Vital Shot w/ Brandon Travis

Brandon Travis joins Michigan Wild this week with Nate for a great episode. Brandon just got back from a successful bear hunt in the UP. He was able to get an awesome black bear with his bow, all DIY. 

Brandon is also a die hard bowhunter and has the opportunity to chase whitetails all fall. Like Nate, Brandon hunts public, private and out of state through the fall. Throughout the episode the guys talk about their mindset depending on where they are hunting, time of year, and past history.

 Brandon has been filming and editing for Vital Shot Productions for many years. You can find some of his hunts and many others on Youtube, a few local channels in MI, and the Pursuit Channel. 

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!

Nate Rozeveld: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Michigan wild podcast.

We're just here walking around. We're going to go set a tree stand. Don't worry, my dad's weird. He never shot a huge buck. I just shot a fricking big buck.

Get that one. Oh, you hit him. Go get that one, Henry.

Look at the size of that deer.[00:01:00]

Welcome to Michigan Wild, another episode. We are one week out from opening day of bow season. October 1st is knocking on the door. Hopefully everyone's had a good week so far. I I'm jacked for... The next few weeks a because it was like in the low 80s for a couple days this week And I was just sick of it.

I do not like the heat. I'm a ginger so doing construction You think I'd get used to it, but no I got somewhere in this week And I thought that crap was over but surprise, Michigan We were low eighties, sunny and hot, but it looks like we are cooling down a little bit this week and yeah, we're a week out and I'm pumped for that.

This episode I ended up doing, definitely got me a little fired up too, because I did it with Brandon Travis and he's with vital shot productions. He is a guy that my [00:02:00] wife was an EMT 11 years ago when we first got married and Brandon. Was worked with Long with Ashley and helped train her on some of those things.

And she was like, I work with this guy Brandon. You guys would be friends. He loves to bow hunt. Became Facebook friends. We never really talked much, other than just liking each other's posts occasionally and stuff like that. But always followed him from a distance and liked some of the things that Vital Shot does, throughout the years, watching some of their videos and, follow along.

But, so when I started this. Podcast thing. He was one of the guys I was on, on the radar that I had to reach out to and, talk because he's been, he's a bow hunt in Michigan for a long time. And he's got private land, he's hunted state land and public land and he goes out of state and he's just, they got a good team of guys or a decent group of guys over.

At vital shots. So he's got a pretty good handle on, hunting Michigan and those, different perspectives. And he loves a self film too. He's, I think he talked about how he'd been self filming for maybe 12 or 13 years. So yeah, it was someone that I was really [00:03:00] happy. We got to talk with and actually got to do two episodes with them.

The first one was a. Disaster. I screwed up on some audio, but he was able to come on and do another one, which actually worked out. Cause we did the first episode right before he was leaving for his UP bear hunt. And so we talked about that a little bit. He was successful. So when he came back, we.

We got to do another episode and got to talk all about that. But yeah, it's a great episode. We discuss, obviously talk about his bear hunt and it's a DIY, hunt in the UP that he's done. He, his family has been, bear hunting up there for a long time and they got a good system down, they take a lot of time.

They take, it does take some effort and some time and, a good group of people to get, do what they do, but. Obviously it works because they've been doing it for a long time. I know they don't always shoot, everyone doesn't always shoot a bear, but they always seem to see them and it sounds like a really fun hunt and it's a good hunt.

So it was really nice to hear that. I'm not a big bear hunter by any means. I bear hunted in Wyoming this year. That's the first time I've ever bear hunted. So can I get the, talk about how he went about his, his system and his [00:04:00] setups and stuff like that how they do that was really intriguing to me But you know after we got done talking about that, we definitely rolled into a lot of whitetail stuff and He's had he's got, he hunts state land, he hunts private land, he hunts out of state.

So similar to me and we were able to, I was able to pick his brain and how they put food plots in and they try to improve habitat and how he handles pressure and what he's targeting. For size of deer and seeing trail cam pics of bucks and how you actually kill the bucks that you get on trail camera.

And then he talks about how he hunts the rut typically out of state and goes about the mindset with that. Like it's cool to be able to go to a different state where, pressure might not be as bad and he can go down there and have a really fun rut hunt and they do that with the family.

And we might've passed over that a little bit more than I probably wanted to in the conversation, but it's really cool that you can do something like that with your family. His brother hunts is on vital shot with them. And then, I think he talked a little bit about how his dad and stuff like that also do that.

But yeah, that's like the, [00:05:00] I don't know if it's necessarily the Michigan way, but I go out of state when I hunt on state, my dad's with me 95 percent of the time. And we get to do that, when I go gun hunting and go to family property, like That's a family ordeal, you're out there enjoying your time and doing those things.

So yeah, pretty cool. He does that. So yeah, hope you guys enjoy the episode and get to, learn some things. And it's just a good, I feel like it's a really good conversation. Just getting us ready for the fall. So now some current events for me, I Oh, and then you can find metal shot productions on Instagram, Facebook, and then they do release a lot of other things on YouTube.

They don't do it I think how they typically go is they have, they're on some local stations and channels in Michigan, they're on the pursuit channel. So for example, like Brandon's bear hunt isn't going to be released until next year. And he goes over the timeframe on that, but you can go on YouTube and they have all their past hunts.

From like last year and like that, they get released later. So like I typically catch up on a lot of those on YouTube. I'm just a YouTube guy. [00:06:00] I've been that way for a long time. So it's really nice. I can just go on there. And then when I get a chunk of time, I can just watch a bunch of them.

But yeah, it's definitely cool to see local guys go out there and do that. And they're just they're like your normal. Your normal guy, like they all have their full time jobs and they do this and they self film and it's just fun to see like a very achievable thing for, all of us to do.

However, I've tried to self film a lot of bow hunts and I feel miserably as you can hear in this episode. But for me, a new buck showed up not new, it's the deer I've called Mr. Krabs. He I've passed him two years in a row. First year. I don't know if it's really considered a pass because I knew he was two and a half and it really get me.

It was like, I picked my bow up. I was like, Oh my goodness, I'm gonna shoot this deer. But he did come by when he was two and a half, a couple of times. And then last year I had a legit, that was a legit pass. I saw him, I grunted at him, a soft grunt and turned him and he came right by me, perfect.

It was in the same little area, hanging hunt. And. I just knew he was three and a half because I'd seen what year it [00:07:00] was. He got a pass and then, I haven't had him on camera all summer or anything. I didn't know if he made it. Didn't have many pictures of him end of year. Into gun season, nothing. And yeah, he just showed up on one of the food plots that me and Henry put in along with my brother in law.

So that's pretty cool. That deer, he I don't know if I've ever had a picture of him where I got a picture of him at, so it's cool to see that. He's not a giant deer, but he's a four and a half. So definitely a deer I'm going to target. And I also got my last cam out on some public land. It's a new spot.

I did a little scout and I've scouted the spot quite a few different times. And then I finally decided I'm going to hang a camera on the spot. So I got to go in there and it was raining the other day and sneak in there. And yeah, I saw what I wanted to see, hung the camera up. Now it's just a waiting game.

I don't know when I'm going to check those cams. That's always the dilemma when you do, the SD cards and the cell cams, cause you get spoiled with cell cams. You set them things and they just sit there [00:08:00] and you can, monitor them without having to go in there.

