North Dakota Mule Deer

On this episode of The Western Rookie Podcast, Brian talks with good buddy Tyler Schmidt about hunting western North Dakota Mule Deer

Tyler and Brian met in Fargo at different networking and investing groups and quickly became good friends due to a shared passion for hunting. Tyler is an avid big game hunter and chases whitetail bucks on the eastern side of the state and mule deer on the west side of the state. Listen to Brian and Tyler chat about all the great opportunity North Dakota has for chasing some great mule deer!

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Brian Krebs:

Welcome back to another episode of the Western Rookie Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Krabs, and I've got my good buddy, Tyler Schmidt. On the line today, Tyler is from back in North Dakota. We met when I was living there and he is a deer hunting fool. Loves Deer Hunt, does both whitetails and has been doing a lot of North Dakota meal deer lately.

[00:01:00] And so that's probably what we're gonna talk about today is the North Dakota meal, deer hunting and just see what Tyler's perspective is and, and what he's learned and his experience along the way with that. How you doing buddy?

Tyler Scmidt: Things are good. Waiting for fall to get here. It's uh, it's right around the corner.

Oh yeah. Is July 4th. July 4th is my, uh, kind of my time to start scouting, which we haven't hit that yet. So it's right around the corner though. Yeah.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. I've got my, I've got tactic cam, the new cell cams from tactic cam out on our farms, and I'm still waiting for like, anything exciting to show up. It's still like nubs and it's like you, you're zooming in to like, look at this and be like, Yeah, I can't tell.

I can't tell if there's gonna be a good book or not.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. I always, I always wait till the fourth just to, it's like a national holiday. It's about the 4th of July, it's time to go scout. So Yeah.

Brian Krebs: Once the, well, once the fourth of July's over. I mean, it's, it's, I mean, we live in like, you're not quite as much a lake country, but we're still kind of in the lakes country and it's summer.

[00:02:00] Mm-hmm. We get a very, we only get like three weeks of summer up here anyway, so you wanna make the most of it. So usually you got weekend plans. July 4th, a couple weekends after that, but then all of a sudden you blink and it's like August and deer season in North Dakota opens up what? September 1st?

August 30th. Most

Tyler Scmidt: years it's, yeah, usually end of August versus September, which is nice. It's a lot earlier than most states as well, which is a

Brian Krebs: huge, huge perk. Yeah. Yeah. Are you, when you said you're doing scouting, are you thinking mostly like whitetails around home, or are you going out west to scout meal?

Deer.

Tyler Scmidt: A lot of that, it's a little bit closer for me with the white tail and, uh, trail cams, all that stuff. Yeah. Um, the scouting for the Western stuff is just over the years of being out in that area for so much and so long, you just really get to know the area that well, that you can kind of just jump into it and figure it out.

I mean, every year it's different, so you can't go off year by year, but. It's uh, once you get to know [00:03:00] that terrain well enough, you can, after a day or two, you can really put in a solid plan of what's going on, which is nice. And usually when we go out there, we're out there for a solid week at a time. I got a two and a half week trip plan this year, so

Brian Krebs: Wow.

For Bo or for rifle,

Tyler Scmidt: I'll probably end up drawing a whitetail tag out there, but then I'll have my bow tag as well. So I'll have bow in one hand, rifle in the other. So,

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Can't beat that. I don't wanna burn your spot, but we've talked about it in the past of, of where you're going. Are you, and it's kind of a, it's off the beaten path.

I mean, most people I think drive West until they see their first mule deer, and then they put a flag in the ground and hunt there, right? Like right off the interstate. Like, oh, public land, let's hunt here. And it just gets pounded, you know, within five, 10 miles of the interstate. But you're going way back in.

Do you usually hunt that same area every time you go out to the the badlands, or are you bounce spot, bouncing? [00:04:00]

Tyler Scmidt: I'm always spot bouncing. It's, especially when we go out there, I'd say if I'm out there for that big extended period of time, you can really, really dive in and get to know some of the areas.

Yeah. There's no, there's no shortages. But to your point, I mean, there's a lot of people that park right off the blacktop and, you know, go in, um, that, and you always get those people too, that drive where they're not supposed to, which is utterly annoying, but, Um, a lot of, a lot of places you can go that aren't untouched.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. I remember I, when I drew the elk tag in North Dakota, my first thought I tried to apply like all of our elk hunting knowledge from the true, like the West, west, Montana, Wyoming. And I was like, all right, job map, look for the biggest chunk of roadless area in like, where the elk could be. And when I, I drew that map, it happened to be like, pretty much where you hunt or where you've hunted in the past and told me about it.

And I'm like, all right, perfect. There should be elk in there. [00:05:00] There's no roads. It's rugged country. Like that's where the elk are probably gonna get pushed too early, seasoned cuz they can walk there. There's no snow. And so I went there and I didn't see a single elk track. I saw no sign of elk, but I saw a ton of mule deer up in there.

And I think it's probably the same thing. I mean that like, that country's like very rugged compared to what you see. Maybe on the east, like the, I don't know what you would call it, the east side. Like what, as you're coming from Fargo or Bismarck. Mm-hmm. And the fir, when you first hit the Black Hills, it's more like foothills, right?

It's, it's wheat fields that kind of go into some bluffs. Super easy country for anyone to walk through and, and I think that's, like you said, people park on the blacktop and just run in. And when I was up in that country where you hunt, There was no, just easy walking in. I mean, it was like two, three miles into some of these spots just to get a glassing knob, and it was like rough terrain on the way too.

Yeah.

Tyler Scmidt: Makes it fun though. I, I mean, I thoroughly enjoy it, um, [00:06:00] especially once you do get, get one on the ground, that's where the work really does begin.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of that, North Dakota Deer lottery, it's like now, isn't it?

Tyler Scmidt: The for rifle. So, I mean, for people that don't know how that is rifle, it's, I mean, I've hunted a lot of states, you know, growing up in Minnesota, everyone gets a tag year after year.

It's really easy. We're North Dakota, the draw the application deadline was a week or

Brian Krebs: two ago. Okay.

Tyler Scmidt: And we should find out possibly next Friday or the following week. So I'll know in the next week or two just about those results. But to get a. A rifled, mul deer tag in the state of North Dakota. I mean, it's a 5, 6, 7 year wait sometimes more.

Yeah. Which is, which can be frustrating. Where the residents out here in North Dakota, it's every year you can draw for a mul deer for archery. That is, they have tightened those [00:07:00] regulations up for non-residents though.

Brian Krebs: Yeah, I have buddies that try to apply for the bow tag in North Dakota and. Depending on what unit you go, like sometimes you can get lucky and draw it every year as a non-resident, but not probably in the primo units.

