Show Notes
On this episode of The Nomadic Outdoorsman Dan talks with Jess Reveal about her obsession with giant mule deer.
Jess is a 29 year old female in a man's world. She started hunting with her father at a young age and became more passionate about the outdoors as time went on. Life, school and a full ride scholarship slowly got in the way until she made a big move to Utah and really started pursuing her dream. She now spends her time picking up antlers, chasing big bucks and bulls and getting her kids involved in the sport that she loves. In this episode Jess shares stories of heartbreak, success and what hunting has meant to her as she passes on the tradition to those she loves most.
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Show Transcript
Dan Mathews: [00:00:00] All right, guys, welcome to today's show. And joining me on the show today is Jess Reveal. Now she is a diehard hunter who is seriously making a name for herself in the outdoor space and she gets it done. If you go and follow along on her social platforms, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
From finding huge sheds to knocking down monster mule deer. It's pretty impressive and it gets me fired up to plan a Western archery hunt. Like I cannot wait to go out and pursue some of these animals on foot with a bow and arrow. I think that would be, that'd be like the peak of hunting for me. That'd be so sweet.
Anyways, we're in full swing here in Missouri. And by that, we're like a week in to archery season. But I'm super pumped because we have a lot of big bucks on camera this year. And I've got a couple. That I'm going after tonight that have been coming out during daylight, sometimes in the morning, [00:01:00] almost always in the evening, almost every evening, actually.
And if I play my cards right tonight, I might be able to put one of them on the ground. We'll see how that goes. I it's hard to not get pumped up and think it's going to happen every time I go out there. But. My game plan for tonight is to go out to my property, go shoot at the range that I put in, get super dialed, super confident, and then sneak into this corner stand.
Now, it's right on the edge if you're looking at like a rectangle that's long top to bottom. The top left quarter of it is woods, thick cover, lots of bedding. Obviously acorns, persimmons, walnuts. A lot of woody brows and and stuff for them to eat. I don't go in there at all. I stay out of there almost completely.
I think I go in those woods [00:02:00] maybe twice a year, but I've got a stand hung like 15 yards, probably 25 yards into the woods. On the corner where they've been coming out pretty consistently. Now, the other three quarters of that rectangle that I was mapping out is all standing beans right now. And the deer absolutely love it.
So if all goes well, I will have these two bucks or. A number of other bucks that I would gladly loose an arrow at show up on either the East or the South fence line, both of which would give me under a 35 yard shot, possibly down to 18 yards. So I think I've got a good tree picked out. I think the cover's good.
I've got to check the wind for tonight. It's windy, rainy, stormy here right now, but it might happen tonight. We'll see. Anyways, enough about that. I'm just dreaming. I'm like so pumped up. I'm sitting here in front of my [00:03:00] computer recording this intro, but I am just pumped to be out in the woods tonight.
So hopefully you guys are finding success. Hopefully you guys are patterning deer planning, upcoming trips. All of that is good stuff. But for now, let's listen to an awesome episode. That's going to get you even more pumped up.
Like he was doing things that were just bad apps. That was one of the coolest moments of my life. I was
Jess Reveal: really scared, but knowing that Dan had the gun, I did have the rifle. Like we would be okay.
Dan Mathews: All right, guys. Welcome to today's show. Now joining me on the show is another super bad Hunter. I don't know how to say it. I've, I looked at your Instagram right when you first messaged me about being on the show. And then again this morning and. Man, you go on some adventures.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, I do.
I'd have to [00:04:00] say, that's the way I live life. Going on adventures, you gotta take life like by the hand. You only get it once. Live it to the fullest and for some reason whenever I'm hunting or whenever I'm out in the mountains doing whatever I'm doing something always happens to me or I'm just one of those people that it's very entertaining to watch when I'm out in the mountains cause it's always Something going on.
So
Dan Mathews: there's no telling what's going to happen. I like the candid moments out in the mountains to like, I watch certain hunting shows and you know how they go. They only put little bits and pieces in there. And I'm like, I want to see just like a buddy hunt where they film everything. And then the kill shot, obviously you get that at the end, but to just go through and watch people give each other a hard time, or like we went on a shed hunting trip down in, it wasn't Utah, it was New Mexico this year.
And just the banter back and forth between all the guys, I'm like, I need a whole film crew to get every minute of this, because that's what people love. They [00:05:00] like to feel like they're part of the hunt. Yep.
Jess Reveal: No, I completely agree. It's I hunt a lot solo. I do a lot by myself. So like this last year that I got.
Last week or two weeks ago, one of those, it was one of those weeks back in the day. I, it's hard to get the kill shot cause I'm always on my own. And so there's times where I'll put my phone in my vinyl harness, trying to get it and it just, it gets all sorts of crazy. So it's, it would be nice to have a film crew and follow me isms.
And they can follow me around the mountain and be like, Oh, there's a Jessicaism right there. Cause I'm either falling down a mountain and stubbing my toe or I don't know, I'm doing something crazy every second. Yeah,
Dan Mathews: you just need one of those like GoPro 360 cameras, like mounted on top of your head and then they can see and hear everything.
Exactly.
Jess Reveal: And then that way too, say a big elk comes in, he's bugling at me. I can get that shot or I can at least get whatever happens in that moment, but there's been times where I'm like, man, I really wish that was on [00:06:00] film. And it just wasn't, but it's the experience that I love about it.
I didn't get on film. I can't share it on Instagram or Tik TOK, but I have it here and I have it here. And yeah, That's what matters to me.
Dan Mathews: So you're flying solo most of the time, or do you basically only do solo hunts?
Jess Reveal: No, I, it's most of the time I'm doing solo and. My husband does hunt but we have two kids, so it's hard to get us to go together and then, cause we have, we also have five dogs.
I know I'm crazy. That's awesome. Yeah. Two of them being great Danes and we, it's a full house, so it's difficult for us to get together to go. Hunting together. So he's been super supportive and my obsessiveness over this industry. So I get to do a lot of solo hunts. And then I will go hunting with friends a lot.
But most of the time it is solo. But [00:07:00] I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being there on my own. I love being just, I don't know, it's peaceful. Also, I don't have to argue with somebody where I'm going to go. I could just go over here and be like, all right that was a bad decision.
I'll go this way. Whereas, if you're hunting with three or four people, they're like, let's do this. And you have three or four other opinions that you have to take into consideration and it can get fun. That's
Dan Mathews: what you want. I deal with that all the time because like when I hunt here in Missouri, typically I'm by myself unless it's like waterfowl or frog gigging or squirrel, but if I'm deer hunting, I'm like, Hey, you find a spot over there, I'm going to hunt this stand or I'm going to hang in this tree.
It's not a big deal. Everybody does their own thing. When we go out West elk hunting. Oh man. The amount of opinions is just insane and strong ones too. Like from people who maybe have never been to that area, they're like, I want to go check that out right now. Or [00:08:00] I just want to sit here all day long.
And I'm like. No, you're hunting the West. That's not how things happen here. If you just want a bull to stumble by right now, great. I hope it happens. Doubt it will, but I'm going to go around that mountain and then that one. And then the one after that. And some people just don't want to do it. And I'm like.
Side by side keys are in it. Like I'll see you back. Yeah.
Jess Reveal: We're going to, early season elk hunting, a lot of it, like I like to sit water, especially out here in Southern Utah. It's who is hot. I'll sit water in the mornings and the afternoons, but I get really antsy. I'm like, Ooh, okay.
