The Evolution Of A Hunter and Man

In this episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast, host Dan Johnson engages with Brandon Ringwalski, discussing the rich culinary traditions of Wisconsin, the transition into fatherhood, and the evolution of hunting strategies over the years. Brandon shares his experiences from pre-kids hunting to military life, and how these experiences shaped his approach to hunting and family life. The conversation delves into the challenges of balancing hunting passions with family responsibilities, and the importance of relationships in navigating these changes. Brandon reflects on his hunting successes and the realistic expectations of deer hunting in Wisconsin, providing insights into the hunting culture and personal growth. In this conversation, Brandon Ringwolski shares his journey of adapting his hunting strategies and mindset after becoming a parent. He discusses the challenges of balancing family life with hunting, the importance of learning from past mistakes, and how he has found success by reevaluating his approach to scouting and hunting. Brandon emphasizes the value of using time efficiently and prioritizing family while still pursuing his passion for hunting.

Takeaways:

• Wisconsin is known for its rich culinary traditions, especially fish fries.
• Transitioning to fatherhood brings significant changes to hunting habits.
• Military life can limit hunting opportunities but strengthens relationships.
• Post-military, there is a renewed focus on hunting and making up for lost time.
• Balancing family life and hunting requires communication and understanding.
• Hunting strategies evolve significantly after becoming a parent.
• The importance of independence in a relationship enhances mutual support.
• Success in hunting often comes with patience and realistic expectations.
• Wisconsin offers a variety of hunting opportunities, including quality deer.
• Personal growth is often reflected in the evolution of hunting practices. Brandon experienced a meltdown during his hunting journey.
• He initially repeated mistakes but learned from them over time.
• Hunting should be fun and not a source of stress.
• Reevaluating goals is crucial when life changes occur.
• Scouting in the offseason can lead to better hunting success.
• Consolidating hobbies can free up time for hunting.
• Success in hunting can come from reduced pressure on hunting spots.
• Finding success requires adapting to new life circumstances.
• Scouting days can be more valuable than hunting days.
• Family should always come first, even in hunting.

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Dan Johnson (00:00.3)
One. All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the nine finger Chronicles podcast. am your host Dan Johnson and today's guest from Wisconsin, correct? Brandon Ringwalski. Brandon, you and your Wisconsin buddies have some crazy. I don't even know. Like what is Wisconsin's major European descendancy? Cause it's just a whole bunch of consonants in your last names.

Brandon Ringwolski (00:27.916)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of Polish and German. Yep.

Dan Johnson (00:30.731)
Polish. Yeah. Yeah. Even at, even in like Madison, Wisconsin, like at a, know, I'm guessing what's that? What county is that? Dane County? Yep. Dane County. That's, that's one of the most liberal cities, but it still has a big, there's sausage, sausage.

restaurants that just serve meats and smoked meats and things like that on State Street there in Madison and everywhere else. You know what else I like about Wisconsin? Fish fries. They have fish fries all the time. I love fish fries.

Brandon Ringwolski (01:05.676)
yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (01:11.392)
Yeah, that's one thing I do love about Wisconsin too. The fish fries, Sunday ham and rolls is kind of a thing local to Southern Wisconsin.

Dan Johnson (01:24.446)
What's a hot Hamon roll? Explain that to me.

Brandon Ringwolski (01:25.934)
Basically on Sundays you can go into a deli and get hot sliced ham and rolls, make a sandwich and that's kind of your after church brunch.

Dan Johnson (01:40.479)
Okay. So it is exactly what it sounds like. Hot Ham and Rolls. Yeah, exactly. And that was the same thing when I was lived down in Alabama for a while. It was tea and biscuits. And so they had these specials on certain days of the week where you would get a gallon of sweet tea or unsweetened tea, whatever you like, and a dozen biscuits. And that was it. And so anywhere you would go, they would have discounts.

Brandon Ringwolski (01:44.258)
Yep. No surprise. No surprise there.

Dan Johnson (02:09.748)
or specials on tea and biscuits. They had billboards that said tea and biscuits and that was it. So I miss Alabama. There's one place about Alabama that I really miss the most and it was a drive through barbecue store where they didn't sell individual portions. They sold plates. They called them plates and it was like, I want a turkey pulled pork plate. And then they would hand you a plate of food.

with tinfoil over top of it and then you would take it home. So I miss that. I miss going and visiting my buddy John in Wisconsin and going to fish fries and going to eat sausages and then of course drinking lots of beer when I go to Wisconsin too. And cheese curds, God, what a rookie mistake. I apologize if I've offended you in any way, Brandon. Dude, we got an awesome story to tell.

Brandon Ringwolski (02:54.967)
and cheese curds. Gotta have cheese curds.

Dan Johnson (03:08.34)
today and I think it's a story that we've heard here on this podcast multiple times before, but I like having these stories brought up because it is the most relatable for many men, especially with who are within, you know, this time of their life with family and kids and then maybe thinking that as you get into being a family man, you're losing some of the hunting, it's not, it's not always the worst case scenario.

Right? And so we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna talk about that story here in a second. But before we get into today's podcast, I am gonna do a quick commercial break here and send a huge shout out to all of the partners here on the Nine Finger Chronicles. If you're looking for a saddle, saddle hunting accessories, if you're interested in becoming as mobile as humanly possible, you gotta go check out Tethered and their lineup of saddle hunting equipment.

