Show Notes
On this episode of the Michigan Wild Podcast, Marcus sits down and passes the torch to new host Nate Rozeveld. The guys talk about all things Michigan and what led Nate down the path of wanting to host a podcast. From there, the guys dig into whitetail hunting and how Nate has approached the season over the past 10 or so years. Nate also discusses what he has in store for the podcast going forward. Here's a glimpse into the future of the podcast and you should all be pretty excited about it. Enjoy!
Show Transcript
Marcus Ewing: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Michigan Wild Podcast. It has been a long time. I don't even wanna months since you have heard from me. And for good reason. I just became too busy and just could not commit the time to the podcast that it needed that it deserved.
Behind the scenes I've been working with Dan Johnson from Sportsman's Empire and we have found a new host for the Michigan Wild Podcast going forward. And I have him here with me tonight as a passing of the torch, if you will. So I'd like to welcome in Nate Roosevelt.
Nate, how are you tonight? [00:01:00] Doing
Nate Rozeveld: fantastic. Enjoying the evening so far.
Marcus Ewing: Yeah. No, it's we've obviously, so when Dan had first said Hey, I've got a guy that's, that wants to take over the podcast. He put us in contact with each other. And the first time that we actually sat down on the phone, shit, I think we talked for an hour or real close to it that night.
Yeah, it was, yeah, it was super easy conversation. And I remember thinking after we got off our call, was talking to my wife, I'm like, yeah, that podcast is gonna be just fine. Nate's gonna he was super easy to talk to ask some great questions to me, even though we weren't recording, we were just chatting.
So I was I was super happy that you decided to, reach out to Dan and say this was something that you were interested in. And yeah, I'm excited to see where you're take, where you take this podcast and. You know how it looks going forward. Yeah, me
Nate Rozeveld: too. That's kinda the excitement going forward, kinda a new challenge, new thing to do. Yeah. And it's been a joke at, with my wife, she's always like, when are you gonna do your own podcast? When are you gonna do your own podcast? Cause I love listening to 'em. And and just kinda said, oh, maybe when I get some more [00:02:00] free time or whatever.
Cause I just feel like you enough time to do those things. But I've been. I've been so immersed in just Michigan hunting, fishing, just being outside. I don't even it's just been part of my life. I got pictures of me floating around, three, four years old shooting my bow always, tagging along my uncles and my grandpas fi, hunting, fishing, both sides of my family we're, outdoors people.
So I've just, this has been a way of life for, I'm 33 years old. This has always been the way it's been. Yeah. I don't know any different. That's all, yeah. Yep. That's it. And then the kinda the funny thing, how this all transpired we actually. My son Henry, he loves John Deere tractors.
That's his jam. My, both my dad and my father-in-law have hobby farm and so for his birthday we took him to the John Deere Museum in Iowa. And I have no idea how far away we were from, like, where Dan lives or anything like that, but I was listening to some of his podcasts and other ones on the, that I like to listen to.
That night on the home, my wife was like, you really need to do [00:03:00] is kinda know these guys talk stuff, talk about,
and that my son. And I happened to just open up the phone and Dan was like, anyone interested in Michigan podcast? And I was like, I feel like it's my sign. Reach out. It's a sign. Yeah. And I'll fast forward a few months and it's happening, so kinda seems crazy, but definitely exciting and ready to rip on this
Marcus Ewing: yeah.
No, that's awesome. I like that was teed up for you, right? To have the conversation with your wife, you're in Iowa, have this conversation, Nate, you really should do this. I think you'd be good at it. Like it's something you're passionate about, you really enjoy talking about it.
Yeah. I don't know it, it's always a leap of faith. So to speak. Like it's, you never know how it's gonna be received. Am I gonna. Be interest am I gonna be able to find interesting guests and interesting topics and, all the kind of the background that goes into these podcasts.
And then yeah, sure enough, Dan, puts that out there and it's, yeah. You'd have been crazy [00:04:00] not to, right? Like I feel like if you wouldn't have responded in hindsight, you've been like, I missed my chance. I
Nate Rozeveld: would've, shoulda, yeah. I don't live that way. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think the biggest thing for me, I try to be goal oriented and, I'm focused on, certain things like obviously family comes first and those certain responsibilities I have to have for my day job and that. So it was always like, the time commitment. I don't want to do something like.
I don't wanna put forth a good effort, yeah. So just making sure I had that time and, the way the transitions of my life and how things are going. For me and my wife, both in our careers, it's kinda okay, it's starting to relax a little bit. Like we still have a lot of responsibilities, but there actually is a little bit more free time, so I don't like free time.
I get a little crazy when I have free time, so I'm like, I'll do this. And just making sure that still do it at a high quality, put forth a good effort. Yeah. Allocating time is always a lot of us guys talk about that with families for, in the fall. Oh yeah. Like when you're deer hunting you've talked about it, you have property that's made a few [00:05:00] hours away or trying to, set up that time.
So like you don't really have much time. So it's always to me, risk averse reward, I gotta take a gamble on today. Is it gonna be worth it? Or do I wait until cold front comes in? Or did I get chance to set cameras and. Is this a good, high quality sit, so same thing with this, it's is my time invested into this gonna help, quality of life or, be good for the family and all that?
And so far everything I've kind looked into and done and talked about, I don't see it could make me unhappy. Yeah.
Hunting,
Marcus Ewing: which I love. That, that's exactly like the point I was gonna make is you have an outlet now. If your wife's anything like my wife, they, my wife humors me when I wanna talk about hunting or fishing or something like that.
Like she doesn't want to contribute she'll, yeah. For those at home, like I'm using air quotes, she will listen to what I am saying, but she doesn't give a rip about it. So it's especially if I get a deer or I have a great, sit with a great enc, a really good encounter with a deer or something like it just, maybe things just [00:06:00] didn't quite work out.
