the wind or how I use LIDAR or how I use slope angle or how I use the 3D feature.
And then people will be like, why are you doing that? Or how does that help you? Or what? And then that inevitably talk turns into a conversation about deer movement or something along those lines, which, I've got long chats with people. I've got like a core of probably 60 or 80 people that I get questions from pretty regularly.
Yeah. And I go I really make an effort to make sure I'm always answering people as often as possible and that they're dealing correctly with me. And that's probably the second tranche of questions that I get mostly is about deer movement from there. So that's not the sexiest answer to a question like that, but it's the true one.
Heck yeah.
Jeremy Dinsmore: I'll tell you what, those three features, like you just said that you talked about, that's what really drew me to helping me. Fill my multiple tags this year, dude, the LIDAR has just been phenomenal. I get people all the time message me and they're like, Oh my, like when you were dropping that, [00:24:00] like when it wasn't available just yet and you posted it, I was getting, I got five to 10 messages right away.
They're like, where is this? Where is this? I'm like give me one second. I messaged Bo. I'm like, we don't have that. He was like, yeah, no, not yet.
Yeah. Awesome.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Good. It's good to hear. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So now, obviously the main questions that, you're usually getting, since things have developed and we just touched upon some of those new features, Bill, what are else that maybe is coming down the pipeline or what are you trying to really hone in on?
And your favorite feature and overlooked aspect of it, talk, a little bit more about the app regarding that, those types of questions. Yes,
we're continuing to roll out stuff on Blue Force Tracker and shape it up like there were things with Blue Force Tracker where I had to get it out there in a beta mode in order to evaluate a how people are using it, but then be where kind of those impediments to learning were again.
So we're making some changes there and making it solid as we move out of beta[00:25:00] into the fully featured product release. Thanks. And we will be doing right now, for instance, if you and I have the same area, you can, draw some geometry and then we auto share pins in that area and you can share photos inside of those pins.
And it's just a good way to not being, not constantly sending back, if you hunt with someone in the same area, not constantly sending back and forth points the next release we'll have some fixes and then the release after that we'll have live location share. So if you and I are half service, we're hunting the same area, we'll be able to see each other's location.
And then the final one, not final, the one after that, which I'm hoping to do by scouting season or so, will be chat, a chat dialogue for each geometry. For each area where you have these Blue Force Tracker teams built, there'll be a chat dialogue for each piece of the geometry. And then we, I've got some other stuff that's I'm not talking about it a ton because people will get very excited about it and then it'll turn into a [00:26:00] never ending calvacative questions about when this feature is coming up, but we have some really cool AI stuff that we're coming out with soon.
And I would say the most underused or underutilized feature or missed feature, I would say is the historical wind. At least from up again, it's something super simple, but it's also not something that any of the other apps really feature, but it's also single handedly more important than camo.
More important than if you're in a saddle or a tree stand, or you're in the ground, or you're in the air, or what bow you're shooting, or the speed of your arrow. None of that matters if you don't understand the wind in the area, because you're not going to see deer. And I would say it's the most underutilized feature of the application.
When I look at, like a cross section of what people are using, and I'm going to do a post probably today or tomorrow about the wind features that are inside of the application that people aren't using. But, inside of the app, essentially what you have is [00:27:00] anywhere that you place your crosshairs in the continental United States, you push that Intel button, and then you look at push the historical button.
It'll show you a polar plot, which is just a visual way of representing wind direction using these spikes. The bigger the spike, the more wind that occurs at that direction or comes from that direction. And when you're doing your digital scouting and then moving into on the ground scouting, like that's the most, that's the single most important piece of information.
That people probably don't really think about or consider or they aren't using to do. And then the second part from there is, the journaling feature, which again grabs that historical wind and historical weather. So when you're observing things in the woods or you're scouting or whatever that it will go back and pull that historical weather.
If you make the journal entry the day after, or myself, I use it. And we're going to make it easier to integrate with trail camera stuff very soon. But when I [00:28:00] pull historical, when I'm looking at a particular camera, I'll make journal entries for every time that I see a buck in the area.
And the app will go back and grab that historical weather that I'm looking at. What were the weather conditions? What was the time of day? We're thermals rising or falling when what was the wind direction and wind velocity when bucks that I'm targeting are frequenting this area. That again is like the journal feature and it's not easy or it's not something you can just go online and easily find without a paid subscription or do it without doing some digging to find out what the weather was, three years ago next Sunday.
