Show Notes
This week on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast we are excited to announce that hunting season is here! John's long time friend Charles Admire joins him on the show to talk about all the fun adventures that await for the fall of 2023. The guys talk about their whitetail seasons and a few other fun hunts that Charles is looking forward to like New Mexico mule deer and west Texas sandhill crane. The guys also discuss their re-emerged love of waterfowl hunting and share a few stories from last season that have really fueled the fire for the upcoming fall.
Both fellas share some of their muzzleloader failures and what they learned from them, and give some warnings to folks who are new to black powder. While the guys talk whitetails, John admits he may have to eat his words as his top target buck has been daylighting a lot leading up to the archery opener this coming weekend. John often warns against being overly excited for opening day, but when a target buck is showing himself, it may just be time to go all in!
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Show Transcript
John Hudspeth: [00:00:00] Hey guys and gals, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors podcast brought to you by Arrowhead Land Company. Here you will be educated, entertained, and equipped to get more out of your outdoor experience. So hold on tight because here we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors podcast. I am your host John Hutzpeth. Welcome to the show. We got a really good one. And more importantly than that, this episode right now that you're listening to, This is the last episode before you can legally hunt whitetail deer in the state of Oklahoma, and many other places.
But, right now all we care about is Oklahoma, and my goodness, the time is here. Super excited man, Bear Season's opening. [00:01:00] Archery season's opening, Dove's already open, Teal season's open, we still got a little bit before, the real waterfowl season, but you can go hunt some teal.
Just a fantastic, amazing time of year. Obviously what we live for I think I think this weekend is the official opening, or first day of fall, whatever you want to call it. I go by, more by temperature than the calendar, personally, but, that's what they say, so yeah, we got a really good one coming up.
A few things to touch on before we get there. A few updates. Biggest update and a very unfortunate one. I talked a lot last week about how I was all jazzed up to, get out to the ranch and plant my food plots and do all this work and be ready for the season. I was able to fill my feeders. I got all of my feeders up and running, filled, all that, so that's good.
I was able to set up my blind finally that had blown over in the wind, so I got that set up. But, unfortunately, my brother was actually cutting hay, and if you've grown up around ag, ranching, [00:02:00] farming, whatever, You know that comes first, especially before, a luxury like hunting. And like I said, I was up there, my brother was cutting hay, he had some breakdowns he felt super bad but, I told him like, hey, you need this stuff worse than I do.
And he did get everything bailed, luckily but again, I was not able to get any of my food plots planted, and so I did, he was able to spare our small tractor for a little bit, which won't pull our drill but it did pull the brush hog, and so I was able to get a few of my paths mowed and everything, and and honestly, like a lot of my food plots, I just sprayed them.
I don't know, four or five weeks ago when all the soybeans were still up and everything and so most of them are pretty much ready to plant so I, I did take the brush hog and hit a few little spots where maybe I had missed spraying and everything and so my plan I thought I was gonna have a tractor on Sunday to plant still and so my plan was to go ahead and plant Sunday without spraying because again, a lot of that stuff was still [00:03:00] dead.
But now we didn't get any rain last week like we were expecting. We did get a little bit of rain finally this week. And I don't know, I'm, I obviously have to wait until I get there, but I might go ahead and spray now. Just because you know what little was there might have gotten an extra little kick and obviously at this point I'm gonna be planting a little later than I would like and so more than likely I'm gonna go ahead and spray again and then plant when that will be I don't know yet.
We'll get into that. That's all turned into a little bit of a mess this weekend. I'm excited about it, but my wife's grandpa, like I think it was before we were married, I was talking to him and he's a huge sports fan and I was just getting into college football and he told me that one of his bucket list things is to go to a game either at Death Valley LSU.
Or at Kyle Field for Texas A& M. Just, he's actually not a fan of either of those teams. But just, the traditions [00:04:00] and the craziness and all that stuff. He just wanted to experience that. And my brother in law has season tickets for Texas A& M. And so this weekend, my wife we're taking, her grandpa and grandma, we're going to drive down there to college station and go to the A& M versus Auburn game.
And so that's going to be a lot of fun, but obviously I won't be able to do any deer things that weekend. And then the next weekend, which, as you're listening to this, it's the upcoming weekend is stinking deer season. And I went on a rant last week about how. For a lot of people, hunting opening day probably isn't the best option, and how you should maybe avoid it, and blah, blah, blah.
Now I gotta eat a little crow, because, my number one target buck, Rock, that I mentioned five year old, ten point just a good looking deer. Like I said, just a solid deer nothing crazy, but a good buck. He has not shifted. He is still in the same spot. He's been all summer. He's daily I, I can't think of the last time he has not been there one, at least during the night [00:05:00] and probably two months.
And just recently he has been showing up. In daylight, right at the end of shooting hours, but definitely in shooting light. And I talked about maybe doing a little bear hunting this year. I talked about how hunting opening day is not always the best plan, but man, if my number one buck is showing up in daylight.
I think that might be the exception to the rule, and I don't know if I can not hunt him. And if, again, we've still got, a couple days before the season gets here But anyway, he's showing up at a spot where my big food plot is. And that's why I'm saying the timing's a little weird, because if I think I have a chance to kill that buck Sunday evening, I don't think I wanna be in there on Saturday.
Spraying and planting and driving the tractor all around and all that stuff. And so I don't know, like I said, I'm just gonna have to wait and see how it plays out if he goes nocturnal or shifts. Then most likely I'll spend Saturday planning food plots, and then maybe go try to kill a bear on Sunday.
Maybe hunt [00:06:00] somewhere else. I don't know. That's one thing that, I do and I know why they do it, is, once October 1st hits, you can no longer buy a bear tag. And I know they do that so somebody doesn't shoot a bear and then go buy the tag. And I respect them. I think that's a great idea, actually.