Can you plan to draw every single year? I mean, eventually for archery you're gonna run a arche. Yeah. For archery, for rifle, it's like almost zero. I'm trying that arche right now. I mean, I got it.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. For non-residents, it's uh, go over the counter. You can buy it for whitetail. Yeah. Or anything. Mule deer, anything mule deer.

Doesn't matter the unit you have to apply.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Some like the. Crap. Your units, no one else is applying. So you can draw. But then you have But for archery,

Tyler Scmidt: yeah, archery though it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the unit, it's,

Brian Krebs: it's all or nothing. Yeah, it's still a lottery. You just might have a better chance of drawing cuz like, like way down in the southwest corner of.

Of North Dakota.

Tyler Scmidt: It's it's all, or it's all or nothing. For whitetail or for a mule deer for archery. We're talking archery

Brian Krebs: right now, right? Yeah, yeah. You [00:08:00] can, yeah. You have to apply as

Tyler Scmidt: a non-resident. It's not, it's not, it's not unit specific

Brian Krebs: though. Oh, it's statewide. For archery. It's statewide. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense.

I see what you're saying now. Yeah, we're kind of, yeah, it is kind of, North Dakota is kind of confusing the way they do everything. Um, it's one of the only states where you can get a buck tag for each weapon type, not just like a statewide buck tag and then, you know, use whatever weapon is legal at the time.

I have a coworker from back in Fargo, that one near shot all three. He got his mule deer tag. He got his white tail archery tag, and then he got a whitetail muzzle loader tag. And so that's confusing the way they break up, like what non-residents can apply for in their areas. Very confusing. The way they do their points is almost impossible to predict your odds.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, it's, it's complicated. So for people that are coming from outta state, it's, it can be challenging. The pride argue the most challenging thing is just getting your hands on a tag. Yeah. [00:09:00] Um. But then again, it's, there's, it's not just North Dakota. There's other states that are doing it too. I used to hunt South Dakota.

Yeah. A lot as well. And South Dakota just opened up a kind of a North Dakota policy as well. And, uh, points to get in. I didn't, I didn't even get any, anything this year for South Dakota and I applied and I usually get a tag every year down there. So.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. North Dakota and the, and then the way they do their point scaling, I mean, nothing is as easy as Colorado.

Right. That's the easiest. It's either an over-the-counter tag or it's preference point. Mm-hmm. Whoever has the most points gets it. If there's a hundred tags and a one guy has max points, he gets one and then 99 go to the next bracket. Right. And if there's 13, you know, all of a sudden now you're down to 86 and it, you just know you, you can predict if you're gonna draw or not.

With a lot of confidence. North Dakota, what is it like you get. You get one point for your current application year. Mm-hmm. Plus, if you're from like Z years, if you have one to three points, [00:10:00] they square it. Right? So if you got three points and you apply and you go into this year's app, you get three squared, which is nine plus your current year to 10, but the year you hit four, all of a sudden they start cubing it.

So now you get, if you have four points, you go from 10 the previous year to four cubed, which is 64. Plus your current year, which is 65, right? And then they throw all of those in a bucket and they just start drawing numbers so the guy with no points could draw. The guy with 13 could not draw. There's no way to predict it.

I tried to do some analysis on it one time to try to figure out if I'm gonna draw or not, and I basically just went through the entire stats sheet of what they said, how many people applied, I did all the points, and then I just broke it up into a percentage, like, like if you have 10 points, you still only have a 65% chance of drawing.

Mm-hmm. And so all that trick,

Tyler Scmidt: that's where a lot of people are getting smart with all those, you know, platforms out there, you know, go hunt, hunt and fool, all that stuff where they just [00:11:00] kind of stack the odds in their favor. And, and even for like, let's say me, if I was a Minnesota resident and I wanted to get out and yield their hunt every year, you'd almost have to get to that point of.

Picking, Hey, this, this will be the year I probably Archie Hunt, Montana or whatnot in South Dakota. You almost have to have that revolution just going cuz they say, Hey, every year you can do the same state over and over again is near impossible.

Brian Krebs: Yeah, we, we run up into that issue a lot with our elk group and we have a couple issues going on with our elk group, but the primary one, We started going to Wyoming and loved it.

We have great success. We really learned that unit. Like you said, you go back to the same spot every year and you just start to pick that unit apart. You understand how they're using the mountain, um, year after year. Well, Wyoming is starting to be like a four year draw cycle to just get a general tag. So now we're like, well, we used to just go Wyoming, Montana, Wyoming, Montana.

Now we can't do that cuz Wyoming's a four [00:12:00] year draw. So then we would do Wyoming, Montana. Montana. Wyoming. Montana. Montana. Well now Montana's screwing us up cuz now that's like a one or two year dry. You can't draw that every year anymore either. So now we're, this year we're gonna Colorado cuz we, like you said, you just gotta start cycling states, otherwise you're not gonna get to go every year.

Mm-hmm. That's the first issue. Second issue is our group's too big. So you can only have a party size of five in Montana and you can only have a party size of six. In Wyoming and we have like eight guys. Oh, that makes

Tyler Scmidt: it really tough. Cuz now you're doubling the

Brian Krebs: doubling difficulty. The chances of not drawing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. It's basically a squared chance of trying to get everyone a tag. Um, have you

Tyler Scmidt: guys been successful

Brian Krebs: getting the whole group together? Up until last year it worked every time last year. My brother, we split the group of seven for Montana. My brother and I went. And we tried the zero point strategy.

I don't know if [00:13:00] you've heard that in Montana, but there's like a zero point loophole in Montana. So we did that. The other group, I think they went in with a one point average, cuz somebody in their group had a point which put them out of the zero point pool, but not yet into the full one point. They were in that like less than one point pool.

And so everyone bought a point, I believe, and they did not draw and so they ended up having to go to Colorado and me and my brother got stuck in Montana. So. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't always work when you're starting to split groups. I mean, we used to be able to say, okay, this guy and this guy have four points a piece, so we'll put these other guys that only have one point with them and they should draw.

And then everyone in this other group's got three point average, so they should draw or something like that. We always used to be able to pull it off and until now, now it's just getting too complicated.

Tyler Scmidt: Uh, it's, yeah, it makes things, it makes things frustrating. I mean, I'm happy to see it's becoming extremely popular and they always say just with technology and whatnot, us as hunters have become so much more successful.

So I'm happy that it's being regulated a little bit. Um, the only other workaround that I've seen for it [00:14:00] is paying someone a significant amount of money just to guarantee a tag and whatnot. But it's like, That's frustrating at the same time as well, so,

Brian Krebs: oh yeah. The landowner, you're talking land like landowner tags or, or going guided or something like that.

Tyler Scmidt: Guided something like that. Or even not even doing a guided hunt, but you can pay those outfitters just for a tag I've seen. Yeah.

Brian Krebs: Yeah, that if you got the money for sure, but you know some of those, like you said, you can go on two or three. Or like for you, when you're just in state hunting, most of the fall, you can probably cover all of your in-state hunting for the year with the cost of that one land owner tag.

