Talking Coyote Tournaments & Depredation Tags

This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast the three of us sit down and discuss hunting in coyote tournaments.  We talk about some of the differences compared to just hunting regularly we have noticed when doing tournaments. We tend to change our hunting strategies just a little bit during a tournament, right or wrong, we have noticed we do it.  Also, about halfway through the recording, our buddy Russell Ryun came over and sat in on the show.  Finally, we discuss depredation tags.  What are they, how does someone get them, and some of the added pressure of having one of them.  Thanks for listening!

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Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast with your host, Nate, Micah. And Andy, what a boys. How we doing going on? Can you turn me up a little bit? I'm doing pretty good cuz [00:01:00] guess what? We're just biting our time cuz today's February 1st and we're going opening night . Opening night. Opening night.

Opening night. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Was op was opening night technically after midnight last night? Yes. I don't see why not. Okay. That's, that would be correct. Yeah. We should, I know a couple that I'm pretty sure were out. Yeah. After midnight. Really? I wouldn't I don't know for a fact, but I know historically they are Calder and Dewis.

Yeah. They usually up that first night. I don't blame 'em. It's a tradition I think for 'em. Yeah. Kinda opening day of archery in Missouri. Yeah. Or I was gonna say baseball season, . Okay. Okay. I don't know why you would've went there , but September 15th, that's a true rite of passage in Missouri.

I, I would think opening rifle would be apply more, but I don't know, because I don't get too excited about opening day above. I know a lot. I don't think I've ever went September 15th. Oh, I definitely don't. I have you? I know a lot of people that make sure they are in the woods September 15th. Sure, sure.

Definitely. No matter what, maybe November 1st, like I get, I don't know, once it hits [00:02:00] October. That's used to be Halloween. Halloween was religious for me, and then I had kids. Now I have kids. I haven't hunted Halloween in about 15 years, folks. Yeah. I haven't, not in about probably seven. seven or so, give or take.

My daughter's 15, so yep, there it is. 15 I really 15 years. I really do think they should move Halloween to the last Saturday of the month in October. Instead of doing it like during the week and all that. It really, I don't like it. I'd rather it be during the week. I'd rather be during the week. Cause then I could hunt Saturday.

That's true. Yeah. I can see, but I want to hunt like I don't know why but it's just Halloween. Actually. I'll be all right with Halloween, the last Wednesday of the month. Yeah. That way I never have to worry about losing my weekend to Halloween, something like that. Because if it's on a Friday, I might be able to hunt Friday night.

Nope. Can't go do it cuz I gotta do Halloween shit. So Wednesday. Perfect. Last, okay, last Wednesday of the month. I'm gonna start a petition on change dot. Is that a thing? Did you see that petition? The Cincinnati Bengals started to replay [00:03:00] the game. Oh, I saw something like that, but I don't care, dude.

They're fans. Like the players have been pretty cool about it. I've read some articles, like players are pretty cool about it is what it is. But the fans like, and I'm sure if it was the other way around Kansas City fans would still, it has been the other way around for Kansas City fans. But I don't feel like we've been that bad.

Oh, it's, we've been screwed just as bad as them. I wouldn't say screwed. Oh, we, but we haven't cried like it. I don't feel like we got, hey, to our listeners out there that are Bengals fans, we're, fuck you. , God sucks to suck , but man geez, it's just, and none of those, like none of the, it's just funny cuz none of the bad calls had anything to do with the outcome of the game.

Like with what they're crying about. The only one. Was a legitimately a penalty. Oh yeah. And that was like he's two and a half yard. He's you can't deny that. Like I don't play, I don't pay attention to shit when it comes to sports ball, but I was like, yeah, you can't do that bro. And he ran over a dude on the sideline, like hyper extended his knee.

That's exactly why we don't hit people at bounds. Yeah. It's come on. So yeah, if you're gonna, dude, and then like you back there, there's that past interference, like holding [00:04:00] call. If you watched the video, he literally, him turned around. Oh. And also we still ended up hunting on that drive. So I'm sorry if fans are so loud that you can't hear a whistle, but Oh, I did.

I did read that. Oh, they should make that a yes. They should go back to being a penalty. Because it used to be really, the crowd noise used to be a penalty. Yeah. Remember John Elway used to cry about it in, in our stadium. Yep. And it's just hilarious. It is what it is, man. Sorry about you.

Sorry. Our fans are badass. We've waited so many years and we're dog shit. Dude. I have suffered my entire, most of my entire adult life. I never watched the Chiefs win even a playoff game. And I would watch them lose and they gave us so much hoped. Yeah. And they would lose in the most first round we can make.

First round they were beating the Colts one year, 31 0 3 and lost. Yeah, I think I remember that one. They would have just this, all this hope and it would just be crushed and it's nice. It's nice. I do feel like Burrow is a little Brady esque. He'll get his, oh, he'll get his. He's good. He's a good ball player.

That's a good team. Yeah. I ain't got no problem with the Bengals team, [00:05:00] although calling it Burrow head, that's what you get the talking shit . Yeah. Up there, bro. Done. And they even, they admitted it. They admitted it. I like, like Joe Burrow's response was like, man, that's what makes the game fun.

Like at the end we all respect each other. Yeah, there's trash talk. That's sports in general. He's but that's just part of it. It's just fun. Like we're not personally upset with each other. , if you don't like it, stop it. But let's talk hunting. Let's talk about hunting . We got a, on a quick tangent.

I don't know if you've ever talked about sports. That much today we are gonna do a little bit, I don't know if it's really a BS session, but Andy and I hunted in the world's tournament, I guess you'd call it, quote unquote. And really we're just gonna, we're not specifically gonna talk about that tournament, but we will, we're just gonna talk about.

what it's like to hunt a tournament for us, the difference is that, we kind of experience compared to just normal hunting when we go hunting. Yeah. And that tournament in particular. And then we ha we had a degradation tag this year too, and we're gonna talk about, what those are you just the [00:06:00] stuff around that and, fill some voids over the next couple weeks or over this week.

We got some really good coyote stuff coming out here soon. Yep. So this is that filler week. Andy's what? I'm like I got some emails this end, but they'll happen. , . Don't you worry about, you're just planning on being here, bud. So we're gonna do sponsors real quick. Yeah, let's do sponsors and then we'll get into it.

That way I don't have to do it or do you guys want me to do it? And I like to do it apparently. No, he does like to do it. No, he does. Okay. Let's start with, hunt worth gears, since we're gonna be wearing that tonight cause it's cold. What are you guys wearing tonight? I'll be wearing my Saskatoon pants and I'm so bad with all that names of them.

You're doing heap rights. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I'll be wearing my pants, which are Saskatoon, Uhhuh and my Matterhorn coat probably. See I'm doing my American Express card. Never leave home without it. , I'm doing the Matterhorn Bibs in the Saskatoon coat and I'll have my best with me. Should I try my bibs tonight?

I haven't worn 'em yet. I got my [00:07:00] bibs. And then, I think it's, is the saskatoons the bigger one, right? No, the saskatoons is a small alert Saskatoon. So I got the matter horn coat I got, if you have bibs, it's the matter horns for sure. Yeah. Bibs are Matterhorn. Yeah, I have, I got both. Should I wear my bibs tonight?

When let me go ask you a question cuz I've never worn bibs when it's cold like this. Do I need to wear like my hoodie since the bibs go up around like your chest? I'm wearing this and putting my bibs and then same jacket and coat. I'm wearing a regular hoodie. Yeah. And now I'll put my bibs on over it and then I'll put the coat on.

I don't like base layers and it's it, those bibs help seal you in a little bit. Little extra layer. Maybe if I wore the pants I would be wearing a vest. But with the bibs, I feel like I don't need a vest. I'm taking it. I take my vest all the time, oh boy, man. Yeah. So you can do a run back to the truck if you get a little chilly.

No, I'll probably just wear it and if I get hot, I'll just take it off. . It's night dude. It's gonna be what? Below? It's already 27. It's already 27. Yeah. So it's probably gonna be around 25. Guess perfectly. Still night though. ? No, it's gonna be [00:08:00] tall. An hour win. It's like 26. Oh, I was gonna say it's pretty, pretty still.