So that's present there as well. And I'd say that's another. underutilized piece of the application, but it's also those two things are also singularly what most of the people on our pro staff that are, they're all good hunters in their own right. They all use those two features a ton when they're considering scouting and then putting together an ingress and an [00:29:00] egress and how they get to their stand.
How do they get away from their stand? Using that historical data or even going back and looking at, okay, I had this buck in this area. I've never had access to historical data. Now I'm going to go and look at every time this buck was on this hillside. At what the weather and temperature and wind direction was when this buck was in there.
Generally, there's a distribution of weather, the weather it can be grouped and you can say, okay it was like a north to a northwest wind. Between five and 10 miles an hour. And it was, this time of year when I saw this buck in here, and that's something that maybe didn't stick out to people at first.
And then it becomes, and then using the application in that manner, crystallizes it. So those are the two things that I think. Get overlooked, but are also used most by the most successful hunters that I know.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Yeah, no doubt about it. And I like what you said earlier when you go maybe scout a new area and you're maybe you go on, you're just kinda, you didn't have time before to look at it and in a sense, you're just out there Oh, Hey, I [00:30:00] want to go check this spot and you didn't really dive in.
And you get down to this one location. You're like, Oh wow. It's littered with sign. I'd really like this, market. And that's when you could go, like you said, look at that historical, that wind and be like, okay, this is a good wind where I can hunt or Hey, this spot. And really not so much, but maybe over on top of the ridge, I might be able to hunt it because the wind up there would work or something along those lines.
That's that is a critical component. And I, that is a feature that again, you definitely need to look at.
Yeah. The, I guess the third part to that with wind again, and I'm only thinking about this, cause I think I'm gonna make this post this afternoon is. That there are ways that scrapes and topography topography hubs, thermal hubs, both elevated and descending thermal hubs the way that they set up there's really only one way to play them and get into them.
Without, alerting every deer in the area, especially like a time during the rut. Looking again at the [00:31:00] hourly wind feature inside of the application, understand when the wind is going to be shifting and how that can help you set up in an area when you're taking advantage of something like a thermal hub.
And then cloud cover and sun, sunlight and thermal generation and how it impacts those things. Again, that's, it's all related to wind. And I think it's one of the most overlooked features in the application.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Yeah. Where are you going to be this November? I'll
be, I will be up at the Allegheny.
Nice. Almost every year since, I don't know, 2017 or 2018. I usually spend the first week of November chasing deer up in like the Allegheny, like Northwestern. Yep. So I think Northwestern North central part of Pennsylvania something along those. If
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Obviously you've been doing it now for a couple of years. So obviously your personal experience you have gained over the last couple of years, you got probably Johnny Stewart and bow and all those guys. And I know lead and have, and Drew have come up to for that hunt as well. The last like year or two or something along those lines, other than that, how are you?
Or how could someone use the app to maybe help with to get ready for that process of that hunt and game planning for that specific hunt in November, because right, the ruts going on around that time, or, if it's not Pennsylvania, it might be other states where the gun season's about to roll in and, we're just on the tail end of the bow season for PA, how you're using the app to maybe pro Get your process ready for that specific hunt.
If I was to, this is simplified or oversimplified, but if I'm talking to somebody, most people want simple answers. So if I were to tell someone how to use the app simply up for, a PA hunt that I'm doing, I would say first identify areas. The first thing I would do is I'd turn on that LIDAR map, and [00:34:00] then I would identify areas that are over a half mile to walk away from, that don't allow easy access, and then I would use that LIDAR feature to look for, I would turn on timber cuts, and then I would turn on that LIDAR feature, and I would look for where I have a a large number relative to the acreage of Historical cuts that range between three and five years old, and then I would use that LIDAR feature, and I would look for intersecting historical logging trails that are probably overgrown based on the age of the timber cuts, and then I would look at where three or four of those trails come together for whatever reason, and then I would focus on the areas where there are cuts or drainages Where multiple of those trails intersect between timber [00:35:00] cuts, and then I would go and scout and look for scrapes or community scrapes in those areas.
Then I would mark them and I would use that historical wind feature to understand what's the wind been in that area. If I've never been to this area or I don't have a camera set there, then I would hunt those areas. And if there's an active scrape in there during, from basically now, or maybe one or two days from now, until...