Yes, a hundred percent. So now do you justify that and you're like, well, do I go for five days with a little better odds, or do I have the whole season for the same price?

Tyler Scmidt: No, I'll take the whole season. Yeah, that's because for me it's, you know, you have those people out there that hunt and they go, ah, I went a weekend or two, and they consider themselves a hunter.

Which [00:15:00] I mean, good for you. That's all for it. But, you know, for me it's, you know, going out weekend after weekend after weekend, and now I'm gonna spend two weeks out there and it's, it's nonstop. I mean, it's, it's, it's the whole season, right? So for me it's starting end of August. First part of September, it's till the end of the year.

That's what makes it fun.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Yeah. And being able to spend two and a half weeks out there. Are you guys tenting or do you have a cabin set up, or what's your guys' plan when you go out there for that long?

Tyler Scmidt: We have a cabin that we've been staying at for the last, oh boy. It's probably been going on 15 years now.

We've been staying at the same place.

Brian Krebs: Nice. Is it like someone in the group's got an in. I mean, all

Tyler Scmidt: of us kind of. It's, it's a landowner out there that he markets it and everything. Um, but we just went so many times that, sad to say we kind of get preferential treatment, but maybe a little bit. Yeah. [00:16:00] Um, just for when we're going and stuff.

And they've been, they've been great to us, so makes us feel like we're home when we're out there. A lot of fun.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, camping in that country is some of my favorite country to camp in, and it's, it's, I don't know what it is about it. The weather's usually always great. I mean, yeah, best part about hunting a desert is it never rains.

So I mean, every now and then you'll get a day or two of rain or like a system that moves through. But for the most part, I think I've spent, I don't know, five, six hunts out there, and I've only got rained on seriously twice.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, no, that sounds about right. Going up there for that extended period, though, you know, it is when you're walking around and you get all sweaty and, uh, you're miserable.

I just wanna sit down and shower. And so having some of those luxuries just make it, make it so

Brian Krebs: much nicer. Yeah. I mean, we, I just had John [00:17:00] Barlow on the podcast a couple episodes before this one, and, and he's the, he's the, well, he's part of product development for big game, the big game line at Sitka. But he also own does a survival class.

And, and, and he talks a lot about, like the dude was also in special forces for 20 years teaching operators how to survive. So he's as hard as nails, right? I mean harder than Teflon. And he was even talking about like comfort's a huge deal. Like if you wanna be successful, Comfort goes a long ways. Like how well are you sleeping at night?

You know, how well are you, you know, recovering from the day before. All that stuff adds into it. It's not just how tough are you? Um mm-hmm. Which is Well, I completely agree.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. That, and another thing is, cuz for a chunk of that trip, I'll actually be by myself, which is fine. I've been out there by myself so much, so many other times.

But I, there's been a time or two where I've been out there by myself and I've camped it alone. It's a little eerie when you've got the, you know, coyotes [00:18:00] screaming at you and those mule deer. As stupid as they can be at sometimes they get curious and come to camp and you can hear 'em running around.

It's, yeah, there's been a number of nights I've been out there, just haven't slept the best. And you're just, Tenting alone.

Brian Krebs: So, so a funny story. I took Abby out there for what was basically our first real date. I mean, we had known each other a little while, but, you know, and so we were hanging out, you know, back home.

We'd go to a movie or something, but that was like our first big thing together. I took her out west cuz I needed to scout for elk. She, we wanted to hang out and I'm like, well let's do two birds, one stone. You like backpacking and hiking and camping. I need to go find an elk to shoot this fall. Why don't you just come with me?

And so we, me, her, and the dog went out and, uh, we camped West River, um, way up by the Elkhorn Ranch. And so I. We get out there and when you're driving and it's hot, like it's, I can't remember, I think it's late [00:19:00] June, it's like a hundred degrees. It's just miserable. And even when we get there, it's dusk and she goes, Hey, I'm looking off to the side like we always are when we're driving around in hunting country, we're never looking at the road, right?

I'm looking for elk off the side of the mountain and she looks up and she goes, Hey, there's a deer. And I look up and like 20 yards in front of the truck that we're driving 50 miles an hour. A stands of a full size cow elk. Right in the middle of the road and I'm like, slam on the brakes, skid across, and then a whole herd of elk run right across the road, like 60 cows.

There's no bulls. And I'm like, oh, that's not a deer babe. That's a, that's an elk. That's what we're here to find, which never happens. I've never had one. And on the road before, And so much credit did you give her for uh, spotting it out? Well, a lot of credit cuz we would've been stuck if we didn't, I would've t-boned this thing.

Um, and so we set up camp and it's still, I mean, it's like 10:00 PM it's dark and it's kind of eerie when you're driving in, in the dark cuz it seems like it's never ending and you can't see a [00:20:00] thing. Right. I mean, you're making all these turns and you're going all these different directions, but you can't see a thing cuz it's pitch black out there.

We set up our tent. It's like still 90 degrees, right? It's dropped 10 degrees, but it's like we're still sweat. I'm in gym shorts and a cutoff and I'm sweating. So we go to hot, we go to bed on an air mattress with like no blankets. We wake up at like 2:00 AM and it's like we can see our breath. It was so cold, and then we did not sleep the rest of the night.

We did not plan for it getting as cold as it was supposed to get at night. Like we were just shivering. We were trying to get the dog to sleep on the air mattress to warm us up and. Terrible. It was so cold. So we didn't sleep at all. Not comfortable. We got up extra early to go hit our glass knob just cuz we were so cold.

We wanted to start moving. And so, um, yeah, I can hear you there. Like, comfort is a huge thing. If you're doing that and you're not sleeping for five nights and you're alone, like your mind's gonna start thinking about home. You're like, well there's probably some work I could get done. I could just go bow [00:21:00] hunt back home.

Mm-hmm. You know, I, why, what am I doing out here? And that's the first thing that goes when you're not comfortable, the mind starts thinking about home.

Tyler Scmidt: Exactly. We're, you know, for us we have that little cabin situation out there. It's, it makes life, it's just, it's a second home out there. Right. We're hunting.

It's get to know all those people. It's, it's a lot of fun.

Brian Krebs: Well, it's, yeah. Plus it's just more fun when you don't have to go back to camp and work for another hour. Like when you're tenting you get back to camp, it's like another hour of work you're cooking in a headlamp. You're, you know, in and outta coolers, in and outta stuff.

It's just work. If you go back to a cabin, cuz we've done it, we've got Airbnb cabins in elk camp, you get back to the cabin, someone throws a, a pan of hot dish in the oven, you crack a beer, you just put your feet up, you start joking and laughing about the day. And it's just a lot more fun in camp when you don't have to worry about as many camp chores.