But one kind of unfortunate thing is, if you don't buy one before that, then you're stuck without a bear tag. So yeah, like I said, a lot of big decisions coming up but, you know what, these are the decisions that I love, very much a first world problem, so I don't mind making that. I wish I had more kind of concrete stuff for you guys of what, what I'm going to be doing this upcoming weekend.
I just don't, but obviously, that's the fun part of it too, so anyway, that's all the the deer stuff that's been going on. My right shoulder is a little bit sore right now, actually, cause I did a... A lot of shooting in the last couple days. I went out one day and had a pretty dang legit dove hunt.
The first, the first good dove hunt I've had in a lot of [00:07:00] years. And I screwed it up royally. I shot terribly. I forgot how humbling. Dove hunting can be those dadgum critters and they started me off with a lot of hope so Sitting there at the truck had a couple other guys out there Dove flies by and I pull up and BAM first shot crush this sucker sweet Sitting there another dove flies by first shot miss second shot fold them up.
So I'm like two for two on birds Another bird flies by I miss Another bird flies by and I crush it. So I'm like three for four on birds at this point So I'm like dude, like this is like it's about to go down. It's still early like we just got there And so I go out and I sit next to this cottonwood tree and I don't know what it was But like from that moment on I could not hit anything and I think part of the problem was They're like honestly, there were so many dove and like they were just coming from everywhere [00:08:00] Like I couldn't get there wasn't like a nice easy shot that I got to do over and over again and practice Like a bunch of them came straight at me.
I actually had three Landed my tree From they came from a direction. I couldn't shoot because one of my buddies was over there But I had three come and land in the tree And of course fly straight back towards my buddy after they saw me, so I still couldn't shoot. But I was in position A.
And and I just kept missing. They'd come straight at me. And to me, that's the hardest shot. When they come straight at you, and they're kinda high. And some are flying fast this time of year, some are still going slow. So I'd miss like two of those, but then one would come like floating by to my left, nice and low.
And so then I'm trying to adjust and figure out my lead for that. And I'd miss that one. And then one would come straight across in front of me and I'd miss that one. Then they'd be back to flying straight at me and all that to say. Did terribly. I only killed one more bird the rest of the evening. Had to admit I probably missed a limits worth after that point.
But yeah [00:09:00] lots of shooting that evening, and then the next day I actually went and did a charity Skeet shoot, which was a heck of a lot of fun. Only the second time I've ever done anything like that. It was all doubles, which was very challenging. One of the guys on our team, he's actually like a semi pro Trapshooter he travels around and does all the different competition competitions.
And he even said man, this is a above average for like your, fun shoot. So yeah, like I said, lots of doubles, flying all over the place. I think I ended up going 52 for 80, like shot 52 out of 80 targets. Which I felt pretty dang good about, like that's over 50%, not quite three quarters.
But I had a really good time. Our team ended up finishing fourth out of 22 teams. So missed out on a trophy, unfortunately, still did pretty good. And the best part about it was for a great cause. It was for a children's hospital. Yeah, just lots and lots of fun, great time, so yeah, man, that's what I've been up to. That's what I got coming up. Like I said, some uncertainty with the hunting and all [00:10:00] that. But I'm sure we'll touch on what I decided next week, so be looking forward to that. As far as this week, we have a really cool episode, a fun one that I really enjoyed recording.
We got our old buddy Charles Admire. He's been on... several times at this point and Charles and I have known each other forever and we just have a good old kind of BS like we're just excited about hunting season. We cover a bunch of different stuff. We both talk about our whitetail plans. Charles is going on a mule deer hunt.
He's going on a sand hill crane hunt. Last year, we did a bunch of duck hunting together. We talked about that and how we've we've both kind of rekindled our love of waterfowl. We talked about that at the end. And just a really good episode. So yeah, that's what I have for you this week.
We got a couple awesome guests lined up for the next couple weeks. Obviously, hopefully I'll be hunting. We'll have that stuff too. If you're ready for some good quality Listening content. We got plenty coming at you. So as always thank you guys for [00:11:00] listening appreciate it And we'll get into the episode right after a quick word from our partners right after this There is truly no place like the great outdoors in Oklahoma when you're out in the wild you want your wireless devices to work unlike other carriers Bravado Wireless believes that coverage in rural areas is important so that you stay connected.
With competitively priced plans and coverage where you need it, the mission of Bravado Wireless is to keep you connected no matter where you are. Visit BravadoWireless. com or check them out at one of their retail locations. Bravado Wireless, the power of connection. Hey everybody, welcome to today's show and today we have my old buddy Charles Admirer.
How you doing Charles? I'm doing great, man. How are you? Ah, doing pretty good. And you've been on the show a few times, and so hopefully people are aware, but I wanted to start this off with a fun fact. And a fun fact about you, of course, and most of the people listening to this show have probably heard of a guy [00:12:00] by the name of Dale Brisby, and what brought this to my mind is I just saw on Facebook that he just killed his first elk, and he's been like, Training with cam Haynes and all this stuff.
And you are actually close personal friends with Mr. Dale Brisby. Isn't that right? It
Charles Admire: is. I've known Dale for, oh gosh, 15, 17 years, something like that. And he's a good dude. Got into bow hunting and I don't think you could have a better mentor right now than cam And so I'm super stoked for him. I've actually just saw that post right before you said it.
So yeah,
Dale's
John Hudspeth: the man. Yeah. Yeah. And another fun fact, one of his first videos ever, I think one that kind of helped, really jumpstart them and go viral or whatever you want to say is when he was, running and jumping over hogs and roping them and stuff, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you were actually a cameraman on that set, right?