November 10th. If you're sitting in there, whenever you can, you're going to see a buck.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Yeah. I like that.
That would be my simple advice. There's much more to it. Oh yeah. But I think if you just followed that advice right there and you have five or six days of vacation that you're willing to burn sitting over a scrape, you're going to see a buck.
Jeremy Dinsmore: So no question with that trip, man, I'll bet you that's a fun one.
It is. It is. Yeah. It's going to be, I generally, believe it or not, do it for the most part alone. I might see [00:36:00] people for a couple of days. I'm going to film some stuff with Beau, but I'm not going to be hunting with him. So I'll probably be heading to his hunt camp at night.
And then we're going to be filming some stuff about deer camp that we're doing for a Spartan Forge video that we want to put together, like a cultural video about reconstituting the deer camp. Vibe basically like getting that back into the zeitgeist. But I try and I've, for the past few years, I've been pretty successful at it for at least four or five of the days being totally alone and just focusing on hunting.
And then usually for a few days after that is when I'll either go see Johnny and go set a couple with him or with Bo or someone else and fart around. So my guess is that come the 5th or 6th, I'll be with those guys until the 7th or 8th. And that's generally just deer camp and getting to the sand too late because you're up the night before.
But from Halloween until probably the 4th or the 5th, I'll be. Concentrating on just getting a buck on the
Jeremy Dinsmore: ground. [00:37:00] Dude, that's awesome. And I like that camp field. I grew up hunting with my dad. So deer camp to me was just hanging out with my dad. Those good nights before at his house, like nothing nothing going somewhere like that.
You know what I mean? Waking up and just stepping outside and going into the woods. I didn't have that growing up. I had a different, ritual, I guess you could say, but man, having that camp feel is just something that I think at least. Even if you and your buddies go in and create it, right?
So like with that, what are you guys trying to, I guess without maybe giving too much away if you don't want to, I guess in a nutshell, what is the meaning and the purpose behind that?
I think that camaraderie gets lost on people or they've never really experienced it.
Where, you know the most important, the constituent, the singular most constituent element. Of deer camp that I think can't be left without is just having good people in deer camp. Like good dudes that are genuinely and honestly concerned with the betterment of people around them. So that sounds maybe easy, [00:38:00] but it's really difficult actually to find people that are like that.
Not trying to just get their deer or do their thing or, the devil take the hindmost kind of attitude. And so just getting that group together first, I think is a very important element, but then also, how, for me, again, it's the camaraderie, it's getting everyone together.
And for me, deer camp becomes even more fun when like the weather is horrible and it's cold and you're, you're miserable during the day and then you're getting back and there's the meal and the camaraderie and the fellowship. And everyone having a good time and giving each other a rough, being ridiculous men.
For four or five days and just having that, and women also can participate in deer camp all, I'm not saying that's not possible. Of course they can but then after, a harvest, whether it's a doe or a spike buck or a 180 inch deer the shared sense of community around the action of, processing and then eating an animal it's something that's probably been in our DNA for 2 [00:39:00] million years, and it's probably, one of the reasons why we're here, because just like you're addict, I think what people maybe miss is just as addictive as looking at a fire, you get a fire going, everyone is just going to sit there and look at the fire, right?
Because, from our past, it's, that was, one of the few safe spaces where you had a group and the animals would stay away and, it was some, it was a it's ingrained in our history and in our primordial past that is the place to be. And that's where technology was born out of and, capability and the ability to cook food and everything derives from that.
And deer camp and surrounding yourselves with people. And sharing in the hunt and the harvest with good people and having a laugh and forgetting about the stresses of the current world that we have today for four or five days is something that I think people don't realize how amazing it is until they've experienced [00:40:00] it.
And trying to reconstruct, I'm not saying the culture is totally gone. But it, from my experience, my town that I grew up in was singularly oriented around Deer Camp. It was the only time you could, if you were still playing football, it was the only time you could get out of football. If you were going to, it was the only time it was acceptable not to be at church.
Everyone, somebody would kill and everyone, a big buck, and he'd strap it across the roof of his car and drive around downtown in 10 degree weather to show everyone he'd killed this big buck. And then people would gather in a parking lot and, drink beer and everyone would talk about it.