And then you got these SD cams that it's it's almost harder to. Know when to go back and check it so the air so it might be one of those things where I might not even check This one until the season's done or late in the season or if I can you know I feel like going out there and just throwing to sit at something because I got time Maybe that's when I'll check it and then the other piece of state land or public land that I got my other camera That's when I've had So I just plan on, I'm for sure going to hunt that at some point the first week of October, if it works out, that's like a priority.

And then I'll check that one, but yeah it's hard when you go set one of those cameras up and you're like, gosh, I need to know what's on it. And I just can't because I know that I'll probably ruin it if I go back in there. So that's, but we're, like I said, we're a week out. So if I get some rain or something weird happens, three or four days before season, like maybe this week, [00:09:00] if it makes sense with the wind and the conditions, maybe I can quick run out there and pull those both, but I'm not foreseeing that happening.

I'm also still shooting my bow every day. I've switched to broad heads, not broad heads, but an arrow with a broad head. Now I've been shooting that every day. With my my field points. Like I still do the multiple yardage thing and, one day I'm shooting this target with a broad head and then I'm, still shooting other distances doing morning and night.

I'm not volume shooting. I haven't, it's been probably weeks since I've volume shot, so I'm just trying to make sure the three arrows I do shoot are great and want my first shot to be really good and I've done, if I shoot, if I shoot more often, I could shoot a better. I feel a little bit better with my, three shot groups.

When you just go out there and you just like cold shoot first thing in the morning at, 50 some yards or whatever it may be, you really see how good you are and you can, you get humbled pretty quick. So that's been really good for me to just focus and execute the shot better. And yeah, I've been enjoying that.

And it did help that I got a doe early season, early doe season. So I feel [00:10:00] pretty good, confident, and then also working on. A new blind and started building that a few weeks ago, and it's been pretty slow. I haven't done much sense, but yeah, I got a new gun blind. I'm getting built for me and Henry and Ashley to go hang out in and set up in a spot we can overlook some of the food plots we made.

So yeah, that's the current event with that. And then I have, I did want to touch base. I've been looking over, like I said, we're a week out, so like you can hop on. Any of your weather apps, even if you got the free ones and you can look and see what the, the projecting for the weather.

And right now it's not looking so good, like the first two or three days of season for severe like front or a rain system comes through that really gets me pumped for like I said, 2020 it was cold front. It was, it came in, it rained for three days and then. The front was there.

So even when it was raining, it was still warm and then it pushed through and then it was like the next day or that night that rain stopped and it got really, the [00:11:00] cold front hit and I, capitalized on that. So I've always looked for those kinds of things and just looking through the first through the, the eighth.

We, it, we might have a little bit of a front or something going on, Thursday into Friday happen. It looks like there's some chance for rain and the high temperature is going to be, down in the high sixties. But I also don't, I, have some other apps and, you can see like the average high for the day and they're, we're above average for, the first five days of season.

And I believe even into the. Into like when it's in the high 60s, I think that's high for the average or it's round average. So I really like those days that are below the average high when I hunt, especially if it goes from being, warm to that. And then I also look at the wind.

Which I think most guys who are serious about, hanging hunts and, being mobile and bouncing around and trying to find their property. They're always looking to see what that is. And early season, early October, you get lots of south, like some [00:12:00] years. So I've done, the last few years, I've really focused on trying to find some spots that are good for south wind.

And And it looks like we got, yeah, we got quite a few, south ish winds, southeast, southwest, west southwest. Those are projected. It might, at some point in time, I'm sure there's going to be like a north wind in there because it's switching from, it's, the wind is switching, but I don't know for how long.

I could be wrong. It might not ever do that, but I've been nabbed on that before. You look at your app and it's Oh, three days from now, we're going to have a south wind. So then I have the game plan. I'm going to try to hunt that day. And then, I don't really dig into the day to see if the wind's going to switch throughout the day.

And I've messed up access because of that. Or, I would get in there too late or too early. And, so it's keeping, if you can break down the hour by hour and see what it's going to do that helps and look at wind speed. Cause if it's calm. Who cares which way the wind's really blowing because thermals are going to be, override all that stuff.

See Friday, we have the average for Friday is like 65. The 6th of [00:13:00] October, we're that's average for the day, but every other day we're above average. So it might be rough on the first week of season, but if you still can get in tight and find a spot that, they're going to, that'll be good.

And all my nice bucks that I have, I'm targeting, they would move on South wind and daylight, which is great because. We've had lots of South winds, especially this week with being so warm. So it is encouraging to see that. So I think that I'm still in the play for that, but yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to for yeah, I think by the time the next episode launches, it'll be fricking season and I am pumped about that.

So I'll try to do little updates like this and all the intros when it works out and hopefully you guys have a great opening week of bow season and get out there and take care of business and yeah, and anyone who's listening, if you, if you guys have success and you want to talk about the story in the podcast reach out to me.

I would love to do that. And I love hearing, success stories, how you guys, went through your mindset and. Cross your eye or cross cheese and dye your [00:14:00] eyes and make something happen. It'd be very tactful. I feel like if you're going to kill a deer in the first few weeks, October, you got to, luck does play a, a big factor.

I think in, all things hunting, and luck can be described any way you want it to. But you, just because you do everything, doesn't mean it's still going to happen. So you sometimes have to have, all the things fall into place. But if you're gonna get on a mature deer. The first few weeks of October, you gotta have good access.

You gotta have, good property. You gotta You know, be able to set up right. And some proper, not all properties are created equal. So you got to find the right spot that works for that time of year. But yeah, enjoy this episode guys. Get out there, maybe do some last minute scouting.

If you can, if you do make sure it's not super invasive, just bounce around the fringe maybe, or, maybe quick check some of those SD cards they haven't checked yet. But the shift has happened. Deer doing things different. I think deer are going to be doing things different going into this week.

So it's an exciting time. Yeah, enjoy the episode guys have a good week[00:15:00]

and we are hot already on this week's episode have Brandon Travis, and we actually did a podcast. I don't know if it was two weeks ago and it's to me. I had a really bad double talk I was echoing or something was going on. So the audio was not the greatest But anyway, we had a great first conversation and he was actually getting ready to go on a bear hunt Before now he's back from his bear hunt and we have a lot to talk about tonight, but yeah, Brandon, welcome, Brandon Travis.

And why don't you give us a little background who you are and, what you do for a living and that kind of thing. All

Brandon Travis: Yeah. Yeah, my name [00:16:00] is Brandon Travis. I work as a full time firefighter and then I also run a CPR first aid business on the side. And then I also film and edit for Vital Shot Productions, a TV show that's on some local channels and also on the Pursuit channel.

Married, got four young kids, so I have a crazy, busy life between all of those things. Yeah, it keeps me busy, and yeah, that's, that's kinda, and I love to hunt, and bow, bow hunting for whitetails is... Is my passion. It's what I love to do. I try to sneak that in as much as possible.

Between all the other things.

Nate Rozeveld: And you've been that way for a long time, because when me and my wife got first married, that was dang near 11 years ago. Now she was actually an EMT and she worked with you, I believe. Or you helped train her or something. And she, the first little bit, she's this is Brandon guy.

He loves the deer hunt. Like you two would be best friends if you ever got together [00:17:00] and like that. So we just became friends on social media right then and there, but we never really crossed paths. I've always seen from a distance what you've done and. Being a part of vital shot, looking at that over the years.

And then now I started this podcast thing. I was like, first thing I actually said was like, I think you, you should definitely have Brandon on sometime because I think you guys would just hit it off and, and we did right away. The first, like I said, the podcast earlier, we talked for, I don't know how long, but it went really quick and just like minded guys.