It's been three hours. This is great. I'm going to start hiking. I'm going to start getting as high as I can start glassing. See if. Where they're coming out of, like they're not coming into the water, obviously. So I don't, I am, I commend those people who can sit for hours and hours and hours and hours.
But for that, [00:09:00] especially during the rut out here in Utah, that's going to be, that's going to be fun for you. Good luck. I thought
Dan Mathews: I just hate hunting heat. Like I really don't like it. And I think probably because I got my start sitting in the woods in late November in Wisconsin. And it's I would sit on a bucket or a dead log, or I even built my own.
It was two by fours and a couple pieces of plywood built my own tree stand. Ratcheted it to the tree. Luckily I was like 85 pounds. Otherwise it probably would have come down. But sitting up there, it's freezing cold. And then moving down to Missouri, like our season starts in nine days. And yesterday it was like 98 degrees.
And I'm like why? This shouldn't be acceptable. You have humidity, right? Yeah. Oh, and it's so bad. You walk outside. So I'm in Southwest Missouri in Springfield. So it's not known for big deer, but I've just lucked out in finding kind of a little [00:10:00] chunk of like the country community where nobody really hunts.
And so out of 400 acres that I can hunt, I have one person that hunts on a bordering property. And so it's awesome. I see big deer all the time. In fact, I had some come into the trail camera this morning. And... It's really nice because I can manage them, even though they're going on other people's properties.
Nobody's killing them except coyotes disease or a car occasionally. . So you, how, so how did you get your start hunting? Because I remember in your bio it said you guys used to come to Missouri, right?
Jess Reveal: Yes. Yeah. So that's why I was curious about what part of Missouri you're in. So my dad grew up in Missouri.
He grew up. And the kind of like the Baldwin Springfield area too. And so we spent a lot of summers going out there. I have two other siblings, but they didn't take to his hobbies. Like I did. I kinda, we had a, he had a son, so I have an older brother and he's in musical theater and he took that [00:11:00] route and then my sister.
I call her the smart one of the family. Cause she graduated college and mathematics and statistics and she's literally the smart one of the family. And then I took my dad's role and it went the redneck way. And him and I would spend time up in the tree stand. Sorry it's he just passed.
So it's, yeah, it's tough to talk without crying. So I might cry. Good job. Yeah, he's, he was a very special person to me. But we would spend time up in the tree stand together and in his blue jeans and his bright orange jacket, he was wearing his Walmart white sneakers and he'd be drinking Bud Light and I'd be drinking hot chocolate.
And we just have the most amazing mornings, the most amazing afternoons together. And he's the one who filled that love for the outdoors for me. And I knew that's where my happy place was. And then I lived in [00:12:00] California. I grew up in California and did it. I went the route of college.
I used to run cross country, so I got a full ride scholarship for a division one college out there. Did that route, got a bachelor's in sports med and then worked at Disneyland for three years. And that, that was a lot of fun, but it wasn't my calling. I always was longing for more and I knew what it was.
I just needed to get out of where I was and get to a place where I can do what I wanted to do. And Utah was it. And so I moved to Utah and I met my husband and he introduced a bow to me. And from there it was, I was gone. I was obsessed. I haven't picked up like I'll target shoot rifles and I'll I love shooting guns, but there's something about a bow and bow hunting that I became obsessed with.
So that's primarily what I do. I'll, I just bow hunt like crazy. [00:13:00] Yeah. So it's something special that I can hold, near to me, something, a legacy that he, okay. Drop down to me and then hopefully I can keep that legacy and drop it down to my daughter and my son which They're already obsessed with deer.
So I'm on the right track on Yeah,
Dan Mathews: as a parent who hunts I'm like I just really hope that one of my kids get into it. And luckily my son, my daughter was like die hard about it at first and she's not old enough to hunt yet. But I would take them for rides on the e bike and every animal that they saw, Dad, shook that.
And they always took the T's and made them K's and they're like, shook that turkey. And I'm like it is august right now, we cannot do that, but I like the enthusiasm. We'll come back and do that later. And same thing with deer. I told my son the other day that I went out dove hunting and he's what?
He, I could just see the disappointment. Like he wanted to go so bad, but [00:14:00] now he's in school, which is new to us. Like they haven't been in school at all. So anytime I wanted to take him, I could. And he's like, when can I go hunting again? When can I go hunting again? And I'm like, yes, I hope this sticks. I hope you love it.
And. Now it's just a matter of keeping that excitement and not making it boring or like too much work or too many early mornings. So it'll be interesting juggling all of that.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. What I usually do with mine is I like to drive around a lot. My dad was a truck driver, so we spent a lot of time on the road, just driving around the States, driving Canada, doing truck driver things.
So I I find peace in driving as well. So my poor kids. They go where I go, I'm the mom and they get stuck in the car, but I think they, they love the driving. But every time we go down a dirt road or mom gets a wild hare up her butt and wants to take this crazy gnarly trail that no car should go down.
I always tell them, all right, if you guys see a [00:15:00] deer, you get a quarter. If it has antlers above its ears, I'll give you a dollar. And so they're constantly on the lookout. That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good way to get them involved. And have it fun for them. And then as they get older, Addy's already gone turkey hunting with me and she loved it.
And it made me very happy. It was, I think there's a video on my Instagram about it. It's really cute. I'm sitting there calling turkeys and she's just messing with my hat and we're just, it's, I don't know. It's a lot of fun. She's my best friend. So it's. It's good to see that love that she's having that way when she gets old enough, she can join me in being a badass.
Dan Mathews: Yeah. That's cool. I think so I think there's a lot of similarities between me and you and then like our families. So my dad was a truck driver growing up. He did that for years. All the way through when I was in college, he was still driving truck and we would do the same thing. It's if we had a trip plan somewhere, I've never been on a plane with either of my parents.
It's [00:16:00] always in the vehicle. We just drive across the country, drive to a different state, drive to family's house. And it was the same thing. We would take detours. He found out driving across Wisconsin at one point, he found this field and he's Daniel, I'm telling you, there are 300 deer in this field every time I pass it, and I'm like, okay, whatever.
You've pulled my leg with other things before. Sure enough, we do an hour detour just to go past this field, and it was probably an 80 acre field, and you couldn't see the tree line behind the deer. There were so many deer, and I'm like, I don't understand this. I've never seen this in my life.
We've hunted. We've gone and shine fields at night with spotlights just to see what was out there. And I've never seen that many deer. And now it's the same thing with me and my wife and kids. Like we'll hit the road we've put on. I bet we've put on a hundred thousand miles this year, just going different places and seeing different things.
But I'm going to take, I'm going to take that quarter and dollar trick. Cause my kids are very[00:17:00] incentivize my bunny.
As it's happening, no matter where you are. In fact, I've got trail cameras up in Wisconsin on the land that we hunt, and not only do I get pictures from those cameras sent to me, I can also track the progress of the camera, the battery life, how much memory is left on the SD card, and I can see what the weather is doing at the time that a picture is taken.
So I can't think of a better tool for scouting whether it is close to home or in a totally different state. So if you want to stay tuned into the action. Or just get into the action. Go to reveal cell cam. com or tact cam. com and use code nomadic for 10 percent off at checkout.[00:18:00]
All right. I get asked all the time. So here it is. This is a list of my go to optics for the fall. First and foremost, I've got my fury 5, 000 range finding binoculars from Vortex. These things go with me everywhere from hiking and floating trips. to fishing trips, and obviously on every one of my hunts. I love these because I can basically replace two with one.