I it Southwest, right? Yeah, Southwest. It is gonna be perfect for where we're going. Yeah check 'em out. Hunt worth gear.com. Use the code mww 15 for 15%. They are still having, yeah, when this comes out, this should still be part of their winter clearance sale. I think it's over on. Did you guys look at some of those sales?

They're good. They had some really good sales going on. Yeah. So go check it out. I know a friend of mine bought some stuff and it was much better than using our code, right? Yeah. We tried to still use our code. You can't, yeah. Can't stack it. That's all right. We want you guys to get the best deal. We're not getting any credit.

We don't care. We don't get paid because you use our code. No, we want you to get the best deal. So does Hunt worth? Yep. Best deal and best gear. Woohoo. Oh, and by the way, got a story on that. funny. So my buddy Calder, no another buddy bought a bunch of hunt were stuff, and the first time he ever wore it on his Matterhorn bibs, the en seam, the seam on his reinforced butt tore.

And I'm like, of course it has to happen to a [00:09:00] friend of mine that I'm like, this stuff's the shit, and it is. I've never had that happen anymore. Never fame. So he is what should I do? I abuse the shit outta my stuff. Yeah. And he's what should I do? I'm like, just email 'em within a few hours.

They had another set on the way. Yep. Customer service top notch. Yeah. They'll take care of you. Yep. Check 'em out. Hunt worth gear.com. Comm Sam, lamb boots. I'm going with the Bill Toros tonight. I'm wearing my insulated ones and I'm gonna wear the heated insults leg. Got, I'm wearing those heated socks.

Cool, cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna get a little chilly, but yeah. Loma Za Lance, me too. And those mastodons, I think is what I wear. Man, they're insulated. They help so much. But my horrible circulation, apparently it still ends up getting to me. But those heated socks are paired with them. Nice. There you go.

Habitat Works. Now's the time, dude. We need to get Dustin on here pretty quick. We are. Yeah. We've got an idea for a show with Dustin and we need to pull that off pretty soon.[00:10:00] It's gonna involve a little more work than just a show. , there's gonna be some leg work up front and then a show. But he wants to do it.

We want to do it. It's a matter of finding time to do it. That's the hard part. And right now, I, if you guys haven't been out in the woods, go look at your trails. Look at your, now is the time to be making those prepar. Giving Dustin a call, getting the work done so you're not pushing it last minute, right?

So check him out. Habitat Works 8 1 6 7 5 2 73 90. Mention us when you call him and you get 15% off any of his services, which include timber stand improvement, forest forestry, mulching, prescribed fire mapping and planning services. You name it, he does it out there. Black Ovis. Use the code.

Mww 10 for 10% off. What you doing there Bud? Black Ovis, online retail store? I heard through the grapevine. Actually I'm not even gonna say it cuz I don't know if that's factual. I don't either. But something cool might be happening. N [00:11:00] not that there's not anything cool happening there already, but anything hunter related they got from Stan to boots to Arch Tree.

They got saddles here to, I was checking out saddles the other day, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna be getting me one this year for sure. Definitely gonna be elbows talking about black ovis. Yes, we are. Just got all the stuff that they have up there. Hey, I gotta say something about Black Ovis. I wanna say congratulations to our main contact at Black Ovis.

He took a new position, Marcus. Yeah. Yeah, Marcus is he's actually leaving. He'll be leaving him, which sucks. But we congrats to Marcus and we look forward to staying in contact with him. Planning on having the show still. Uhhuh. , but wanna say congrats to him. Great working with you. Yep. Good dude.

And did you already do all this stuff then? Yep. Talk. I'm winded from walking upstairs. God. But Camo fire. Camo fire. Get your app updated. If you haven't, you probably have already. rotating door of awesome deals. Don't get on there. That's it. That's a good way to describe Rotating door. Yeah, rotating what is excellent deals.

[00:12:00] And last but not least, Athlon Optics. Side. Mine side. My new rifle in yesterday. They're not last, so we got one more. Oh, Devi. Oh my bad idiot. But my bad Athlon optics side. My new Aries in the other day. . Oh, I take that back. I got close . I ran out daylight, like I rushed home. I ran out daylight and I was doing it.

I was like standing up. Yeah. I don't like shooting at my house. My backyard, my back pasture's not mowed. So I was like standing with my tripod and everything and I got close and I was like, Russell, I need you to get this fine, tune this for, I need you to fine tune this for me before Saturday because we got a tournament coming up.

So he's gonna take care of that for me this tomorrow or the next day. There you go. So I'm pretty excited. Good. You, that glass is, me and you we've ran more of the budget ones. Yeah. There is a big difference in the glass. Oh yeah. There. So the budget ones was still the best cop I'd ever owned to that point.

And still have no quorums about picking up the guns that those are on and shooting [00:13:00] them. , I'm comfortable with them. For sure, but when I stepped up to the Midas and I'm in love with it. Yeah. And see the Midas isn't even Japanese glass and it's still that. That's nice. I think the Midas is, I don't believe it is.

I, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the s in the Kronos, so they're only ones Japanese. I know those are, but I could be wrong. But what I'm saying is that Midas is sweet. Midas tack is the minus tack. Yeah. Yeah. The five by 25. And, but even their budget friendly stuff, hell our buddy Austin Yeah.

Has been running, had been running that stuff. He's been running the budget, the most budget of budget. The Taos. Yeah. Yeah. Like a $200 one from Amazon or something. You bought it originally. So They all do the job. Especially people that want to get into coyo hunting and they all got that lifetime warranty.

You can buy a couple hundred dollars gun if you don't have one and a couple hundred dollars scope. Yep. And go kill dogs for sure. Check 'em out. Alps, outdoors. Outdoors. Not last and not least it is Last and not least, [00:14:00] absolutely not least. I'm starting to come up with my list of things I need to get for if we ever go and actually camp out on the mountain.

Yeah. . Like I need to get, I need to get my, what's a tent? I need to get a tent and I, and probably need to get some stuff for like cooking. This is a old rabbit hole here, but I'm it's going, if I have to take the big tent up there, I'm taking the big tent up there. Oh, I'm See you got a tent going?

You have a tent? Yeah. You have a tent already. So do I single? A little I'm taking the big one. We're all going. Why? I know, but I'm just saying. You have a tent. You have a tent. If I get a tent, . Then the only just will be Russell and Albert. Roger. That's, if they want to go up there, they want to go up there, they're gonna, we're gonna drag 'em up there.

Okay. I'm fine with that anyway. I'm assuming I'll be with, but you are putting together a list. Yeah. I'm putting together a list for that because if you think about it, we got eight months, nine months, I don't know, eight months till we leave. So that's gonna go quick. Use the [00:15:00] code Woods water for 30% off huge savings cuz they got that stuff.

Yeah. I'm assuming I'm gonna be with you guys, but did you know I put in for Wyoming? I was planning on putting in for Wyoming. That ended yesterday. Didn't, I'm not putting for, I'm putting in for Wyoming this year. Wait, do you have you been buying points for Wyoming? I had a. Oh, so you had, you have one?

I have one. So I had, I was gonna put in for a 0.2 I bought the last two years was But the hand you put in Wyoming, can you put it for a point later? Yeah. You buy points. Yeah. In the summertime. Okay. Yeah. But to put in for the draw. No, I'm just putting is now, I put in because I got two points. So does Russell.

And he's been hearing that they're going to, right now it's a general draw. That they're going to change it to kinda like what Colorado and all these other states do next year. Yeah. And so he is we are stupid not to try, even though we have about a 7% chance of drawing. It's better than 0%.

Is it a group or Wyoming. Cuz you name like basically how they do it, you put in your points, you get two entries [00:16:00] right into the draw three, counting the one you're buying. . Yeah, basically. Yeah, I believe I understand what you're saying. Yeah. It's a lottery. It's more of a lottery draw. Yeah, but it's based than a weighted draw. And it is weighted because if you do party like me and Russell did, it's based on your average number of tags, which we both have two or two points. So they have an twice. So we have a 7.8% chance of drawing based on Go Hunt. Better than some places like New Mexico and stuff.