I love to get after it for whitetail hunting and stuff. And yeah, you've been tore up with it for a while and, been doing the video thing for how long have you been doing the video thing for?

Brandon Travis: Probably. So I've been videoing my hunts for probably 10, 10 to 12 years right around there. And then.

I've been filming for Vital Shot, I think for six, six years or so. Yeah, me and my brother and my buddy Dan started our own thing, trying to, we just started throwing videos together, putting them on YouTube, learning how to edit and stuff. And then we had some similar sponsors with the Vital Shot guys and got to know them and they [00:18:00] eventually asked us to join them and film for them and start helping with some of the editing.

The guys that run it Grant and Josh were, getting married, having kids, things like that. And it turns into a lot of work to edit a TV show. Yeah, so they asked us to help out since we were able to edit and we also had been filming for a while. So it's been a good time, been on, been a lot of fun, learned a lot.

Since joining up with them and yeah it's a good time. So I

Nate Rozeveld: have a little filming thing. I've been trying to film, Hutt's not like serious, like you've done, but I carry a camera out with me quite a bit, quite often bow hunting. And I also like to do it the, just give me something to do when I go out, like out of state hunts, because I used to do a lot of all day sits, it gets boring.

So I. I just have always taken a camera when I've done that, just to give me something to do during the day or full, hunt. And then if you see deer on the distance, it just keeps the mind, busy and, but I have yet to get a bow kill on camera and I've been doing that. I've been taking that thing along with me for probably eight years, maybe 10.

I've got some gun kills, stuff like that. I've [00:19:00] filmed other people shoot stuff. My sister filmed me shoot a deer with a bow before. But we just had the early doe season. So I have a spot close to the house. That's, got made a little food plot there and great spot for does like morning, there've been does out there and no big bucks or anything like that.

So I'm going to sneak out there and we'll take the camera. So of course I bust the camera out, got everything all set up and lo and behold, doe comes right away. And a doe came by 10 yards. It was, I didn't have the shooting lanes cut yet for this tree. It was a preset I haven't been into yet this year, but of course all the leaves are on there.

Yeah, brands are hanging away down. So all my shots are like under 20 yards. Which is fine. Like I'm going to shoot a dog. I want it to be close. So you don't want a chip shot a thing. So the deer comes up and I'm like messing with the camera and I get the thing perfectly in frame.

It's right there at 10 yards and. I started to pull my bow back and she just like could, it was dead calm and she could just hear something and she took off running. I just laughed and I was like, yeah, the camera saved another one because I had to wait [00:20:00] for her to clear a tree for the camera to shoot.

And I could have shot her, five or six times before is what I told myself. So that happened. And then later in the morning, more does came through and then this other doe came by and it starts, it does a little mini loop because the the windows really Palm, but it was like thermals are pulling back into the woods because of the inside corner.

So there was acorns dropping all around like typical deer. They mill around there eating acorns and she's working her way through the food plot And she did a little wide circle, but I know that deer do this when I was set up off that So when they do a loop downwind i'm still upwind of them when they make the loop So but came down perfect 13 yards had the camera on her good And I could see her in the frame and I begin to pull the bow back and completely forget to double check to see if she's in the frame.

And I shot her like 13 yards and she's not even close to being in frame. You can see her butt. That's it. I was like, Oh my gosh, I messed that up, so the streak continues with me not getting one on film. So I give you guys all props that do that and do that for a long time because I go into a kill mode.

And.[00:21:00] The camera looks great until I decided I'm going to shoot the thing. And then I just completely forget about all camera work, and I can't tell him at times, like on just does that I've not got a shot or, missed an opportunity trying to get a film. So I can't imagine every time I see you guys have a successful.

Buck kill on camera. I'm like, yeah, it looks easy sometimes, but how many times is that camera saved bucks, so I'll give you guys props for that.

Brandon Travis: Yeah, it takes, it's a big commitment to try to shoot things on film, especially when you're self filming and we, we'll film each other here and there when we can, but for the most part, we're self filming.

And yeah, it's a big commitment and it's tough. There's definitely some big bucks that have lived. Cause the cameras, no question. Yeah.

Nate Rozeveld: And I was, I, the one thing though, that I did get a camera, which was nice, which I'm sure is why you guys like to do it too, is you can look back and see things.

So she was quartering too. And like I said, it was a chip shot. So I put it right where her neck and shoulder meet. And I know it came out low on the other side, but I wasn't like, you have that moment. [00:22:00] You're like, Oh, I thought I saw her tip over like in my head. And then I looked back at the footage and sure enough, I could see, I see her, but the shot happens.

It sounds great on the camera. And then she's running away. I can see her tails down and she's not doing good as she runs across the camera. Cause I did swing that through quick enough. And then, we look over there. It's Oh yeah, she definitely did it clear through those trees. So she's dead right over there.

So that's such a nice thing to no, so I get down and walk over there and sure enough, she died, 40 yards from where I shot her. So it was like textbook, but it was nice to have a little bit of reassurance, going through. Yeah,

Brandon Travis: we definitely, and I always say that even if I don't always film for a reason, I'll always take a camera with me because especially when you're bow hunting, man, it is nice to be able to look back at that shot because there, there are times when you feel like you made a great shot.

And you look back at it and you're like, Ooh, maybe not. And a little bit time and wait. And there's other times where you're like, Oh man, I don't know about that one. And then you look at the video and sometimes sure enough, you made a good shot or what we'll do is we, we have a couple of guys that [00:23:00] run tracking dogs on our team.

We'll send them the video because they've seen, countless deer that have been. Hit and tracked and everything. We'll send it to them and be like, Hey man, what do you think? And they usually have pretty good idea, even if, I'm not quite sure on the shot.

So that's, it's super helpful to have. Yeah, it's, it makes,

Nate Rozeveld: that's probably like easy for you guys to justify why you do it. There's all those highlights, the work and all that. But when you get to have that, the memory the ethos, being ethical with that, because I think. Seeing the footage, do I track it now?

Do I wait later? A buddy that maybe, like you said, doesn't have the greatest angle. You can send it to a bunch of different people and get the best, because if you track too soon, you can push a deer and not find it. It might still die. It happens. Everyone has happened to me.

If or it could be the other way where. You know that deer, you second guess yourself. So you wait and then you go in the next morning just because you didn't trust yourself and then the coyotes get it. So if you have that footage and you can get like a lot of people's perspective, you can live with whatever decision you make at the time, it doesn't mean you're going to do it right every time, but it's hey, we all decided that it's a [00:24:00] good idea to wait till the morning because it looks like it might deflect it or the deer was a little more, ducked more than I thought. So then you make that decision and then you find the deer in the morning. And if some of it's gone to the coyotes, you're like hey, at least I get to have, some of it still, or didn't, I didn't push it and it ran all night and, died, because I was pushing it, there's so many things that you, as a bow hunter, you can go through in that mental the negative mental side of it. And I think filming, it really helps

Brandon Travis: alleviate some of that. Yeah, it definitely does. It's at times other times it causes more stress than yes.

Nate Rozeveld: Set it up in the tree. Yeah, that was, so yeah the first time I tried to shoot the doe or one of the does I went to pull my bow back. I got my bow back all the way and. I and she took off running right away. Cause she just heard, I don't know if she heard me just move or something. I'm talking like she was close and I'm only like 12 feet up in this tree.