And it was just, it was this community thing. And we also don't do enough community things anymore. A lot of people live in places where they don't even know their neighbors. And I think that is a social aspect. Our society that we lack as well. So reinstantiating all of those things, then showing people the beauty of it and and the wholesomeness [00:41:00] of it and the fun of it.
I think it's something that could use a revival.
Jeremy Dinsmore: I, you brought up some really cool points and while you're saying all that stuff, bill, one thing came to my mind is that, I don't, I know people think about it, but. You've obviously you've had some great people behind the scenes that we don't even know about helping you with the app, but man, like you've really started created this thing from the ground up.
And over the last couple of years. How, man what are some things that you feel like you've grown substantially in even as a businessman, as a hunter, as a person, as a parent, as a husband, what are some of those aspects that, you know, maybe at times where you're ready to put your head through a wall because you could just couldn't maybe get this breakthrough, but over the last couple of years with your support system and your friends and getting things going, like, where do you see the, Yourself and where did you see yourself grow the most?
A ton of there's a ton of places. This kind of goes back to the most [00:42:00] popular question question which it's something I think i'm trying to think about right now as we do this podcast and really for the purposes of the listeners and not droning on for an hour about, because really it's been a multitude of things that I've grown in.
And there, there's multiple, there's so many things that I can sit here and go on for hours and hours about because you can truly write a book about all of the, there's a saying in the military, basically. No plan survives first contact, which basically means you can drop your best war plan and say this is how I want to carry out a kinetic operation.
But the first time you receive contact or that you start getting shot at, a lot of that stuff changes and goes out the window. And then you've the important thing is to have a group of people that understand what the mission is at the simplest level. And that everyone can, once the bullets start flying, everyone can drive towards that initiative.
Towards that objective, [00:43:00] that goal regardless if there's a leadership void or if there is a dissembling of whatever the organizational hierarchy you thought was present, whenever you found got into the situation. And that's what leads me into where I've grown the most.
I came to the Spartan Forge. Start point with an understand like having been in the military for over 21 years, which really is just, you don't even have to say military. Like I say military a lot just because I've been in it since I was 17. It's really all I know how to talk about besides my limited time now of being a CEO at Spartan Forge.
It really applies everywhere. I came into with 21 years of Spartan Forge. Experience doing something else, and it doesn't need to be the military. It could have been anywhere else that I'm, challenged. And I could have been doing power lines. I could have been doing electrical work.
It doesn't matter. But the importance or [00:44:00] what I came with was you need to have pride. You need to establish your organizational priorities. The reason that you exist as an organization. And you have to constantly test that to make sure that it's correct. And then but then you also have to spell it out.
So you have an organizational ethos or a charter that says, this is what, what we're going to do, but then you need to make sure that everyone in the organization. As well knows that and that you're hiring and bringing on people that Can move towards that goal because you have two styles of leadership mostly and of course there's more Permutations of that but like at a high level the macro level there's two versions of leadership one is like Leaders that are in everything that's going on and involved and there's actually places where you need that But for the most part, [00:45:00] it's not great when you're in an organization where your leadership's in everything that you're doing but if you can trust the people in the organization, you can express the mission and get out of people's way and just let them do things and charge them with whatever the goal is and let them carry it out.
People will work harder in that situation. And being in the military often I would have a pool of people that I could select from to do these things. And you could build teams that way. But you had a cross section of people, whereas in the private market, you have, you can hire anyone you want, and for a, at least for a period of time, you can fall over yourself and make a ton of mistakes.
And as long as you're learning from those mistakes and getting better, you'll go along. So all of that is to say, and I'm sorry, I'm talking around it, but it's really about the people in the organization choosing the, [00:46:00] I can't underscore how important it is to choose the right people for the organizations.
And that doesn't mean somebody who comes to the table with all of the knowledge but more important than that is somebody that is trustworthy and self starting. That doesn't need if you can do that, I'm getting things done with 15 people that most organizations aren't getting done with 100 or 150 people, right?
My competitors, for example, have research staffs that are larger by my whole organization, five fold. Now there's obviously advantages in getting, doing that, but I don't want to grow so fast that I lose that, it's funny, but that Spartan aspect of the organization, which is, I'm only going to bring the resources to bear that are needed at the most minimal level in order to achieve the outcome that I want.
So really what I've learned and to answer your question, which there's never any short answers with me is. It truly is [00:47:00] about like it was a cliche, maybe even more so before than it is now. It's truly about having the right people on board and really the most important thing about the right people is not their technical aptitude or their genius.