Yeah. I'm like dude, and he's right. We stupid not to try. Yeah. And if we don't, then we go by our point and then next year if they do some crazy stuff, cuz everybody's been here in weird things about Wyoming, about them getting rid of the non-resident slowly. And I don't know if you've heard some of those.

Yeah, I've heard rumor, heard some stories, stuff they did. So he's dude, we'd be stupid not to. So we did, if we happen to draw, I guess I won't be up the mountain with you, but we will be. because we're not gonna draw. Never. I've never been lucky in my life. Never. Never. Although lucky [00:17:00] Russell. Russell.

Russell's lucky did draw New Mexico. You're Oh, you, yeah, you're one. He got it. So you think it's lucky now after the fact, . Hey, it might have been unlucky. It's not our fault. He didn't do his due diligence. in the work. I'm the one that told him, I'm the one who told him what unit to get . Apparently he didn't look through the whole year.

There was elk there, right? No, I don't know. There was also a, just a lot more people. I'm just giving him shit. But anyway. All right. Is that our sponsors? That's it. All right. Let's get into some coyote hunting. All right. You boys, y'all went to the World's tournament? I was jealous. I didn't, we've done a few tournaments so far this year.

Done a few, yeah. . But y'all went, or I kinda wanna talk about the world, this one, because I didn't get to go to that one. I'm jealous. I didn't. I'm after hearing and knowing what happened that day as far as weather and conditions I'm glad I saved my money. Cause it, it was a big entry fee. It was a $750 per team entry fee.

Yeah. Yeah. So you 3 56 total teams, I think limit, I don't know if 56 signed up or not. 54th I signed up. I think [00:18:00] he was right at it. I thought. Yeah, I thought that cuz but it was a big money winner. Like first place was I think Thousand, $21,000. There's some, there's a lot of money on the line.

Break it down. How did it go? This is the negative of tournaments. If you and I, us three were like, Hey, you go, let's go. Kyle Hunting today, last Saturday would've been the last damn weather I would've picked to go hunting in. And it's gonna happen to us again this Saturday for the Midwest Wildlife Tournament.

It's gonna be in the mid fifties and windy as shit. Yep. And that's what it was. Last sun Saturday warm. I went hunting. Too warm. Yeah. And windy. And it's during a weather change, there's a front moving in, so therefore they're probably not gonna move, and you never know how it's gonna be.

But I'm saying if I was gonna go, that's what happened last if I was looking, a cold front was heading to us. Yeah. Okay. So like Friday was a good day. If I was looking at Friday or Saturday just to go Kyle hunting, I would've been like, Hey, we're going hunting Friday. And Sunday was a good day. Yeah.

A lot of people killed Sunday. . That's what sucks about [00:19:00] tournaments is you're hunting the day the tournament is. It's just, that's what you got, right? I mean you, but for the most part, I say most part because this world's tournament was a widespread tournament, but everybody's dealing with the same conditions.

That's not always the case cuz there's people spread out wide enough. , you gotta wave from some weather patterns. Yeah. There's people hunting anywhere from Kansas, Arkansas way North Missouri, Southern Missouri, all the way to North Missouri. All almost to Iowa. North Kansas. South Kansas.

Yeah. People in this tournament were hunting within, I don't know, 200 miles of Yeah. Butler probably me. That's not worth it. If I mean I don't want to travel that far for a tournament, but I guess for 21 grand, I think the odds or Yeah, if you truly felt like you had a shot to win 21 grand.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll be honest, I've had weekends I felt like I truly could have had a shot. Could have done it. Yeah. The last weekend. No, we, my team, we were very like, we felt really good. Yeah. Even with the weather [00:20:00] that was gonna be, we're like, dude we're on some ground. That's gonna be awesome. We know we, we went and scouted it.

We had a plan for everything. We're like, we got this, yep. I'm not saying we were like ready to win it or anything like that, but we felt really confident. Like you were gonna have action most, you like, we're gonna see dogs. I'm gonna be honest with you, this has nothing to do with the two dudes I was hunting with.

It was a great day per, for as a personal person. Might have been the worst day of Kyle hunting I've ever experienced. There's other reasons We'll get into it. . Dude, we didn't hear, we did hear coyotes very first thing in the morning a couple miles away. We did not even see a coyote until our second to last set of the day.

That makes for a very long day. That's a long day. And we had 17 sets. Yeah, that's a long day. It was just like bad luck after bad luck. I'm, I know. I remember like after our four set, we're moving to another spot and we're driving by in this whole section before we get to where we're at. They're running dogs.[00:21:00]

Yep. They're running dogs. We're just like dogs. Yeah, they're running. Kay Dogs not in the tournament. I at least they better not have been, but people were running dogs and we're just like, oh shit. Which is funny cuz normally we see that on our, like any other tournament, but we know the people in our area that run dogs.

So we called them like, Hey man, like we got this big tournament coming. , would you mind giving us this one weekend? Like we don't normally call 'em and ask. It just is what it is, right? Oh yeah, we'll just go run the next, wherever somewhere we'll go someplace else just for that day.

And honestly, we don't mind them running because they stir 'em up. If we kill some in an area, they push 'em around. So we come talk. I'm curious about, I'm so do, I'm sorry to cut you off. So these hound hunters or whatever, dog hunters, do they do it quite a bit in the area? Oh they are.

Pretty hardcore. An area we call a lot of the same. They're out there a lot. Okay. And you're still calling in dogs? In those [00:22:00] areas? Because like up north, we've only been a handful of times, but I've heard a lot and I know people that run hounds up there. I was always curious how those dogs, those coyotes react to calling.

They're not getting called after being ran by dogs. And if you think about that, they're not getting called. But what we experienced, so to make it easy where we saw the dogs being ran, we hunted the same way we planned on hunting. And then we talked to a farmer. At the end of the day, we made, we, we did a big what do you call it?

Audible, ended up driving another 45 minutes south. This guy let us get on his stuff and we got in the se in the section, in the middle of the section. Instead of Hey, we're gonna pop in right here. Then we saw dogs, then we called him in. Yeah, I think. , and this is just what I experienced. The one time when you're in an area where dogs get ran heavy, it might be best to hike a little further and get in the middle, right?

Because they're cause dogs out by roads because dogs are getting used to shot being shot off of roads when they're [00:23:00] getting ran. Cuz these guys park the trucks on the sections, when the dogs come out of the draw, whatever. I don't know. But that's what I saw, , right? So when we went into the middle of these sections of property, then all of a sudden we started calling dogs.

Yeah. Out. I'm not saying cuz there was other factors. The wind finally died down towards the end of the day that helped us. But yeah, I don't know. They're not getting called in that area as far as we know. So two tournaments ago we had guys running dogs in the area. and we talked to 'em and they're like, oh no, we're going east.

Like we haven't even been over there. Go ahead. So we went to one of our normal spots and called and we start calling, we ended up killing this. We think it's this out the next tournament. Because we figured out what it was doing. It circled us hard hard to get our wind and we could hear hounds running.

The hounds had actually changed direction and went the opposite way. The guys thought they were going to push and were coming our direction. [00:24:00] They were still way, I mean they're still a mile off, but you could hear them. If we could hear 'em. Coyotes can hear 'em, right? We still called the coyote in, circled our call downwind got our wind and started booger barking at us.

So if Hounds barking, they were, this coyo was still booger barking at us. And actually it's like it didn't care. Someone missed a shot. We could have killed it and missed it. The, this one worlds we went with the cos we killed. We actually planned ahead same wind direction as that day. We slipped the guy around.

And covered the field that it circled into. , you had to cross a creek, a pretty good size creek. And so sure enough, we were calling, we seen this kayak come, start circling. It was through a through a timber line. I could see it, I was running the call so I could see, I wanted to see my call.