A hundred percent

Tyler Scmidt: probably the, besides camping. The other thing that I find that's, [00:22:00] Can be a little challenging out there. It's just, you know, getting around and it's not necessarily, you know, driving and whatnot. It's, I wanna go check out this spot that's three miles off the beaten trail and it could take you an hour and a half to get to that.

Right? You've been there, seen that. Yeah. Come up to it and you go. Holy shit, how am I gonna get over this? Now you gotta wiggle your way back and forth, y da da da, da. And before you know it, you get back to that spot and you're like, if I even got something back here, like would I be able to even get it out?

Right? Yeah. So another thing that I've been seeing in the last year or two is, They have all those like off-road trek bikes, which are kind of cool. So imagine being able to, you know, bike someplace while you're, you know, hunting, which is kind of a cool concept instead of, you know, if you go for a walk, you have all that gear and stuff.

I mean, it's figure, you're pace, [00:23:00] you're, you know, taking it easy cuz you're, you are walking 18 minute miles, so to speak, and you're like, no, I'm just gonna cruise and jump on a bike. And you're cutting that. Time into a third. Oh yeah. You can, you can make, you can make ground pretty fast out there. So this year when I go, I might end up taking my bike.

It's not one of those really cool, um, off country bikes. Yeah. It's

Brian Krebs: not like a fat tire or electric bike.

Tyler Scmidt: That tire, and I don't know if you can, I think they were working on the electric side of things, but I think that was still considered a

Brian Krebs: motorized vehicle.

Tyler Scmidt: Motorized vehicle. They weren't, but they were working on getting it to that point where they could, which, I mean, I think it would be fair if you're, as long as you're on a, you know, does like a trail, um, you can't drive a vehicle on there.

But, um, having some method like that where you can really make. Way is cool, especially even at night when you're walking out at night. I mean, that just could be pretty redundant [00:24:00] when you're just walking and walking and walking and walking and you have an hour to get out and it's,

Brian Krebs: yeah, you'd want one heck of a headlamp though, if you're riding that bike around the hills at night, I mean, run into a bike, ride off a cliff, bike over a gopher hole, run into a dead cow.

I mean, there's a lot of things you can run into.

Tyler Scmidt: What I, I'd probably, if I was doing something like that though, I'd be on like a, you know, coal path or a trail or something like that where it's Yeah. Well, somewhat established.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. I mean, even so, even if you're on flat ground, the easiest walk in there is if you take a bike, you're gonna move way faster for way less energy, and you're gonna save your joints.

Mm-hmm. I mean, like, even if it's just you bike down the road because you don't wanna drive your pickup. Wherever you're going or, or, you know, anything downhill is free. I mean, literally free. If you're walking downhill, you're still burning energy. You're still hitting your, you're probably hitting your joints a little bit harder actually, to go downhill.

You go downhill on that bike, you're gonna chop off 300 yards without breaking a [00:25:00] sweat. I mean, it might even pay to go two miles outta your way to be able to ride the bike the whole way and get done in half the time as walking straight up and over. Yet you burnt all those calories and you lost all that time.

Tyler Scmidt: Exactly. To your point though, it can be, it can definitely be challenging. Um, last summer I was out there and we rented bikes and went down the Mahe trail. Yeah. A little ways. Yeah. Holy smokes. I mean, that's. That was a, that was a workout. And to your point about doing it at night, I mean there would've been some of that where I would've been walking, especially cuz some of that trail, it's, you've got a two foot wide, which is, you know, enough.

Yeah, but you look to the left, you know, on your right side it's straight up and on your left it's straight down, you know, 30 feet and you go, this could be very

Brian Krebs: treacherous. I wouldn't even like walking that at night, much less biking it at night. All of a [00:26:00] sudden your handlebar clips a rock on the side wall and all of a sudden you're going head over to handlebars on a two foot wide go path.

Yeah.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, when I was out there at that point, I, I did get off and I walked it cause I was like, uh, we're not gonna be doing

Brian Krebs: this. That would go a long ways. I wonder if you could get like a little car carrier, like a kid carrier that worked, that you could put like your deer quarters in when you shoot one and bike it out.

I wonder if anyone's I've, I, I'm sure someone's done that. They, they have a kid and they got one of those bicycle trailers for their kid and they just loaded up their hunting gear.

Tyler Scmidt: If you had flat ground, I could see it working. But imagine you just going, walking your deer cart out, how strenuous that is with all your gear and everything.

Yeah,

Brian Krebs: you would want, you'd almost want like a model that has a single tire, not the two tire trailer, you know, like it's, it bolts to your bike, but there's only one tire on the trailer and then it just kind of rides and you wouldn't be able to pro, like you said, you [00:27:00] probably wouldn't be able to load it up much.

But it'd probably help if you were on a road or on a cow path. Probably be a little easier than backpacking it out.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. That's how most people, you know, and that's, that's probably the biggest thing that I've learned about hunting out there. You make a good point about you harvest something and coming from Minnesota and even those you Eastern states, you know, what does everyone do?

They either drive up to it or drag it out

Brian Krebs: hole. Yeah. Which, neither one of those are options in the, in the Badlands. No.

Tyler Scmidt: And I remember my, when I went out there for the first. You know, a couple times I remember my first one that I harvested. I literally drug it forever to get it back to the vehicle. You know, I didn't understand the concept of no, we don't drag these animals out whole.

That is just beyond, and the one that I shot last year, it was only a third of a mile from the road, right? Yeah. But the elevation from road to where it was. Was incredible. So a lot of people were like a third a mile. That's it. But it's [00:28:00] like, yeah. But it literally, after packing out, it was my buddy and I and we both had packs and just, it was a third mile straight up climb, straight up the whole way.

Yikes. And we were just dead. It didn't, I mean, it didn't take us all terribly long about, I dunno, maybe 25 minutes if I were to guess something like that. And we, we, we really like concentrated like we're just going to. Muscle way outta here. I mean, that was 25 minutes of just heavy breathing of

Brian Krebs: screaming.

It's funny you say that. Yeah. Um, well, it, I know what you're saying, right? Like you almost feel like people are gonna think I'm a wimp because I said it was like a really hard 25 minutes, or it was a really hard. Third of a mile. But when you think about it, like when was the last time you did 25 minutes of weighted box step ups at the gym?

Never. Like no one has ever done 25 straight minutes of like, like I've [00:29:00] done sets of 50 before with dumbbells and you're on fire, you're burning. And that was like two minutes.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. And people, it's, it's one of those things, especially if there's two guys, I've never done it alone where I've carried. It, it's not only you're carrying the deer out, but you have all your gear and everything else with you as well.

Yeah. So it's usually, if you're by yourself, it's easy. Two trips, and if you have another guy with you, you can, you can usually get it done in one haul.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. I shot a whitetail out there and it was even, it was even, uh, a worse, like, well, not worse, it was even an easier scenario than yours. It was 250 yards.