Charles Admire: Yeah. I was getting one of the angles and. He's Dale super handy. I am not [00:13:00] nearly as handy. And anyway, yeah, we tried over and over to loop one over top. And I don't have that kind of touch. He got close several times. And then finally he was like, I'm going to run straight at that Joker and drop the loop over top of him.
And I was like, do it, man. And that's that's how we ended up getting them. So it's funny. That's that video might be 10 years old now, but
John Hudspeth: yeah, it's funny as well, man. He is. But anyway, that was a very random start. I do want you to introduce yourself. So real quick, in case somebody hasn't heard one of your episodes before, go ahead and just give us a little bit of who you are.
Okay,
Charles Admire: rundown. Did a few years in the Marine Corps as an artillery officer. Now I got a little family, got a wife and a boy who's, oh, 16 months old, and then one on the way. And like a lot of hunters, that, that listen to your show, love to, to deer hunt and hog hunt. And then the new, the newer passions are like duck hunting and then just being opportunistic about going out West.
We went on a, [00:14:00] or I went on your elk hunt a few years ago and I had a bear tag. This year I got. Crane and in the panhandle of Texas that's coming up that I'm super stoked about. And then a mountain muzzleloader hunt that I got a pretty funny story about sighting in my muzzleloader. We'll talk here a little bit about, but
John Hudspeth: well anybody who listens to the show knows that I have a love hate relationship with muzzleloaders.
So I'm definitely looking forward
Charles Admire: to that. I think God was looking down on me and was like, man, this poor fool. I'm going to make sure that he doesn't die today. It was interesting. I'll tell you that. So good.
John Hudspeth: Good. As you just said, we got a lot to cover today, but really the purpose behind this episode is just a good old hunting seasons here.
Let's talk about it. We're excited. And let's just talk about the fun stuff that we have coming up and more than likely you and I will get together again after the season to do another episode and hopefully do a little hunting together this year. We did that last year and man, I think you and I, we've known each other going on 30 years, something like [00:15:00] that.
You and my brother went to kindergarten together. And then, but here in the last few years, I think we've gotten a little closer and started doing some hunting together and really enjoyed it. So looking forward to this episode and I think to kick things off, since it's almost deer season, I feel like we definitely need to start there.
So I know you just got a picture of a good one. You hunt a little bit of a kind of central west Texas area. So tell us a little bit about that buck and any others you're thinking and just walk us through your whitetail season a little bit.
Charles Admire: Sure. You bet. And so I guess I'll go back to last season, the buck that's been on my target list, gosh, for three years now.
We have, we got some family land. It's on a small parcel. It is a small parcel between Oh three, fairly significantly larger places. And it's got a creep running through it. So we'll get bucks that travel through a little bit. And so there's always a chance to see something that's a little different, which is fun.
But the one that had [00:16:00] been consistent on our place, at least during deer season the past few years I had nicknamed highbrow and I saw him daylighted once, but he got to the feeder before I did. And so I actually backed out and then tried to go kill him the next day. And that was gosh, it was like November 4th or something like that.
So in the middle of the rut. And he had as much a chance of being on our place as any one of the kind of the three places that are in in pretty close proximity there. I'd had history with him, I think, and this is what I'm getting into for what's coming up, but I think that I had first seen him as a three year old.
And so when I was last year, when I saw him, he must have been, let's see, that would have made him like. Five, I think, because I'd had three years of pictures with him. But but the deal is if you look at him and his horns grew almost the exact same every year, but if you looked at him on those pictures and you might've been able to tell, or someone who's very [00:17:00] savvy on aging deer, like they're just hard to age.
They're not necessarily big bodied and until it gets to season their necks all look about An Oklahoma dough neck or something like that, they're not real thick those secondary sex characteristics aren't necessarily super prominent. So that being said this year, what I've seen is really a curve ball.
We've been super dry, but. We have a spring fed tank. And so I think as a Oh, a side effect of that is that we're seeing a lot of consistency with half a dozen bucks and what's hard about it is it's hard aging them. Some of them, their bodies are actually bigger. I think there's probably three that are older, maybe in the three to four range.
I shouldn't say older, but older than the other ones, three to four range. [00:18:00] Two of them are definitely, I'm guessing, outside of those strong secondary sex characteristics, probably the two oldest, but it's just hard for me to get like a good judge on them. One of them I'm calling a Pisa cause one of his sides is like an inch taller than the other side.
So it's funny. He's leaning like his rack is just leaning. So he's coming around. He's a good deer. He's I think he's nine, but it's, I've got one of the. The earlier cell cam model. So it doesn't have the most clear pictures, but he's been around gosh, late August to the first week in September.
He was there every day. I've seen him a little bit more sparsely since, but but he's around. And then the one that, that I sent you a picture of, or maybe posted, I can't remember which one he he's an eight point and he's one of the other or the other one that, that seems older, although again, secondary sex characteristics aren't super strong.
How many times can I say that? Sorry, I'm coming off of for everyone listening out there. I had an ear surgery procedure. Whatever [00:19:00] we're going to call it earlier today. And I'm coming down off meds a little bit. So bear with me, folks.
John Hudspeth: You're doing good. Doing good. Doing good.
Charles Admire: Yeah. So yeah, so that's what I'm seeing.
Those are the two that I'm looking at and right now just planning around since we got a little one in my wife's pregnant, planning around that. I think I'm going to go in maybe once in October, hit November hard. And then for whatever reason, we start seeing more about 10 days before Christmas.
So like December 10th through 15th is usually a pretty good spot for us. So those are the timelines that I'm trying to get down there and be pretty intentional about getting after some white tail.
John Hudspeth: Yeah, that's interesting, that timeline you mentioned in December, I feel like that's always my slowest time.