I could see it circling on the other side of the creek. Sure enough came through right out into the field and to get our wind and we had somebody there this time yeah. Bang. Is that the one dog you got? That was the one dog we got. one dog. The one, yeah. Yeah. And you want me to just tell you about Go [00:25:00] ahead.

My, yeah, go through yours and we'll to Andy's day because it's comical looking back. And I will definitely make sure this isn't an issue moving forward, although it shouldn't have been. But so I'd say probably like the four sit of the day. We hop out and I put my gun in the the tripod and I tighten it down.

I use an ARCA mount on my gun. And we're walking through the field and I just all of a sudden hear, so the way we were quicken light, like we didn't have packs on. We would put our tripods on our shoulders and carry our guns already mounted and ready to go. And I'm walking and then I hear my gun slides outta the aca mountain falls on the ground.

So part of me's man, huh? What did I forget to tighten it? When we got out, did something, distract me. Damn, that sucks. It, luckily it just fell real softly, onto the wet ground. And we went and hunted, didn't see anything. The next set, I get outta the truck, set my tripod up, slide the gun [00:26:00] in, forget something in the truck, turn around, grab something to turn around and see my tripod.

Just slowly cause it was so windy into a ditch. , oh, the ditch was full of a lot of grass. So it once again, kinda was a felly windy fall. But, At that point, Darryl's just dude, I'm not laughing at you . This is just like whatever. So we go to that set, don't see shit. Maybe two or three sets later, we get out, let's hook my stuff up, walking around the truck and my gun slides outta that mount again.

And I'm like, dude, I know I tightened that down. I know it. And I, the problem is on my tripod the tightening ball, I guess you'd call it on the ACA thing, is not very big. And I actually noticed with another brand is the exact same size. I don't grip, I just can't grip it very well. And I must not be getting it tight enough.

The little fingers, you got little tiny fingers for the weight of my gun that's in it. Which one you were you doing the 22? Two 50, [00:27:00] yeah. Which is an AR 10. It's right, it's heavy. Heavy. Because I was doing the same thing when we were night hunting with deprivation tank and I was doing that whenever. The last tournament I was in.

Yeah. And I had, didn't have any problems must just be the weight of the gun. I'll be honest with you. I was not, I was straight up not having a good time at that moment. Yeah. That would put a damper on. Oh, it get, it gets worse. , I was just looking, I think about, said my, I have a, an the arc amount I have.

Yeah. I didn't realize what they're for, but there's some screws on the bottom. Yeah, you can do those. They're a for leveling and also you put 'em in there and they won't slide out and won't let it slide. The only thing that sucks. Say what now? Yeah. So your arch rail a little bit. Yours has it too cuz you have to, we have the same marker rail, except I have the longer one now on my new rifle.

But they have deals where you can put two nuts on each of the corners. . The only problem is you can't slide it in. You have to undo your arra all the way. Correct. And put it in, you know how you in an angle there, set it in. Oh yeah, you gotta go. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, you gotta put it in that one. That keeps it from, but that will [00:28:00] keep it from sliding out.

You have to show me that tonight. Yep. Yeah, it should. I'm dogs like that. Yeah, it should have it. No shit. . Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It should have came with four little tiny bolts. I hope I know where they're, yeah. Anyways, so that happens. And so at this point we haven't seen any dogs. I've dropped my freaking gun three times.

I'm just like this sucks. Then we go to our next set. I think it's our next set. We walk quite a ways in, we cross a creek, we do our calling, don't see anything. We're leaving and I'm talking to John and I hop over this creek that we hopped over on the way in just a little, three foot hop.

And I'm not really paying attention cuz I did it already once, it's not a big one. And as soon as my foot hits the mud, it slides off from under me and I fall straight down onto my bad knee. And my heel touches my ass and my leg on this left side has not moved like that in 15, 20 years. . So I do that and I felt like I did something as [00:29:00] soon as I did it and I stand up and I'm like, oh no.

And John's what's wrong man? You all right? And I'm like, I think I just tore my knee. I limp all the way back to the truck. I'm like, no sympathy. He just laughs, dude. Oh it gets better. I limp all the way to the truck and I'm just like, I hate the world . And I'm just so glad I wasn't there. I was hot.

So I was, we, me and John actually both changed our pants. We're both sitting there in base layers and I'm just like, Darrell's dude, what's wrong? Do you want to, yeah, you hurt. I'm like, I'll tell you what, there's four ibuprofen in that bag right there. Hand 'em to me. I took it. I'm like, we'll just see.

And I still am not made act like it was ibuprofen. Some vid it or something. They like, there's some vi I knew it was gonna stop the swelling. I'm still not positive. I didn't tear something on the inside cuz it's still doing some stuff, but, . I'm cautiously optimistic. I didn't do it. Yeah. So anyway, dropped my gun three times, thought I tore [00:30:00] my knee.

Finally at the end of the night, we do get into some dogs. Killed one. Coulda got maybe one more, but it was a good time. Yeah. Once you finally are able to see coyotes, it makes the struggle much better. And I had a great time hunting with Darryl and John. It was really enjoyable.

We had fun. We laughed it. Mountain Dew was, a joke the entire time. Yeah. I'm pretty sure you called me about about at one point you called me to talk to me about something and yeah, we're pretty beat up. John wants to go get him Mountain dude get him out and Dew and I think Owen's tell him to suck at the F up.

There's a lot of money on the line, man. Get after it, boys. And guys, for perspective. not only, to win was 21,000, but like the side pots were a couple thousand bucks a piece. Really? Were they up there that much, I wanna say like 22,000, 2200 something. Were those a separate entry or was that part of So they put, yeah, they were 75 bucks.

They put [00:31:00] $750 or $730. They adjusted it into each pot. And then if you wanted to enter the pot, it was 25 bucks per pot. And there was big female, big male and Manies. Okay. And then there was a black dog Bounty of seven 30 as well. We ha we actually, so the dog we killed was just an average size male.

So we knew we weren't gonna win. Big do big male. So we actually by the end of the night, we get done and we're like, you guys wanna go to check-ins? Not really. How about we just go get some dinner . So we went and sat down and ate at a restaurant and enjoyed ourselves and then home by eight 30, I think it was.

It was nice. Yeah. To be honest with you. There you go. But yeah, it was just like that's tournaments. You never know. There's been tournaments where I have felt like I did Saturday, man, we are gonna get into 'em. It's gonna be great. And then it's just hot garbage. And then there's been other tournaments, like when we got fifth a couple years ago at that one, I can't remember which one, but I didn't have [00:32:00] any, I did not feel like we were gonna do very well that tournament because.

We had never been to several of the farms that we hunted. They were we were just like, Hey, let's, hey, why don't you sit here? Or, yeah, hey, why don't you guys go sit over there? Or something like that, right? But that ended up being a pretty good day for us. We saw quite a bit of dogs. And so you never it's just, yeah, it's, that's hunting in general, but then in tournaments it just look the look of the draw and you hunt.

Andy, let me ask you this. Do you guys hunt differently sometimes in tournaments than you would in a normal day? Always. Definitely. Always hunt differently. And we actually, I was talking about this with Austin the other day and I think he heard it on a different podcast, but you need to be hunting to enjoy it and.

Put pressure on yourself during these tournaments to push and you have to execute, have to kill dogs. And that was our problem is we took the fun out it, I wanna say took the fun out of it, but we put some pressure, we had I'm not gonna lie, we expected like to do good like we had planned all year, we had went out and scouted spots, we put some pressure on ourselves.

Had some self expectations [00:33:00] that we are gonna try. If we could have you wanted a place and good. Yeah. And get into some coyotes. We thought we could kill seven, eight coyotes, that wasn't the case. But anyway, but no, we absolutely do. We hunt completely differently. And what's crazy is sometimes so the last, when we finally saw dogs, we notice, we noticed.