It's like a triple tree. So like right in the middle of all the tree trunks. So they never see me. But then I like, I was like, Oh my goodness, what happened? And she ran in the field. So I went to put my bow down. I turned to go touch the camera on the camera. Literally the camera on the camera arm, fall sideways off the tree.

Cause I didn't have it locked in [00:25:00] all the way. I looked at that thing. I was like, what the heck is that? This is such a disaster, and I've done it quite a few times and I still mess up, so just add that checklist. But so before we touch on your bear hunt, what I know what, where's it looking like for you right now?

Right now it's September 18th. Yep. So we have a few weeks before season. Why don't we touch on a little bit, like your backstory to bow hunting and like what you currently have was, private land and what you do with the properties you have and that kind of stuff. Just give a quick overview.

Sure.

Brandon Travis: I got into bow hunting when I was just like most people, when I was about 12 years old, 12 years old in Michigan is when you start, bow hunting a little bit different thing with me is like my family didn't hunt a ton growing up. My dad. When me and my, I have a twin brother and a younger brother, that's two years younger than me.

And when we got to be about like nine or 10 years old and started showing some interest in deer hunting he had hunted a couple times when he was younger, but not much, but we had some family property in Kalamazoo County. And he [00:26:00] decided that he wanted to start hunting and wanted to get us involved in that.

Him and my grandpa and my uncle. Started hunting with us and we all learned together. That was how we got into it made a lot of mistakes when we were all trying to figure all the things out, and that property was amazing. If I could have that property back to go and I would kill some giants, we screwed a lot of stuff up.

It's got houses on it now. Unfortunately, your family ended up selling it and we don't have that anymore. But yeah, so that was how I got into it. We all learned together and grew up together. We still all hunt together, which is super cool. And then now currently my uncle has some property in northern Michigan that he lets my brothers and my dad and I hunt it's about 200 acres of property backs up some public land.

And then my in laws have property in Northern Michigan as well. It's a family property. So there's about, there's probably about a dozen people that hunt that property.

Nate Rozeveld: That's almost worse than some state land or some public land. You think about [00:27:00] that, how many people do hunt

Brandon Travis: it, yeah. And it's set up pretty well to where you can get a decent amount of people on it. It's. Pretty, it's got some thick areas and some open areas, so it's broken up quite a bit. But it is, it is a little crowded. I don't hunt there a ton. It's a good place to take my kids Yes.

Because of the family atmosphere. They've got like big box blinds for gun hunting and stuff I take my kids there and my daughter actually shot her first buck there while I was in the U. P. So that was super cool with my father in law and they got to make that memory together and that, that was pretty, Pretty neat.

And then my aunt lives in Indiana. She's she actually lives in Florida now, but lived in Indiana, has a farm there that we hunt down there as well in Northwest Indiana. So I tend to spend As much time in the first couple of weeks of November there as I can. So I do some early season stuff and some late season stuff in Michigan, but the last few years, especially my rut hunts have been in Northwest Indiana.

So now

Nate Rozeveld: with those properties, like I just, [00:28:00] from knowing you in that previous conversation you do set them up to have like early October success. Like you guys have that very like in your front of your mind, like we're doing this. So you go through and do the food plot game and all that kinda stuff.

Yep. And you've really strove to make that property better over the years, right? Like you guys have had it for a while and you are always implementing different strategies with food plots and like how many acres of food plots did you, are you do on those again?

Brandon Travis: So the one in Michigan that that we hunt we've got right now, we've got six acres of food plots, and we're going to try to get that to 10 next year.

The goal would be like 20. We want to get about 10 percent of it in food, but it's, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of work in it. And the dirt up there is rough. It's Western, it's like Northwest Michigan. So it's not far from the lake shore. Yeah. Sandy. Sandy. Dry. Acidic soil. So we're working, we've done a lot of work on soil correction and stuff and and it's getting better, but, we've got a ways to go, but we get we are doing pretty well with the food plot.

So

Nate Rozeveld: we have, yeah, and you've [00:29:00] had like good it's really helped that property, right? You were saying you've had a pretty good return on

Brandon Travis: all that work. Yeah, we've had, we've got a lot more deer, a lot more yeah. Nice bucks coming in the last couple of years on a regular basis than what we had to begin with.

And in the area where there's no egg, so it's all about food. Anything you can have to have food is great. We've got a lot of acorns which kind of helps keep them there, but it also keeps them. Where it's hard to find them. It's good. There's a lot of terrain options for yeah.

A lot of terrain, a lot of acorns. So they stay spread out. Whereas those food plots have been concentrating them. And they're usually into those pretty good still the first couple of weeks of the season. So we've had some pretty good opportunities in the first couple of weeks of the season up there.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. Cause I've seen some of the videos of the past, through either YouTube or on your show and yeah, you guys see some nice bucks early in the season, which is how I hunt too. Like I liked to attack that first week. So is there any if you have any like words of wisdom, like how you attack or set up a food plot to hunt in that first, let's say that first week of October, [00:30:00] do you guys, have you guys figured out a way, I guess if you were to, for me I feel like access is like super important for the early October.

Brandon Travis: That's exactly what I was going to say, access. Access,

Nate Rozeveld: yeah. Like, how do you do you obviously you have food plots that are there just for food. Give the deer food to eat. I would assume, maybe they, every plot is, has a good opportunity to kill, but like where I hunt the egg country yeah, the deer go to the egg at night and they're there, but I could never shoot a deer on that specific spot.

So like, how do you guys like, do you have like little kill plots set up or do you have you guys, predominant win set up plots for this mindset, or how do you guys go into that in the season or into your food plot strategy? So

Brandon Travis: We've got one big like destination food plot.

And then we're gonna, we're working on, we've got one smaller one that we're expanding out into another like destination food plot. And then we tend to, have kill plot smaller, quarter to a half acre kill plots around those. And we hunt those based on the wind, but not, it's not as much the wind for that food plot.

It's the wind for [00:31:00] the bedding that's close to

Nate Rozeveld: that. That's a

Brandon Travis: great point. Yeah. Because a lot of those, a lot of those early season deer are coming, getting out of bed late. They're coming into those, food plots fairly late. They're not in there all day, and so those plots are typically fairly close to where they're bedding.

So we, we think about our wind and our access more for those bedding areas than necessarily the food plot. You don't want your wind blowing straight out of the food plot where they're going to be, but we all we set them up and think more about the, that. The bedding and where they're coming

Nate Rozeveld: from, that's a great point.

Cause like you just said, like right now the Oaks are, acorns are dropping really good. There's a, the beans are still, they're still a little green. Some are turning quick. So like for my trail cameras, I have them set up in spots that typically are where I want to hunt, or I can hunt in close proximity to it, but going into October, you might not have any sort of consistent pattern because that, that buck could just be [00:32:00] hanging out just out of frame or, a few, a few yards away from it, or just all across this little field. So I was wondering do you have, like, how do you know what food plot to go to?

Do you like use trail camera data to really make the decision? Or do you go to spots that you don't have any. Any trail cam pics of that buck in that food plot because you just go there on a gut feeling or what makes you guys decide, okay, I'm going here tonight. I'm going here. Like, how do you break that down?

Brandon Travis: If I have the trail camera data, that's what I'm going off of. If I, there was, it was two years ago, really nice buck. He was my number one buck on that property that, and I screwed it up and I'm hitting them high, like the third day of October. He lived, which was good.