Bucks are usually kinda getting done with rut, they're worn down, they're trying to recover, and I feel like they just need a break, like they need some rest, and I'm wondering if maybe they're getting a bunch of pressure on the [00:20:00] neighbors or something like that, so maybe they think of y'all's place as the safe little hidey hole they can go hold up?
I don't know, that's interesting.
Charles Admire: You might be right. It's funny. The two of the last three seasons, I've killed bucks that week on our place after letting it rest, the tail end of November. So that honestly might be what it is. People are hitting November so hard. There's not a bunch of bow hunters around us.
And so that rifle pressure probably just pushes them to our place. You're probably right about that.
John Hudspeth: I I need to, oh I think I need to preface that. I think I might be eating a little crow myself this year at the beginning of the season, cause anybody who's listened to this show I'm almost a little down on opening day.
I think I even did a big spiel about it last week. I just feel like for most people, they're all jacked up. They're excited. They just want to get out there and hunt, typically opening day, it's hot. The conditions are usually bad. And so I feel like most people end up hurting themselves [00:21:00] opening day.
And I actually fell victim to it last year, even after I had preached against it, because I was out there, I think I had one buck that was coming in, right after shooting light, like two days before or something, I was like, ah, I'm just going to go for it. And I had my new box blinds. So I was like, oh, the wind, like I can control the wind a little bit more.
And of course I get in that thing and, I looked like a little brownie in an easy bake oven just. Cooking so hot. And so of course I have all the windows open and everything trying to not, not sweat to death and, right at last slide, I actually had deer coming from two different directions.
And of course the ones who were, a little bit more downwind smelt me. They blew and ran off to the South. The deer come from the other way. They saw that they blew and ran off to the North. And I just completely blew the spot up just like I had warned others not to do. But this year, my, my number one buck that I've, or number one target buck, I should say I named him Rock [00:22:00] because I set one of my cameras on a food plot this summer to video, and I don't know how many videos I got of this deer that I thought were a picture.
Because he's just standing there super still and Rock rolled off the tongue a little smoother than like statue or something like that. So I named him Rock. And but he's been coming in fairly consistently during shooting hours in the evenings. And so I know we're still, I don't know, eight or nine days away as I'm recording this.
But if he stays on that pattern I might have to slip in there and try to get him opening day. I don't know.
Charles Admire: Heck yeah, man. So you got Rock coming in. You got, I, you posted several times about 2%. You got any other bucks that you're eyeing or those the two
John Hudspeth: there? Man, I have I have one who I'm going to try really hard not to shoot.
I think he's actually bigger than Rock, but he, I'm pretty sure he's a four year old. And so I think if he had one more year, I think he could be really special. He's got a big split G2 on one side, I call him Slingshot.[00:23:00] 2%, 2 percent has been pretty consistent actually, again at night. Funny story about him, so I was up there this last weekend, and my plan was to plant my food plots, and my brother, who you know very well, I forgot to mention that he was going to be cutting hay and so he was using all the tractors and stuff.
So I wasn't able to plant my food plots but I, got all my feeders filled and some other little knick knacky stuff and when I got done setting everything up, I had one extra cell cam and I was thinking to myself, like, how can I use this camera, to benefit me, to really use it, not just stick it somewhere.
And I was like, you know what, I'm going to figure out where this dadgum 2 percent buck is coming from. I know he's coming off the neighbors. But I just felt if I could maybe figure out where, cause I have pictures of him on our property in another spot, but, it's like an L, and the neighbors is in the middle of the L, so I know he comes through there, and I went off the feeder about 75 yards to where this fence was, and I just set the camera up on the [00:24:00] fence, and I faced it, and Out into the pasture, and I was like, you know what hey, I'll either get him on this, or I won't, and maybe that'll give me like some idea of where I, which direction he's coming from.
So I set that camera up on Sunday. Sunday night, it worked like a charm. I got a picture of him, he was coming from behind the camera, I was like, alright, step one complete. Yeah, I'm gonna leave this camera there. Next time I'm up there, I'll move it and stuff. I kid you not, that was Sunday night. I got that picture of him.
Monday, my camera starts going nuts. I was like, what the heck? And my brother turned cows in that pasture. And I have not got another picture of him on that camera or at the feeder. Because the feeder's out in that pasture. And so yeah, 2 percent is a little MIA at the moment. I know once the cows go away, he'll probably come back.
There's another buck. Actually, I think you might have seen that. I put him on Instagram a few, I don't know, about a week ago or something. I was asking for name suggestions, and I'm pretty sure this buck is super old. I don't know. He's confusing me, honestly. Really tall G2s, but just pencil [00:25:00] thin like zero mass at all.
And I do think this year, like our mass across the board suffered this year, I'm guessing because of the drought. We have, we actually had really good length. Quick funny story about that Buck. So I put that up on Instagram and did a poll or whatever, like asking for name suggestions. And I almost did it like as a joke to myself because I knew what the replies were going to be.
I think I got eight Mr. Krabs. I think I got six crab claw. I got one Bartholomew, which I actually really thought was funny. I don't have a name for him. I was trying to think of something other than crab claw, just because I feel like that's a common name, but I think that buck would be a shooter.
He's a decent antlered buck, but to me, the first pictures I got him he just looks old ancient old. Yeah, And so that deer stone and 2%, those are definitely the top three. The reason 2 percent is not my number one is because just like in the past, I just don't know if he's killable.
I just don't know if I have an opportunity [00:26:00] to legitimately hunt him when he's on our property in daylight. I'm going to be trying, I have some ideas. I think I might have a chance during muzzleloader season. During the rut, a lot of my rut hunting this year is going to be in Iowa because I drew that tag.
So I want to, spend a lot of time up there. So I'm thinking if I do kill that buck, it'll probably be either muzzleloader season or as usual, late season. The few close encounters I've had or where he's thought about daylighting have been late season. And so that's, if I were to call my shot, it'd be one of those two times.