Flat ground to the truck. Like I, I shot him. I was driving, I was running out of time. I had, this was the year that Abby would move to the cities for her residency and I was still in Fargo. So I told her every weekend you have off, I'll find a way to come see you because that's like, we can only see each other four days a month now.

And uh, I said, except for the elk hunt, I'm gonna miss a, a weekend for the [00:30:00] elk hunt cause I ain't coming back for that. And so I was like, okay, this is my only weekend off. To, to get this tag. You know, the season. I gotta go to the cities, the other two weekends and I work during the week and 10 takes. So I was running out of time, driving around looking for good whitetail spots, saw a nice, a pointer off the road, perfect setup.

He's in the draw. There's a bluff behind me. It's all public. Backed up, crawled over the bluff, shot him great, but it's flatland, 250 yards flatland. I drove the truck right to the bottom, right where the truck crosses the road. I can see the truck. It's right there. And I've thought about it. I'm like, Most people would drag this, drag it 250 yards back to the truck, no big deal.

But what am I gonna do when I get there? Gut it on the side of the road, quarter it on the side of the road. Get the entire deer into my truck. Okay, great. Now, what am I gonna do? Drive it back to my house in Fargo and gut it in my driveway. Have all the carcass and the bones and the rib cage to get rid of, or I gotta do all that work anyway.

I could just quarter it right here and only carry out what I need and what I want to [00:31:00] keep. And then the whole thing's done. The mess stays in the field. Everything. I mean it. And it wasn't any harder. Like, I gotta do that work anyway. No, but you,

Tyler Scmidt: you've done that at times shoe, remember the first time you quartered one in the field.

Do you remember the first

Brian Krebs: time you did it? Well, I do, but it wasn't, it's not fair cuz the first time I quartered one was with my brother who had already quartered an elk. And so, you know, I kind of saw it. I didn't, I wasn't ever trying to figure it out by myself. I mean, we, I've gotten better since then for sure, but,

Tyler Scmidt: oh, Hundred percent.

The first one I did, I remember, I think I was like, a couple months prior, I watched a YouTube video. I'm like, oh, that seems easy. And, and there was more hair on the quarters that I pulled than the, the height that I left behind. I feel like it was,

Brian Krebs: yeah, that can be, especially if it's an antelope. The antelope are really bad.

And if you want to do any type of taxidermy, if you wanna do a shoulder mount, With the hide, that takes a little bit. You gotta be a little careful when you're doing the gutless method mm-hmm. To do that. [00:32:00] But yeah, I, I mean, I would do the gutless now that I know how to do it, I would do the gutless method.

You know, on this new farm, Abby and I just bought, we're gonna close here in 10 days. It's 40 acres of some of the nastiest Minnesota, uh, willow swamp you've ever seen. I mean, it's pure habitat great for hunting, but if I shoot a buck and he dies on the back corner, it's a parcel that like everything, it's, there's a road around like a big country block, like 600 acres.

And so the oth, there's no road on the other side of the 40 that's just PR more private land. Like it's not any easier to go out that way. It's gotta get dragged across the whole 40. Back to our house. I'm like, I'm not gonna drag it through this swamp for 800 yards. I'm just gonna quarter it and make two trips if I have to.

Mm-hmm. So I'd even do it at home because there's no, right now there's no four wheeler trails anywhere, and I don't even own a four wheeler, so, we'll, we'll have to figure these things out bit by bit, but in the meantime, I'm not dragging that deer 800 yards [00:33:00] through a nasty willow swamp. I, I'm done with that.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. That that is something that every hunter should. It's a tool. Know how to do. Yeah, yeah. Cause I even, you know, way back when, even Minnesota, I remember there was, you know, hunting these big hunts that I do, dragging, dragging deer out. It's like, you know, that's just the norm. You know, growing up that's all you did.

But there's times I could think of, you know, half a dozen times where like, just for me to quarter this animal, it would've been yeah. So much easier grant than when you're hunting. I was hunting with family back then if I would've showed up. With a massive pack. They would've been like, where? Where the heck is the deer?

Brian Krebs: Yeah, they would've been a little confused. Yeah. My family probably would've too. Now they would get it for sure, depending on where we shoot it. Most places at our family, like Tradition Farm, we can get a four wheeler within a hundred yards. So now it's kind of like, okay, do I drag it a hundred yards, get it in the Ranger, then we get it to the shop and hoist it up and do it that way, because that is cleaner.

I mean, there's no argument. Yes, that's gonna be [00:34:00] cleaner. But if it's 400 yards to of the four wheeler, then I might start thinking about quartering it. And, and you know, John Barlow said a really good line knowledge doesn't weigh anything. It's not, you don't have to add it to your pack and carry it around with you.

Right. Like, so it's just a tool. You learn how to do it and it's free to bring with you on every hunt from here on out.

Tyler Scmidt: Mm-hmm. Another thing that people don't do enough, and I wish I would've started doing this. From day one was caping. Every deer that I harvested, right? Like even those ones that you have behind you, you just plaque them.

Or even if I'm doing a European mount, just learning how to do that is such a valuable tool and not many people know how to do that.

Brian Krebs: Oh yeah, I, well, I get it. I mean, it isn't easy. That's, that's why I pay my tax or Mr. If I can. But now especially you get into like legal issues. Like you can't bring it home and let your taxidermist do it.

Yes, you

Tyler Scmidt: [00:35:00] have to, but that's the thing. Like if I, you know, last year that milder that I shot you, I wasn't shoulder mounting or anything just doing a European mount on it. So I'm like, well, this will be great practice. Yeah, I screwed up a couple things on it, but um, I would feel confident right now if I had one down.

I'm like, Hey, we have to tape this thing out. I would be able to do it, it'd probably take me 10 times longer than a taxidermist that does it all the time. But yeah, I would, I would know the steps and everything

Brian Krebs: needed. It took me two and a half hours to cape my bowl out the face, just going from like where we cut the head to bring back to camp and then back to my house in North Dakota.

So the reason was my taxidermist is in Minnesota and I shot the bull in North Dakota, and I lived in North Dakota. Well, the law says I can't transport it across state lines. And the taxidermists, they got their hands pretty well tied. Like they can't just like take it under the radar cuz if they get caught, they'll lose their license.

I mean, they're like, I [00:36:00] can't take this with the hide. You gotta do something. I can drive to your H. Like sometimes they'll say, I'll drive to your house in North Dakota and cape it for you there. Yeah, but that's a long drive. So I had to learn how to do it myself. It took two and a half hours. Granted I was being extremely careful cuz this is a once in a lifetime bowl.

But it's not easy, like you said, like you gotta learn. I had multiple phone calls with different taxidermists, like how do I do this? Tell me how to do this before I get started. And um, yeah, they've even

Tyler Scmidt: tightened those regulations since you've had that, cuz that unit that you shot that elk in, you can't even leave that unit right now.