But that was all trail cam data. I had him in there very regularly day after day. Same time, he could tell where he was coming from. If we have that trail cam data, that's what I'm using. But we don't always have that. That's pretty atypical. It's not common. If...

If I don't have that [00:33:00] data, it's more based on probably, wind direction and access, just trying to figure out what food plot is going to work best for that wind in my access going into there and trying to hunt that way and not. Go in and blow everything out the first week, October,

Nate Rozeveld: what I mean?

Yeah, that's a great, so I really like the point about the wind bedding because I have done it in years past where I have this like really good observation spot. I can sit and watch a hidden field and it is like loaded with deer every day. And I set it up, it's actually a gun blind that I can bow hunt out of.

And sometimes I do get lucky and deer come close to that. There's a little pinch, but typically I can be, 200, 250 yards away from where all the big bucks come out and the bucks come out. So I've done it where I've hunted almost the first five to six days of October. I've hunted every night because I can get in there easy, quick.

Like even if I only got 45 minutes, I can go out there and I have never watched a mature buck do the same thing. More than one night in a row. Like it's usually in that five day window. I got one [00:34:00] day trying to pick that day is really hard. Like I did it right. A few years ago I got an opening night.

I shot a really nice buck doing that. But otherwise it's you're just trying to throw dart at the wall and guess cause you don't want it. It's that fine line between going in there and being too intrusive and then ruining the, the first two weeks of the season, there's all these things you got to play.

But I think if that's a great point when you said about the, thinking about the wind for where they bed, because I think it's a similar concept to like hunting a buck on a quartering wind, you want to give them the advantage as they're coming in, they can hunt off that, but you also, when there's food everywhere, like there is right now, like with the acorns and the, food plots and all these other things, a buck can literally bed in multiple places right now.

There's no pressure that's pushing them anywhere yet. So yeah, focus on that. That's a good point. I'm going to, I'm going to use that this first week of season for sure. Yeah, I like that. So now what When you like I want to touch on like your, your upcoming season, how many bucks do you have?

Like on camera? Cause you guys target, do you [00:35:00] target three and four year olds or what was the age? Yeah, typically, so typically three and

Brandon Travis: older. I'd like to get to the point where, we could. We could go four, four and five year olds. But in Michigan, especially Northern Michigan, man, that's tough. And this year though, this year, like I said, my daughter shot a buck already. I shot a bear. So we've got plenty of meat in the freezer.

Yeah, I don't have a lot of pressure I might, I shot a three and a half year old buck last year. I might be a little pickier this year. I've got two really nice buck bucks on camera. I got one in Michigan and one in Indiana that are real nice deer. It might turn into depending on what my season looks like, how, how much time I end up getting out in the woods, I might.

Nate Rozeveld: So how much turnover do you get do you have, can you have you been able to follow bucks, like for year to year, is it like a new bucks every year? Cause I have properties here that I will get random deer that show up and I'm like, I've never seen that three and a half row buck before.

I have no idea who it is. And then there's other spots [00:36:00] where it's I've seen that deer for three years in a row. I've, he's walked by it a year and a half, two and a half, three and a half, four and a half, and then five and a half. And sometimes I shoot him, sometimes I don't. Yeah. Up there.

And I have a property that's a hundred miles North of Grand Rapids. And there, we actually, we get a lot of new deer, like create like also in a two and a half, three and a half year old positive. I was like, I've never seen that deer before then. I've never seen him again. But we also have the deer that are just homebodies like clockwork.

So I didn't know. And that's because a lot of. I don't know if it's just, I think it's because a lot of people don't shoot them. They're the two and the three year olds are just running rampant daylight all over the place. Very consistent, but they're safe. So no one's shooting them.

So they do it. And then they've been getting, when they turned four and a half, that's like a death sentence for them because everyone's like. Party and those, which is fantastic to have a property that you have the opportunity in Michigan to shoot a four and a half year old buck, which I think is awesome.

I'm not being ungrateful for that at all. So I just wondered what you guys deal with having the good food for the area and like how much turnover you guys do see.[00:37:00]

Brandon Travis: Michigan, we, man, we don't see a ton of like year to year bucks. It's a lot of like new bucks in it, but we will have them that'll be, there'll be there most of the season.

They won't always be visible during the daylight and stuff. And they'll come and go. But like our neighbors up there, we've got a couple of neighbors that really do that. Good hunters don't shoot small deer, keep an eye on the deer. So between the two of us, we can usually get a couple of years worth of pictures on a bigger deer.

The one we have up there now, I don't think, I don't think we've had pictures. I think he's four and a half and I don't think we've had pictures of him. Just appeared. I think so. And in our Indiana properties like that to our Indiana property, the deer don't live there. It's farmland, very little woods.

What woods is theirs are super open. There's no bedding. So we've got a lot of land, but. The deer don't really live there, so it's, oh, it's cruising bucks. That's why I hunt there in November is it's cruising bucks, man. There's food and there's does hanging out and the bucks are cruising

Nate Rozeveld: through.

Sometimes I wish I had a spot like that in Michigan, it's [00:38:00] cool. In Michigan, it's I don't think I've ever hunted man. If I've done like, when I've gotten serious about trail cameras running them throughout a little bit of the summer and do my scouting, my glassing.

I have never had a giant buck appear out of nowhere. Like I've always been like, I know he's in the area. And then you go down and you hear what you're just saying. Like in Indiana and I've hunted Illinois and Missouri and Iowa. These megas just show up out of nowhere. And you're like, what is that? I couldn't imagine just being in my tree here in Michigan.

Just man, dude, a one 40 could walk by a one 50 could walk by and maybe a Booner, like it's a possibility. Cause like around here, like every Booner is like pretty much accounted for. Everybody knows, everyone knows if it's there, So that's pretty cool. So now what when you go, like you're thinking you are going to attack pretty hard, like opening days on Sunday this year, do you think you're going to be able to hunt Sunday night?

No, I work. You do work. Okay. Cause that's your schedule. Cause you have, you work big

Brandon Travis: shifts and stuff like that. Yeah, I work a 24 hour shift on Sunday. But I've got, I think the next four [00:39:00] days off. I'll I got it. I got a couple things going on, busy kids and all that. But yeah,

Nate Rozeveld: you just took a big vacation bear hunt.

So I know

Brandon Travis: my time is going to be short to start the season, but I'll probably get out a couple evenings the first week and hopefully. Hopefully we've got a pretty good idea on a couple of good bucks up there. We've been getting some pictures. Yeah, but I'm just looking forward to getting out.

I say that I've already been out,

Nate Rozeveld: but it's different. Like when you're hunting, like I hunted, the spring bear in Wyoming this year, and that was awesome to be out there hunting and doing that, but. And then, when I got up in the tree for the early doe first time ever have done early doe season, I don't know why I just never have been really intrigued.

Cause I usually shoot a lot of does with a gun. That's my thing. That's what I did.

Brandon Travis: You guys shoot them late,

Nate Rozeveld: late. Cause like we're talking like when we're that first week of the season, we're targeting a mature buck or like our target buck because we've had luck with it. And I've seen it.

And I've heard people like you tell me stories over the years and I'm like they're doing it. I can do it. So I've let a lot of does go. Just because I [00:40:00] don't want to ruin my hunt. And that ruins the wrong word. I don't want it to educate or spook at buck because I'm literally going in thinking I'm going to shoot a buck that night.