Brandon Ringwolski (03:39.445)
Absolutely.

Dan Johnson (04:05.416)
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They have a huge lineup of I think red dots coming to market here pretty soon. And for the turkey hunter, for the guy who is into target shooting, whether that's with a pistol or a rifle, they got a lot of new products coming out. On top of their already very cream of the crop, I guess everything that they already offer. So VortexOptics.com, go for the optics, stay for the people. I love the people at Vortex.

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They're again a cream of the crop type product. It may not be the you may not look at it from an elite standpoint as far as some of the other, you know, people look at let me back up a second. I'm Brandon. I'm murdering this one. I made a mistake. Now I got a backtrack. What I'm trying to say here is a lot of people think of elite camo brands and we know what they are and people are skipping over.

Dan Johnson (06:30.911)
Huntworth, all right? Huntworth is, man, these guys don't get the credit that they deserve. Affordable, yes, awesome. But just because it's affordable doesn't mean the quality's not there. This is very high quality product. I'm in love with their bass layers, I'm in love with their heat boost technology, I love the solid options that they have. I wore them all year long and I wasn't cold. I was able to use my

body heat to regulate my, you know, their products to regulate my body temperature, whether it was hiking in, sitting in cold conditions, hiking out, all of that stuff. What I'm trying to say is if you're looking for a badass hunting gear line, go check out huntworthgear.com. And then last but not least, Reveal Trail Cameras. They have the new 3.0 versions. If you are looking to set up a cell cam very quickly, don't go any further.

then reveal a very high quality camera that is easy to set up, put batteries in the camera, download the app, and scan a QR code and your camera is ready to be used almost instantly. And of course, fullsneakgear.com, my company, it's a badass company, t-shirts, if you like to wear t-shirts and hats that have deer on them, well then I guess that's, then you'd like my company, fullsneakgear.com. All right, I whored out enough there.

Brandon, that's how I pay my bills, my friend. Dude, let's get into this conversation. First question I have for you is, when did you become a father? What date did you become a father?

Brandon Ringwolski (07:57.632)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (08:12.59)
That would be March 31st, 2020. Yep, so right in the beginning of COVID, like a week after the world lockdown.

Dan Johnson (08:18.848)
2020. All right, so.

Dan Johnson (08:26.228)
So did they make your baby wear masks everywhere?

Brandon Ringwolski (08:29.486)
no, it was, it was really weird because the like rules at the hospitals were changing day by day. So we didn't even know if I was going to be able to come to the hospital with my wife or not. and, I was able to, but once I checked in, then it was, you weren't allowed to leave until, she was, she was released from the hospital.

Dan Johnson (08:40.384)
Okay.

Dan Johnson (08:57.633)
Okay, that's, I'm trying to forget all of those times. I'm not joking from a standpoint of my kids, man. Like, you know how unhappy my kids were when they would go to school? And my oldest boy and him trying to wear a mask and then getting emails from the teacher like, well, he doesn't want to wear his mask. I'm like, no shit, he doesn't want to wear his mask. He's four years old. Like he's a kindergartener, of course.

Brandon Ringwolski (09:20.747)
Right.

Brandon Ringwolski (09:25.261)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (09:25.512)
Of course he doesn't want to wear a mask. Like, don't email me with this nonsense anymore. Right? Just it. And then you walk through the school and you get teachers, their mask is around their chin. So it defeats the purpose of even wearing a mask anyway. So I just kind of wrote all that shit off anyway. That what I'm I agree with you. It was a crazy time in the world back then, but that's not.

Brandon Ringwolski (09:31.021)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (09:50.879)
where I want to start. wanted to ask you that date because there's a, just like myself, there's a pre-kids Dan Johnson and there's a post-kids Dan Johnson, right? So my life changed the moment that I had kids. How many kids do you have now? Just the one?

Brandon Ringwolski (10:02.403)
Yep.

Brandon Ringwolski (10:08.654)
Two daughters

Dan Johnson (10:09.93)
Two daughters, okay, and so when was the second one born?

Brandon Ringwolski (10:13.006)
Second one was born in 2022, November 7th.

Dan Johnson (10:15.904)
Okay, so you got what, a two year old and a four year old right now? Okay, all right, so you're just getting in the game. How old are you?

Brandon Ringwolski (10:20.109)
Yep.

Brandon Ringwolski (10:25.033)
I'm 32.

Dan Johnson (10:26.592)
32, dude, you got like time for like two or three more kids, No. Girl, that it is girl that it is. Yep. OK, all right. Talk to me a little bit about. pre kids as a hunter strategy wise, I mean, what was your approach on a yearly basis?

Brandon Ringwolski (10:30.158)
No, no thanks.

Yeah, yeah, I'm all done with that.

Brandon Ringwolski (10:51.27)
Um, so pre-kids, uh, really I didn't get seriously into bow hunting until like 2010 timeframe. Um, I was, I was a big, uh, waterfall hunter, like in, in, uh, high school and stuff like that. And, uh, started working at a, uh, a sporting goods store called Gander Mountain and met a buddy and he, uh, he got me real big into archery. Um,

And from that time point until late 2012, that's when I went into military and I was in the Marines from 2012 to 2017.