Or, you're pulling cards and you come across like a new deer. You're talking late October, right? Deer on the move. All of a sudden there's a new buck in the picture and you're like, whoa. Like, where'd this guy come from? Now you're getting all jacked up. So I'm trying to talk to her with all this excitement and everything like that.
She's just So when are you going again? Like that kinda thing. So when are you gonna be gone? And yeah, like it gives you that outlet to talk to other people who are as passionate about, hunting and fishing in the outdoors as you are. And that's when. You make new friends get new access to properties potentially.
There's just so many like cool things that come out of, hosting a podcast. And for me it's always been like, you just meet a ton of really cool people, and you get to hear some really cool stories that you otherwise probably wouldn't have heard. And usually at the end of it, like you have a new friend out it too.
And that's, that's something that as we get older adults, Making new friends, like friends. It's just not something that's like on your radar, right? It becomes what's the word I'm looking? It's, it becomes like very natural. It's not a force type thing when [00:07:00] you already have all these common interests, yeah. It's awesome. You're gonna
Nate Rozeveld: absolutely love it. Yeah. Same people a thing too, and Wanted this opportunity to learn too, like ever evolving kind of thing. And I like that aspect of learning from people, but also every time we go out and hunt whatever we outside, we kinda like story or memory.
I get a kick outta hearing though, like hearing guys talk about something cool that happened to him or the after they put into something, I did all this work and legwork and then all, it's like magic, the deer appears and this off shooting or whatever, like that's what we go out there and do that for the story and for the memory and.
Having an outlet for other people to come on and share that is, is important. And it's also healthy, I think for, people who love this for a hobby and there's a lot worse things you can do than sit down and chit chat about being outside and being on the outdoors, for an hour at night or something.
Yeah. Better being in a bar or doing those kind things. It's healthy, I think. And yeah, developing relationships with people is never a bad thing. Yeah.
Marcus Ewing: So you touched on it.[00:08:00] When we first started here, but tell the people a bit about yourself, Nate, whereabout, geographically where you're located in Michigan, what your upbringing looked like in the outdoors.
I know you mentioned, both sides of your family, grew up in the outdoors. So walk me through, through, your past, your upbringing and all that. Yeah,
Nate Rozeveld: so I'm 33 years old. I I live north of Grand Rapids about, 15 miles, 20, 25 minutes away. So I'm like Kent County and I, we've lived here since I was, since I've, I think six years old or something.
Quite a while. So I do a lot of hunting in Kent County. I have a family. My grandpa owns property up Masaki County, so an hour and 20 hour and 30 north. So that's where I started hunting. My dad grew up there, and then moved down here for work back in the day. But so I grew up it wasn't if I was gonna be a deer hunter, it was win.
I was gonna, shoot my first deer. Yeah. And I was fortunate that my dad and my uncle, they were like the first generation of pole hunters in their area. So like my uncle shot a [00:09:00] deer with.
I've been immersed in bow hunting my whole life. I'm the oldest on both sides of the family for my parents, I'm the oldest grandkid and my mom's side of the family was big time hunters and my dad's side. So it was a perfect recipe for me to just be a white tail hunter, and deer hunter, small game ducks, geese, rabbits, deer fishing.
I did all that.
My primary thing is whitetails. I love that the most, but I do get a kick out of doing the other things in the off season. But yeah, I've yeah, I've been killing deer since I was 12 years old, pretty much, yeah. That's just kinda how I grew up. Was a family full of with deer killers, I guess would be the philosophy, but that's morphed into more of now.
I don't just kill deer anymore. I'm more targeting, the bigger, older deer. Almost went too far. Like passing really good deer and doing these things and like [00:10:00] passing four and a half year old deer, passing three and a half year old deer the last couple years, which is pretty crazy.
But I love it. That's just my thing. So it's cool being able to do that in Michigan. But in order to do that, I have lots of permission properties. Little pieces of property all over I don't even know how many spots I have. And sometimes I don't even hunt them because there's not a deer there to hunt.
But yeah, that's kinda the past 10 years I've really focused on finding a big deer to shoot and
Marcus Ewing: I love it. That's my thing. Yeah. And for Michigan, growing up, so I'm a few years older than you are but growing up in a hunting family as well. A lot of it was, I don't wanna go as far as to say if it's brown, it's down type of thing, especially when it comes to bucks.
But, when I was young, my dad gave me free reign. He was like, and we hunted a lot of public when I was growing up, my grandpa had 40 acres, but man it's hard to hunt more than one guy on 40 acres, right? If you're really trying to be effective So it was a lot of, [00:11:00] Hey, if you want to take it, go ahead and take it.
I'm not, we're out here. If that's the deer that gets you riled up, like if you're excited to take it do the things that we've talked about and things that you were taught and go ahead and squeeze the trigger, cause I wasn't even bow hunting when I was young.
I didn't pick that up till later. I was my twenties. But it's it's nice to hear that there are. Probably more pockets in Michigan where, there's guys and gals that are really taking that approach and really targeting that older class buck. Because I think that with kind of a younger generation of hunters, let's say, like guys probably like more in our age who maybe grew up, shooting any buck that they could because that was just how we did things in Michigan for a really long time.
But, As we've gotten older and there's been, more information at our disposal in terms of, what, letting these deer go, letting you know, let 'em grow till the next year. Cuz the most typical thing in Michigan is like the two and a half year old day point, right? Look at the Michigan buck [00:12:00] pull.
There's a ton of great deer, but if someone had a dollar for every two and a half year old eight point that was killed in Michigan, someone would be a very rich
Nate Rozeveld: man. Or 108 point too. That's the thing. Like they're, yeah, it's not, it's a hundred inch, eight point 105 inch, 8.2 year old.