I don't have to carry binos and a rangefinder when I've got it all built in to one awesome piece that fits right in my bino pack. Next up is my Razor HD spotting scope. Now, this goes with me on all my western hunts, and I keep it in the truck all fall if I want to glass a field or do some scouting on a current property.
You can't go wrong with any of the spotting scopes from Vortex, but the Razer HD is by far my favorite, and I'm excited to check out the new Mini Razer HD. So if you [00:19:00] want to see a list of the amazing optics that Vortex has, head over to eurooptic. com. That's E U R O P T I C dot com and enter code nomadic tenant checkout to save 10 percent off your Vortex order.
Now, let's get back to the show presented by Vortex.
Jess Reveal: Oh yeah it's a good way to get them involved for sure. Like they, I don't know when you were a kid, you got a dollar and you thought you had the most money in the world. Oh yeah. You probably can't buy a candy bar with a dollar now, so you're going to have to work your way up there kids, but, it's a good way to get them involved and then they start to know what to look for. And in fact, the last year I just shot, Addie spotted that deer. So I named it Addie, but yeah, she spotted the deer and I, I had my hopes out for a bigger one that I've been keeping an eye on, but I don't know that moment was [00:20:00] really special.
She spotted him and I'm like, okay, you know what I'm going to do it. I'm taking, I'm going to take that shot. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty special.
Dan Mathews: Are you playing the point game out there or are you doing over the counter every year?
Jess Reveal: So my deer tag was a point. So it was a draw. And then I have a over the counter elk, which is fantastic.
It's a hard hunt. It's very difficult. to even get into elk on any bull units out here in Utah. But I don't back down from a challenge. So I keep going out there and I keep working my butt off trying to get into elk. Last week, last weekend I got into some elk, but it just wasn't I was wanting, he was still very young.
Season's coming to an end, but we also have extended archery. So I have that to go back to your last question. I have a general season deer tag and over the counter elk tag. And then I drew an [00:21:00] elk tag in Colorado that I'll be going to do next week. And then I'm going to New Hampshire for bear, and then I'll be going to Missouri for a white tail deer.
Dan Mathews: Nice. When when do you come to Missouri?
Jess Reveal: November, the early November. So my dad's birthday is November 4th, and I'm going to do like a memorial hunt for him. We were supposed to go hunting last year and he couldn't quite make it out, but bless his freaking heart. He stage four cancer. He's out there on his tractor and he can't, it was bow season early November.
And he. Can't, he's never shot a bow. So he went out and he bought a crossbow cause he knew that I love bow hunting. And so he want, we were going to hunt together. We're going to shoot, go bow hunting. And so he's out there on his tractor stage four cancer, plowing land, a little walkway so that he can walk down.
And then he built himself and I blind with his tractor. And I'm going to go sit in that blind that he built [00:22:00] for us. And that's awesome. I'm going to wear his jacket. And he's going to be right there with me and we're going to get either, I don't know, just being out there with him. It's going to be special.
So that's cool. Yeah. It would be early November. I'll be out there and it'll be in your Rolla area.
Dan Mathews: Oh, nice. Yeah. We're not that far. We're not far from Rolla. We've got man early, like mid to late September normally isn't a time that you're going to shoot a big buck here. But the last couple of years I've had awesome success, like late September deer have just been showing up in the middle of the day for whatever reason.
And but it's tough because now that I like to travel and experience new places, I keep booking hunts and then I'm like, okay, that's four more days off my archery season in Missouri. Okay. That's. And so I'm like, I ha I really want to shoot a buck. Early or mid to late September this year, because basically all of [00:23:00] October I'm gone.
And then I've got a buddy coming in from Florida to hunt my property in early November. And I'm like, my focus is going to be getting him a deer. It's a juggling act for sure, but
Jess Reveal: go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead.
Dan Mathews: Sorry. Oh, we I was going to be going out to Utah. So I took my good friend Linnea. She's never hunted before and she got a bow and she's I'm into hunting.
Like I'm going to go out and hunt mule deer with my bow. And I'm like, sweet. So she drew the San Rafael unit in Utah and we went out there. Side note, maybe we'll chat after this because we found some stud muleys and first time for me ever archery hunting mule deer. I didn't even have a tag, but I was just like chaperoning her or teaching her.
And we got into six bedded mule deer bucks in an hour and a half. And I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. [00:24:00] And we never, we weren't able to make it happen. We were like this close, she crawled into 15 yards on one, drew back, stood up, and it, we, all we could see were the ear, ears and the antlers, and there was a big downed tree in front of it.
And she's crawling, I'm videoing, she looks back, I'm like, draw back, stand up, she does. And all she could see was like the neck and up, how mule deer are a lot of times they'll bound away, stop and turn. And so I told her that before I'm like, if it gets up and runs, just stay drawn back, wait for it to stop.
And this thing, I've never seen a deer go from bedded to a dead sprint. Like this and it was gone. Never saw the buck again, but it was definitely the hunt of a lifetime. I said, don't get used to this. If you have that many encounters with big bucks I'm going to hunt with you forever because nobody has that kind of luck.
Jess Reveal: Just keep her as your good luck charm. Take her around everywhere. Next time I'm going to take her so we can go out hunting and see if I can get into some big bulls just around.[00:25:00]
Dan Mathews: We had, so in that unit, we didn't have elk tags at all. And a bunch of people were hunting there. We saw him running around on four wheelers and side by sides, nobody hunted the valley that we were in at all.
It was like surrounded by dirt roads, but like the animals just felt safe there. We had a bull. I still haven't come up with a name for him, but I thought it was a bear at first we were sitting on this rock ledge and I just hear and I'm like, there's a bear, like it's going to come out of these woods.
And after about five times of just making that sound, I heard the same sound followed by and I'm like, so pumped. I'm like, why don't we have an elk tag? This sucks. And then he came in, he was within a hundred yards of our tent that night. And another bull sounded like a younger but mature bull just screaming within a hundred yards of us.
And so we're like, we've just got a tarp. We're laying it on our sleeping bags and we're looking at each other they might run right over us. Like they're getting closer and [00:26:00] closer. And we ended up seeing one during daylight at the end of season. And it was a good six by six with like probably 35 cows.
But yeah, Utah is insane.
Jess Reveal: It is leave it to Utah to get you into some big mealies. I. There's something about I love elk hunting's amazing, they're amazing animals, you can call them in There's something about mule deer that I, ugh, I get the itch I love those animals so much, even when I see a doe, I start freaking out it's a deer, it's a mule deer, it, there's something about, exactly, it's a quarter, yeah, where's my quarter?
I should have, I should be a millionaire with all the does I've, Scene, but yeah, leave it to you, Tommy. Man. It's Utah's fun to hunt in. And like you said, if heat is a big one, especially if you're doing bow hunting out in the early seasons, 'cause I don't know Missouri. Season for bow is what?
It starts early
Dan Mathews: November. September 15th. So it starts September 15th. Oh, it's close. [00:27:00] Yeah, it's really close. So yeah, it goes from September 15th until the day before rifle season, which the dates for that change every year. And then late season picks up after rifle and goes into November or into January.