Brandon Ringwolski (11:38.53)
A lot of my hunting strategy then was just volume hunting. you know, getting out every chance I could. And I think that

Dan Johnson (11:52.449)
What do you consider volume here? When you say volume hunting, are we talking every single day, every weekend, like only when your job allowed you to, or did you have a flexible schedule to where you were able to really dive, like get in there and hunt? Because I remember there were years where I was hunting 30 days a year, 40 days a year.

Brandon Ringwolski (12:13.066)
Yeah, pretty much every weekend and any chance that I could prior to work or after work where I had a couple hours that I could slip out at. At that time, I had some local places that I could go to that were relatively close. So I was going out every chance that I could slip into a tree stand. And then

Fast forwarding to post-military, I did move home, I started college and then I would set up my classes so that I would have classes like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I would be off school Monday and Friday. And if I could somehow manage my work schedule so that I didn't have to work those days, then I would, there's a lot of times I would

go hunt Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, then come back, do school and work for a couple days and try and repeat it all over again. So really by...

Dan Johnson (13:22.109)
You kind of turned into a bum, right? A hunting bum. you didn't even, like, the only thing you wanted to do was hunt.

Brandon Ringwolski (13:25.762)
Pretty much.

Yeah, yeah, I would.

leave a job if it didn't work for what I wanted to do. but thankfully I have a pretty good partner at home that puts up with that and allows me to do that. that's a big part of this. I met my wife freshman year in high school when we were 14.

Dan Johnson (13:49.472)
When did you meet your wife? When did you meet your wife?

Dan Johnson (13:57.457)
Okay, so this has been something that yeah, okay. That makes a little, that makes great sense because I was dating a girl before my wife and then I got into hunting, right? And so I got into hunting and my girlfriend at time was like, wait, like you're spending a lot of time hunting. And I was like, yeah, I really like it. And she didn't like that fact, right? She wasn't like really super.

that I started getting into it, finding a hobby and it almost, guess, I'm guessing she felt like she was, I don't know, she was second place. Did you ever go through a time when you started picking up the hunting and stuff like that where you had, your girlfriend or your wife at the time or wherever she was at was like, hey, wait, like, this is taking a lot of time away from us. Did she ever throw shade on that?

Brandon Ringwolski (14:56.265)
yeah. Yeah, I mean in the early years, usually we would split up every hunting season at some point just because, you know, she was not happy with how much I was hunting and I didn't want to give that up. You know, that was my favorite thing in the world to do. So there was always rough times then.

Dan Johnson (15:07.228)
Dan Johnson (15:16.191)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (15:26.222)
And really it wasn't until we had gotten older, we had split up right around the time I went into the military and got back together about two years later and grew up a little bit, matured a little bit.

Once once we got back together, nine months later, we were married and she had the plan was for her to come out and live in California with me and then she got into a dental school here in Wisconsin and we decided it'd be best for her to stay home and do that pursue her dream and so we spent the next four years married but living across the country from each other.

Dan Johnson (16:15.284)
Wow.

Brandon Ringwolski (16:15.798)
until I moved home.

Dan Johnson (16:17.642)
How often were you seeing each other at that point?

Brandon Ringwolski (16:20.814)
usually once a month. I mean she would she would be able to

Dan Johnson (16:24.819)
Okay.

Brandon Ringwolski (16:29.56)
fly out by me probably once a month every other month and same for me I'd take a you know a Friday and a Monday off and I'd fly out there for a couple days and hang out and whatever and yeah it ended up working out fine I mean it sucked but

Dan Johnson (16:52.874)
So you got married, when did you enter in the Marine Corps?

Brandon Ringwolski (16:58.479)
2012. Yep.

Dan Johnson (17:00.017)
Okay, so 2012, and then you guys were married in 2012?

Brandon Ringwolski (17:05.582)
We got married in 2014 and then I got out of the service late 2017.

Dan Johnson (17:08.476)
Okay, okay.

Dan Johnson (17:15.484)
Okay, holy smokes. So you were, you had this back and forth long distance relationship for five years and three or four of them while you were married. Wow, wow. Man, that seems like it would be a struggle at times.

Brandon Ringwolski (17:32.671)
yeah, I mean it wasn't easy, you know it it

There was a lot of times where, yeah, it sucked big time, know, especially going on deployment and stuff like that, and not seeing each other for, you know, six, seven months, you know, stretches and, but I don't know, I think at the same time though, it

made the relationship pretty strong. know, once we did make it through that, then it was kind of like, yeah, if we can get through that, like we can work through anything, right?

Dan Johnson (18:11.776)
Yeah, yeah, and I'm guessing and you know from a lucky standpoint at least at least at that point there were no kids involved at that point right and there was no like just imagine having that same relationship but that set up but with kids man that would be crazy because I know guys who have been deployed with kids overseas for multiple years at a time and They weren't there to watch their kids grow up and you want to talk about sacrifice. Holy shit. I couldn't do that

Brandon Ringwolski (18:20.355)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (18:26.476)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (18:40.798)
I couldn't step away from my family for two years.

Brandon Ringwolski (18:43.469)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, one of my best friends, I met him when we were actually deployed and we celebrated one night on deployment because his wife had their first kid, you know, and he was there with us and she was back in California.