Brian Krebs: Really? I shot that elk, uh, in four b. I thought that was more northwest corner. No,

Tyler Scmidt: they've, that whole western part right now Oh really? Is yield your everything. Yeah. You cannot take it out of that unit without

Brian Krebs: do. Okay. So I'd have to do it back at camp, which is still better than the side of the mountain.

But like you said, it, it's at least watch a few YouTube videos if you're going to a unit where that's an [00:37:00] issue and you want to cape it. At least watch a YouTube videos. Better yet, like you said, practice before you go cape out, a dough, cape out, a little buck. Um, buddy shoots a dough offer to just, Hey, can I have the head and practice caping it out.

It, it's not hard. Nothing about it is like mathematically hard to figure out what you should do. It's, it's intuitive what you should do, right? Yeah. You cut up the spine to where you're gonna cut the head off and you either do a seven cut or a y cut to each pedicle, right? I do the Y. I do a Y cut. Yeah, seven cut.

You go up to one and then you go straight across to the other. The Y, you split just like a Y. Go up to both. You put a screwdriver in your kit, a flat screwdriver in your kit, cuz you're gonna have to wedge that sucker around. It's tight into that burr and that part takes a lot of time. But just do go slow.

Do it carefully. Once you get that off, go down to the ears, make sure you're clear. And then you just cut the ear canal, right? Make sure you've got the hide [00:38:00] done far enough and you just cut the ear canal. My taxidermic always said, just don't worry about the ears. We'll take care of getting the ears, um, taped out.

Yeah, the

Tyler Scmidt: ears, no ears. You just cut those off. Like you said, the uh, the eyes can be a little tricky sometimes.

Brian Krebs: The eyes a big one. You gotta make sure you get in there and get it deep enough that you give your tax dermis. I mean, the moral of the story, the summary. Is on every cut. Give your taxidermist extra room to play.

You know, don't be like, oh, this is all he needs, and cut it off. Well, that might not be all he needs. You might pick a, you know, if you pick a pedestal left turn, you're gonna need a lot of front shoulder on that, you know, left side. So you, you know, I always cut it six inches farther back than where my taxidermist says it's okay.

Sometimes I'll give 'em the whole damn cape. I mean, two of them I don't care, you know? Yeah. You get it all. But yeah, with those eyes, like you said, you gotta go way it goes. The skin goes farther back than you think. And then another one is the nose and the tear. Oh, actually we should back up the tear [00:39:00] duct.

You gotta clean the tear duct out, or else you'll cut it and rip it. So you gotta stick your finger in the tear duct and clean it out and it's nasty. But then that goes farther back and a lot of times you can just do more pulling than cutting, especially in that thin skin. My taxidermist always told me like, you won't break it if you just give it a nice firm pole and separate it that way it won't break on you.

But if you cut it in the wrong spot, yeah, it's not easy to fix. And then you get past. You get the mouth that goes farther back than you think in the back corners. My taxidermist said it's almost easier to do it from the inside, and he, I've walked in on him in his shop while he was caping a deer, and he was going, like, he started on the inside by the teeth and caped it from the inside out first, and then he went back and pulled it off the back.

He said it's almost easier to do it that way. Because he said when you, that's good to know. When you come from the backside, you're looking at flesh and from that side, everything looks the same. So you might be like, oh, I'm plenty far enough, and you cut off, and sure enough you gave him a joke or [00:40:00] smile.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, you don't want that key is to have a, one of those, uh, those valon knives or something like that.

Brian Krebs: You have to, well, for sure. A nice sharpener for sure. Something to sharpen a knife with. But if you can get like a valon with replaceable blades and just start replacing blades and, and you got that real fine, sharp surgical so you can get right where you need to be.

I mean, this isn't a tool for your 15 inch buck knife.

Tyler Scmidt: No, no. I mean, that's that lon, I don't think you can. I don't think you can sharpen. I, I can't, anyways, I can't sharpen a knife as good as that. No. And with how small those blades are, you can put that anywhere. So that's my go-to.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Yeah. And once you get the mouth taped out, you just get past like where your, your mount ends, then you just cut the nose off.

Don't worry about the nose. Just cut straight down like the tip of your euro and that's it. But it took me like, I mean, if it, it takes a long time, especially if the first time you're doing it's on an animal you really care about cuz you're gonna go slow and you're gonna be very careful. So [00:41:00] I would recommend don't do it the way I did it.

Practice ahead of time. Like Tyler. Yeah. And, and make sure

Tyler Scmidt: you know what you're doing. Making sure you have everything needed. And there's been so many times, you know how as you get out there and you go, you know, I don't even have a bone saw. You know, how the heck am I gonna get this? Head off, skull plate off.

Yeah.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Well that in a lot of places you have to, you can't cut the euro or like, there's all kinds of rules. Like you might have to do a cape, the cape, the skull plate. Yeah. Usually.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. You can't take that brain matter back and even, even like five on a euro mount them, um, you know, how do you get that brain matter out coat hanging.

Yeah. It means some guys do the coronary. That's such a pain in the, but the key though that I've seen is my tax der is, what he does is he has, uh, this thing that he created connects to a water hose. Yeah. There's an adapter on

Brian Krebs: like pex foot, like, like a quarter inch PEX tube that you put on your garden hose and spray it out.

Yep. And then you can, I think you can go the other direction too and put it up. If you get the [00:42:00] right size, you can go up the nose like your euro mount and spray backwards and Yeah. But I don't. I think that those are great. How do you get that in the field though, when you're camping, right? Cause you don't have water.

You don't have water pressure. I mean, good luck getting your water bottle to do. That's where, that's where you can, I mean, I've bought my boil kit.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah. But even that in western part of North Dakota, you could find a hose someplace. I mean, there's.

Brian Krebs: You could go find a farmer. I've always just brought like my fish fryer and I went to tractor supply and got a big oil, or not oil, uh, galvanized tin.

It almost looks like an oil drip pan, but I don't know. It's, it's oval and it's made like I put my elk head in it, fill it with water. I turned the fish fryer on and I boil it.

Tyler Scmidt: You wouldn't do, you wouldn't do that right out there though, in the field though, would

Brian Krebs: you? Well, not where the animal dies. So that's, now it gets into like what state?

I think some parts of Wyoming it, it says you can't [00:43:00] move brain matter from the kill site. Other states it says you can't transport it out of the unit. So it now you're starting to look at like what are you dealing with? What's the law state? And that sucks. Yeah. I think there's great opportunity for someone to come up with a system.

Or a product, which is basically like a big bag, like a big garbage bag, heavy duty so it doesn't rip that's made to like seal on two antlers and then prove that when you use this bag, like you don't transport C W D, like, you know, C WD is not just falling off as you go, like that's what they're worried about.