Okay.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, you guys have a long season. Oh, yeah. So do we. I guess it's similar, but our, our bow season starts. Mid August and it is you're hunting elk in a hundred degree heat, depending on where you go. You can go up into the mountains and hunt elk up there, but a lot of people do that and They'll overlook the desert elk because there's elk in that hundred degree heat.
There's gonna be elk in those deserts where you think there's no water. Those elk know where there's water. Yeah, and that's why you said water early season because other than that, they're going to go to water. They're going to bed down. It's way too hot. They'll come back to water. It's a tough hunt.
It takes a lot of [00:28:00] mental strength to keep going. You're wearing camo. It's not like you're wearing shorts hiking through the mountains. You got to wear pants. And that's why it's so important to get pants, that are vented and that you feel comfortable in because you're going to get uncomfortable and you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable when you're hunting that heat like that.
I, that's, I love it. I'm pretty good with the heat. I prefer cold and I get cold very easily, but it's very difficult to hunt in the cold. For me, I'd prefer hunting in the heat, even though I dehydrate myself every single time. But it's fun. I should drink more water. I suck at
Dan Mathews: drinking water. The things we do to chase animals, put our bodies through the ringer every day.
So when you're hunting over these water holes do you hunt like the morning over water and then do you go look for them bedded or how do you play that game?
Jess Reveal: Yeah. So early season, I'll sit water in the mornings. If they aren't coming in and I'm not seeing [00:29:00] anything, like I said, I'll get antsy and so I'll start hiking and I'll go up to see in glass, see if I can find any movement, see if I can find embedded down.
If I do find embedded down, I'll keep an eye on them and discuss my next option. Do I? Try to make a stock on embedded down, which usually I'll probably end up doing cause I get impatient or I'll just keep an eye on them. And or I won't find anything and I'll go sit water again that afternoon and hope that something comes in.
And if not, then I'll end up glassing the next morning. And that's what I did this year. It was. Okay, so story time.
Dan Mathews: Yeah, walk me through the hunt.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, we're like getting ready. Okay, story time. Last year, I was hunting a waterhole. And I had a bull come in. And I won't sit, I'll sometimes sit water, right on the water.
But I also like to cut their path. So figure out their [00:30:00] pattern and where they're going to the water. And cut them off before they get to the water. And so that's what I did last year. And I got a shot on a really beautiful bowl. Sadly I hiked. Over 15 miles and tracked him for weeks and I just could not find him.
So that was really upsetting. But that's bow hunting and we can get into that. But the whole time at this different waterhole, there were bulls coming into that water every morning, every night. Just coming in and I didn't realize that until it was the end of the season. And I'm just like, I just chose the wrong waterhole.
So it, it's all about patterning them and figuring out, okay, they're coming to this waterhole. I need to go over there. It's Elk are very difficult for me anyway, because I love mule deer hunting, but early mornings. Sitting in a water hole is what I'll do for the early season and then as the season starts going on[00:31:00] I'm out glassing.
I'm out hiking. So now I'm just hiking my butt off trying to I'll go from Ridge to Ridge I'm one of those like I'll go up on a Ridge. I'm like, oh there's nothing here. Let's just go one more Ridge I'll hit that Ridge. There's nothing here. Okay, wait Let's go one more Ridge over here and we'll see how that one goes and I'll just we'll end up going Ridge to Ridge and oh, shoot.
We've done 20 miles. My bad.
Dan Mathews: You need to bring like an IV bag just to keep yourself hydrated. My buddy, Brad, if he drinks too much. So he was an EMT. Now he's a flight medic. And if he is like super hung over the next morning, you can guarantee he's laying on his couch and he's given himself an Ivy to rehydrate.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, that's the thing. I even when I did the cross country thing back in the day, I always had a problem with drinking water. And I think, I don't know, I don't like water. It's doesn't taste. Great. It's water. It's just I don't know. It's it tastes great when I'm [00:32:00] thirsty, but I won't go out and drink it and that's my biggest problem and I'll always end up in the hospital getting IVs.
It's you think a person would learn.
Dan Mathews: Do you like liquid IV or propel or something? Then it has some flavor.
Jess Reveal: Liquid IV is good. Yeah, I like liquid IV, but I also get so caught up in the moment I forget to drink. Yeah, I don't know if you do that,
Dan Mathews: but oh, all the time. Yeah, on that Utah hunt, I don't know how much weight I lost, but it was like every day it'd be like, wake up, maybe have a cliff bar or something.
And then it's Hey, look, there's mule deer a mile away. Let's go after them by the time we're done. I'm like, okay, we haven't eaten. It's four in the afternoon. We haven't drank very much or like I'll bring a bottle. I'll be like, Oh, we'll just do like a morning hunt. And then I plow through that water and then don't have any this last year, we dug a hole in the side of the mountain where this water was trickling down.
And we just filled my jet boil with it and boiled it and [00:33:00] then just drank like the nastiest sludge water you've ever seen right off the mountain because we didn't have any. And both of us were like, we are so far from camp. We're so far from any water filtration. We just have to drink something. But both of us, it takes it out of you when you don't drink it, but also.
In the moment, if you're seeing animals, there's no time to stop. You
Jess Reveal: just, you end up forgetting. Have you ever heard of the grill? It's so it's a water filtration system and in a bottle. And so I carry those with me wherever I go when I'm backpacking. I've even done it with elk wallows. It doesn't taste the best, but it, they, so it's, how do I explain it?
You fill up the cup and then you press down and it filters that water and you can drink it within. Seconds. Dang. And it's just a water bottle that you carry with you. I guess you can have the LifeStraw and stuff, but this, it filters the water and you can see how clean it is and it tastes really good.
And so I bring that with me just in case I [00:34:00] run out of water or I don't bring any water with me. I'll bring a monster though. I love bubbles.
Dan Mathews: Same. Yeah. I will make sure to drink a couple monsters throughout the day, but water, maybe not.
Jess Reveal: Exactly. The bubbles just taste, there's something about bubbles that are so satisfying.
Yeah. And the first thing I want to do is down bubbles and not water. So my poor little heart, it's, she's probably beaten pretty fast nowadays, but whatever. It tastes good and you only live once.
Dan Mathews: Yep. What's your monster of choice? Purple.
Jess Reveal: Zero sugar, the purple.
Dan Mathews: Okay, I do the mango loco. I just had that one last
Jess Reveal: night, first time.
So good. It's good, but the purple one.
Dan Mathews: I haven't tried the purple, I'll have to try that one. You have to try the
Jess Reveal: purple one, it is so good.
Dan Mathews: We lost video. There we go. There you are. Yeah, monsters, I always get like the big 16 pack at Walmart and bring them out and then [00:35:00] typically halfway through my Elkan, I have to go and get more because I'm downing a couple of them a day and yeah, it's probably not good going from 700 feet of elevation to 8, 000 drinking more monster than water it if I have a heart attack on the mountain, at least I go out in a great way.
Yeah.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. Just look at the trees and. No, that there's deer and elk just chilling with you, but it honestly, it's good to know that I'm not the only one that is unhealthy about it.
Dan Mathews: Oh, you should see my, I am the healthy one at my elk camp. Those guys, I don't know how they function every day. I'm like, I'm going to bed.