Dan Johnson (19:02.848)
Yeah, man, you know, I'm so lucky. look so lucky to have been on the path that I'm on. What was what was hunting like in that time frame? Were you still making it a priority to hunt from 2012 to 2017?

Brandon Ringwolski (19:21.166)
not really because the priority was, you know, I mean, we only got 30 days of, of leave and that includes weekends, right in the military, if you were to take off. Your leave days includes weekend days. So then it was just a priority to come home and hang out with.

girlfriend or wife once we got married and I would try and if I could come home for the firearm season just because that's a big tradition I'm sure as you know in Wisconsin so I'd at least try and come home for opening weekend of gun season and see the wife and family and and then go go hunt with

my dad and grandpa up at our cabin in central Wisconsin.

Dan Johnson (20:21.492)
Yeah, so you were trying to, you know, cover as much as you could in that small timeframe. See your wife, go hunt, you know, do the firearm season, go hunt and then go back. Okay. All right. And so now we have this timeframe post military. Okay. So post military to present day. actually let's break that down a little bit more post military pre kids.

So you're looking at 18 and 19, 17, 18 and 19. You get out of the military. My assumption is this is when you started to dive back into hunting pretty heavily. Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (21:03.122)
yeah, yeah, there was, mean, I'm, missed bow hunting terribly bad when I was in the military, you know, especially living in California, like there wasn't really great opportunity to do that. Right. So once I got out, I mean, that was like priority number one. And I

Kind of had this fire inside me that was like, I got to make up for lost time. Right. So then it was, you know, back to every free chance I could get, was going and, thankfully my wife was fine with me doing that. I mean, there was, there was times where she would kind of ride me a little bit, you know, Hey, you're hunting too much, but, her family also has.

some land in northeast Wisconsin and we have a cabin up there. So it was nice to be able to go up as a whole family and hang out and I'll go hunt the afternoons or the mornings. you know, it's, it's almost like a free pass, you know, because we're, we're hanging out and spending time together, but I'll slip out for a couple hours here and there and get in the tree.

Dan Johnson (22:26.302)
Yeah, but if you're looking at it that way, that's great. But also you're back home now. Military is over, right? So it's not this once a month, once every other month visitation schedule that you had. You're home and it's still, I bet you it felt like, now it's all the time, all the time. And even if you would go out and hunt two or three days a week, you're still seeing each other more than you've ever seen each other.

Brandon Ringwolski (22:39.543)
yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (22:52.181)
Yeah, I mean, I think a huge part of where she was okay with how much I was hunting is our time apart. She, like we kind of learned to be pretty independent, even though we were a couple and we were together, we were very independent.

Dan Johnson (23:10.622)
Yeah, yeah. Hey man, that's a good thing about a relationship is two independent people coming together to, I don't know. I mean, obviously you sacrifice for each other. mean, look, you guys were married for four years and living separate for that entire time. So that's crazy, man. That's crazy. Okay. Now talk to me about your success as far as deer hunting post-

post-military pre-kids.

Brandon Ringwolski (23:45.231)
Post-military pre-kids, so it was a lot of dough-killing. Close encounters with some good bucks. Usually it was always a meltdown when the opportunity came. I generally, thinking back on that time, would get like one opportunity at a good deer and

There was a couple that I missed easy chip shots or the setup was wrong and I ended up getting winded by a deer coming in and whatnot. But I had killed a couple smaller bucks in that timeframe, but just not what I was really looking for.

Dan Johnson (24:38.538)
Yeah. And so when you say one opportunity a year, this is, would you still consider this a high volume period of time for you?

Brandon Ringwolski (24:49.366)
Yeah, yeah, I would still in that that timeframe when I was, you know, hunting any given chance that I could.

Dan Johnson (24:57.119)
Just on average, how many days of the hunting season were you hunting? Best guess.

Brandon Ringwolski (25:04.654)
I would guess somewhere between like 30 and 45 days or six.

Dan Johnson (25:08.864)
30 and 45 sits per year. That's a lot, dude. Right? And so I'm just, I'm just talking from a mathematical standpoint now, one opportunity at a caliber of deer that you were, that you were wanting for that many sits doesn't seem very good. Right? And so my question is what was that caliber of deer you were trying to chase in that timeframe?

Brandon Ringwolski (25:15.927)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (25:38.134)
I mean realistically it was, you know, I wanted to shoot a pulp and young deer. Yep.

Dan Johnson (25:44.001)
So 130 ish, right? Okay, 130 class. All 130 class deer. And for some, I look at that now and I go, I'm running into a handful of 130s every year from where I'm at. And did you have that caliber of deer on the properties that you were hunting? Like was a 130 class buck

in the area of Wisconsin that you were hunting with archery equipment and or firearms is a 130 class doable or is that the very high end rare deer where you hunt?

Brandon Ringwolski (26:26.794)
No, no, it's pretty doable. At that point, I was hunting a lot in like central Wisconsin and southeast Wisconsin. And that's, I would say a very realistic caliber deer. In fact, every year on cameras, know, was seeing deer in the 130 to 150 class. I don't want to say pretty regularly, but

Dan Johnson (26:52.682)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Ringwolski (26:55.594)
enough to know like, hey, they're here.