Which, which is cool how you teed that up for me because I wanna say sub 33, 22 years ago up north, and this is Masaki County, farmland, all that stuff. My crap was a farmer. They, my dad and uncle, they did a self-imposed an point restriction. Okay. We didn't shoot, there was four.
Year and a half old four side is down oh yeah. You, if it didn't matter how old it was, if it had four points on the side, you shot it. So I believe I, I didn't shoot my first deer. I shot my first deer, actually my first buck with a gun when I was 14. Okay. And it was a 7.4 side, so like my first buck, but it was a year and a half old.
Tiny It's mounting a wall back behind me and it is, it's man, I can't believe that thing was a seven point for how little it was. Yeah. But [00:13:00] it's, and so we did that for quite a while, like that was kinda the thing. And, Michigan hunters are real good at killing deer. Yeah. So it was kinda like, we had, and we've, so like having neighbors on the same page has always been like what we've done.
You try to develop a relationship with your neighbor. Hey, we're gonna pass these deer. Hey let's do this. And then, you'd get some guys that would, some guys that wouldn't. And for a long time, the the one neighbors, they owned property, they didn't, and they cleaned house on year and half bucks every year.
This is before sell cams and, trail cameras, all that, communicated through walkie-talkies so you know what channel they're on. You're, you quick flip the oh.
Guys were killing multiple bucks every year and properties, two bucks late. Yeah, a lot of bucks get killed. And so let's see. Yeah, probably 10 years ago, I wanna say 2008 or 2000, yeah. Thousand eight I was in high school. I bought my first trail camp. And cuz I was hunting more. Up here or down here in Kent County [00:14:00] and I would, sea bucks and seed bigger deer and all this.
And I was like, okay, this is a little different. There's still a lot of hunters, but there's like small pockets where you don't see a gun blind, you don't see, no one's hunting that cause it's only five acres or 10 acres. So I like. Made up my bread and butter to get permission on some of those pieces kinda close by, set a show came out and I was like, oh my gosh.
Like where they're all at. There's, I remember the first time I got a picture of a three and a half year old buck and I was like, that thing is a Boer, it's giant. And that just completely changed my whole mindset. Yeah. I was, Passing deer has never been a hard thing for me cause I've been fortunate to be hunt where there's a lot of deer.
You talk about talking, hunting, public land. I've hunted public land, but not because I have to, because it just, I'm gonna go hunt over there today or yeah, I'm gonna go scout this. I've always had properties with deer. But once I saw that first buck, that was a three and a half year old and it was probably.
120 to 130 inch deer. Yeah. I was like the, they exist cause that was the narrative, it's like a unicorn. There's no big bucks in Michigan. Yeah, there's [00:15:00] not, that's what we were told. So if you see year wide eight point, you shoot that thing because Yeah. If you don't, the neighbor's going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So yeah, I kinda got, I kinda stepped outta my comfort zone, started hunting properties that was not my family farm property. And then that just opened Pandora's box for me. I made a commitment. I had shot out buck. I got a trail cam picture of him and I was like, okay, this is a big deer like, judging trail cam picks.
Back in the early days you had no idea what you were looking at. You thought it was huge and it wasn't, but amazing what the quality is now. Yep. So I shot my first I shot a buck that was on camera and I was, I called him, I had a name for him and I wanna say it was named Shorty. Cause one side was short and other.
And I was like, that's 125 inch buck. I'm shooting him. So went to a spot, hung a stand, sat there, maybe a day or two later in the morning he came through, worked a scraper, 18 yards. I smoked him and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And I got up to him and he was dramatically smaller than I thought.
Probably either a really big [00:16:00] year and a half old, or a two and a half year old, like that. Hundred inch size. Yeah. And I remember being pumped about it, but also I was like, man, it's not as big as I thought it was. I've seen bigger deer than this. So I'm like, and then from then it took five years to shoot my next buck because I was just adamant at passing.
Yeah. It's been the best thing I've done, like learning how to find the bigger deer, learning how to do that. I've had such a fulfillment in that aspect of it that I'm hooked. And now it's just kinda how I'm like, I still, I still have shot three and a half bucks and when you have 140 inch buck that's three and a half years old, like pretty hard to pass with bow in your hand, yeah.
Especially when you never shot up that. So I've always kinda had that mindset of working my way up the ladder. And yeah, I've been fortunate, but. I don't really, I don't need to have 20 bucks A1, 30 inches. That's not my mo, just trying to get bigger and do that, and I love it.
And that's what makes me happy. And I try to talk to as many people as I can, knock on doors, show trail cam pictures and be like, Hey, we're all passing deer like this. If you want to, we're [00:17:00] onboard and be that persistent neighbor and. We're at a point where I can't believe the size of deer that neighbors are passing.
Like not just me. Like I have buddies that pass deer and neighbors and I'm like that way. And it's like inspiring for us too. So like I'm kinda in that aspect of hunting. Now I also have my grandpa, who's 83 years old, who straight up is a killer. Like that dude goes out and he shoots a buck every year, sometimes two shoots his.
Fair share of d loves. It gets a kick out of it is literally the funnest opening day, opening couple days. That's awesome. I have so much fun just being there with him and watching him shoot deer and the smile and the fun he has. So like I have one of my best friends, same way. He six point walks by him, he's blasting it and I love it.
So I have both aspects. I think that's something that I. To I, if you tell me you want pass deer and you wanna do that, then I'll be like, okay, let's do this. I'll hold your feet to the fire. But if you're straight up like, man, I just like to shoot deer and I'm cool with it, I'm happy for you and Ill [00:18:00] help you track it and I'll help you gut it and I'll do all that with you too.
So I got both aspects. I grew up that way and I still have my, family members who are that way. And I've also gone my own way with my.