The double that we had come in was after about 18 minutes of calling. , most of our sets that day. We were leaving by then. So you guys were doing a lot faster. I'll be honest with you. We don't go there. It just depend. It was like, it would be it was between 15 and 30 minutes, but we never went over 30 and sometimes after about 15 minutes, we're like, dude, it's windy as hell here. They're not like, we're calling that little hollerer right there. If they're not here yet, they're not coming. . And we might have screwed ourselves, you never know, obviously. But with the ones we had, Kim come in were, I think it was after 17 minutes.

And they didn't come in hard. No. It was just like dude. Do you know, sling down. They're so cautious all day long now. I felt like [00:34:00] now we did have one coyo come in hard. that dude, that Coyo was sprinting straight to the call. And it was after about a minute and a half of calling, like it was, yeah, we started calling.

Those are what the ones you want. , unfortunately, he was coming down Wind. He was this guy getting to stop for a brief second. Dude I did not see it, but Darl explained it like the second he hit our scent, our sins never stop. He, it was like a wall, like a leash on him. Yeah. And then just bolted and took some running shots at him and didn't hit him, but, so that dog was, let's go right now.

But the other ones were very just do. And then we actually, when we were leaving that set, had a dog sneaking up the backside and we were walking out. And guess how long that was? About? After 25 minutes. So some of those, like when you feel like you, let's go right now. Is when you can screw yourself.

Like over the years I've, had that right. A lot of times like, oh, we're done here. You get up, stand up, turn around, and [00:35:00] you're like that there's a dog. Yeah. And that can happen to you in tournaments because you're like, all the time, this spot's no good. We gotta, we gotta be moving.

Yep. And I've always done that and we've always said, oh, we gotta be more patient afterwards. And then we always end up going faster. Yeah. Let's go, or whatever. I mean it was a, any day hunting is better than not hunting. But yeah, from a success standpoint and my equipment and my body standpoint, it's pretty poverty.

how about your day? It started off good. Started off real good first in wood didn't take long. I played a couple hows, and I had two different groups howling back at me and I completely botched it and called in zero. I think I know what I did, but I chose the wrong direction to take it. Instead of pressuring them back.

I played a little bit softer, more submissive than I should have, I think challenged them. So they're like a, that guy's a bitch anyway. Yeah, kind. I guess I, I don't know. Whatever I didn't work. And didn't call anything in the [00:36:00] first stand. Second stand, same kind of scenario you're talking about.

Usually if you are in a good spot, you got something coming in. First couple sounds 10 minutes or less. Sometimes it takes some coaxing. You're in that, 15, 20 minute range. This one came in that 15, 20 minute range and it slipped around this paw dam on us. And this is the one that Austin went live on, wasn't it?

Yep, I saw this one. Yep. Yeah, I haven't watched that. Actually, I forgot he went live . I should go back and find that. The one that he did that day, I think. Yeah. That's the only one. He did do well. I, this coyote slips around the pond Dam. and it was going to be downwind if it wasn't already downwind very quickly.

. So we had to make a decision pretty quick and it got skittish as soon as it came around this pond, dam started getting skittish like it was gonna leave and we were gonna shoot, everything. And got it stopped. It stopped, looked back and it was one of those it could have at any second took off.

Austin made a decision to take a shot quick and we honestly have no clue how he missed . [00:37:00] He claims that he was leveled on him. There's a chance he might have hit a fence. We don't know for sure. There was a couple strand fence down there, but so he shot low, right? So he felt he shot. the pond, like just from his shooting.

He said he felt low, but he splashed the pond behind him. Okay, so that makes you think high. So I felt high, but obviously we'll never know. But anyway, so that was that set and we packed up after, after that, Hey, Russell just walked in here. Russell, come on. There he is. Hey, you wanna get up?

Hop on here with us. Good information. I don't Good information. You go get plugged that in. Oh, sorry. Spilling shit.

Anyway, you keep, so that was our second set, third set we went, and that was the one I described earlier. We had to plan, we knew what those, that Coyo was doing in that area, and it worked. And as we were leaving, we did see a second one spill out the backside of the timber. [00:38:00] We killed the male, thanked the female was spilling out the backside.

So I mean there was a potential for three coyotes right there. . We only had one dead at that time. And I'm trying to think, the next spot we went to, we thought never been called before. This, from this way. Like five of 'em were gonna pop out. You thought there was a possibility, right? It truly was.

Yep. A good friend of mine lives in the house on that farm and was sending me Snapchats, and that's how I had got permission from that place and was sending me Snapchat. I was like, Hey, they're out here in the morning about every weekend he would be home about nine o'clock. Coyotes. Guess what time we're about to be there?

Nine o'clock. About nine o'clock. It was a matter of time that, we were gonna match up with them. We're almost to where we're gonna go. Completely prone on a terrace. I've always wanted to do that. I don't know why, but that's just cool. We're just gonna lay, we had everything. We're carrying our pa like our like layout roles.

Like we had planned this out. Yeah. Almost there. And this coyote stands up about 2 30, [00:39:00] 2 40. Stands up, looks at us, walks run like jogs to the top of the terrace shakes, and then starts like jogging, like around the edge of the terrace. We had, when we seen him, we had all dropped down. I was going to shoot off a bag.

The other two had put Bipods on their guns. I am an idiot and I sit on my ass , so I couldn't shoot, like I could show up my knee, but Right. And I was like, I had my pack on with call and everything in it, so I was bundled. Like I, I was, I had too much stuff going on. So I was like, screw it, you guys shoot him.

We shot at him and that one ran off, so we never actually called that one. Yeah, he he skated away with some lead chasing him, but so that could have, could have been four on that. And then the rest of the day went to absolute shit for us. . We did not call in another coyote. No, sorry.

Sorry. I lie. Second to last set of the day, I was gonna say cause I thought yeah. Second to last set of the day, it was just slitting. [00:40:00] Nothing was happening. I was starting to get frustrated and I was like, you know what? I've already seen a bunch of deer here. So I started playing faw and distress, which I never do.

I don't believe it actually works very well. And maybe I'm just an idiot and wrong. But I was playing faw and distress and this coyote comes out of the very edge of the timber, probably 40 yards from me. And I just made a comment. I said, Jared, right in front of us. Literally walked out 10 feet, never stopped, walked out, turned around, ran in.

I didn't even have time to swing my rifle in that direction. The only thing we can think is it came out straight down wind of the call. It did not have our wind. There's no chance in that. Smelled you sent from the call. Either smelled the scent from the call or it came out there and did not smell a fawn, did not smell a deer right there and was gone.

Like it gave us zero opportunities. And immediately I tried to hit P distress, see if I could, get it to run back out or run in and outta the timber something, nothing. That's what's sucks about like [00:41:00] with tournaments to win. Like you guys killed, one should have been at least three. Three for sure.

We killed one. Should have or could have been three. Yeah. To win that would've done it. You can't have wouldn't done it. Those things can't, that day, me, ru, me and Russell and hey, let's let's pause here by the way 41 minutes into the 43 minutes into the recording. Hey, Russ is here.

What's up man? What's up ? Welcome. He just got here. We're gonna do some thermal hunting after this. Yeah. So yeah, we're pretty excited about it. But no getting back to it that day that, we, he's going on the tournament. What we should have had seven dead that day potentially. , at least if you kill everyone.

If you kill, if everything went perfect we could have had seven in the truck. So we had other friends hunting it. I won't say their names, but they pulled the trigger on nine coyotes. Eight Coyotes won this tournament. Yeah. They pulled the trigger on nine. Oh, wowed killed four. I bet they were pretty beat up.

They weren't happy about it. They weren't happy about it. And those guys are [00:42:00] run, did they have runners or just straight misses? I think a little bit of everything really from like just visiting with them. They had a little bit of everything. So a day can go shitty real quick. It could be, yeah. You call in coyotes, we don't get 'em killed.

It could be you don't coyote call in coyotes. . It's just everything has to come together to have a successful tournament like that. Yeah. And then honestly, one of my favorite things about tournaments, which I'll give these two tournaments, big pats on the back. Honestly, even natural born killers.