So this early doe, I was talking to a buddy at work and he was telling me all the stories about how he was like, that was like the highlight of his like fall was him and his buddies getting together and they're on doe patrol doing that. So I like started thinking about it and I was like I have a preset stand and, I got to do that.

And it was cool. Like I snuck in the morning. Did that, the same thing I think if I would have a November, October hunt, I glassed the field, make sure nothing was there. Like I treated it just like I was going in to kill a buck, and it was exciting, man. My heart got pounded when I shot that deer.

It was awesome. I was like, yeah, this is pretty cool, but I can promise you if that camera that was in close proximity had a mature buck on it. In the last three weeks, I would not

Brandon Travis: have done that.

Nate Rozeveld: It makes it a little easier to do

Brandon Travis: that and having lots of spots helps. Yeah. It's nice to get one out of the way early to, kick the rust off and yeah, work your system out, getting in there and getting up in the tree and run through all that early.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. It was really nice getting the camera and doing that. Cause like I said, I've, my camera is nothing fancy, [00:41:00] but it's like a it's a Canon or whatever. And it's the. Yes. Is it DSLR? DSLR. So I like do the focus manually and getting the settings worked out again and going through and external battery pack and all that crap.

So that was like, it was really fun doing that. So now I'm like, even like more ready for October 1st. I'm like, Oh man, I got my first, I didn't do a mobile setup, but I got that done. So that was fun. So what else kind of transition into this Barrow? Yeah, for sure, man. That we were pretty excited for that.

When I talked to the last, how long have you been doing? Like you've got, you have a group of buddies that do this. How long have you guys been doing this bear hunting UP for? So it's,

Brandon Travis: yeah, it's my wife's family. And my wife's uncle has been hunting up there for 40 years. He's been basically for since the, I think early to mid eighties, they started hunting up there.

And then I went for the first time. Five, like five years ago and it's, I think every four years you can draw it and draw it the first season hunt there. So this is my second time. But [00:42:00] the, one of the guys I've been, I went with my wife's other uncle. He's been hunting up there since the late nineties and then the two other guys that were with us.

It was actually their first trip is my brother in law and then my wife's cousin. So

Nate Rozeveld: are they pretty serious about the bear hunt? Is it a big deal to get that first season? Is it is it like, how we are like, opening days every day, but do they treat it like deer hunting almost?

This is exciting. Or is it more of Hey, hang out. We're going to try to shoot a bear, do this. How does, what's the mindset,

Brandon Travis: I guess, with it? No, we're pretty serious about it. Yeah we're going up there to.

Nate Rozeveld: That's what I felt like for me. Cause you were like, yeah, you had a plan in place.

You guys knew how much time was going. Like you've done, this is not the first rodeo at all. No.

Brandon Travis: And we've like I said, the, my wife's one uncle has been going up there for 40 years and one of the other guys that he started hunting up there with, he was up there too, they weren't hunting with us, but they were hunting the same area.

We were in contact with them and yeah, they know what they're doing, man. So I've learned a lot from them and yeah, it's a. It's seen, we've, we talked about a little bit last time, but it's hunting over bait people tend to [00:43:00] think Oh, it's easy. There's nothing to it, but man, there's a lot more to it than just throwing some donuts out in the woods and sitting over top of them.

Nate Rozeveld: That was a rude awakening for me in Wyoming. Like I, never have had a desire to shoot a bear. Like we have bears in Michigan everyone knows that, but it's never been like a high on my bucket list. I really want to shoot a black bear, but then going out there, I was like, it wasn't the money made sense and it was an adventure cause you're in the mountains.

It's so cool. I knew we were hunting over bait, I'd talked and heard stories, but I was like, it made sense because like you have the thick cover and you can't spot stock them. Cause it's there's so much terrain and so much cover. They don't really, they're not out in the open.

So I was like, okay, that makes sense. But I was like, Oh man, it should be, everyone says it's hard to do it with a bait. And then I get there and I see why, and I see how a bear acts and, we watched the show and I was like, dude, how, like. How does this, how do you shoot one of the bow like this close?

Because there's so many things going against you. Thermals bears can smell really good. You have to be quiet in there. You're already baiting it and they [00:44:00] know a human is there baiting it. So you have that working against you. So it, a lot of things have to line up. To make it happen, especially on a bear of good size.

I feel like maybe like younger bears and like a high bear population area would be a little easier to an extent, but still you're trying to trick a wild animal to come into within bow range and you can't like, how thick is that area you're hunting? Like how far can you see?

Brandon Travis: It's just real. Most layers is super thick.

Like you're the, where I was at. Yeah. It's where I. What's on 30 yards. I'm correct. Like it's in most areas you can't see that far. Basically we find an area where you can actually see that for actually seeing it far enough to shoot. Like some of the spots we liked, like you, you literally couldn't set up any farther than 10 yards away.

And it's that's not work. You know what I mean? They'll thick and that, that's why you have to hunt 'em with bait and hounds. Don't have to, but that's why it's the effective way to hunt the effecti. Correct. Yeah. The only effective way to do it's with hounds and with bait or finding good [00:45:00] food sources or something

Nate Rozeveld: like that.

Yeah. And I think that's kinda what, that's what kind of helped me looks like baiting deer. I grew up baiting deer. Like my family did it. And that's how I did not, I actually didn't even shoot my first deer over bait, but that's when I first started hunting was that and. It was one of those things where I was like, Hey, the deer comes within a specific range.

How far the bait is, you can wait for your shot. You can make the shot. Like I, there's there's a proponent to bait is good for people who need to learn how to shoot deer and do that now, hunting big bucks and blah, we'll do all that stuff. You have your opinions on bait, we can't do that anymore.

So then, but then I started thinking about I shoot deer and I'm a hunter to like help with management of wildlife keep the population in check. Like Wyoming and the same as the UP and all these places, like if we're going to do our part and continue to be able to hunt bears, we have to do it, we have to manage them correctly.

Otherwise, they're gonna find another means to do it. So if we had to effectively harvest a certain amount of bear every year, yeah, like dogs and bait. Are the way to do it because you have to, because you can't, there's, you could never, you would never see. I got [00:46:00] trail camp, picks a bear on one of the properties, almost every year we get pictures of bear on there.

I have never seen a bear while hunting there. And either has, I think any, my uncle did one time and all in 30, 40 years of hunting, all the time. Like almost every day of gun season, multiple times during both seasons, we've never laid eyes on a bear. But they're on trail camera, they're around

Brandon Travis: kind

Nate Rozeveld: of that thing.

So I was really, I really did open my eyes doing that to like understanding the concept of big, cause I've always been like. Dogs made sense to me cause I already know rabbit hunt and do those kinds of things, like using that as a tool and that baiting is the same kind of tool. And then that allows you to hit the quotas and do those things.

And it gives you like, a bear's a big animal and it's, you want to make a good shot on a bear. And like that may pile does help with that. So there's so many good things that come out of that. And I think, you guys had to put some time and effort into bait too. Yeah.

Brandon Travis: Oh yeah. Yeah.

So we went up Kurt, the one guy, he went up I think it was the Friday before labor day would, I think like the first or whatever it was, I think first or second and he started the baits. Then I got up there to the third on [00:47:00] Sunday. And so we, he had run, he had started, I think six or eight, eight.

6 or 8 baits at that point and then we ran them all the Monday morning built another one or two and then ran all those on Tuesday and then ran them again Wednesday and Wednesday night the the season started. Yeah. So we already had a lot of work before we already had, six days, five days of work before the season started.