Marcus Ewing: Yeah. It's like having that that discipline to be able to do that and, hold yourself accountable that, because yeah, it could be real easy, on year four of your five year drop between shooting bucks to be like, man I know it's not the deer I'm after or the class of deer that I'm after, but it's still a really nice deer.
I'm just gonna go ahead and shoot this deer this year. He's standing 20 yard broadside. It's no one's gonna know but me and it's still a nice deer and this and that. But no, to hold yourself accountable and to really be like that disciplined in your approach kudos to you, man.
Because I don't think there's, there's a ton of people out there who are actually doing that, year in, year out on a consistent basis. There might be guys who talk about it, Maybe they'll, do it for a year, do it for two years, [00:19:00] get a little itchy. And, you know what, I'm just, I need to take a buck.
And I think that might come from, external pressure. If they think they've gotta, puff up their chest and say, oh, I've, I've kept the streak alive of shooting, a deer every year in Michigan or something like that. And that's not the case.
If you have a plan and you know how to, you put. Excuse me. You have a goal and you put a plan in place to, to execute that. What you said, like being very goal-driven and goal-oriented. That's what you need to do. And I guess that no one's probably a bigger critic of you than yourself.
So it, it'd be hard to look in the mirror at night knowing that, you said you were gonna do one thing and you did another,
Nate Rozeveld: yeah. I lose sleep over that's for sure.
Neighbors will shoot those bucks. Oh yeah. We've had I think three years in a row, four and a half year old bucks. Ones that we've all passed multiple times up to that point, and me and my dad and couple neighbors. And this is North, this is Kent County, Mississauga County. This is not like we're a hundred some miles apart.
This isn't just I don't [00:20:00] have this little mecca of one property. These are like multiple properties, multiple spots, different deer every year. And everyone's okay, we're passing the deer. And we're like, are we sure? Like we kept to have a little thing and once we like do it, we do it and then a neighbor half mile away, has shot that buck.
Three years in a row. You gotta get to the point where that's okay and yeah, that's, it's not easy to be okay with it, but once you get to that point you're like, okay, like that's fine. Because if I would've shot him that one time, he walked by at three and a half years old, I would not have been as happy as I am seeing that picture of that dude who is absolutely ecstatic.
That shot 140 inch Deer, Michigan. And I don't I'm not just putting, numbers, I'm just trying to explain how big they can get at four or three and a half years old. Yeah, A1 40 inch deer is realistic at that age because they're old, yeah, they're peak maturity.
Yeah. And ive only had a handful of bucks that I know are over four and a half years old. I'm getting to the point where I'm like, Okay. Like at four and a half he's this big. How big could he get? Is where [00:21:00] are we, where's the baseline? Cause I've, for the past, I wanna say the last eight or nine years, I've hung outta state every year except for last year.
Okay. So I've been to Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa Tennessee. So like we've always done these, me and my dad have always done these hunting trips for a week or nine days, and. Seen just some amazing bucks. Like this is another way of hunting. So like that kind of was like, okay, Michigan has the exact same terrain, maybe better.
Yeah, we have better food than some of those places we've been to. We have more deer. Like the only reason why that buck was that big is because that is the biggest bodied, big swayed back. Like the typical five or six year old buck and has an impressive set of headgear on his head.
So we're like, All we need to do is just get bucks that old. Yeah. And then we'll be there. And then guess what? I don't have to go to Illinois and hunt for, five. So you suck a lot of money. Yeah, exactly. Do those kind of things. That, that might be a lie. I like going on state and doing hunting trips, my buddies, but you know what I'm saying, like [00:22:00] the option to have a buck that's as big there.
Yeah. And I think it's realistic, like it can happen. But yeah, so it's just like getting them to.
I'm disciplined, but if 160 inch buck walks by and he happens be four and a half years old, I'm shooting him. I don't I'm not to that point yet where it's oh, this is gonna be the future. I'm just trying to get to that point and yeah, hopefully I don't get tested with that because I'm not like, set in stone.
But yeah, I'm not gonna be like, the people in Iowa are passing. He's just absolutely crazy, dear. But Dan, it's not there yet. Maybe if there's five or six of 'em running around, I'll do that, but not right now. So yeah, that's just kinda the transition and I kinda like to take people for this kinda journey and maybe there'll be more people that will get in the same ballpark as us and get out there, talk to your neighbors.
Cause to me, like the only way this is gonna happen is if more people do it. Yeah. Like I don't think the government's gonna help us. I don't think, we just had something kind go on, with APR thing not come through, it's. [00:23:00] My only option is to give many people on board and see whether this takes us.
So yeah. Yeah. That's all you can do. That's how it
Marcus Ewing: goes. Which brings you to you. You had a perfect kind of segue there without knowing it, how do you feel about Michigan being a two bucks state? Would you rather see it be a one buck state or are you like Okay with kind of the way the combo tag is currently set up?
So I, I don't
Nate Rozeveld: have an issue with combo tag. I think the pro, so of all the people you know that kill bucks in a year, we kinda have like our own little group people who, maybe a guy will shoot a really nice and you maybe shoot the second buck, but I think. I think if you only have one buck, what?
How many people are actually gonna hold out? Because how many guys as a whole, Michigan has so many hunters, me and you and some the other guys, we actually do probably have multiple opportunities at decent bucks in a year. I don't, I know a lot of people who are friends who don't. So is they only ever shoot one buck?
Maybe like they don't shoot two bucks. And a lot of those [00:24:00] bucks get shot with a gun. They might get shot the late season with a gun. They might get shot the first week of October, and that might be the only deer they shoot the whole year. So the, I'm not convinced that the one buck thing is gonna actually like substantially help because there's so many hunters in Michigan.