I haven't been there in a few years now, but. , explicit and Midwest Wildlife, my two favorite tournaments, I do, they do the weigh-ins the right way. It's a big, yeah. To me. I'll explain it like it's a banquet. Yes. They've got raffles, both of them. They've got giveaways dude, they've got food.

, world's had food. Midwest Wildlife's got a band. Yeah. They did last year. I'm assuming they're, they are this year too. They're this year. And then when, when the teams are found out, whoever wins, they call 'em up, they announce 'em. , they do a good job, with the, I guess I'd call it the pop and Circumstance.

[00:43:00] Circumstance. Correct. Is that how it goes? Pomp and circumstance? Circumstance, yep. After the fact. Yeah. That's what I would say. I. The most I don't wanna use the word disappointed, but did not meet my expectations of quote unquote worlds, , ex like you said, explicit Midwest wildlife is what I set my probably two standards off of what I expect a very well run tournament to be.

. With that much money on the line, I really thought, like you said, there would be quite a bit of po and circumstance. We went back to check-ins with one dog, cuz you never know you could fall in that big dog and we usually do by chance. I've always done it, but this time you got a rough day and it was a pretty, and we were far away and we're like, Hey, there's some food right here.

Right. . And so we wanted to see who won, what won, how they did it. Like it's worlds man, they're gonna get belt buckles, 20 grand. Like this is gonna be pretty sweet. , I felt like there was a lack of transparency on, we gotta watch videos. , all like explicit and Midwest Wildlife are straight.

Hey if you have a [00:44:00] question, come watch the video. If you, this is public. If you guys wanna watch these videos, I'm gonna watch the videos. You can stand over my shoulder. Like the judges has to be the one to watch, right? You can stand over my shoulder. That wasn't necessarily the case at Worlds. They went into private rooms to watch the video with the teams.

I wonder why they do it that way. And I know these guys haven't done like the tournament for many as many years as like Jesse and Right. Midwest Wildlife Boys have. But then the winners, like there's no announcement. I know it was late, it was a late day. Everybody was tired, ready to go home.

Not a lot of people stayed around to see who won 20 grand. Shocked me. That was their own choice. That wasn't had anything to do with the tournament. That was those people's own choice. They went home, right? But as far as they just walked out, handed them the stuff, and there you left, you go.

Like I, I was sitting right there and still didn't know the people's names until I had to go ask. Really? That's crazy, man. Yeah. And I, good tournament. I'm not saying anything, anything was shady. I don't, there's no, sign of that [00:45:00] nobody came in with 22 dogs or anything like that. Just not your cup of tea as far as it's realistic.

I, I expected more pomp and circum. I expected a bigger deal to be made out of it. It's, I quote unquote worlds this big banquet style reception. And again, I set my standards from explicit and Midwest Wildlife and honestly those are high standards. Yeah. I like how both of them are ran.

They both have their differences. Jesse admit, explicit kind of focuses on, giveaways, hooking everybody up. Yeah. He lo I gets the sponsors out there and gets recognized. This is a benefit for everybody. Midwest Wildlife hooks on one heck of an entertainment. Like I said, they have band, they announce shit.

Ton of raffles. There's raffles, there's, you name it they have lot fun. Yeah. Really good fun. Chili. I wanna say it's, I won't wanna say it's a party, but it's a party. It's a freaking party, man. Like I saw today, he posted like Fridays check in, he's Hey, I got a band Friday. So plan on sticking around, drinking some beers.

Oh, nice. Hanging out. They want to get like-minded [00:46:00] people in the same spot. And that's why the tournaments are talking talk, man. How many people tell your stories right from these tournaments? Oh, a lot. Just by talking, I'll talk to a wall so you know, if somebody's standing there talk, sitting there I'll talk to 'em.

Yeah. So I've met some people. . And to the listeners when this episode comes out, reply on the social media post or send us a message. What's your favorite tournament in Missouri? Yeah. Yeah. You know what's, cuz you know, we pretty much hunt the tournaments around us local. We would love to go to different ones, we're not going to reply what your favorite tournaments are, what do you enjoy about the ones that you go to every year or whatever.

Yeah. And I honestly, those are our Midwest wildlife's gonna be the probably my last daytime for the year. I would like to do a night one. I would like to do a night one if I can find, I wanna do one though. That's just night. Yeah. Not of full. There's a lot of them coming up that are night and then the next day till noon or something.

And I like my marriage [00:47:00] and I can get by with one or the other. I hear you. Or it starts. Saturday and then you check in Sunday morning. So it's a 24 hour. Exactly. Yeah. And that's the Saturday is the part that gets me, because I can do Saturday night or whatever. . But it would be fun.

I'd like to do, what's the one up north that you talked about? Mercer? No, that, Mercer's one, but that's Buddy. Yeah, it's in Purton. I believe there's one in Norberg this weekend. Yeah, that's a day and a half. Starts at night. Goes to like noon the next day. Really thought about that one.

That one would be a good time. But two man teams though. Yeah, two man teams and, which is fine. It's just, I'm not gonna miss Midwest Wildlife. Like I said, it's one of my favorite ones. So even though I forgot to put them on the initial list, my apologies. You're number two. My bad. You know what I, and I think the other reason why we like Midwest and explicit also is, We know the people that put on both of those.

Yeah. Yeah. Ryan Greco with Midwest Wildlife and his folks Cody Hemi and Right. [00:48:00] And I don't believe whoever else I'm forgetting and I honestly, I don't believe, I know neither one of those groups will put up with any bs. Anybody comes in that's sketchy trying to do some shit, they're gone.

The coyote challenge, it's Saturday, February 18th checking, register the 17th at seven and then you check in at seven Saturday. Say that again. You check, you register at the 17th at 7:00 PM and then you check in at 7:00 PM Saturday you 20. So that's the day. Yeah. So it's a 24 hour. Could you, can you start hunting?

That's, it's at the, her community center. You start hunting that night. I'm pretty sure after checking, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure because I asked, it doesn't use any, wasn't much different than a normal term. Normal cuz you check in Fridays, but my wife's asleep by the time. Get back this one home anyway, like I'm pretty sure.

In the morning. This one's a little different. This one. Okay. Here. Use of any legal means of hunt hunting or trapping. That's just a killing tournament. Yeah, that's just a killing. Or [00:49:00] trapping. Trapping. I've never had it where you could try trapp during the, that day. How do you prove your traps are empty before that?

I guess you do. You know what I'm saying? However you come back with Kyle Trap, come back with 10 freaking dogs and leave them for three days waiting. I know you're supposed to check a track. Probably have to video 'em in the trap and then video killing him. I'm pretty, do you know, I'm pretty sure this is the first time you're doing this one.

You don't know. Yeah. I think this is the first time they're gonna work out some kink, sure. Hot beef plate dinner, hell. So I'm down. , but you could probably tell if the foot's been in the trap for more than Yeah, they probably, I would think so. No, like that one that we killed.

You could tell that was an old wound. Oh yeah. I would assume that thing was caught in a trap and freaking broke it off or something like that. Speaking of Coyo feet in worlds, I was standing there, dude, I seen this thing one with five legs. There was a coyote with five freaking legs that got checked in with the little nub thingy.

The little nub sticking out. Yeah, I saw that line. Did have, did it have ta nails? Dude, it straight up looked like, damn it. Strong hand . Did it have nails? The one of them did and the other one I don't think did, it was more of like [00:50:00] from an had an elbow joint. Yeah. Down. I killed one early on that had its back, left leg was the little nub.

Like a three inch leg. Yeah. Pawing everything. No shit. Yep. That's pretty sweet. But was there any black dogs checked in to that? There are some darker dogs. I wouldn't call them black. There's some chocolate looking ones. The one thing I did like about Worlds is that the Department of Conservation had representatives there.

They had two agents. They had one agent actually that at Checkin. And then they had two agents or one agent at signup and two agents at Checkin. And they verified that everyone that checked a coyote had a hunting license. Nice. Everybody was legal. They'd stand, they're good dudes, man. Stand around.