And of course, when we got up there, it was 96 degrees for the first three days. We were up there working. So those are

Nate Rozeveld: like the, I was, I did a podcast with a guy around that same time. And I was like, yeah, I feel like I was working in the rain forest. It was so humid and so sticky. And it was gross.

Brandon Travis: Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. It's I've framed. Help my brother in law frame houses for a few for that week before I ended up there too. And man, I'm not used to that stuff. I'm used to, I'm used to being like in turnout gear and sweating and all that, but man, that, that was, that

Nate Rozeveld: was hot. And there you are going through thick and nasty woods, [00:48:00] lugging bait out there.

So by Wednesday. So when was your opening night? It was Wednesday. Yeah. So by Wednesday night, what did you guys have GS and targets acquired kind of a

Brandon Travis: thing, or we don't look in, we'd only had two baits get hit at that point. Then the hot weather just, I think just wrecked it. So the, they weren't moving and we had yes, we had three, three days of 96 degree weather.

The bears weren't moving. We had two baits get hit. And then that Wednesday. Night, it started raining. So we had a, we got out and it rained a little bit in the morning. We got out there and it was supposed to, the rain was supposed to shut off. So we got up, got all set up, started to drizzle a little bit.

And we're like, eh, we should be all right, but we don't have a cell service. So you can't check the radar a little. Did we know we had this like giant pop up popped up and sat over it. And it poured rain for five hours while we were sitting out there and just everything was soaked.[00:49:00]

It rained all that night and all the next day. Basically after the second day of the season, we had to start over. Because it had been hot, then found the baits and then every, all of our scents that we had out. And everything was just so washed away. Yep. But the one bait that got hit.

Within the first couple days ended up getting hit like every night for five nights in a row And it was I mean it was close to light It was like 930 at night and then six something in the morning and it was The first time we've had it happen where we had almost every time a bait would get hit It, they'd come back like multiple times they'd hit it, they'd leave, they'd come back a couple hours later, they'd leave, they'd come back a couple hours later.

So we knew what we were using for bait was good. They liked it. Yeah. Yeah. They liked it. And we had a ton of baits getting hit at night, but it was just trying to find one that was happening during the day was tough. It was a little. We were all sitting on active baits, but not, we only had, [00:50:00] I think we had one, one daylight picture as of we were like a weekend or so and hadn't had one daylight picture of a

Nate Rozeveld: bear.

So yeah, how long was your hunt? Like how long were you hunting for?

Brandon Travis: We hunted for, so through the 13th. So the hunt started the 6th of September and we were up there through the 13th. Yeah, so you had a good amount of time. We did, and we made it for five days

Nate Rozeveld: before that, yeah. You were like committed to this, like I know when you were telling me, I was like, you're gonna be, that's two weeks, like being gone, it's a big trip.

Brandon Travis: My, yeah, my wife thinks so too.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah, as the kids are playing sports and doing all those things to keep you

Brandon Travis: busy. Yeah, now she's a saint, man, she's a rock star, she...

Nate Rozeveld: It's in early September, not October, so you don't do it October and November, so you, so what did any, I know you, you had a couple of days you sat what point in time did you guys, anyone else in camp shoot a bear, what was the first [00:51:00] opportunity, like how did it look

Brandon Travis: for you guys?

So the first night. One of the guys that was with us had a bear come through, but never came into the bait. He was using a rifle actually broke his arm like three weeks before he went up there. So he brought a rifle, but so he had one come through and couldn't get a shot at it. Just, it just stayed out in the thick stuff and he caught glimpses of it and never got a shot at it.

And then we didn't actually see a bear until I shot. Mine, so what day was that? What day was the 12th? So it was like six, seven, six, seven

Nate Rozeveld: days. Yeah that's like a, that's so you don't just put bait out there. Bears don't just appear. Is what you're

Brandon Travis: saying? And that's it's not it's not like the hunting videos in Canada where the, bears all over the baits, like it's pretty typical to, to see, a bear when you're, if now, if you can.

Start the baits like when they start baiting season, which I think is in like our middle of August or something like that.[00:52:00] And you can get those baits established and get bears coming in and stuff. You can have more opportunity at multiple bears, that's, we're not going to be able to drive.

It's a far ways.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. Yeah. You guys aren't

Brandon Travis: right there. No, we're a ways up. So it's a

Nate Rozeveld: long way. Cause that's what they talked about. The guy talked about Wyoming too. He said, establishing bait sites is very important and not just for that year for like years in a row, like they have their areas and they fine tune them.

And that actually like help because the bears know. Like they'll know that's where that site is. So you guys are already behind the eight ball a little bit. Trying to do that. Yeah. So

Brandon Travis: If you lived up there and like you could run your baits every day or every other day for the whole season.

Yeah. You, you could see multiple bears and you could have probably a shot of a really big bear, where we're at, it's just we don't have the means to, to be up there all the time cause it's a long drive and gases. Expensive, you

Nate Rozeveld: know, doing that thing once a week or, you probably have to do it more.

You probably want to do it more than that when you're a

Brandon Travis: week at the minimum. [00:53:00] So you, so

Nate Rozeveld: lead me into this hunt that you got your bear, like what was it like? It would get it cooled down,

Brandon Travis: right? Yeah. Yep. After the rain came through, the weather broke and we were having highs around. Like 65 to 70 lows were getting into the high 40s.

So that's started having baits start getting hit. And the one that the, so the one that I was on was, had been hit like the most consistent. We had two different bears coming into there. There, it was all in the dark, but it was close to the daylight. And I think that one was like, it was like five, maybe five days in a row.

That bait got hit. And we let the two guys that had never hunted, we let them hunt that spot. We had another spot that was getting hit pretty consistently too. So we let those guys pick where they wanted to go first because, they'd never been, never shot a bear. I've shot a bear before.

So that, that spot we ended up having, I don't know what happened, but we had two days that. In a row, it didn't get hit. We had, we've never had to deal [00:54:00] with it up there before. It's a fairly new thing. I'm guessing a lot of the side by sides. So we're all, we're on like logging roads and there's a ton more side by side traffic up there than there was.

Previously, so the, that spot was close to a main trail. So I, I don't know if they that all that

Nate Rozeveld: covid, all that covid money still,

Brandon Travis: Trickle through, everyone bought silent during Covid, they're everywhere up there. Yep. So that bait stopped getting hit. We had two days in a row that bait didn't get hit and we had started our last two baits which would give us the 12 for the For the amount of people that we had, you can have three per person.

So we'd started two baits and those got hit right away. We'd gone, we'd found spots that were a lot farther off of kind of the main trails where the ATV folks had been. And those got hit right away. So that Tuesday night those two guys went and sat those new baits just, I think just to, have a change [00:55:00] of scenery or something.

Yeah. So they went and sat there and I was like that baits, it was getting hit a lot. I'm like, it's always in the past. That's been a good, a really good spot for us. So I'm like I'll go sit there. And honestly. We had we had known somebody was gonna sit there a lot, so we preset a stand there.

Oh, nice. .

Nate Rozeveld: There you go. . Yeah.

Brandon Travis: Because we've been mobile hunting the whole, the whole Yeah. 'cause you were saying that you're gonna hang it all sticks. Yeah. Sticks and stands and treat, camera, arms and all that stuff. And I was like, eh, that sounds nice. Basics. That preset pretty nice

It did. Yep. Yep. So I went up and sat up in there and, It was I wasn't super confident that I was going to see one in there. We hadn't been hit for a couple of days and the wind was swirling. Like I I don't know, you use milkweed at all for, so I got dropped milkweed and it'd go this way.