Charles Admire: Gotcha. That's cool. Hey, there's one thing I totally forgot to tell you that I don't know why it just hit me. I got a deer that's piebald.
John Hudspeth: Oh, that's cool.
Charles Admire: Yeah he's young, but it'd be really hard for me to pass if he came out like his neck. His neck looks like a paint horse, it's just on one side and it comes down on the front and he's mainframe eight, but [00:27:00] he's probably three, and he's not really to his potential yet, but he is freaking cool looking like that Cape.
It'd be pretty fun to have that Cape, but yeah. I don't know. We'll see. We will see. Probably cooler heads will prevail in the situation because sometimes they just look bigger on camera anyway, but yeah, I'll have to send you a picture. He's pretty cool looking.
John Hudspeth: I feel like that's one of those that you really need to decide before he comes out.
Oh, I know. I wouldn't blame you if you did by any means. But yeah that's one thing that I found with myself. If I have one of those tweener bucks maybe not. If they come out in front of me and they're in bow range, that maybe goes right out the window a lot of times.
I
Charles Admire: know. I'm the same way. I'm sending, I'm gonna text it to you actually while we're talking so you can look at it and be tell me your thoughts. Yeah, maybe not be amazed, but at least tell me your thoughts. He's cool looking. Yeah.
John Hudspeth: Anyway, go ahead. I was gonna say, I will, just for listeners and stuff for me personally my hit list is always flexible [00:28:00] too because it's still it's not even October yet bucks are still shifting their patterns you never know what's gonna show up.
And that's part of the reason I almost never do the whole one buck thing, where, I know so many people maybe they get to a spot in their hunting career, and they just like the challenge or whatever, and they're like, okay this buck, no matter what, I'm killing this buck. Man, my li I'm always fluctuating.
If a good random buck shows up, to me there is no point to not go hunt that deer and try to kill it. I named those three, but I had a really nice eight point last year that showed up a little bit. I passed him during rifle season. He, there's a good chance he'll be around at some point and I feel every year we get one or two just kind of random bucks that show up and so yeah I'm not let's just say my list isn't finalized.
Charles Admire: Yeah, same way. We'll probably see about half these deer during the season. It's fun to think about now. Yeah, for
John Hudspeth: sure. For sure. Man, like I said we mentioned several different topics I want to hit. I want to hear about this mule deer hunt. [00:29:00]
Charles Admire: Yeah so one of the Marines that worked for me avid hunter himself, I've been putting in for a few years in New Mexico just because I'm not as regimented as you are to build a spreadsheet and do preference points and everything else, and New Mexico doesn't do that, but I've been putting in for several years for for antelope, for elk, and for for mule deer.
And I'd always pick this Marine's brain because he's from out there. They got a ranch that's been in their family for just generation upon generation. And so he's avid hunter. He now is a public land firefighter good dude. And we've kept in touch. And so he'll tell me how, this is one that.
You might have better odds getting in or or this is where big animals are whatnot, and I've been doing it with my bow. I hadn't been able to draw with my bow. And so I just got an idea. Let's see if it changed my luck to do it with with a muzzleloading tackle. I don't have a muzzle loader.
And honestly the only thing I know about muzzle loading is what I got taught in the schoolhouse about [00:30:00] loading cannons. I was like it can't be that, that hard. And, I've reached out to you for some of your advice and whatnot. And so that being said I drew for the unit that actually their family ranches in.
So I'll be hunting just north of the border between Texas. And in New Mexico some of it's BLM land, some of it's private land, but he let me know that they're not necessarily going to be, open young or anything like that, his dad's out there and he'll keep an eye out for good looking deer.
So he sent one over and he hasn't said whether it's on the place or not, man, I was drew one. It was a typical, four by four. Actually, it might have just little nubs for brow tines too. Sometimes those mule deer don't have much of brow tines. It has, I think just little nubs for brow tines and it's more in the desert, so it might not be on their place, but dude, this thing, it's, do you still measure them like G1, G2 and everything else?
Like whitetail, do you know?
John Hudspeth: I'm pretty sure. So [00:31:00] when I lived in Idaho. There's a lot of people, most people either hundred one or the other, even though you could hunt both. But all anybody cared about up there was the inside spread. Like you never heard a score. Sometimes they'd be like, yeah, four by four or five by five or whatever.
But almost always it was like, yeah, shot a 32 inch. Mule deer. I shot a 36 inch mule deer. And it was all, they were always talking about the inside spread. That was their big number.
Charles Admire: Okay. So he has it all. That's what I was fixing to get to next. His spread, he's outside those big old wide ears at each branch he looks like he's at least even on the ones that are far out front, I'm gonna pull up a picture of him right now, where we're talking about him, but even the ones on the front, he's they look like those are at least nine inches a piece and he is just Huge anyway, not sure if he's on their place or not. But but it'll be fun either way So yeah, that's it's the I think it's the second rifle season or second muzzleloader season. Excuse me For New Mexico. And this is the [00:32:00] story I alluded to earlier.
So not too long ago, I went out to side in this rifle. And and so I took, the recommended projectiles the CVA ELR, I got a break over Acura that I found on sale. And so I was doing all the things. I cleaned it before, I cleaned it after three shots each time. And I mentally told myself that hey, it's going to kick a little bit.
But I was not prepared. This thing bounced me and I was laying in the prone and I had it on the bipod and even I took a video, I think of maybe the third shot and it is just barking. All I had in me and I'm 61220. And I can stand the, a lot of kick or whatever.
Yeah. And it was just bouncing me. So I was like I'm going to cut it off at eight shots today. So I didn't think anything else of it. I was cleaning it. And then like in the back part of my mind, I was like, do [00:33:00] you think there's a max powder charge that's allowed to go in this weapon?