They'd BSed with you. Yeah. Doing their jobs. The only other time I've seen them at Explicit, not this last one, but the year before, and I've seen 'em at Midwest. Midwest, and there's been a couple agents that hunted in those before too. But I have, I'm happy they're there. I'm not doing, I have nothing to hide.

Come check my stuff. Hey, if you don't got your tag, I want you to do it the right way. And a tag's cheap. [00:51:00] Was it 10 bucks? Where are they at? I don't know if you're outta state. I guess it might be a little more. I don't know if small games tag really is. That whole thing is, I don't an idiot if you didn't buy a tag.

That's and I like that, cuz that's the first one where even like when they're at Midwest the first time I actually, I've only seen him there one time. I don't remember him checking anybody. He was just there. I don't think, I think he was just there if you wanted to check a dog at World's.

Yeah. And that's what you told legit. That I had to pull out my, pull up my phone, show them my tag my tag on my app and then show 'em my id. Yeah. I wrong with that. I like it. They to ask what team number? Where did you hunt? Let me see your license. I like that. I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good.

That's a good idea. See a truck pulled in . He just pulled We can go offroad. Sorry. Wrong tournament. got switched around here anyway. No, it was a good time. Awesome. But we're gonna do Midwest Wildlife this weekend. Yep. Actually we will have four guys on our team, which is one thing I really love about Midwest.

You can have up to four on your [00:52:00] teams. Yeah. It's a lot of guys, but it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of guys Is this tournament for me, is for strictly fun tournament? Yep. I could care less. I want to kill a few dogs win like we had for sure. But we did four with the N BK tournament and it's a challenge to try to hide four people.

But it is, it's fun. See, I'm not even worried about hiding, making Austin a lot. . I'm not even worried about hiding four people, to be honest with you. It's more the logistics of the truck. Yeah. Because four guys in a truck with all your shit is the hardest thing. Me. You got a camper shell, dude. I know.

I've, I I got the dude, we haven't talked to Andy got a new rig. I do. Yeah. He got him a new hunting rig. I'm gonna call it your hunting rig. Cause that's mainly what it is, right? For the moment it has been. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's the SHA wagon. I called it something the other day and.

I liked it. I called him to make fun of you if you named your truck. Oh, I named it You loser. He named his last truck. It was a baby truck. His baby truck. Yeah. It was just cuz it looked like a baby truck. I mean I, it's not really a name. Pat. Pat has a baby truck now. Yeah, I know. I heard. Yeah. I don't remember what I called it, [00:53:00] but it's got a camper shell.

He's got a, yeah. So I got a new truck camper show. We throw some blankets in the back, has a rhino whining and then we put blankets over it and make it soft so we can keep all our gear back there. And yeah, it works pretty good. My next truck will hopefully have a camper shell. I'm not probably my wife makes fun of Pretty hardcore.

Oh, Amy. Amy cuz I've told her, I was like, man, I really like to get a camper shell. The Kyo caddy. That's why I call the Kyo cat. Ooh, that's sweet. Freaking You should get a, that's sweet dude. That's a good name. Says the guy who is named all his deer after Mortal Combat. I named Truck. I'm a do, I'm a douche.

This dude names every deer. Who's in that Cool. Who nicknames a truck ? Usually everybody. Most, yeah, I call mine tinfoil. Cut. That makes sense. It looks weird. Coyo Cady, I don't know. It's he hauls, he hauls coyote dead coyotes around in that makes no matter what Micah, we're talking to a guy who thinks Subzero can beat Chuck Norson.

Fired. That's true. Cuz he can, no matter what name you would've given your truck. I was gonna make fun of you for I know you could've named it. Subzero would've been like, what a [00:54:00] douche. Speaking of Chuck Norris did you know Chuck Norris doesn't even hunt because that would imply that, he might not get something.

So Chuck Norris just goes killing . Nice time to put that in there. Yeah. But anyway he didn't ruin it. My wife is mad at me. Mad at you. Actually, I feel like your wife's mad at me a lot. But shouldn't tell me that because I was like, Andy got it in a new truck and our trucks are the same truck. Just a few years apart. And I said, I really like that camp show. I'd like to find one. Aren't they the same age? I thought your No. Mine. Mine's three years older than yours. Really? Mine's an 11. Really? Oh yeah. Same body style. Same, yeah, same body style. And She's you seriously wanna spend money on a camper shell?

It's you should see it. Wait till your wife. And I think she said, now you know how I know you're 60. . Amy says the same. Cuz I've, like I said, I've talked about it. I'm like, I really would like to have one. She's like, why looks like an old man truck? I'm like, I don't care. They make sense. You had a camper shell on your truck when you guys went to New Mexico for elk.

Yeah. Mean of shit. Isn't dude? Oh yeah. It's awesome. Didn't match, didn't fit. But , [00:55:00] it worked. It was all, my God, it worked. You just needed That would be my problem. I'd have to match my truck. Cause my OCD won't allow, your wife's not gonna like me SUNY again, what'd you buy? Another truck? No, wheels and tires helmet.

Oh. Finally pull the trigger on it. Can we, my wife's not gonna, who's bigger? . We have to get our stuff first. Yeah. We're still waiting for our micros. Hopefully when it shows up, then I'll have, if I went ahead and spent the money for a helmet to mount my scanner, what we call it? Scanner.

That's sweet. How'd you know what to buy? Just I put on my big boy pants and made a decision. Don't lie. What, how did you get the information on what to buy? I put on my big boy pants and made it decision. Sent a text of Brandon? No, , because that's what I did. I asked him stuff is, and I just saved it. Dude, my problem.

But, and I have, I love my buddy Calder Uhhuh , he will spend way too much of my money. Yeah, he does. That's all right. I have a cheap ass and I might buy the shit, but [00:56:00] I will buy the cheap shit. You know what, I have the break. You know what I have. And I'll get pissed and buy the expensive shit . You know what I have though?

A Russell. You do have a Russell. He's already got a helmet set up for me. coming in the mail. I'm like, sweet. He's do you have a battery cable? I'm like, I don't know yet. I want you to know we, we'll figure it out. So do you have, do you use the battery pack in the ba Do you have the I haven't yet.

Yeah, I just got a counterweight. Just I, so I ordered a counterweight for it until I have my own thermal. I'll worry about that there. So those micros, what's gonna, what I've heard is nice about 'em. On their YouTube reviews that we have. They use that, I think it's an 1850 battery. Yeah, they're like for the rechargeable ones, they're like $10 a piece.

He's go buy half dozen of them. Put 'em in your pocket. Yeah. And when the one dies just and put the one in last. Yeah. They're so easy apparently to, they're so cheap and easy to replace apparently. I'm just excited to be able to have a scanner and not break my back looking through the gun whole time.

It's be really nice. It's a pain. It's a pain. Even holding it. It's a pain the ass. It is. . At least we'll have one [00:57:00] at night. Yeah. Cuz you have a scanner, you hold, right? Yeah. But, To be fair, that scanner you hold is pretty badass. It's pretty sweet. It's pretty nice. Still better than looking through your, you can get a helmet mount for that damn thing.

Really? A 3D printed some of a bitch. Yeah. . I'm not sure how well that would work, but what your scanner you got now at Pulsar, right? Yeah. Yeah. The thing I am most like concerned about, again, like I said I'm a cheap ass. The amount I bought, like I read about, I was reading reviews and reviews, trying to make sure I got the right one.

There was a model of this one that didn't work well with the J arm that you have to have. I bought the J arm that it specifically says, but I'm gonna be, I'm a little nervous until I get it in my hands that it actually works. Just keep your receipts. Yeah. You'll find out. I guess that's a good thing about Amazon.

It's pretty easy to return stuff. That's true. So speaking of night hunting, let's talk about degradation tags. Yeah. It's just a, like an interesting topic because we got a degradation tag this year and we've had 'em before, I think in years past, haven't you? . Yeah. I've [00:58:00] had Right one other time.

Micah, explain what a degradation tag is to people who don't know if a landowner has reason for if they have livestock and they have death, if a coyote is, they have a death in the family. If they, if the coyotes killing their livestock and they can prove it, then they can go to the conservation and go through a process of getting a degradation tag.