There's animals to kill. And they're like, Oh, we'll finish off one or two more bottles of whiskey. And I'm like, all right, you guys good luck with that. I'm going to kill a bull tomorrow.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, I'm the same way. I don't drink a lot when I'm out hunting. Unless I like it's a social thing and we're drinking like, all right I might as well join, but I have insomnia, so I just don't sleep.
And yeah. And I have this [00:36:00] obsessive thing about where. I don't know if you do it too, but say the whole day I checked out the spot, didn't see anything, everything that I thought was there wasn't there. And so I'll sit there and stay up all night, just sitting there on Onyx maps. All right. That didn't work.
Okay. But they could be patterning out. I know they're coming here. And so I'll be obsessive with. Where I'm going to go the next day, what I'm going to do the next day. And I just, I don't sleep. And so usually up hunting or hunting in general I'm working on three, three hours, three hours of sleep, mostly just, but it works for me.
Cause I'm used to it.
Dan Mathews: Yeah, you're used to it. I can't function without sleep. Like during season it, that's a different story. Like I'm just pumped up. I can wake up that fast every day for season outside of season. I'm like, I only got seven and a half hours of sleep last night. I'm dying right now with the kids being in school, they go to school early.
Like [00:37:00] we have to drop them off at seven 20 and I'm like, that's crazy. I don't remember going to school that early. I feel like it was halfway through the day before they dropped me off. But waking up early, I'm like outside of season, forget it. I'll set 15 alarms and just push, push snooze on everyone during the season.
I don't even need an alarm. I'm up. I'm ready to go.
Jess Reveal: Yeah, you get antsy if you're not up. Yeah for a certain time. Like I'll check my phone. Okay, it's four o'clock All right. I got 30 minutes because I usually get up around 4 or 4 30 during hunting season But when it's off season and I don't have to get up for no reason whatsoever That snooze button is a good old friend of mine.
And then my husband he likes to have Probably, like you said, like six alarms and so they're just going off constantly. And oh man, I feel bad for him. I have kicked him out of the bed multiple times telling him to turn his freaking alarms off. I am not waking up. You wake up. Yeah. And he's one of those deep [00:38:00] sleepers.
And so he doesn't wake up to his alarms and that's why he has so many. And I'm the one that wakes up to a pin dropping. So
Dan Mathews: that is the same with me and my wife. It's she, if a fly lands on something, she's what was that? What was that? Shaking me awake. It'll half the building could be blown away by a tornado.
I probably wouldn't wake up. I'd wake up and be like, Oh, what happened? You start renovations.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. And that's, I. It's a big joke with us. If someone were to ever break into the house I have the gun next to my side of the bed because I'm the first one to wake up and he'll probably wake up and there's just going to be dead bodies on the floor.
Oh no, babe, don't worry. I got it. I got it. And he goes, Oh yeah I'm glad that you got, okay, snooze. I'll go back to bed. I got to clean up the
Dan Mathews: mess. With five dogs, you shouldn't even need to sleep with a gun.
Jess Reveal: Especially two of them being great Danes. If any, if anybody ever tried to enter the house it'd be one hell of a racket.
That's for [00:39:00] sure. Cause I got the, so I go from, I like to go extremes. So I have extreme great Dane. She's about a hundred pounds. And then I have an extreme tiny little puppy and she's five pounds. I got a Papillon, I got a Great Dane, and then in between I got a Duck Dog, a Wiener Dog, and then another Great Dane
Dan Mathews: yeah.
I love dogs. I don't understand cat people, and I really don't understand cat people and dog people that have both. I'm like, if you have a farm cat, that's one thing. . But to have a house cat, like those things hate you. They act like they're better than you all the time. They are. They judge you.
They'll
Jess Reveal: sit there they do, and look at you and judge you like, I don't need your judgment. I'm getting judgment over here. I don't need your furry little judgment over there.
Dan Mathews: Exactly. A dog. It's just like they know when something's up. Yeah. It's . Everyone else is judging you, and they're like, you're the greatest human being I've ever met.
Jess Reveal: I just want more pets. Pet me please. I'll give you kisses in return. Yeah. [00:40:00]
Dan Mathews: Oh it's great in all the different hunting sports that you can use a dog for. That's my thing right now. We don't have we've got a property, but we don't live on it. And I keep telling my wife, I'm like, I'm going to have so many dogs.
Once we live on property, there's not going to be any stopping me because going rabbit hunting with my buddy, watching his beagles work, going mountain lion, hunting out in Utah, watching his whole pack work, duck hunting. I've got one dog that's in training in Texas right now. We'll get him back mid to late November probably.
And so that's been weird because I have a dog, but I don't have a dog right now. And so having him back, I'm like, he's going everywhere with me, but I do, I want a cool lap dog that just follows me around. I don't want one that's yippy or that acts like a cat, but if it just follows me around everywhere, I've got my whole truck loaded with dogs.
I'd be more than happy with that. Oh yeah.
Jess Reveal: And that's how my great Dane is. So my two great Danes, they're my shed [00:41:00] dogs. So I'll actually teach them to go shed honey. Yeah. And so they're the ones that follow me around. And just chill with me. Of course, they get me the attention that I guess I crave.
Sometimes people want to pet the Great Danes. And they're so loving. And one of my Great Danes, the older one, her and I are very close. She saved my life. I was out shed hunting one year. In a snowstorm, me being just, it's a Jessica ism. I don't care if it's raining, snowing. I still want to go out looking for antlers.
I want to go out, but I ended up getting lost and I couldn't, all the landmarks that I had placed. We're covered by the storm. I had no idea where I was. I couldn't see any mountain around me. I couldn't see the sun. I got lost till two or three in the morning and search and rescue was out looking for me.
It was serious moments of my life. And. That's when I really dove [00:42:00] into Onyx Maps and really appreciate that app and whoever decided to build that app because it has saved my life now, but when I was lost, I had Remington. She's the Dane. She stayed with me by my side the whole time. And it was in a blizzard, we were freezing cold, so we cuddled up next to each other and she knew exactly what I was trying to do and she stood by my side, she kept me sane.
She's the one that kept me from panicking, don't panic when you're lost because you're going to end up more lost, you're going to end up not okay. And so she kept me grounded, she kept me moving and we ended up getting found by someone with a great name puppy. No
Dan Mathews: way. That's wild. Yeah.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. It was crazy. And I actually wrote a book about that whole thing. It was so traumatic to me. I was like, I need to write it down. So I don't forget anything that any feelings I felt any I guess experience that happened from all of that. So I ended up writing a 20 page essay. [00:43:00] That's awesome.
Yeah.
Dan Mathews: I'm going to have to check that out. Yeah. I love a good getting lost story. I've been a part of, I haven't been lost yet. Hopefully with onyx, not ever but my buddy got lost in the Arkansas woods for, it was about 24 hours and the whole thing, it's hilarious. I did a podcast with him about it. It has nothing to do with hunting or fishing, but it's all my account of what happened.
And then his account of what happened. And it's just crazy. It can happen that fast, especially in the mountains with how quickly the weather changes with how vast the landscape is. It happens all the time. All right. How many of you guys hate dealing with tangled up rope, trying to untie it? It's all knotted up and you actually really need it at the time.
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Jess Reveal: All the time. People who are experienced, it does happen. And what was scary too is my phone was at 2%. Cause I'm out there during the day and as it starts to get dark and that's the thing when I was out there, I think the scariest moment was when the sun was going down and it was starting to get very dark.[00:46:00]
I knew I was nowhere near my car. I knew I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. I didn't know where I was. And the sun setting and then just that feeling of it going from light to dark and no one knows where you're at. It was. It's unnerving. It's very scary. So I don't think I'll ever do that again.