Obviously there's, people can, argue with the fact that Indiana is where it is because of the one buck thing, or Ohio's a one buck state. But we still have way more hunters than them. We shoot a lot of bucks per square mile compared to them. So I think it just comes down to self-discipline.
If you're the guy that's oh yeah, I'm for one buck because I wouldn't have shot that two and a half buck if I only had one tag. Shame on you. Why'd you shoot him anyways? Yeah, you're telling me that you would not have shot him. If you had one buck tag, but you were willing to shoot him with two buck tags, that makes no sense to me.
Like you should shoot that buck because you should go into it and be like, A buck comes by. And if you're happy with that deer, no matter what, that's the buck you should shoot. If you have guilt or oh, I would've passed him. Pass him. Because guess what? He might be giant [00:25:00] next year, the next guy down.
Like he's never gonna get any older. So that's my argument. Like people, oh, shooting 120 inch buck in Michigan's, like shooting a one 50 somewhere else, like it's still a one 20. That's kinda my mindset, so yeah, I'm not a hundred sold. I've seen some statistics and I know a lot get shot with a gun.
You.
Maybe if you could pull everyone individually and then they would say something, but I think a lot of guys would still shoot young deer with one buck. I think it would happen.
Marcus Ewing: Yeah, I think so. I think you make a very good point there. What I hate seeing when it comes to two bucks is during like firearm season.
When, and I talked about this with someone else. And, like I'm gonna go back to Michigan Buck Poll because it's, if you're on Instagram and you're in Michigan and you hunt like you're 100% following that that Instagram page. And it like, there's, to say that there's not good bucks, that it's not a good, that, that is living proof [00:26:00] right there, that year after year, like giants hit the dirt in Michigan.
Every year. What I hate seeing is, You got a guy sitting there with two bucks, two, two and a half year old, eight points that, one came out and he shot it. He's and two minutes later, another one came out right behind it. And I shot that one too. It's man, like that's a hard pill for me to swallow sometimes.
Cause it's wasn't one just good enough? Like just be happy with that kind of thing, right? But he's well within his right to do it. I don't wanna like criticize that, but, It's man you took a really, what you thought was, was a good buck for you or for a lot of people, for that matter.
It was a buck you wanted to shoot. Let's just be happy with that, right? Let that other guy come out because next year, you know what, when he walks out, he's gonna be a heck of a lot bigger than he was this year.
Nate Rozeveld: And that's the thing too I'd love to see that statistic. Yeah, how many people actually do shoot, two bucks with a gun or bow?
Guys, they'll shoot two bucks in the same night with a bow also. Like it happens, Yeah. I wanna know actually, like how often does that happen? Yeah. Like I was, oh, I think I was 15. I shot a buck[00:27:00] opening morning with my gun. And then I had a really rough bow year that year. I think I hit a buck with my bow, missed a buck with my bow, couldn't pull my bow back with a bow.
I got a three, like three things happened during bow season. I was just like, this is terrible. It was really rough. I was 15, and was Buck comes out, smoked it. Awesome. My dad was with me, he was great. And then he ended up going I think he went to. I dunno if he went to Iowa or he went Illinois, I think he went Illinois gun hunting the next week.
And so then I had went back up north with a family friend and hunted by myself. So I shot the one buck opening day and I wanna say three days later was the weekend. And I went out all by myself with my grandpa. He, went to my spot. He went to his spot and. I had shot, I don't know, I shot like a little eight point or something, so I had my four by tag was used.
Yeah. And sure, six point year and a half old, six point came out dusted that thing too, shot two bunks in three days. And you know what, like they're both were a year and a half old and I literally was like, I'm done hunting. This kind of sucks and I didn't really shoot anything that [00:28:00] special at the time.
Cause like we've always had the mindset kids shoot whatever they want, let them go, do that. It was never like get experience. I self-imposed like the four by rule for a little bit, but also I had free reign, like you said, like I could shoot anything legal, like that was fine. And I did that and I remember being like, oh, pumped.
This is so cool. Like my grapple was all static for me. Guess what? I've never done that again. Like I grew up to an extent knew that I don't need to do that. Yeah. So I think there's like that. Every guy, every outdoors, man's gotta figure that out for themselves. So then that goes, that's across the board with you're harvesting deer shooting waterfowl, fishing, like all these things.
Like you at the end of the day, gotta be morally okay with the actions that you do. Yeah. If you are not, and you can't handle that, then. I dunno if I wanna be friends with you, like you dunno, that's kinda that thing. Yeah. Be hunting to Susan for you, right? Yes. That's just not the way I look at the outdoors and like my lifestyle is that way.
So I think it's a good learning here. Like I said, I've been through it. I worked through it. I went [00:29:00] from, man, if I saw a dough with a bow on my hands. I shot it. Like I went through that stage in my life. I shot three dos in two nights. Like I've done that, like I grew, when I was a kid, like I loved it.
You're making jerky, you're doing all this stuff for your buddies. Everyone's oh my gosh, I can't believe you shot 3d. And you're doing that kind of thing. And as I've progressed through my life, helping other people hunt, buddies, brother-in-laws, brothers, siblings, like all this stuff, it's kinda morphed into what I am today.
And, 10 years from now it, who knows what that's gonna be like, yeah. So I think that's just kind I always like to challenge people. What are you doing it for? What's the reasons why, you know this is happy for you? And also we want this to stay around. So yeah, let's be responsible and do these kind of things.
And I would love if we could have a government we could trust. I don't know if we can, I don't know. The d n R is, I don't, who knows what's going on there. Yeah. You like to think that, but I, you feel like you have certain, statistics and all this stuff going on, but end of the day, I think it just comes down to you being moral and picking out your choice.