And so I had weighed out, I'm, I know that I need to weigh out to get extremely precise and trying to get. As precise as possible, down range. And so I'm doing everything the same, breathing, the same trigger control, all the things including like the exact weight of the grains.
The way CDA does it is they do it by like volume and then by weight, like they have a limit. I had messed it up. I thought that their recommendation for weight was volume. Oh, and I don't know if you know this, but It will always read higher volume wise than it will weight wise.
So for example, their recommendations don't go above 120 grains by volume of Blackhorn 209. Or by weight of 84. 5 grains or something like that, right? Guess what I was loading into that, Joker? [00:34:00]
John Hudspeth: I'm guessing like 120... Grams or whatever the weight Yeah.
Charles Admire: By volume or excuse me, by weight.
Yeah. And so it was like, it was scaring the hell outta like one 60 by volume, Uhhuh . That's why I was saying like it, it was grace that that I didn't get hurt or anything, but yeah. After I saw that and read that I went through and looked at everything and had a gunsmith look at it.
And he just laughed and was like, yeah, don't do that ever again. But the weapon looks fine, so you should be good with it. So anyway there's me being a little bit of a dummy, but getting to see. Getting saved from a bad situation. So be sure you check For all the listeners out there that are not into black powder yet.
Make sure that you check what your weapon could actually handle.
John Hudspeth: Yep. Yeah so gosh, this will I think this upcoming season will be like my fourth year doing muzzle loader and so i'm still learning and like I said earlier. I have a love hate relationship with it You know the first year I did it I had an old used [00:35:00] gun and it actually cost me two nice bucks in the, over the course of four days.
And but now I, I got rid of that thing, have a much nicer gun, but I remember this new, it's also a CVA. And I remember the first time I shot it, I was prepared. Like you just said, like I knew it was going to kick more, but it's it's a different kind of kick, like a rifle is real, quick punch, that type of thing. I feel like a muzzleloader is almost more of a slow push. And so it just, I feel like it digs in more and pushes more. And I got lucky. I almost scoped myself that very first time because I like, I, I was just all up on the gun, like I would be with a rifle and it actually hit me.
It is. Luckily, it didn't cut but, now, so I can't remember if I actually moved the scope or if I'm just a little bit more careful about not sticking my face up there but it is different, and that's why I tell people all the time, no matter where, no matter if you're using a bow, muzzleloader, rifle be sure to practice, don't just take something off the shelf and go out there and try to kill something with it You need to be [00:36:00] need to be from, honestly, you need to make some mistakes like you were talking about because it's much my
Charles Admire: mistake.
But yeah,
John Hudspeth: yeah, but it's much, much better to figure that out now. And I don't want to shame anybody who might be listening to this, but I will say I was in a, in an archery store. I don't know, probably three weeks ago or something, like right at the end of August, and there were two different guys in there who were not together, like two separate guys, buying their very first bow to go on their first archery elk hunt.
And these guys are leaving in five to seven days. And they've they don't own a bow, they haven't been practicing, and I I just wanted to go up to them and be like, dude, what are you doing? Maybe they don't know better, maybe they, and that's probably part of the problem, a lot of people probably think it's just like a rifle, you go, you sight it in, and you're good but, yeah we owe it to the critters that we're hunting to be proficient with the equipment we're using and not just winging it.
One hundred
Charles Admire: percent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they're gonna learn so we're gonna [00:37:00] learn something. Yeah. But yeah No, I agree with you. So the funny thing you're talking about that kid. I do think it's different a little bit I can't put my finger on exactly but when I go back out to Reside in if you will with the right
John Hudspeth: With the right powder charge
Charles Admire: I'll give you a better report on what I think about the actual recoil because I guarantee what I was feeling was Exaggerated quite a bit. The other deal too is I did a lot of research a bunch of guys put on brakes so I Found a break that was on sale by arrowhead rifle works and They might have just been carrying it for someone else.
Anyway, it a brake on it. So that'll help a little bit with that kick there. So anyway I thought you'd find that funny, but yeah, that's where I'm taking up into the mountains and,
John Hudspeth: Got some good intel. That hunt's open sites, right? No scope?
Charles Admire: Correct, yeah. New Mexico just changed that. There are some western states, [00:38:00] and Colorado might be one of these, that you have to have you can't even have a peep in the back.
Oh, wow. Yeah. I can't remember. Don't quote me on Colorado, but check whatever state you're going to, obviously. But as I was reading the regs, they just have to, it can't be a magnified scope or like an electronic scope. I don't remember exactly how the regs say it for New Mexico, but basically what I've done, I've got, I have an aperture in the back a hole to look through in the back.
And then the front, I found a company that does like a. A little globe with an insert that has a if you sit it in at a hundred, it also has a graduated is that the right way to say it? Sure. No, it's not. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. A little tick mark below it, it's called a stadia line, is the word I was looking for.
That's what we call 'em the Marine Corps for our BDCs. But the next stadium line is for 200 yards. And then I wanna say the top of the post that gets a little bit thickers. Either two 50 or two 75. So even [00:39:00] though it's not magnified, once I get that first inside and cited in I'm going to take just a shot at the recommended distances for those stadium lines, just so I have an idea of where it would hit in case something is farther off.
So it's a pretty cool little site. Yeah. I think Williams is the one that makes it if anyone cares, but a pretty cool little deal. Very cool.
John Hudspeth: Very cool. Yeah, man, I'm excited for you. I I've been, just recently, I feel like all the effort that I, in the past, had put towards elk, all that has shifted to mule deer, because I just like, screw elk at this point.