Like you're dripping brain matter and just distributing these PreOn everywhere you walk after you, you know, cut the head off. If you could just roll this up. Basically a specialized game bag that won't leak four heads, you know, so it clamps on both antlers. It's connected in the middle. Mm-hmm. Completely contained.

And, and, and then they say if you're using this bag, you get [00:44:00] pulled over and you're using this bag properly. You will not get a ticket and you can legally transport it from the kill site directly to your tax Dermot. I think that'd be a great market opportunity for someone that's an entrepreneur and can figure out how to do it.

Mm-hmm

Tyler Scmidt: Then the key is the only thing for them. I just gotta make sure the tax dermis are taking care of that brain matter properly, which they probably would be, but I think that's their big

hangup

Brian Krebs: just, well they still have that issue. I don't know how you're gonna get away from that issue, cuz you know CWD is everywhere.

So what's the difference between that taxidermist disposing your elk from Montana compared to the C W D whitetail from two blocks away? Like you, that part you gotta figure out anyway. And so I think, and I, hopefully they are doing it. I mean, I don't know what that looks like. That's C w d PreOn is tough to kill.

I've read studies where they try to do like medical equipment cleaning procedures and they, that still doesn't kill it.

Tyler Scmidt: So crazy. Well, the [00:45:00] key key to that though is just, uh, you know, learning the laws and Yeah. Like you said, there's so, so many people that

Brian Krebs: just. Don't know how to keep you play, play,

Tyler Scmidt: play bliss and ignorance and go, yeah, I don't have to worry about that. But that is, that is so key. It's not even state to state.

It is unit to unit per that state. And that's, that's, that's a key component is just dealing and taking care of that properly.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Well, I guess the real solution is only shoot giant animals that you're gonna shoulder mount. So you just have to skull cap 'em. Yeah,

Tyler Scmidt: I would love to run with that

Brian Krebs: one. That would be good. Either, either shoot 'em small enough that you're happy with a horn mount, like behind me, or shoot 'em big enough that you're gonna get a shoulder mount. Just skip that Euro mount range, which is to me like a, a very big range on an elk. Like basically any elk.

I'm not gonna shoulder mount. I'm probably want to euro it. So now I gotta figure out how to do that, right? I gotta bring this boiling kit with me everywhere.

Tyler Scmidt: [00:46:00] Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of stuff when you guys go out. I mean, you have a trailer, everything. I mean, you can't just pick, load that off the back of your truck with everything.

Uh,

Brian Krebs: when I go solo, I never bring a four-wheeler, so I have plenty of room usually. Um, when we go with the group, we usually bring, well, depending on, depending on group size. Last year when my brother and I went to Montana, we brought a flatbed trailer with his ranger on it, and then his pickup with the topper, and then we put a chest freezer on the trailer.

So we had a lot of room. You know, we put stuff in the Ranger cab, we put flat stuff in the box. I mean, we had a lot of room there, and I did bring it. When we go with our big group, usually it's one 18 foot enclosed trailer, another flatbed trailer. We're probably bringing two to three, maybe four ATVs or UTVs combined.

And then we got two pickups. Most of the time, at least one of them's got a topper. So we, I mean, even sometimes we do fill up quite a bit and we're like, holy shit, how much stuff are we bringing to live in the woods? But, um, usually we have enough [00:47:00] room. But it, to me it's like that's, that's like part of the, what you need.

Like you need to bow, you need your, whatever you need to bring it home. You know, you go through all that work, you shoot one and you're like, oh, I was gonna, I really wanted to euro this, but we decided the, you know, the fish fryer, the, you know what we're talking about, the little bass pro fish fryer thing.

Um, well, we decided that was too much space, so we left it at home. Now I'm screwed. Yeah, so

Tyler Scmidt: it's a, it's a lot more work than people think.

Brian Krebs: That's a lot of things to think about when you start hunting the west. Now that we start talking about it, like that's just one small aspect of like, things you need to think about in order to have like a comfortable trip.

You know, you could obviously maybe find a taxidermist in that unit and figure it out. Now you gotta figure out how to go get it again, just like you could. You know, you get a flat tire. I mean, you could figure it out if you didn't bring anything, but it works a lot easier if you bring a jack and some tools and a spare tire.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler Scmidt: That's why for me, I look at it and I go, okay, this, uh, me hunting my Western North Dakota, it's just, it's, [00:48:00] it's nice. It's convenient. I got my little cabin out there. It's, uh, so it's, it's, it's been a lot of fun.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. So what's your, what's your favorite chasing mule? Deer with a rifle or chasing him with a bow.

Tyler Scmidt: How that works. It's when I have the rifle, it's, it always goes, I wish I had my bow with, right. Yeah. And the reason why is because you, you came on one that's nice, but you know, with rifle you're always like, I wanna get one that's even better. But your standards size-wise, for me it's a little lower with the bow.

So every time I've had the rifle it's like, God, I wish I had my bow with because that would be game over. And then when I'm. Only with my bow. It's like, I wish I had a rifle tag right now because that thing is huge. It's 150 yards away and I don't foresee myself getting any closer. Yeah,

Brian Krebs: that's a real challenge.

I mean, those suckers are smart and it's not. Some [00:49:00] places where they bed, it's almost impossible to sneak up on 'em. You know, you come from the top and you're not gonna see it. Like it's just so steep. You can't get a shot. It's behind a tree. You come from the bottom. It's, it's a wide open grazed valley. I mean, you can, you can even, you can try belly crawling, but your belly crawling through two inches of grass, it ain't gonna work very well.

You know,

Tyler Scmidt: grass and, um, little cactus. I mean, it's, you got a lot of things going against you

Brian Krebs: rattlesnakes. Yeah. I mean, everything. So, I hear you. I, I did the same thing with the elk. I, you know, when I. Since I could use a rifle, I used a rifle and I needed it. I mean, it was a 375 yard shot. And just like you said, I was pretty much, I don't know what you call it, you know, cliffed out, but because it was grazed pasture that I couldn't crawl across.

Mm-hmm. You know, I was, I was grazed out. I guess I couldn't get any closer. So I'm glad I had the rifle, but I kinda like what you said. Like I, I would love shooting him with a bow. I mean, [00:50:00] if you give me a one 50 at 20 yards, I'm gonna pick my bow. Oh yeah.

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, that'd be great. Anyone would? Anyone would, a

Brian Krebs: hundred percent.

So do you hunt basically the same way for both though Rifle versus bow? Are you getting to a glassing spot, finding an animal, then making a game plan to get within shot distance of what whatever you got in your pack?

Tyler Scmidt: Yeah, I mean, overall it's probably the same. Initially, I was gonna say I'm more aggressive with the gun, but. At the same time, probably not, just because it's, you gotta follow the same steps of, you know, hey, we can't be just running around being seen, you know, all of that. Um, but at the same time, when you can shoot three, 400 yards with a rifle, I mean, you can be a little bit more aggressive with that.