But yeah I [00:30:00] cringe when I see those two year and a half O bucks sitting in a guy's back of his truck being like, oh yeah, I just shot these 30 seconds apart or whatever. It's that's cool story. Please don't do that
Marcus Ewing: again. Yeah. Please don't do that again. It'll be interesting to see, like with the new reporting system system, like if they'll be able like, five years from now since they just implemented it last year excuse me. What that data will look like, what that data will show, how that data will essentially, change restrictions, tag limits, all these types of things.
If they're seeing, I think we can probably already generalize at that, what, 85% of the deer, 90% of the deer are shot like. November 15th and November 16th, like every year. There it was crazy. It's a it's so skewed. Those first two days of gun season. And obviously, growing up in Michigan, like it's a freaking holiday for most of us. Where I grew up, we didn't have school on November 15th, fifth, fell on a weekday. Because, rural. Northern Michigan. You don't need kids standing at the bus stop, horse around with [00:31:00] people, potentially within shooting distance, holding a gun in their hands.
So it was more of a safety thing. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how things play out over the next, five to 10 years with that. And the. You talked about, like a self-imposed four point restriction that you would like, you were just using yourself and the property that that I hunt, that my in-laws own.
So my brother-in-law and I do a ton of the work there between cameras and stands and habitat work, like all the things that, people do with their own property, we have a rule like, we'll put a bunch of cameras out. We've already got some, we've got maybe seven or eight out already.
As we bleed into like late July, like we'll start to get, kinda deploy the rest of them and we'll check on 'em periodically throughout August. Excuse me. And then I think labor Day is like our hard stop. Okay, we'll do one last check on Labor Day. And then, basically the entire month of September we're like, we don't [00:32:00] wanna be in there.
We don't want to ruffle feathers, nothing like that. So we, by that point, we have a pretty good idea of deer we wanna target. And usually our kind of general rule of thumb is, of the, let's say four to five, maybe a good year, you got six deer that you're like, yeah, like that. That's a deer. I really wanna, I would really shoot okay, if you take, if you are fortunate enough to take one of those, the second one has to be bigger, right?
That's just how we're, how we do it, and it's worked and we've only taken, I took the second year we hunted that I took a buck during bow season and one during gun season, and that's the only year we, one person has taken two bucks off of there. Usually the last three years we've only taken one buck off there.
Each, not even each, just one between me, my brother-in-law and my father-in-law. So we're, yeah we're very [00:33:00] particular. We're pretty picky. And it's paid dividends. Because we, the kind of the age class and just the class of deer every year seems to get a little bit better.
We're just like, holy cow. Like where have all these deer been? It's oh all those, two and a half year olds that we saw last year, or three and a half year olds that we saw last year that maybe we would've shot, never had an opportunity. Guess what? They're, they stuck around, they played the game.
Now they're four and a half. And man, now it's something I really wanna go after, yeah it certainly, like that methodology certainly works with being selective and, going after a higher age class of deer. Yeah. That's
Nate Rozeveld: kinda what I like, I talked about that five year dry spell I went through That was my mindset.
I was like, okay, like I thought worst case I was gonna be like, I figured it would three years, like before I. Like somewhere, cause I had to learn how to hunt bigger deer. I had to learn where to work, learn how to deal with pressure. That's right. When I learned to access routes and stuff like I kinda got into trail cameras, scrapes, like all Cause I think, I can't, when. I never really bait hunted in Michigan. [00:34:00] Yeah, my, my family did, like my grandpa and all that stuff, so there was bait piles, around, but I never really hunted them very much. I can't remember when that ended, but, so like for a while, yeah.
So I even, I know like in high school and stuff, like I didn't, never had a corn pile or nothing like that. I never hunted that way. One because I didn't have time. To go and bait all these little spots. Bait, yeah. Yeah. Like I, so that kinda was one thing. And I didn't have the resources or money to.
Stands everywhere. Yeah, so I like like this, it was like a perfect storm. That's when I mobile hunted, that's when I got some cameras. That's when I like really learned how to walk in outta the woods and stuff. When you go in there and walk by, shoot real quick, how they react to like your presence being there.
Oh yeah. Deer like it used to be. Deer comes in, you shoot the first thing so like then there was this whole challenge of being there hunting, letting deer do deer stuff, not spook them, and then try to wait. Cause like I learned with trail cameras, oh, there's some, [00:35:00] oh, there's the little buck.
Oh, there's little Last deer that comes by is usually the biggest one. Its like, how do I hunt deer by or. Swinging around the backside, so I don't spook any of those. Deer don't even see them. The only thing I see is a big one, and I can't tell you many times, like the deer was after, would come by, 20 minutes after dark or so.
It's ok, I only have the property lines there. I can't go any closer to the deer. So then you learn how to hunt weather front. You learn how to hunt. Time of year, you learn when I didn't just have one spot to hunt, I had multiple This spot's really good this time of year. This is a good night spot.
This is a good morning spot. Like I really force myself in that five years to learn how to hunt deer with a bow and hunt for bigger deer. And it was like the best thing ever. Yeah, I didn't shoot a deer with my bow. I don't even think I shot a buck with my gun. Even. I might have shot one buck with my gun during that time, like bow hunting, and it was the greatest thing ever for me for that.
But like I. It's if I don't shoot them and no one else in the area shooting them, eventually one of these deer is gonna get bigger because [00:36:00] yeah, it's gotta happen. It just has, granted, cars killed deer, neighbors killed deer, all that. But I mindset and ever since then I've had this They're not always the same property, but not all those properties.
Every year I have a buck I can target on. Yeah. So like total to me it was worth the investment and I'm still alive. Like I'm still here. I'm okay that I didn't kill a deer. Like I still have friends, yeah. I don't necessarily have my wife still loves me. Yeah. I don't, my wife's oh, you're good babe.