Dan Johnson (26:58.591)
Right, right. And so when you in this exchange that we've been having, you mentioned a meltdown. You had one opportunity a year out of anywhere between 30 to 45 sits a year. And then you would have a meltdown where something did not go right. And you mentioned the wrong wind. You you mentioned, I don't know, it could have been one of a thousand different things. We've all been there before.

Were you learning from your mistakes at all or were you kind of a repeat offender where you just went back to the same stands, sat it in the same wins and had the same errors happen to you over and over and over again?

Brandon Ringwolski (27:42.913)
I think early on there was a lot of the kind of repeat offender stuff where I, you know, I was, would kind of try and justify why I'm going in there and like, this should, this should work for that wind, you know, even though I know like, Hey, I really, I really should have a West wind there. But yeah, started to definitely started to learn from the mistakes and

Dan Johnson (28:04.073)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Ringwolski (28:11.988)
understand that you know you you can't get away with with a lot with these bigger deer right you have to do things right

Dan Johnson (28:18.708)
Right.

Yeah, and I'm glad you said it that way because it sounds to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that you were having encounters with small bucks and does on a pretty regular basis. It's the next level of mature whitetail buck that you were having the issues with.

Brandon Ringwolski (28:42.367)
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, it started off with just early on, hey, I want to get deer in range, you know, and then I could pretty regularly get deer in range and fill tags and then it was trying to break through to that next step of hey, I really want to try and kill, you know, pulp and young caliber deer and trying to break through to that level.

Dan Johnson (28:43.4)
Okay, all right.

Dan Johnson (29:11.466)
Yeah, yeah. And so. I'm trying to think here as you as you were getting in there, did you have any success in that time frame on the the Pope and young deer like any accidental? my God, he just like a doe brings a buck through and you shot him. Did you have anything like that happen to you in that time frame?

Brandon Ringwolski (29:38.517)
Not that I ever harvested them. I had a handful of times where, yep, that happened and twice shot over the back of two nice ones. And then there was another one that I had come through and he busted me on the draw and I never was able to get a shot off.

Dan Johnson (29:40.714)
Okay.

Dan Johnson (30:01.738)
Gotcha. All right, so going back to this time, you're really struggling on accomplishing your goal of trying to shoot a pope and young buck. A lot of people then at this point try to reach out to buddies or people who are experienced, maybe do more research on what it takes to be better at accomplishing that particular goal. What did you do to become better at that point?

As far as research or talking to other people who maybe have found success, did you do any of that?

Brandon Ringwolski (30:38.543)
Yeah, I I kind of hit a point where, I mean, there was a lot of things that changed for me going from like 2019 to 2020 where I felt like, I was like, I can't really put more into this. You know, I'm hunting and out there scouting.

as much as I can to the point of putting stress on the, you know, the home life where then it was like, I need to really reevaluate how I'm doing things and kind of reevaluate why I'm out here because, you know, there was a point I remember coming home from a hunting trip and

Dan Johnson (31:08.511)
Mm-hmm

Brandon Ringwolski (31:32.367)
I had a really, you know, from the grand scheme of things, I had a successful hunt. I had a bunch of deer in range and, uh, you know, I left the hunt kind of pissed off and you know, that I didn't see a big buck or didn't kill a big buck. And, um, I sat there and I was like, you know, like there'd be a lot of people that would kill to, you know, have eight deer in range in a sit, you know, or 14 year old me would have given everything to.

you know, to see a bunch of deer inside of 30 yards. so I had to sit back really and be like, you know, like, this is supposed to be fun. This is supposed to be the most fun thing you do. Like you really need to reevaluate why you're out here. And so I kind of took that mentality into the next year, especially once I found out my wife was pregnant and

then I knew my time was going to significantly reduce in the woods. So that's when, you know, I started to really deep dive into podcasts and I had a couple buddies that were more successful than me and, you know, talk to them, get information from them, listen to as much as I can on the podcasts and stuff and

Really, I guess, try and come up with a new style or new approach to what I was doing.

Dan Johnson (33:10.302)
Yeah. The cool thing here though, is you identified that. You said, I got a huge change coming in my life with kid, with this new kid coming. And you addressed, it sounds like you addressed it earlier. See for me, and I'll just, I'll share a quick story. It didn't hit me. I knew I had a big life change. My daughter was born in February and I knew that I was.

you know, the hunting season was coming, but I didn't know how much it was going to affect me. And I had FOMO, you know, the fear of missing out that season, the next season when all the guys that I knew were out grinding and I wasn't, I was at home with a kid and I didn't really, I didn't really think about it. I wish I would have taken time like what you did to

sit down and go, okay, well, hey, listen, I gotta prepare other ways now, other than basically time and stand. I gotta do something different now in order for me to find success or change, you know, basically change. I waited until it was time and then I really struggled with that. And so it sounds like you were able to identify that. Now, specifically knowing...

that you were gonna have reduced time in the woods coming up after the birth of your child. What were some of the things you did to prepare for that?