Dan Mathews: Yeah. Or just bring your great Dane with you. You'll be all right. Yeah. I'll
Jess Reveal: bring both of them now this time. That way I got two warms on one side. Yeah.
Dan Mathews: That's, oh my goodness. I can't imagine. Oh and then from
Jess Reveal: the whole thing, I didn't even find Shed. Oh no. That whole thing, I didn't find one Shed. I mapped, I like when I got back, I went on onyx maps and mapped out cause I found this dirt bike trail and that's how I got back to the main road is my cross country skills came in handy and I took this trail that someone was obviously on that day and I followed it and I just ran and [00:47:00] ran cause if I, they say, don't move, stay where you're at when you're lost, I never would have been found.
I was so far out. There's no way. No one would ever find me. And so I just kept following this trail and I mapped it out and I ended up running about 24. 7 miles or something like that. Yeah. So I got my workout.
Dan Mathews: Hey, I would not be doing that. I'll tell you right now I can run. For very short distances.
And then I'm done. My buddies are all into running and they started doing like these ultra races and stuff. And I'm like, I'm not built that way. Like they're all like six foot tall, 165 pounds. And. I'm like five 11 and 1 95. . I'm like, people like me don't run long distances. We lift . Yeah. We lift.
That's it.
Jess Reveal: I love running. I there's always been something about me in running. Like I said, I find peace in driving. It's the same with running. There's a moment when I [00:48:00] start running. I hit this, I call it like a runner's high almost. Yeah. I hit the, it's a wall and once I get past this threshold wall, I feel like I could run forever and I'm in this zone of just peace and I know my favorite is to run trails.
Yeah. So I'm out in the mountains running trails and there's just this peace that comes with it and it's a healthy type of getaway. Yeah. So that's why I love doing it. It's a good getaway
Dan Mathews: for me. Yeah. I can understand the concept behind it. Cause in college. I would run, like I just throw headphones in.
It was always like five miles, right? Nothing crazy. And I would just go run, but it was in town. It was like on the edge of the road. Once I go down hiking, I'm, I can hike all day long. It doesn't matter how far I'm like, dude, just put me out there. And I hiked a trail in Arkansas one time. We had a flood coming through.[00:49:00]
I had to get the vehicle and move it around. Around probably 25 miles around this valley so that we could get out without having to cross the river the next day and I did it and I was like. I'm going to see how far, how fast I can make it down the trail. And I just booked it. Like as fast as I could run and it's steep, it's like 2200 feet of elevation change, I think.
And so some of the spots I had to go slower, but I was just like sprinting down it. And I'm like, this is the coolest thing. I feel like a wild animal right now. Just booking it through the mountains, trees flying by. So I could do that. But my buddies keep trying to get me to. The Buffalo River Trail, it's like 34.
6 miles, and they want to set the record for it, how fast it can be run. And I'm like, I'm not going to go with you on that trip. I'll hike. Maybe I'll set up camp, have a snack for you when you come by.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. When you come by, give them the waters.
Dan Mathews: Yeah. I'm out there. I've got signs like you can do it, Brad.[00:50:00]
But like trail running is totally different. Anything outside I can get into. But the whole like treadmill people who run on treadmills, I think they're probably cat people.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. I call them treadmills. Yeah, exactly. I can't do, I can't do treadmills. I need to be out running. And you said you ran with headphones and music.
Yeah. So in college and in high school all the times I was running, we weren't allowed to wear headphones. We weren't allowed to listen to music. So I'm used to just, I just go out and run. I won't listen to music. I really just take in everything around me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess music would be nice to run with, but I don't know, I don't run with it.
Dan Mathews: I'm like that when I drive, because I do a lot of these trips like out west for hunting or down to the southeast. And my friends think I'm crazy if I, if they're in the vehicle with me for five minutes and the radio is not on, they're like, turn it on. I've done 18 hour drives [00:51:00] without listening to a thing before.
And I don't know why I'm just like, I'm just going like my thoughts can go wherever they want. I'm just driving. I'm not worried about singing along to a song or hearing an advertisement. And yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I'm wired that way.
Jess Reveal: Maybe it's the truck driver in us. Yeah. My dad did that it oh, it would be so funny we would go hours and hours without listening to any music out on the road And I look over and he's always doing this just his head is just constantly moving.
I'm like dad What do you what are you doing when you're doing that? Like why do you drive and you're just sitting there? Shaking your head. He goes. Oh, when I'm driving I have a bug splatter on the windshield and he's trying to get the bug splatter to go in and out of the white dotted lines And it's a game that he'll play when he's driving.
And so I'll start to do that and I'd rather do that than listen to music sometimes. And so maybe it's the truck driver in us, we just find the peace in driving and we don't need the music. We don't [00:52:00] need the ads or the podcast. We just want the
Dan Mathews: drive. Yeah, that's good. I've never really put too much thought into it.
I used to play the game. If there were fence posts on the side of the road, I would time it out when the vehicle is between the fence posts. And I'd be like no, I don't know why I did it. And now someone was like, dude, you're OCD. And I'm like, if you knew me, you would know that's not the case.
It's just something entertaining to keep doing.
Jess Reveal: It just makes the drive that much more fun, not even fun. It just makes it more, I don't know, unique to yourself. Yeah. It makes it more peaceful, more for you. So that's, I have so many memories in a truck with my dad and just. Not listening to anything, having good conversation.
There are times where we won't say a word for hours and I just sit there and I'd be in my thoughts. He's doing his little bug thing and that's all we needed. Just the time [00:53:00] together. There's times too, like truck driving aside. He'd call me. I don't know if you do this with anybody, but he'd call me just so that we had each other's company on the phone, but we won't say a word to each other.
We just have each other on the phone for eight hours. Like we'd have eight hour conversations of not really saying much. We just have each other's company.
Dan Mathews: The audio file would just be like flatline all the way with like little spikes here and there. Yeah.
Jess Reveal: Like you still there? Yup. Okay. And then keep going.
You still there? Yup. Okay. Keep going. Yeah. Those are phone calls I miss, but yeah.
Dan Mathews: Not to take away from this, but I feel like the listeners are probably like, okay, bug splatters, timing it out in between fence posts. That's all right. That's what it's all about. I want to hear about your deer hunt though, because you just had a successful deer hunt.
What was that? Was that in Utah?
Jess Reveal: Yeah. [00:54:00] So I, before I had that successful hunt, I had an unsuccessful hunt the week before, and it was very. Very draining and discouraging. So I'm going to talk about the unsuccessful one first. Okay. I had a feeling and I'll drive around and I'll look at mountain ranges and if I get this gut feeling, like there's something in there.
I'm going in and that's, and I'll look on onyx maps and I find it better to really just walk in, see the fresh sign, see if there's any bugs, deer, anything. And so that's what I ended up doing. I walked two and a half miles up to this Ridge and I sat and I just glassed, I think for three or four hours.
I'll glass one spot for a very long time because things can just start popping up and they did. And so I started glassing up does everywhere, smaller bucks. And about two miles out, like probably four ridges over, I see this bachelor group of bucks coming down over the saddle [00:55:00] and they were messing with the oak brush and they were very big bucks.