These doughs are really nice. They keep chewing, yeah. Know it all tastes
Marcus Ewing: the same. Me
Nate Rozeveld: and yeah. It was just totally.
We talked about the Michigan butt pool thing, like the social media aspect of that. There's pressure there oh yeah. You can't deny that. Like people like, yeah. I, not every dear I've killed, I've put on social media or Instagram for other reasons, but yeah, when I do put one on there, it's a cool picture or something like that.
It's cool to have that on there, on the, one of the Facebook pages or something like that, just to kinda show off the hard work. Yeah. But you can't, I try not to let that influence what I do. [00:37:00] Yeah. And that's, and I think that's gonna be something I'm gonna try really hard to stay true to that.
With doing this podcast thing now I'm. Immersed in it more than I've ever been. Like I've never been one to comment a lot on stuff or go and, make posts. I don't even hardly post any on Facebook or Instagram right now. So I wanna make sure I stay true to my core beliefs with how I handle outdoors and how I handle family and do these things and I don't wanna be influenced by the pressure for likes or the pressure for this kind of stuff.
I just wanna be real, wanna be authentic, wanna explain how I hunt other people in this state who do these kind cool things, or people who like to do that. Keep it that way no. I like social media, but I also could do without it. But it's really cool to see a dude on that Bule page. You're like, oh my gosh, that deer is giant.
It's giant. Yeah. Where do you shoot that? Where? And you're like, Jackson County. Yeah. In the city. No way. Yeah. Yeah. [00:38:00] But yeah,
down. Trying to just be consistent once a week, have a sweet podcast that hopefully is yeah, entertaining for people. And then, yeah, not just gonna be whitetail focused. We talked about that a little bit earlier. That's the thing I like about Michigan. There's so many other things to do. I've dabbled in, I've dabbled in a lot, of'em, not really that good at anything but deer hunting yeah, I can shoot some other things.
And like doing that. But like just getting involved in that and. Selfishly, maybe I can be a better duck caller at the end of this, or maybe get a little better at killing turkeys, or, get into, some hounds and stuff and do better at that. Yeah. And they
Marcus Ewing: learn that kinda stuff.
Yeah, that's absolutely like the coolest part is you're gonna get the opportunity to talk to people who are, I'm throwing myself into this mixture, but a lot smarter than us when it comes to, these other aspects of the outdoors these other styles of hunting or, hunting for specific species or anything like that.
So yeah, like just [00:39:00] the things that you learn, and. Anyone who has their own podcasts and hosts podcasts, like you, you find yourself listening a lot more than speaking, right? And it's amazing it, like hosting your own podcast teaches you to listen, right? Because you wanna make sure that you're, staying engaged and you're not just like firing questions off one after another.
And it sounds like an interview. Like you want it to sound like a conversation. And so if I say, Hey Nate, what do you think about, the restrictions, right? And we. Or, like the tag system and stuff like that. And, we you gave me an answer and I say what do you think about, coyote hunting?
It's it feels very forced. And instead of just like listening to some of the cues that you have or like some of the things you're saying and asking follow up questions, and I think that's when you find the sweet spot with your guest and you can really draw a lot of that good information out that they don't even know what's sitting inside of them.
You know what I mean?
Nate Rozeveld: Yeah, that's why podcasts are cool for that reason right there. It's not a structured you watch other things, some of the industry stuff or even so vanilla, like you [00:40:00] just get the same typical answer and it's okay, yes. Like those vanilla answers are true.
You're not lying, but there's so much more involved in that. And tell me how you really, yeah, exactly. How do you really feel? Or what does that mean? What is an access route? Like that's one thing Dan Johnson I need to talk to him more about how he acts and stuff, because he kinda just says it and he's I got it all figured out.
I Jay hook in or do whatever he does. I'm like, okay, but like, how do you do that? Like those are the kind of things that like, I wanna dig into sounds like Dan will walk into the next time. I think I understand. I have a way I do it for like the properties I hunt, but I want the guy that's like how I was when I was in my early twenties or like late teens, like trying to figure out how to shoot this big deer.
I got on a picture of, yeah. And not knowing what I'm doing and if I can say, I did this one time and then light bulb goes off and it's oh my gosh, property so and so down the road here I got this little spot I can park and I can do that same thing. Like those are the things I love about those light bulb moments.
I shot shot like one of the biggest [00:41:00] bucks I've shot. I shot opening day of 2020. Okay. And I don't know what podcast it was, I can't remember, but like you talked about, September, try not to touch anything. Yeah. For a month before season. Then this whole swing for like cold fronts and early October, like guys started talking about how good that was with scrapes and like all these other things.
And in 2020 we had that it rained. Like a bunch, three days before the season we had this huge cold front coming through and someone's I might have been Andy Mae. It might have, I don't know who it was, but they're like, I'd do a speed like scout or like I'll quick check a property out. He's I do it smartly.
If there's rain, I know where to go. I know where to these bucks like to be. I'd do a real soft, like quick fly through the property and I was like, oh my gosh, I have a property that would be like, It's money in the first week of the season. Like I could easily drive my truck in there. Now you have to get outta my truck and know what scrapes are hit when they're hit.
Yeah. Did that and I was like, oh my, this giant scrape was hit and rubbed. I could see rubs through the woods from my truck and I was like, okay. That one [00:42:00] buck I've been seeing all summer has definitely probably in here. Went in that night. Wow. Shot 'em six that came by that night. Shot him inch
accessing. I don't know if I would've hunted that night because I, or if I would've, I don't know if I would've hunted that spot. I might've hunted a different spot. But because I did that and heard it and I was like, I have the perfect property, I could just quick take a peek at it. Yeah. Low intrusion and it paid off and I was like, that's, it hasn't happened since, but it happened in 2020.