Brandon Ringwolski (34:40.714)
Well, that's when I really started to try and find opportunities throughout the entire year to, you know, go out and do my scouting and gather any information I can on the places I was hunting. Instead of, know, prior to having kids, a lot of it was I had other hobbies throughout the year. So once

Dan Johnson (35:05.802)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Ringwolski (35:06.968)
July August timeframe hit it was scout, get cameras up, move stands, et cetera. And then roll rate and the hunting season and hunt, you know, as much as possible. Whereas once I knew that I had a kid on the way and especially the following years after that, it transitioned a lot to doing a lot of my scouting.

right away post-season, know, in December, January, February, March. Just because once the holidays were over, we didn't have very, there's not much going on. We're not doing the pumpkin farms and apple picking and stuff like that where the weekends are busy and out on the boat in summer. So in that...

late winter, early spring timeframe, there's a lot of opportunity to kind of slip away where it wasn't stressful on the home life. And what I in turn found out was the information I was getting was a lot more relevant to what I needed for that upcoming hunting season.

Dan Johnson (36:19.87)
Right, right. So it sounds to me like you were trying to be more efficient with your time. Okay, all right. Now, before we started recording and in the email that you sent me, you used a term consolidation of other activities, okay? What were those other activities and how do you consolidate those other activities?

Brandon Ringwolski (36:42.104)
Yep.

Brandon Ringwolski (36:48.235)
well, I used to do a lot of ice fishing. and, like I said, that was kind of the timeframe where it was the easy, it's the easiest now with a family to slip out and, get away and, and go scouting and shed hunting and whatever, is in that, that winter time, spring timeframe. So, really it was.

you know, if I want to put as much into deer hunting and archery as I was prior to having kids, then I need, I kind of need to give up somewhere else. And, and some of my other hobbies were the ones that got pushed off to the side so that I could, you know, put more time into bow hunting and, and try and

continue to achieve success with that.

Dan Johnson (37:50.517)
Yeah. And that's a common story. I mean, I once I got into deer hunting back in the day, like here, here mine wasn't like duck hunting or ice fishing or anything like that. Mine was deer hunting and partying my ass off. Like those are the two things that I did. And as I got serious with my wife and as I started to have kids, obviously.

I'm picking deer hunting over partying. It's just the right thing to do with your kids, which still allowed me to hunt more than normal, but I didn't have any other hobbies or activities outside of that. I guess now that I look at it, I was really gung-ho into deer hunting and didn't necessarily have to consolidate anything, just give up, ultimately give up a different lifestyle.

really is what I did. But as far as time is concerned, did it suck having to give up ice fishing and maybe some duck hunting too? Or was it an easy drop for you to stick with deer hunting?

Brandon Ringwolski (39:04.334)
No, because once I started to achieve success, then it just it lit a fire in me, right? Where then it was like, you know, I wanted it more and more and you know, wanted to try and keep repeating that.

Dan Johnson (39:12.224)
you

Dan Johnson (39:22.046)
Yeah, yeah. And so what year? So, okay, so now we're getting into post kids, right? First kid comes in 2020. You have a new methodology and approach towards hunting that you you're not gonna get those 30 to 45 sits in a year in anymore. How did that first season go with a kid?

Brandon Ringwolski (39:50.927)
First season I ended up filling my buck tag the first Friday of the season. So it was September 19th or 20th. And after that, then I spent a lot of the year out hunting still when I had the chance, but it was kind of diving into areas that

Dan Johnson (40:00.584)
Okay.

Brandon Ringwolski (40:19.574)
I've always wanted to look into but didn't want to potentially waste a sit and going leave an unknown good area to go check out something new that was unfamiliar to me.

Dan Johnson (40:35.86)
Gotcha. And so is Wisconsin a two bucks date for residents?

Brandon Ringwolski (40:40.362)
It is for it's you get one one buck tag for archery equipment and one buck tag for firearms

Dan Johnson (40:47.817)
Okay, so even though you tagged out early, just quickly here, 2020, you tagged out first season of the year or the first couple sits of the year and this was, did you know this buck was there? Did you have him patterned? Did you have trail camera data of him, all that stuff?

Brandon Ringwolski (41:07.448)
So no trail camera pictures. actually, this was on a public piece of land and adjacent to the public was a private bean field and two weekends, or the weekend prior to opening weekend of bow season, I was up there glassing in the evenings and found a good group of bucks coming out to

the beans on the private property. So when I came up that first, we had a, that Friday we had a big cold front coming through middle of the day. And I had talked to my mom to see if she would be able to take my daughter and I would head up to the cabin with my dad and try and get out and hit the cold front right away Friday afternoon.

And I had six bucks come by that afternoon. The deer that I ended up shooting was the sixth one. And that was heading right out to the beans that I had glassed about 10 days prior.

Dan Johnson (42:25.12)
So you just glassed him up. You knew there was deer in the area. You went in on a cold front and you found success. Awesome. Now you still went out hunting. This was during the firearm season to try to fill a tag in unknown spots and learn new places, right?

Brandon Ringwolski (42:44.595)
it's still during archery season. I was just, just out there to, you know, if I had a, a doe come by, would, you know, fill doe tag, but, kind of just wanted to, to, check out some new spots and that I wasn't really familiar with that I'd always wanted to, to take a look at and sit there during, you know, October and November when I had free time and, and see what was going on in there.

Dan Johnson (42:46.9)
Okay.

Dan Johnson (42:53.845)
Gotcha.