And during that they can play, put a representative to be their hunter. . All right. So we got picked to be this person's you know, representative, to be their representative. And so we were able to go out there before thermal season actually started, starts tonight. We were able to go out there 10 days before and shoot coyotes at night with thermals.

So we went out a handful of times. We've had success. Two of those killed dogs. There are a lot more dogs out there. So I'll say this about degradation tags. It's cool because you get [00:59:00] to, hunt 'em out, sight of the normal , thermal season if you get 'em. But don't you feel an added level of pressure?

Definitely, because, I've been talking to the landowner. Same with you, Andy. Like when you've Oh, do you know how shitty it is? Because the one I did have I, he went through the farmer went through the trouble of getting me the tag, and getting everything lined up. I killed zero coyotes.

I missed two of 'em. And I was like, I was, so the pressure was off. You still felt the pressure, but night one, we killed one. So I was like, okay. Whew. A little bit of. , but we saw the first night, we saw eight. Second night we saw six. The other night we went out, we saw six.

Some of those are gonna be the same dogs possibly. At one point we had six in one field. Yes. That night. Yes. Yeah. The other night. Sure. There could have been some that moved over and, got with the other ones, whatever. Yeah. Weren't those like those eight? Weren't those different? I don't think so.

The same. I think when we seen same dogs, I think they were all the, I think they're all different dogs. And that could, you could be right. Dude, they're out there. Yeah. [01:00:00] You don't know. But but we killed some dogs and we're gonna go out there tonight and I'm hoping we can put the smack down on freaking four of, or something like that.

Really? Eight, 10. No, that, that'd be great. But the landowner will have how many. Four. See, boom. You got both going. . Micah's just like excited. Oh, mooch. Micah. He's got going. . I feel . I feel bad. I really do. No, you don't. Lets get him a name. You don't mooch Micah. I'll take that. I'll take that, right Micah?

It's more poor Micah. We'll just say poor Micah because cuz Micah's poor, you just, you can't afford nothing. Choose to use your money on other things. You just bought a brand new gun. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Correct? Yeah, I did. Okay. Okay. Just make it. Sure. Yeah. I probably should have, but there's some other things going on that I was like, I don't want to put my money into that.

If I know I got something down. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. And yeah. Don't blame you. But it would be nice to have my own . I'm not gonna lie. But you got you should have seen, I know the listener will not ever see [01:01:00] this, but you should have seen Micah's eyes light up when he found out Russell has two.

I was talking to Russell earlier today and. one of 'em. We've you've had problems with, yeah. You can almost have it for free if it fucking keeps doing it. . So you're dealing with it. So I was not expecting Yes. Which one Micah's using? No, that's fine. I don't care, man. I'll take what I can get.

I like scanning too. Yeah, it's nice just to be able to, it's fun. If you're out there and you got something that you can look through, it's a good time. As long as you, but if you don't have anything where you're looking through, you're just literally, you're looking in the dark. In the dark.

You are standing in the dark, just hoping those, Hey, there's one over here. Oh, cool. , . So it's nice to have have something to look through. And that makes it nice with your guys's, y'all can Bluetooth through your phones. Yeah. Yeah. So even if there's only one gun out there, you can sit there and watch the guy's phone and you can still be in the action.

Like the second time we went, Micah's got my gun. Oh there's a guy out right there. Cool. Can I have my freaking rifle? . [01:02:00] I was like, they're right there. Do, they're right here. I don't know. Oh, you're holding my gun right now. . But yeah, degradation tags, that's, you feel that extra pressure for sure.

And cuz I've been contact this lady's, she's, she is, apparently she's had a lot of they've had a cow die on the cow actually drowned, but so they had to get rid of the cow. They threw it in the very back pasture hoping that it's gonna attract more coyotes that we can kill. And I'm, and I'm trying to explain like I really appreciate that, but if we were just bad winds, right?

I was like, cuz the way that this property works, if we come in with any type of north wind, those dogs are gonna smell us before they even see 'em. They know, like they know that their best time to go eat that cow is a north wind. Probably because they're predators. Yeah. So I'm trying to relay that to the, this is one of the first times since we've started thermal hunting.

that I've really recognized they are just as smart at night at that place as they [01:03:00] are during the day. There's, they have circled us two different times and got our wins circled us from like last year I remember us three, we watched those ones 800 yards out. Take a 800 yard circle all the way behind us.

The only time that I've ever seen that though. Yeah, you before that you always, they always came in right For the most part. But the, they get smart dude. When you're at hunting at night, it makes you realize during the day what you could be missing cuz you can't see it. Yeah. You're missing 80% of the coyotes out there.

I would agree probably cuz that's what I love about my thermal. And Andy I know yours, I think does the same thing I can see into the timber. Yeah. If there's a, if there's a kay out walking 40 yards back in the woods, I can see 'em. You're not gonna see that in the, you're not gonna see that during the day.

Never. So it's pretty cool. But yeah, degradation tags are interesting because, it's outside of the season. and usually the landowner really wants you out there. If they're gonna go through the hassle of calling the conservation agent, having them come out. And she was like I, I told her cuz she, she didn't know about [01:04:00] night hunting and the season of stuff of it.

And she was telling me what all was going on. I was like, if you really just want to get numbers down, we need to wait till the thermal season starts. That'll be our best chances of, stacking bodies . . And she, I was like, the only way we can, and I was like, that starts February 1st.

The only way we can get around that is if you can prove to the conservation that you've had these losses. She's I'll get back with you a minute, not 10 minutes later, goes by conservation's dropping the tag off tomorrow. So she's, yeah she's had some loss and the good thing is with this land, , they seem to be pretty happy with what we've done so far.

Yeah. And I text her today, Hey, we're gonna be coming out tonight. Heck yeah. Get 'em all, they've really been eating that cow up. I know. They're around like perfect. Yeah. So it's pretty awesome. We'll be out there. And then obviously thermal season starts today. We're gonna be doing a lot of it cuz in Missouri we get two months.

So what I love about thermal season is we can do it at night. Yeah. Obviously that's when you do it. [01:05:00] And it's much easier on the wife and kids, harder on your body. They are asleep and I'm playing. Yeah. For me it's not the worst thing in the world cuz I am a night owl, but there's been nights where we've been out till three in the morning and then that makes for a rough day the next day.

That's usually on a Friday or Saturday when we're doing that. I don't know. We did it like a Wednesday one time. I, but still it fucked me all week. Yes. We about to do it this Wednesday. I know. No, we're not staying. I'm with Andy Midnight and I'm out , but we'll see. But anything else?

Let's get off here. Let's go kill some dogs. You called me a little bitch when I said I'm done at midnight. You did. I did. You did. I was to be fair, Micah talks shit all the time on text messages. Yes sir. You do. That's true. You literally talk shit 24 7. I find that very amusing. I know.

Helps me get me through my day, so I know. Appreciate that. Stay my pastor. Don't ever anything I say just don't take it serious. I never, except for me beating your ass. I will beat your ass. . I stand behind that statement. See now I can't take it serious. [01:06:00] stand behind that statement. All right. Anything else?

Do we have anything? Let's go kill Kai Russell. I'm glad you got to hop on with us for 15 minutes and say hello. Five words. Yeah. I spent three hours in the reloading room. I know, dude. Here, Russell's good. I texted, we were like, Hey, it's the season. Let's go tonight. And we're like let's get Russell out there too.

So I texted him, he's oh shit, I gotta reload some stuff. You, Hey. Russell's rounds right now are like CC'S pizzas. Yeah. Hot, fresh and ready to go. He sent me a video of him getting him prepared. Yeah. And I think I replied to you, why does this oddly turn me on or it's oddly satisfying or something.

Yeah. Everything oddly turns you on. It's very creepy. . So does the Coyote caddy again, still creepy. I was the way you say it, it is. You got any candy in there, ? Okay. Let's go do some night hunting. Let's do it. See you guys. See you.[01:07:00]

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