It's their ability to be a self starter and their ability to. Or their ethic and their morals and their principles like quality people. And that really, if you give me like four quality self starting people, there's really no measure to what I can get done in an organizational hierarchy versus if you give me a hundred people that are just showing up for a paycheck.
And it sounds like I came to the It sounds like after I tell all of this, I came to the table knowing that, but I really didn't. And I've really learned it more and I'm talking at a really high strategic level, but I can't underscore it enough. Quality people. And [00:48:00] quality being defined in the way that I define it before you're nothing without them and you can have all of the great ideas and you can be the greatest CEO and have all of these shining things on your curriculum that says why you're the best CEO ever, but in the end, it's really about instilling a purpose in people and bringing the best people on board and if you do that, there's really no, it's limit to what you can do.
So that's, I would say that has, it's just become way more underscored for me and it's become, I can't even question that anymore. Whereas probably when I entered into Spartan Forge. It was something that I I probably would have said, if you give me a hundred people, I'll get Jock Spartan Forge done.
I would never go that route now. I would, a hundred people at 50 percent is far harder to manage than 15 people at a hundred percent. And so that I would say is probably one of the biggest [00:49:00] things and it continues to be, I'll interview 10 or 15 people, myself and my co founders. We'll interview 15 people and we might have one person for this back for the second interview and we might hire that one person.
So the numbers are very low. But yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest one is not really that I've learned something. It's more or less that I've really, it's that something has been underscored for me in a way. That's as if I didn't even know it was a rule or why I had become a cliche in the first place.
Yeah. That, that would probably be the biggest and shining thing out of all of that. But then the second one that I've learned is what I talked about before, which I keep harping on because it's this mindset and the frame of reference that I have going on right now is understanding where people are coming from in the hunting industry from different places and different.
Avenues and trying to understand what either bias or programming [00:50:00] or what are their goals. And then thinking about all of those things and allowing that to drive how things are going to function and look inside of the application in order to reduce the amount of friction of having new users.
Come on. And what is the time lapse between the moment they log into the app for the first time to where they are using it? Thank you. As effectively and thoroughly as they can. It's also something that can't be underscored and. It's far larger of a challenge than I could have ever thought. And it's something that I'm constantly thinking about right now.
Ad nauseum. It's
Jeremy Dinsmore: awesome. Dude, fire me up, man.
It's funny because I say all of that and then I start to feel smaller and smaller about my charge. So I'm
Jeremy Dinsmore: glad it's firing you up. No, man, that's awesome. Listen I think you're do a phenomenal job. You got a lot going on and [00:51:00] unfortunately we live in a world where we, we want everything right now, and things take time and good things will come about it.
And like you said earlier about building that camp feel again, it's about being around good people, supporting good people. And man that's the one aspect of doing this. What I really like to do is being able to interact and talk to cool and meaningful and impactful people like yourself.
Bill. Man, Bill, I appreciate you taking the time discussing some things, helping, hunters out with, what to do here coming up in November, but also how to utilize the app a little bit better. I appreciate you and I talking about leadership and I don't know, man, it's just a good, fun conversation and I'm excited to, to have everybody here tune in.
So obviously Bill, where could people follow and listen to you talk or watch or even catch out with Spartan Forge.
On social, it's spartan. forge on Instagram, and then that links to our Facebook. On YouTube, you can just look up Spartan Forge as well. And, on Instagram or Facebook, if you have questions.
And, nine times out of ten, the marketing guys [00:52:00] will see it. And if they can respond to it, they will. But if it's a question for me, or if it's something about, capability or deer movement, or complaints about the product then you're going to get me. As, as far as long as I can.
So if they have any questions or recommendations or whatever that they can find me there. And our YouTube has a lot of the instructional content and we're continuing to release more and yeah.
Jeremy Dinsmore: Awesome. I like it bill. I appreciate you coming on everybody. Go check bill out and definitely check out Spartan forge.
ai. Use code Antler up 20, you'll save 20%. So check that out and we'll see you next week, everybody. Thanks for listening
to this episode of the antler up podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Please go check us out on our Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and go wild and at antlerupoutdoors. com. If you enjoyed this episode, go leave a review and subscribe for next week's episode.
Until then, antler up.[00:53:00]