Dan Johnson (43:10.014)
Gotcha. All right, so first year comes, you find success on the archery side of things. How many days dropped off of your hunting time from the previous years to 2020 now that you had a kid and family?

Brandon Ringwolski (43:30.446)
I would say, you know, it was really limited to a Saturday and Sunday hunting for the most part, you know, and, and,

Dan Johnson (43:40.68)
Okay. Was it every Saturday and Sunday?

Brandon Ringwolski (43:46.558)
No, no, just because

Then there, you know, we have with Halloween, I had that battle, I think any bow hunter goes through when they have a, you know, a new kid, which is like, okay, well, I can't miss the first trick or treat, you know, and here by us, we don't have, you know, trick or treat isn't on, on Halloween day. It's always like the Saturday before or whatever. So,

Dan Johnson (44:05.77)
trick-or-treating, right.

Brandon Ringwolski (44:20.044)
you know, missed out that weekend to, you know, stay with the family and do the trick-or-treating and...

Just normal, I guess, family stuff in fall, right? Wife wants to go apple picking, pumpkin patch, you you name it.

Dan Johnson (44:33.345)
Yup, Pumpkin patches. Yeah, those damn pumpkin patches. Damn pumpkin patch. Yeah, man, I haven't hunted a Halloween since 2011. So and every year, big deer show up on trail camera and they rub their antlers in my face from a distance or whenever I go check the SD cards and they are there and they let me know, hey, listen, dude, we're here. I know you're trick or treating, but.

Brandon Ringwolski (45:01.998)
You

Dan Johnson (45:02.398)
Come kill us someday. So all these deer have come and gone over the course of the last whatever, know, shit, 10, 10, 12 years, 13 years now. It's crazy. It's crazy, man. So, okay. So now you're reduced. The time is reduced to just weekends at this point. What do you do for work?

Brandon Ringwolski (45:25.294)
I work as an analyst for a company local here in southeast Wisconsin.

Dan Johnson (45:31.186)
Okay, so you work from home, office work, gotta be on the computer, nine to five type deal.

Brandon Ringwolski (45:36.544)
Yeah, yeah, now I work from home most of the time. And I have to go in one day a week into the office, but fairly flexible now in the job I'm currently in.

Dan Johnson (45:51.145)
Okay, cool.

Do you now with a second kid, how many days are you, are you still a weekend warrior?

Brandon Ringwolski (46:02.188)
Yeah, pretty much. mean, I...

I try and plan to take off, you know, at least a handful of days through the rut. I mean, that's always the plan every year. I've kind of always done that unless I happen to take out prior to that. my wife's pretty understanding about that. And my mother-in-law is awesome with helping out, you know, if we need help with the kids. So it's usually not hard for me to plan.

you know a couple days in early November to go out and hunt and with my flexibility with my job I can kind of take off really last minute so if I wanted to slip out on a random day that a cold front might be hitting or something or I think the conditions are right I can you know as long as I line up one of my

you know my mom or my in-laws to take the kids can slip out and take a day off work and go on.

Dan Johnson (47:12.33)
Right, right. So now let's get to why we're here. And that is because I think the moral of this story is you have found success over the course of post-kids and you almost feel that kids and having a family and actually reducing the amount of time that you have spent in the woods and dedicated towards hunting has led you

to more success. Explain that.

Brandon Ringwolski (47:45.602)
Sure, so I think.

The biggest thing was me really learning to utilize time throughout the entire year to try and do my scouting and learn the properties. mean, in this last couple years, I've been...

picking up a new property or two every year. So what I found the best time to really break down a new property for me has been in winter and early spring. There's just, can get so much sign and information from the previous rut that will kind of key me into what I really need to look at for the upcoming season, you know, and really

looking at the sign and trying to put a timestamp to it, you know, and analyze and understand when do I think this is being made? Because when it comes up to the new hunting season, especially on these places that are brand new to me, I have no information hunting wise on what's going on here. everything that I'm kind of going off is...

from last year's rut sign that I found, you know, in the off season. So I think that was probably one of my biggest turning points there was the scouting in a different time of year. And the next thing I guess I would probably say has been, I think arguably as important is

Brandon Ringwolski (49:37.774)
The loss in free time and hunting wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I wasn't able to put so much pressure on the places that I was hunting.

Dan Johnson (49:49.524)
Bingo. Bingo. Same exact thing happened to me, dude. I swear to God, same exact thing happened to me.

Brandon Ringwolski (49:59.031)
Yeah, and it, I don't know, it really just...

learned to take advantage of when I thought the situation was right and everything was kind of coming together to slip into that spot and try and really get in there on what I thought was a very high odds sit, know, versus just, I have the, you know, when I was doing a lot of the volume hunting and I,

I see this happen with other younger archers or friends that I know. I think a lot of people really get consumed and caught up in everything that's on social media and YouTube and stuff where you do get that fear of missing out or like, I'm free this afternoon, if I'm not out in the woods, like I'm not gonna kill a buck, right? And there's...

Dan Johnson (50:56.448)
right? 85 degrees in September and you're like, God, I should be out there. And you realize, uh, actually, no, I shouldn't be out there.