I'd have to say 180, 190, close to 200 inch deer. Yeah, there was four of them and I'm like, all right, there they are. There's the deer. I knew they were in here. I knew it. And so I sat and I watched them. I watched them bed down. I'm like, okay, I have time to get over there. It's about two miles out.
Let's play the thermals. Let's play the wind. What's going on? And so it was in the afternoon. The wind was going down. And so I'm like, okay I can't go up and around them because that they'll get me. Yeah. So what I ended up doing is I hit the bottom. I blew out so many deer, but I, they didn't care.
I was pretty far away where they didn't, and there was new cows around. So I didn't think blowing out the deer. Was the biggest deal just because moo cows can blow them out too. And so I ended up just hiking down these ridges around them. And I went two ridges past them to go up on top of [00:56:00] them and then hike up the ridge and I wanted to end up right on top of them.
And so that's exactly what I did. I didn't think it would work cause I was by myself. I didn't have a spotter to tell me if they were still there to tell me if I was in the right spot. And so I went around and I got up on them and I look and I just see antlers just chilling. And I'm like, Oh my God, it worked.
Here we go. I'm, I'm downwind from them. This is going to be, this is going to be good.
Dan Mathews: How far away are you at this point?
Jess Reveal: 40 yards. Yeah. It was an amazing stock. I was so pumped on myself. Like I was like, yes, Jess, you did it. Good job. I was giving my word, like myself, such words of encouragement.
How
Dan Mathews: many dollars is that worth? Cause you saw four big bucks, but stocking, you got to throw a five or a 10 bill in there.
Jess Reveal: You know what I'm going to go with? I'm pretty 63. I earned that day. Okay. 63 very specific. But yeah, I saw the deer. I was checking out and he was [00:57:00] bedded down and so all I could see is his antlers.
And they were just he was beautiful. And so I drew back and I started raking leaves and bushes and stepping on sticks to. Get them to jump up. And he jumped up, he had no idea I was there, but when he got up, his butt was directly facing me, like it was just his butt and then he went out and I just saw antlers and I'm like this is great.
I can shoot him up, but yeah, it's hard. Yeah, but that's a really small target compared to the broadside target that I would have. And so I let in, and he just walked forward, just eating. And so I stalked around this juniper that I was in, and I saw him raking this oak brush. And so I just saw his face and his antlers.
And so I stepped behind the bush, I drew back, and I was waiting for him to walk forward. He decided to take his little jolly time. And. Didn't walk forward for what felt like 10 minutes in full draw because if I would have let [00:58:00] and he would have seen me because his face is out. And so I held this draw probably for a minute or two and I'm just shaking.
My arm is shaking. I'm having issues holding this bow up. My bow is really heavy. And so finally he walked forward and when I went to. To aim and get, my site where I wanted it. I just could not stabilize my bow. I was just doing the circle thing. And then if I would have let it in, he would have spooked.
And so I just like, all right, let's do it. I got it. And so I took a deep breath. I got it and I released. And the shot was just a little high. I'm, I think I hit him in the air pocket. I found his blood trail. We followed it for about 400 yards and then it went to a cow water trough. Where there's cows everywhere on it.
And so if there was any blood trail, it was gone. I kept tracking him for a week after that, kept going to the spot, seeing if maybe there were buzzards around, if there was a smell, there was nothing. I never found my arrow. So I think [00:59:00] he's alive. I think he's going to make it. Yeah. I think I air pocketed him.
But that feeling of failure was awful. It was so discouraging. This one 9, 200 inch buck that I just put the stock of a lifetime on, and I botched the shot. And I it's moments like that where you're like, all right, I'm hanging my bow up. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve this. And you can either go that route of the negative talk.
Or you can go the route of, you know what, Jess, yes, you didn't get him, but failure leads to success. So guess what? Now, take your time. Don't rush the shot. And if you have to let in to give a good shot, let in, take that chance. And so I pushed that really nasty, discouraging feeling aside. And I learned from that.
That moment that mistake and this other buck that I went and got I went to a completely different spot. I didn't want to go [01:00:00] there. I've been there. I. I didn't, I ended up not finding the deer over there, so I just left that spot alone, let them chill, ended up at this other spot so Addie was with me at this moment, and she spotted this buck, and we watched him for a while, I watched him bed down, and it got dark, so I was like, okay I'll get them the next morning.
And so I watched him bed down the next morning. I ended up going out there and he was still bedded down, but I got out there to the point where if, when he got up in the morning, we would cross paths because I knew where he would be going just from watching him the night before his pattern to get to the bed, I was like, all right, he's going to come this way this morning.
And he did exactly that. He came, he got up, I was in 30 yards of his. And from that failure story, when I pulled back, I was like, Jess, take a deep breath. Don't rush the [01:01:00] shot. You're fine. Just aim. And my biggest thing when, I don't know if you do this, but when I go to shoot, I like to okay, where did I'll move to see where the shot hit.
It's always been a problem with me. And so when I go to. Take that shot. I have to remind myself. Do not move. Hold your bow. Even after he runs away. Just hold it there. Do not look at the shot. You can look at the shot when you find him. And that's exactly what I did. And I hit him so good. It was a beautiful shot.
He was he was facing me, but his body was quartered to me. So it was like a hard quarter. Yeah. And I got him right through the ribs and went through the liver. It went through his guts, which was, it was fine. And then it actually went out his ass. So I got a complete pass through and I tracked him.
He went down in about a hundred, 150 yards. Just, it was a really good feeling. [01:02:00] And yeah, Addy helped me with. With finding him. And it was just a really special moment. And I had dropped her off at the sitter to go get to do that morning hunt. And so when I found him, I FaceTimed her and she goes, did you find the beard?
Did you kill him? And I was like, I got him, baby girl. I got him. And so she's all pumped and it was, it's, it was a special moment for sure. And that's so sweet. Yeah, and that's what I like to tell people, if you had a moment and it wasn't successful and that moment was discouraging and you feel like you're an awful hunter because you screwed up this one moment, don't let that discourage you, just learn from that failure to find success elsewhere.
And that's what I did.
Dan Mathews: That's so good. Yeah. Yeah. We, I used to work for a company and their motto is fail forward. And so it's anytime you fail, just do it forward. If you let those negative thoughts, it's going to make you [01:03:00] take several steps back. You're going to be in a worse position than before it happened, but if you can learn from it and even hearing from like NFL players, all of their most memorable super bowls were the ones that they lost.
They're like, I can remember everything about that. I can remember the things that I did wrong, the things that I did right, the things that the other team did better, and they actually remember more about the Super Bowls that they lose than the ones that they win. Yeah,
Jess Reveal: It's a good way to, it's like the same aspect where if you think about sadness and pain, that's easier to cling to and have an emotion of than it is to be happy.
And so you just, you got to get in that mindset. Everyone fails. If you want to, people who are successful, they failed at one point and you just, you need to have that, try to get that positive mindset, especially while hunting and bow hunting for sure. Everyone, I don't know, even the professionals they have had moments where [01:04:00] they have shot an animal and couldn't recover it.