So all things happened is once. Yeah. Those are the things that you can do. And I learned that from a podcast. I'm like, I'm not, I'll tell everyone that. How did you know how to do that? I'm like alerted from a podcast like, yeah, someone else told me I still had hanging hung, I had to pick the right tree.
I had to, play the thermals, do all those other things that are involved, but I was there because of something I heard on podcast and that's powerful to me. That's the thing I love.
Marcus Ewing: Yeah. So Nate, before I kinda let you get outta here and get back to your evening, we've touched on it, but do you have an idea we're in [00:43:00] the dog days of summer, we're.
Shoot late June, staring 4th of July in the face. What, for listeners that have had, have that have been here and been wondering where the podcast is at and now that it's gonna take back off here where do you see the podcast going? From topic standpoint.
Obviously when we get into the fall, we're, I'd assume you're gonna be super whitetail heavy, but you know when you're in the off months, when you're in the off season, like what does that look like, do you think?
Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. So like right now, like you're saying, it's like we're in limbo from Yeah.
A whitetail perspective. You talked about having some trail cameras set up. I did that for years. I would leave them, go do my Spring Scout and leave 'em up all summer. Especially with solar panels and sell cans, you could adjust them on the fly. Last year I got bit real hard with the ants and bugs and stuff, issues.
So this year I'm, I think I'm actually gonna wait until Labor Day. That's gonna be my weekend to do it. I'm gonna go in there, know my areas, cause like I don't, I have new properties. Yeah. But those, like other properties, I'm probably not gonna hang a camera until actually go in there and hunt it for the first time.
Cause [00:44:00] they're so small I don't wanna blow the place up. Yeah. So I'm not gonna set any cameras until then. I think so. Let 'em sit. Like I use a lot of cell cameras because I have great service and like it just makes sense for me for intrusion and all that. So other than that, like in the spring food plot game, that was nonexistent for us because of was drought.
Yeah. So I have no really like spring food plot and we're out of that. So I'm thinking moving forward the summer I got some buddies that are into the Hound game with Bear Dogs and doing that. So I know they do some training and do some things throughout the summer with their dogs. I have beagles, so there's gonna be a little bit of Trying and do guys who have dogs and all this I'm, I use Hounds like January 1st into March 31st is like my window.
I don't do it during deer season because of deer hunting, but from like end of March to now, kinda tough to get your dogs doing stuff because it's hot and yeah. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Wanna pick some people's brains with what they do with their dogs, how they [00:45:00] handle that, cause there's guys that around my area that. They're hounds, like they love running their dogs. Yeah, that's their jam. So there's gonna be some of that. Also, some fishing stuff I want to get into. I'm not a good fisherman. I don't have much experience with river fishing. Would catch bluegills and bass as a kid on a little rowboat with a troll motor.
That's kinda of my extent of fishing. I did a ice fishing is not really my jam either, but I do have some friends that are like really big into bass fishing. Ok. So I kinda wanna pick their brains because we've all heard the correlation between if you know how to kill big bucks, you know how to catch big bass.
All right. I wanna pick some brains with that. There's some locally. And then also the whole thermal coyote shooting in the summertime. That's kinda something I wanna pick some people's brains with too, because we have lots of coyotes and Yeah, I know a guys that like to go out in the summertime seems like a great thing.
Go around at 11 o'clock at night when it's dark out, go with some buddies and go try to kill some dogs. Like with it sounds like a good time. Yeah. Yeah, I got a couple things like that. It's gonna be a little diversified, with that. And [00:46:00] then I'm sure I'll sprinkle in a couple whitetail stuff.
There's I wanna do some recaps with some Turkey hunts from some people I know. I went on spring black bear hunt, so there's. Podcast about that went to Wyoming. We talk about that and yeah, just try to kinda do a little bit of this and that and get us through the summer. And then yeah, once once you start getting the big my buddies and stuff start getting, pictures of some big bucks and velvet, I'm sure I'm gonna be focused on that.
But yeah, got three bucks that I'm really intrigued by and I. Pretty sure I'll be able to see 'em all from the road or from somewhere class in the summer. So I'm really waiting to go find them. So I've been looking at my pictures from the past and okay, what day, what week do I have this buck on camera?
Or like, when is he finally like big? And it's like we're getting close, yeah,
Marcus Ewing: a few weeks I should begin.
Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. So yeah, that's kinda what I've got. Looking forward to the summer and yeah, pretty pumped for that. No, that's awesome.
Marcus Ewing: I told you when we first talked, I told you before we started recording, I think you're gonna be great at this.
I think having, a real kind of [00:47:00] diversified portfolio when it comes to topics and guests and things like that, there's something out there. Especially as Michigan, we both know this. Michigan has something to offer for everyone that loves the outdoors and, all different.
In all different capacities, and yeah, there's gonna be no shortage of awesome guests and awesome stories and things to talk about. So Nate Roosevelt, I wish you my friend. I I think this is gonna be great. I'm gonna have to be sure to follow along and tune in and maybe we'll get to sit back down and do this again.
With the rules a little bit reversed here.
Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. You're gonna have a big old, but from up north is what's gonna happen. I wanna see you that, I wanna see that big old buck shoot your bow. So you've been working hard on that property, so it's not bound to happen again.
Marcus Ewing: Exactly it. It's coming.
It's coming. All right, Nate. Take care of yourself, man. I appreciate it and best of luck going forward to you. All right everybody a sincere thank you for allowing me to be your host here of the Michigan Wild Podcast for the short amount of time that I was fortunate enough to do it.
Thank you to everyone who has tuned in over the course of my [00:48:00] stint as host of the podcast. Be sure and stick around. And and follow along with Nate as he continues this journey. As I mentioned before, you guys are in good hands with Nate at the helm and everything.
Until we speak again, stay wild Michigan.