Brandon Ringwolski (51:05.13)
Yeah, there's some truth to that, right? You can't kill them from the couch, but at the same time, there, if, if, if you're sitting there and telling yourself, I need to go out today, I'm not going to kill one. If I'm not sitting a hundred times a year. the reality is you're probably putting a lot of unneeded pressure on your spots or convincing yourself that, Hey, today's the right day to go into here.

Dan Johnson (51:07.85)
Yep. Right. Right.

Brandon Ringwolski (51:35.02)
when in reality it just isn't, right?

Dan Johnson (51:37.953)
Right, right, 100%, 100%. Yeah, and that's, think that is the main point, right, is, and I've said this in the last couple podcasts I've actually recorded on the How to Hunt Deer podcast, and that is, like, you are pressure, not just other people are pressure on the land, you're pressure too. And so sometimes, if you just alleviate your pressure from the property, you can have a better experience on the places that you hunt. And I think it's,

a lot of it has to do with exactly here on your story is you shifted time to other important times like postseason scouting and then you dedicated all the non-good hunting days to your family and then when it came time to be good like the rut and you know the pre-rut time frame and of course the shotgun seasons or the firearm seasons because you can't control what dates the firearm seasons are.

You went in and attacked those specifically with the information that you had from the data that you had, whether it was historic data or from scouting.

Brandon Ringwolski (52:48.642)
Yep, absolutely.

Dan Johnson (52:50.152)
Yeah, yeah. And so if there's a guy, this is this is kind of a random question, but if there's a guy out there who's like, God, I'm struggling right now, like I got this family, I got these kids, they're like sometimes guys, they do have the FOMO. What advice would you give to them right now or what would you say to them if they're going through something like maybe what you you did and. They think that success is based off time in the woods.

Brandon Ringwolski (53:22.752)
I mean, they're...

There's a part of me that is happy that I had those years where I spent so much time in the woods because I learned a huge amount of information in that time, right? Just killing deer and learning deer. And I do think that for a lot of archers that do wanna, you know, progress,

you know, their bow hunting journey that you have to go through those kind of stages of stair stepping and learning, you know, how to screw up on does. You know, I have a friend that is a new art, he's been at it for a couple years and he's hunting in really great places in Wisconsin and

Dan Johnson (54:11.776)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (54:26.794)
and having encounters on some really nice deer and hasn't been able to make it happen. And a lot of it is rookie mistakes that, you know, I spent, you know, making those mistakes for the most part on does and stuff where, you know, learning when to stand up, when to draw your bow and stuff like that where,

You know, I'm thankful and of a lot of those stru-ups and that time volume hunting and messing up and being unsuccessful did lead me to where I am today. So.

as far as the guy that

thinks that volume hunting may be the answer when it comes to shooting bigger deer, where I would really try and counter that and say, my biggest piece of advice would really be spend your, I would take some of your hunting days and cash those in on scouting days. That would be my biggest piece of advice because I have really found out that

My time post-season scouting specifically in the winter time and spring time has been far more valuable than any other time other than in season scouting or paying attention when I'm moving cameras or going back and forth between stands, stuff like that. So that would probably be my biggest piece of advice, is really.

Dan Johnson (56:13.792)
Yeah.

Brandon Ringwolski (56:16.566)
Really take some of those hunting days and you know, instead of cashing them in on hunting Use those up during the year and and and put in some time You know scouting and really trying to read the places you're hunting and figure out your Your properties and how the deer are really using them because then you can go in during the season and Hopefully cash in pretty quick

Dan Johnson (56:37.374)
Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Johnson (56:42.59)
Yeah, 100%. And at the same time, and I talked to this about on actually a podcast that I'm going to be dropping this Friday, a guy basically, I had a conversation, it's like, deer hunting's fun, right? Deer hunting's awesome. Like I love chasing big bucks with a bow and arrow, but it's not as important as family. It's not worth getting, like causing stress in your relationships to go out and do hunting.

Now that's a two way street, right? If our wives know how, how passionate we are about hunting, my kids are old enough to understand this now. And, you know, but I'm still not able to go out and there's, there's times when the hunting season can be pretty abrasive and it can cause stress, especially doing what I do. And you know, I've had to learn to calm that down. This year was a perfect example. I drew two tags that I didn't think I was going to draw at the same year.

And so now next year, I think I'm just going to chill. And I think I'm, I don't know. I'm say this now, but it might change. I think I'm just going to do minimum one out of state hunt maximum or minimum zero maximum one. So it might just be a chill year here in Iowa and then focus on fishing and Turkey hunting with my kids, man. So that's, that's, that's what I'm really looking forward to.

Brandon Ringwolski (58:07.49)
Yep, sounds like a good year.

Dan Johnson (58:10.228)
Hell yeah. Well, Brandon Mann, I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing parts of your story with us. We didn't even get into the big bucks that you've connected with on, know, but it's how you got to those big bucks, which is important. And I think what I want to do is I want to get you on the schedule for another episode here pretty soon and do a conversation specifically about the deer.

that you killed, the terrain they were living, and the strategy that went into killing these deer, and share that side of the story too. And we'll get into that another time and another date. But Brandon, man, congratulations on the family, congratulations on your recent success, and good luck this next season, man.

Brandon Ringwolski (58:54.872)
Perfect. Thanks for having me on. It was awesome talking with you and I look forward to the next one.

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