I hate them. They hate me. You put in the hours. I got my truck stolen. I've had so many close calls. Anyway. I set it off a week last year. Yeah, it's I haven't I haven't talked about it much on the podcast yet, but I'm thinking next year I'm gonna put I'm gonna try to do some stuff for some mule deer next year, oh, yeah. I'm excited for
Charles Admire: it. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
John Hudspeth: Cool man, time is [00:40:00] flying right now and I definitely want to talk about some duck stuff. And you mentioned you had a crane hunt. I tell you about tell us about the crane hunt real quick. Then we'll talk ducks. All right. I don't
Charles Admire: know as deep as it is.
I just know that I got a spot on a crane hunt outside of Lubbock with the buddy that I made at church. We're both outdoorsmen and he asked what I knew about it and I said, nothing, but I'd like to get on the hunt. He said, perfect. We got a few openings for one that we're doing in January. So yeah, I'm just stoked.
I've heard nothing but good things about the meat and everything else. And it's something to check off the list because, just such cool animals. Not something that we see much around where we're at. So yeah, I'm just excited about it.
John Hudspeth: Yeah one thing I just learned this actually yesterday talking to a random guy.
He mentioned, crow hunt or not Sorry, not crow sand hill crane. In the limit only two or four per person.
Charles Admire: I think it depends on where you're at I mean you might be right. I thought I remember remembered reading somewhere three. So yeah somewhere between two and
John Hudspeth: four. Yeah that I don't know [00:41:00] why but that just shocks me.
It's just out at Randy's place where we hunt out there it's close to a lake, and I'm not exaggerating, we will have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, fly over every day, and so the, yeah, and the fact that you can only kill two or three a day, I don't know why, that just Seems odd to me.
Like I, I would think it'd be almost a free for all like a, or like a snow goose type thing where, limits like 20 or something, but I don't know. It's funny. I
Charles Admire: got a cousin who's a diehard water fowler in Missouri and they're not allowed to shoot them in Missouri. Some states, they don't even have an open season.
So yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the rationale is there. Don't want to know much about it. I just know that those geese that we shot at your place last year, pastrami with them and brother, that's like the best lunch meat I've ever had in my life. And the recipe said that it could also be substituted with the, with sand hill cranes and so any geese or cranes or anything else that I get [00:42:00] this year is going straight to deli meat because it's better than any other.
Recipe that I've tried for geese. So there you have it.
John Hudspeth: Interesting. I think I still have one or two breast in there. Might have to try that. What was I about to say? Goose, crane. Oh, yeah, just everybody, you can't mention the word Sandhill crane without somebody somewhere being like, Rabbi of the sky, Rabbi.
Yeah, I've man, I've always wanted to try it. Yeah, I think it'd be great. And I'm curious just what it tastes like. Oh, me too. I like, is it more beefy? Is that why they call it that? Or is it just good? And so that's why they call it that. I don't know.
Charles Admire: I don't know, hopefully I'll be able to tell you come February.
Yeah. Yeah.
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com or one of their retail locations in Eastern Oklahoma. Let Bravado Wireless connect you to your family, friends, and business partners all over the world. Bravado Wireless, the power of connection. Cool man, so you got that. And I want to talk duck hunting because just like I was talking about how the mule deer have taken over.
Something about the last month maybe it's just cause I was looking forward to, to dove season and everything, but a big part of it too, also is just you and I did a decent amount of duck hunting last year. I did more last year than I had in the past. And two years ago, honestly, it podcast that made me get back into it.
Cause when I was in high school, I was duck hunting like two or three days a week. And but then just deer hunting became such a big thing. And when I was working and everything, like I had so much, [00:44:00] such so much more limited time to hunt in general, that if I had the ability to hunt, I wanted to be deer hunting.
But like I said, two years ago, I got a little bit of, like I said, I was more just going for content for the podcast, but it lit the spark a little bit. And then last year you and I had that one hunt on that foggy day and we got a couple geese and a limited ducks and I mean that, that lit the fire hardcore.
And then before we went on our next hunt. You had gotten that a frame blind and my brother came with us and he brought his kids So we had the kids tucked down around our feet and Joe my niece Emory with her like golden blonde hair we were trying to put hats and stuff on her but Yeah, that was my first time hunting out of a frame because the hunt before we used layouts which I had done before.
We, me and you got out there like an hour early and sat there pulling, ditch grass. And we got that thing set up and all grassed in and came out and stuff. And we had, we didn't have as many birds that time, but I [00:45:00] think we, we shot pretty well, we killed a decent amount. But man, yeah, like that got me fired up, and I don't know why, but for some reason, hunting out of that blind got me even more fired up. I think because it was just more comfortable. So I don't know how many times I duck hunted last year. I did a couple by myself, did a couple with friends. And and I am glad my wife doesn't listen to this podcast much because I have spent a lot of money over the past two or three weeks.
I now have my own A frame. I got one half off because it was missing a pole. And I was like, I'll figure something out. And got an A frame. Ordered some more decoys. I ordered one of those little like water shooting butts that you had. Cause I thought that was so cool. That was like the best motion thing I'd ever seen.
Oh yeah. And so yeah, man, like I'm ready this year. I'm pumped.
Charles Admire: I'm telling you, you hit the nail on the head after we got back from that one where we had that really good Mallard hunt. It got me to thinking just about my son and then we got a little girl on the way.[00:46:00] It's going to be a longer amount of time before they're able to go with me to a bow blind It'll be quicker for rifle for deer But with ducks, I can just bundle them up and I can put them into a frame like you were talking about And that was like one of the driving factors why I bought it in the first place.
The second was they were having an extreme sale. It was like a going out of business outdoor sale or something. Anyway but yeah, that, that morning was just so fun. We, it wasn't like they all dumped it at the same time and we were done in 15 minutes. It was, we had singles and doubles and triples working in, we were shooting good.