It's hunting. It's not killing, and it happens. It sucks. And it's the shit. Sorry. It's the shittiest feeling in the world. But if you can keep your head up and just keep doing what you love and you learn from it, then you can be you. Successful and great. The next time you have that opportunity, that's what I live by also FAFO, which is F around and find out
Dan Mathews: surely you have those both tattooed somewhere, right? You'd
Jess Reveal: think
Dan Mathews: I would, but I don't. You just need F A F O across your knuckles,
Jess Reveal: right? F A F O. That's a good one. Yeah. I can be a little gangster then F A F O
Dan Mathews: or like the inside of your lip or something.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. Oh, I hear those tattoos actually start to fade through time
Dan Mathews: though.
I would imagine they'd fade pretty quick. Think about an injury, like on the inside of your mouth, it just goes [01:05:00] away within days.
Jess Reveal: Yeah. And I don't know the point of the tat. I like for people to see my tattoos, like on my hand, I don't know if you can see them, but I got a little horny toe.
Oh yeah. Yeah, and my, my big thing is when I'm out elk hunting specifically, if I find a horny toad, I'll grab him and he's a good luck charm. So every time I spot a horny toad, I end up getting into elk or seeing a big buck or something really awesome happens. And so I'm like, you know what? Horny toads are good luck.
I'm going to tattoo one on my hand. Keep one with you
Dan Mathews: all
Jess Reveal: the time. Yeah, so it's, I don't know if you've seen my TikTok or Instagram, but I do this little critter catching thing. And I love to catch critters when I'm out there. So I'll find snakes, I'll catch snakes tarantulas. Lizards, anything that I can catch, I'm out there doing little episodes of critter catching.
Just as critter catching is what I call it.
Dan Mathews: But... Steve Irwin, hunter. Yeah,
Jess Reveal: exactly. I'll even do his [01:06:00] accent sometimes Mike, I got a gopher snake over here. It's just I don't know, I'm making entertainment out of it. That's
Dan Mathews: awesome. What's what's your next hunt this year?
Jess Reveal: I'm going to Colorado next week for Elk.
Yep. Mid rut, or pre season rut, going into the rut. I'm super excited. Hopefully we can get into Elk. I don't know. I might be going solo. We'll see. But, if I do, I have friends out there that'll help. Charmaine lives out there too call her up and... I'm excited. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'll probably do some elk hunting, just any bull unit out here this weekend.
But I'm going to be preparing for Colorado for next week, for sure.
Dan Mathews: Man, I'm so jealous of all the States out there that you can go and mule deer and elk hunt. I don't get me wrong. I love whitetail hunting, but if I could hunt like. Three, four different big game species every year, like right around home.
That'd be so sweet.
Jess Reveal: Oh yeah. It's, I feel pretty [01:07:00] blessed to live in Utah. I'm not going anywhere. I love the state so much. It's beautiful. It's my home. And like you said, I have so many opportunities to hunt. And if you want to hunt elk there's states that do over the counter. Utah does over the counter elk.
Colorado does the counter elk. It's. You have a wide variety of states all around Utah where you can end up going big game hunting every single year. So I'm pretty blessed with that. And where I specifically live in Southern Utah, I live on a very good unit with good bucks in it. And it's not very hard to draw out as a resident for bow, especially.
So I'm blessed. I get to hunt. Either every year, mule deer, or every other year, so it's, yeah, I feel pretty lucky to live here
Dan Mathews: for sure. I've been putting in for points in a bunch of states, and this year I didn't draw anything, but I'll still be [01:08:00] traveling. I'll spend quite a bit of time southeast. Some out West, but I'm just waiting for that day where I draw like a moose tag or like a really good unit for mule deer elk.
So
Jess Reveal: anyway, And
Dan Mathews: Utah I've been putting in for Utah. I've got the most points I have is in Colorado right now. And my dream is an archery moose hunt, like in Alaska, preferably, but Colorado. I think my Alaska hunt will happen before Colorado because of the point system.
Jess Reveal: You can draw it pretty quick in Alaska, right?
Dan Mathews: Yeah, there's over the counter moose tags. There's over the counter almost everything in Alaska right now. And. It like the flights are the most expensive part and a tag for a moose in Alaska is way cheaper than a moose tag in Colorado. Like even after I put in for 20 years in Colorado, the tag will be 2, 400 unless it goes up by that [01:09:00] point where you can get that same tag in Alaska for I think it's 900.
So we'll see. But before we, I don't want to take up all your day before we hop off though. Where can people find you? Where can they follow along? Where can they see the critter catch in
Jess Reveal: and so you can go visit Jess's critter catch in on Tik TOK. I do a lot of TikTok videos. I know TikTok is biased when it comes to hunters and like showing our harvest and showing all things that are really fun about hunting, but I do it well and get through the TikTok ban.
So they can find me on TikTok at Jessica reveal. And then my main thing would be Instagram. And so they can find my Instagram on J brigade. So it'd be J underscore brigade.
Dan Mathews: Sweet. Yeah. I'll be sure to put all that in the show notes, and I know we didn't get to everything we wanted to talk about. I hate to cut this short.
Like New Zealand and stuff. I know, New Zealand but I've got a meeting here that started technically one minute ago. I don't know if [01:10:00] they're here yet. Sorry, I can talk a lot, so my bad. Hey. Same. I'm a podcaster, so I'm used to it. But I appreciate you hopping on. Good luck this season. Good luck this weekend hunting and for your Colorado hunt.
Jess Reveal: Thank you so much. I will keep you updated for sure.
Dan Mathews: And that is going to wrap it up for today's show. Seriously. Best of luck to Jess on this upcoming season and to all of you guys. I hope you guys are getting out there. I don't care what you hunt. I don't care what you fish. Just get out there. Enjoy creation.
Chase after some game animals. and try to do some new things. There's so many opportunities. And that's why I talk about all this stuff on the show, because I want you to know, there are so many cool opportunities out there for you that you can do some of them every year. Some of them you might have to wait.
And that just builds anticipation for me. I need to get out and chase animals out West with my boat. I haven't done that yet. I think next year is going to be the year. This year I was hoping to, but with scheduling, with Sam getting pregnant again [01:11:00] there's so much happening that I don't think I'm going to make it.
I will be out there for rifle season, I will be bouncing around to a lot of states here in the Midwest and the Southeast, but it is very high on my priority list to make that happen next year on top of that. Shoot, I shouldn't say that's super high because I might make Alaska happen next year.
I really want to go up. And do a moose hunt with my bow. So stay tuned if you want, if you're interested in that. Also, you guys have to come up to Wisconsin next year, come up for BowFest 2024, and if you do hop on the BowFest website and register now, make sure though, to use code Nomad24 at checkout, that's going to save you 10.
The price is going to go from 89. 99 to 79. 99. When you punch that code in and that's only until the next price increase. So no promises on how long it will last. That's why you got to go do it now. And I hope to see you there. Stop by the booth, pull up a chair, chat with me, share [01:12:00] trail camera pictures, success stories.
Whatever that may look like and hopefully we can find some time to walk around the courses and actually shoot go listen to music I just love meeting new people. I love hearing about people's passion and desire to get outdoors So remember code nomad 24 at checkout and you can come hang out with me.
Look forward to seeing you there But for now, get out in the woods, and if you're out there, please be safe. If you're in a tree stand, wear a harness. I hate seeing pictures or videos or hearing stories of people falling out of the tree because of a tree harness. Er, because of a lack of tree harness, I should say.
So please be safe out there, whether it's there, out in the mountains, in the marshes. Take the measures you need to take care of yourself. And until next time, always choose adventure, and God bless.