Brian Krebs: Have you ever done the jump to meal deer? He runs 150 yards and stops and looks back. And that's your shot cuz it's. They got, they [00:51:00] do have a fatal flaw compared to the whitetails, where whitetails will never look back, but the mule deer, every now and then you jump one. He runs about a hundred or 200 yards and stops and looks back at you and you, you get a little bit of time.

Tyler Scmidt: I've never, well, I mean, for rifle, I mean, I have had that, but you know, when you're doing the bow hunting stuff Yeah. You jump

Brian Krebs: on, he runs a hundred hundred yards while he's, he's gone here outta rain. Yeah, I meant with the rifle, like you're walking, you accidentally jump with the rifle. He runs 200 yards, looks back at you and by then you're set up and Yeah.

I, I

Tyler Scmidt: have not had that opportunity.

Brian Krebs: I think that would be kind of interesting. Just I'm surprised with as open as it is back there, they, they stop and look back as often as they do. I curious animals, which makes it fun. Yeah, I mean, I've done it a lot with my bow, you know, like you said, jump em, they run 200 yards and look back at you and you're, you're done with the bow.

Cuz they're not gonna stop forever. I mean, they're gonna stop for like three seconds, try to figure out what jumped em and then they take off again. Whereas the white tail, he just books it across the horizon and he's gone. [00:52:00] So that's interesting. I had, when I did a, I did a. You know, another really fun thing about Western North Dakota is it's a fun place to do a western whitetail hunt.

Mm-hmm. I, if you're stuck in a tree stand all fall, spending five days out there, walking for whitetails is a completely different experience and it's, it's fun. I used to do it a lot because you could draw, you know, north Dakota's also unique if you don't draw on your first draw, whatever your first app is, or I think the proper way to say is your first choice.

Yes, you keep all your points but you still have a few more choices left. And so I was always picking units where I, if I drew a meal, deer i'd, I'd be able to meal deer hunt. But it wasn't the trophy zone like where you apply. But if I don't drop my meal deer, I'm gonna guarantee a white til take cuz nobody wants to white tilt hunt this unit.

And so I was building meal deer points and getting white till tags for a few years in a row, white till buck tags. [00:53:00] And I was. Pretty successful. I mean, I'm not shooting Boers. I mean, there ain't no Boers in Southwest North Dakota whitetail hunting on public land, that's for sure. But it's still fun to go out and shoot a buck.

And so I was out there doing that and I ran into these two guys and one of them didn't have a tag and was from Las Vegas, but he was a pilot so he could fly anywhere for free. And his other buddy was a pilot and he had a mule deer dote. And apparently they're just great friends. And so the guy just flew from Vegas to North Dakota and just hung out with him while he did this mule deer dote.

All right. Whatever. Good friends. Well, I was talking to him and he goes, yeah, this was the third day of the hunt. I mean, we've seen some deer, but just nothing close enough yet. You know, we were set up last night and we saw a group of dos and they started working our way and, and they just never got there.

Never, never got to us. And I'm thinking just like you're thinking, like. You guys have spent three days trying to shoot a mule to your dough out here. They're everywhere. Like, what? What's going on here? And he starts telling me like a story after story of how their hunt's gone. And I'm like, ah. And I really wanted to say like, you [00:54:00] guys ever think about just walking to the dough instead of waiting for the dough to walk to you?

But I never, I didn't, I don't know. I didn't wanna, I just met these guys. I didn't really wanna, you know, Tell 'em how to hunt, but it's like I would've been, yeah, it's like you, you can just walk to it. You don't have to wait for it. You can just like, oh, hey, there's a dough. Let's walk over there and shoot this thing.

So I don't know if they ever tagged out or not. I mean, I saw 'em the last morning they were heading out again and, but it's just kind of funny how you, some people, I don't know if they were just trying to hunt 'em like whitetails back home like this looks like a good spot. I'm gonna sit here. But it's completely different.

And that's what I love about it, is you can walk and check out country, you can see for miles. I mean, I was watching bucks fighting on public that I could, you know, I had no option to go after 'em, but it was just fun to watch these two whitetails just tear up a wheat field over a dough, you know, it was, mm-hmm.

It's, it's a ton of fun doing a West River whitetail hunt.

So. [00:55:00]

Tyler Scmidt: But yeah, no, I agree with all

Brian Krebs: that. Yeah. Have you, um, you said a couple weeks now we're gonna, we're gonna hear back on the North Dakota, you talked about South Dakota. Did you have any other apps in for the West? Were you applying Montana, Wyoming this year?

Tyler Scmidt: Mm-hmm. No, for me it's been, it was just that, I mean, I, being born and raised in Minnesota, I bought my lifetime.

Licenses. So I'm set there forever. I mean, if you ever want to get a tag guarantee, like plan a hunt, I mean Minnesota, it's, you can't go wrong with that. So, um, I'll have my hopefully North Dakota Rifle tag, bow tag, North Dakota, Minnesota bow tag. That's probably my standard, uh, standard tag selection right there.

So, Awesome. It'll keep me

Brian Krebs: busy. It'll keep me busy at that. Well, in addition to the 40, we're buying, there's like 800 acres of public just down the road a little bit, and then you go like three, four miles down the road and there's like 15,000 [00:56:00] acres of public. So if you ever. Looking for a new place to hunt in Minnesota.

We'll have you down at the, they call it the ranch, which is kind of funny. It's a little, a little bit of an overstatement to me. But they, they printed out one of those big topo maps or like those big property boundary maps and they called it the ranch. And I'm like, eh, 40 acres of willows. I don't know if that really qualifies as a ranch, but that is,

Tyler Scmidt: that's, that's exciting though.

I'm happy for you guys.

Brian Krebs: That'll be good. Yeah. But we'll have you down. Come shoot some. He said there's tons of do though. The blast owner said he shot two do off his deck with his bow.

So he said there's like unlimited dough. So I'm excited to start whacking and stacking, fill in the freezer and making sausage, uh, good for you

Tyler Scmidt: guys. That's exciting.

Brian Krebs: Yeah. Awesome. Well, uh, thanks for being here, Tyler. Thanks for kind of just BSing catching up, talking hunting. I think both of us could do this forever, so kind of keep an eye on the clock.

Otherwise, we'll never get anything

Tyler Scmidt: done. Yeah, no, no doubt about that. Appreciate me being [00:57:00] on here

Brian Krebs: as well. Awesome. Well, after you get done with this busy fall, uh, western, uh, bow and rifle tags, we'll have you back on and share the, share how the hunts went.

Tyler Scmidt: Awesome, man. Take

Brian Krebs: care. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for being here, and thank you for listening folks.

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