And a good, hour long hunt where it's like, Hey, sometimes we're shooting. Sometimes we're hanging out. We both got bonus birds. It was one of the best duck hunts that I've had. And gosh, in probably at least five years, it was phenomenal. Yeah. And and there was something special just that turned in my mind about, Hey, if I'm really trying to be a [00:47:00] good dad and a good hunter at the same time, if I just switch it up for a few years and maybe pour the coals more to the To the ducks than to the deer.
And it's going to be a quicker avenue to hopefully share more time with my son in the woods. So yeah, I'm agreeing with you is what
John Hudspeth: I'm saying. Yeah, I know I talked about it on the podcast. I don't think I did a whole episode on it, but yeah, just if you're a waterfowler, like the perfect conditions.
It was a little misty foggy. It was one of those things like you'd usually hear them before you saw them. We were in layout blinds on a tank dam, had them all grassed in and everything. Had a few goose decoys. And I think we shot our, I think we shot our limited ducks before we killed any geese.
And then I think I think we had our limited green heads.
Charles Admire: We didn't have our bonus ducks yet, but we had our limited green heads. Sorry. Go ahead.
John Hudspeth: Yeah. And but a bunch of geese had been swinging wide of us, but landing in like in the field, not far from us. And so we decided Hey, [00:48:00] maybe we'll get lucky.
Let's just walk out there. And then right after we started walking out there. I saw, we saw some ducks land on the pond, and I was like, dude, those are shovelers. Those weren't mallards. So we went and jumped it, cheated a little bit. Not a true duck hunt, whatever. I don't care. Shot, we shot one perfectly, so then we had our limits, and then those shots actually scared the geese up, like we thought, and they came over us, and I made the shot of my life.
And she got one of those suckers way the heck up there, and I, like, when that thing hit the ground, it was a thud. It was a thud. And and we got that, and then, I think we called we were like, hey maybe some more geese will come, and I don't think I had a call, I think you might have had a call.
And I had a half a dozen goose decoys that we had thrown up there. And and I think you called over another bunch and we both shot one out of it, maybe? Or maybe you shot one and I shot one out of the next group, because I ended up with a greater. But I don't think the gray was the first one I killed.
We may have [00:49:00] got one out of the
Charles Admire: order. I just remember that we got two at the same time and I think it was during that second flyby, just enough with those geese that were on the tank dam to look,
John Hudspeth: yeah, maybe my first one was the greater, maybe that's it, and then maybe we each got one out of the next group.
Charles Admire: Either way. It was awesome. And I want to shoot more geese. And so that's why I now have a those cutouts now I have five dozen of those cutouts. So if we get to see we're not seeing a bunch of ducks, but. Big Brother Luke is seeing seeing geese land a whole bunch with someone who's got a
John Hudspeth: few decoys.
Yep. Yeah, that was that was a lot of fun. It makes me want to go on a legit goose hunt, which, I guess you could consider ours legit. We don't have the setup. Yeah, we don't have the setup. You hear true hardcore goose hunters, they got the 24 foot enclosed trailer packed with Live mounted geese decoys and everything.
That's definitely not what we're talking about Like we just threw a couple out there just in case and you know We sound like a couple teenagers with their voice cracking [00:50:00] trying to call them in but but it worked
Charles Admire: I mean doesn't have to be professional to put birds on the ground at least in our experience but I imagine we'd have more if we had a professional out there, but
John Hudspeth: Yeah, cool man we're coming up on time here and I don't want to take anything else away from you man, did we miss anything?
Any other random thoughts you got before we get out of here? Nothing other than
Charles Admire: I am stoked for the season. Dove hunting was not good to me this year and I'm just ready to get in trees and get next to tanks and get up in the mountains and just enjoy God's creation and Hopefully harvest some animals.
So I'm stoked that it's finally this time of year.
John Hudspeth: Same here, man. Same here. I almost feel I started running trail cameras a little early this year, like June, mid June or something. And basically it started just cause I, for the first time ever, I bought some protein feeders, just trying to hold more deer on our property.
I've talked about it on here, how one of the, our neighbors sold and I think we're going to have more [00:51:00] pressure. Started. Feeding some protein just to try to hold bucks. So I was running some cameras. And so I've been getting pictures of these deer for so long that I feel like I'm almost a little immune to it.
Like I don't quite have that same excitement as when I first started getting pictures just, they're grown out now. It's not like they're changing or anything like that. But it really honestly just dawned on me a few days ago is man, like next weekend, I'm going to be hunting potentially, and so now it's okay, like I'm paying a little bit more attention to these pictures.
What time are they coming in? Where are they coming from? Like it's almost go time. So yeah,
Charles Admire: man. Hey, before, before you go check out those pictures that I sent to you, that piebald deer,
John Hudspeth: man. Yeah, that's not a bad deer.
Charles Admire: He's young. You can tell he's young, but isn't he just so unique?
Isn't that
John Hudspeth: cool? Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool.
Charles Admire: Anyway, I had to get that last point in there. All right, dude. I appreciate you having me on. It was a lot of fun to chat and get excited together about the coming season.
John Hudspeth: Absolutely, man. Yep. I [00:52:00] appreciate it, Charles. And until next time, we'll see you later.
All right. See you, buddy. That's it, folks. Hope you enjoyed Charles and I's little conversation about just how excited we are that it's time to go hunting. I hope you guys are prepared. I hope you've been practicing. I hope all that hard work comes to fruition. All I can say is stay positive, stay after it, and good things will come.
As Dan Johnson would say, if you're gonna be in a tree, wear your safety harness. As the little kid from Hardball would say, it ain't goodbye, it's see you later. And until next week, I will see y'all right back here on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast.[00:53:00]