And then five minutes later, it'd come back, pass me going the other way. I'm like this is never going to be that good. I'm like, I'm up here, whatever, [00:56:00] we'll, we'll hang out and it got to be probably about 15 minutes before shooting light and I started hearing something off to the north of me, which is up it's a thicker, swampier area.

Where they tend to typically come from, but we've been having raccoons on our dates. Like crazy. These raccoons were nuts, man. They were just huge, man. We've had them up there before in the past, but nothing like this time. There'd be eight of them on the date for three hours straight. Just trying to get into as much, they even dug tunnels under like under the dirt and under our logs and got up into the just to get in there. Yeah. Oh, yeah So i'm like, oh, it's probably a bunch of trash bands or something And i'm like, oh my god, I might as well get ready just in case so I got you know got stood up got my cameras on and stuff and sitting there, it was getting closer and closer and I, all of a sudden I caught a glimpse of black and I'm like, holy [00:57:00] cow, that's a bear.

There he is. There he is. And so he started to come in and he actually ended up just making a loop and looped back around and started walking away from me. And I was like, No, you gotta be kidding me. That was, saying the last night and this is my opportunity. And I'm like, something you must I'm thinking it smelled me is my windswirled or something.

And it started to walk off and it stopped. And stood there for about five minutes. And in my head I'm going, man, this thing needs to hurry up. I'm looking at the clock. I'm going, I got, I don't have much time. I was my camera light. I was running outta camera light because you've filmed Oh, yeah.

Before, like you run outta camera light like a good, at least five, 10 minutes before. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah, we're

Nate Rozeveld: shooting. Hey, how, where you're at, you could be like

Brandon Travis: 15 if you're in keeping enough cover, in, in where I was at, it was light up where I was, but where the bait was at was down in it was, it was dark down there darker. So I was running a camera light and I'm like, man, like he either needs this thing, either needs to decide to come in so I can [00:58:00] shoot it. Or leave because otherwise he's going to be staying. It's only 30 yards from me. Just staying.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah.

Yeah. Cause if he hangs out there

Brandon Travis: and I don't want to spook it because if it started to come in, we could shoot it the next day or whatever. So yeah, I'd be sitting in up there in the dark for a while by myself. We don't have cell service. I couldn't text anybody or anything.

So yeah. Sat there for about five minutes. And all of a sudden it just turned and started walking right in. And I'm like, here we go. It's going to happen. Fair enough. It stepped out 12 yards and I didn't let it get into the bake. Cause I'm like, I'm running out. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Yeah. So I drew and as I drew, like stopped and turned and looked at me a little bit. And it was quartering to me just a little bit. And we try not to say quartering two shots on a bear, just, they're. Their front shoulders are heavy. They're, and it's not an animal that you want to make a bad shot on, you don't want to make a bad shot on any animal, don't get me wrong, but it's just a lower percentage shot on a [00:59:00] bear than it is a deer.

Nate Rozeveld: Yeah. They're very like clean. The couple of bears in camp, like they have a lot of meat. Like muscle coming down their neck that protects that chest. So I never really, I knew you're not like, Hey, wait, coordinating away shots, do that. And Ross, I'm like, according to the really tough and their skin.

And I was like, ah, I see why they're saying that because there's

Brandon Travis: a lot in there. And their legs, they carry a lot of their weight down there, so it blocks a lot of that, but. It was only, it was slightly quarter and two and it was at 12 yards and I was drawn on it and I was like, I had my pen

Nate Rozeveld: right there at a good angle, get a good angle coming in.

I

Brandon Travis: did. Yep. And I'm like, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let it rip. So I put it on it and shot and pass straight through and it took off. And I, I use a lighted knock, which I think is another way. Great thing to do, especially while you're filming because you can replay everything. And yeah, so the knock was stuck in the ground and the arrow was to see the knock and it ran off and stopped for a little bit and I can hear it [01:00:00] off in the distance a little bit and it sounded like it was rolling around on the ground.

But, I couldn't tell. And then and then I didn't hear anything, and I waited a few more minutes just to see, and I never did the death note, and so I waited, and didn't hear anything, so I left all my stuff up in the tree. And I climbed down quiet, went out to the road the trail and started walking up.

And my brother in law, who's the one who'd been sitting there for, two, two days in a row, hadn't seen anything or anything, he decided to move. He came driving up thinking he was just going to pick me up after I was done hunting. And he was like, where's your stuff? I'm like, it's still in the tree, bud.

He's did you shoot one? I'm like, Oh yeah, I did. It was like, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, so we went back, we. Got all our stuff in order and gave it a little bit of time just in case and walked down there and where I shot it, there was a pretty good amount of blood, not a ton, but there was decent blood and it was lung blood.

It was, bubbles and everything. Yeah, I do bleed

Nate Rozeveld: pretty good with a bow. [01:01:00] Yeah. Once I shot my own gun and it didn't bleed right away. Like it only died 20 yards from where I shot it, but you could tell where I was spinning and it started bleeding. The other guy shot with a bow and he, his wasn't quarter.

He was like a really, I think it was a quarter away shot. So he got perfect in the goods

Brandon Travis: and wow. They have a lot of blood Whoa. My, my blood like good right there. It stopped. We ended up walking. A little farther. There was, the nice thing is there's only two trails in there that, like a bear could fit, right?

Yeah. It's so thick. So we walked down the trail a little farther, found a couple big spots of blood, so we knew we were on it. And then it didn't bleed for a little while, and then we found a couple more spots up, like another 20 yards. And then ended up, it took, a while, but then ended up walking up on it about 20 yards farther than that.

So when it, there was spots where it bled a lot. But then there were spots, where it hadn't but it ran, I think I marked it on X. I think it was like 102 yards or something. That's not bad. It's not [01:02:00] bad. Yeah. Yep. And it was, by the time we got it to, it hadn't been that long and it was stiff, like it died right away, but what had happened was because I shot it, it's such a steep angle, I was 18 feet up in the tree and then it, the bait is down below there.

It went in high and because it was quarter and two, it went out low guts. So it went through lungs and through the diaphragm and then out the guts. The guts had plugged the bottom hole. And the top hole was so high that it just didn't bleed a ton. Took a while. Yeah, it was hard to get out. Yep. Yeah, it was, and man, when I gutted it, there was so much blood inside that thing. Yeah, there was a lot. I was

Nate Rozeveld: about to say, those things are full of blood. Yeah. I

Brandon Travis: couldn't believe it.

Nate Rozeveld: That's sweet. Tell, talk to me about how big this bear was. Like

Brandon Travis: not a giant but good Michigan bear it dressed it a little over 150, so it was about a 200 pound, 200 pound live weight bear.

So big. Yeah. I sent the pictures. It looked sweet. Like it had a big melon on it. I don't know. Yeah. The head on it was big, so it made for some. [01:03:00] Made for some good pictures. Definitely. Yeah. A guy that can take some good pictures. I bet. Yeah, we got good angles. Yeah, but yeah, it was, it's a good, it's a good Michigan bear.

Not a giant, but definitely not a baby either. It wasn't

Nate Rozeveld: a dog size. That's always I don't, you don't, we don't know how to judge bears, like all the guys in camp, we've never shot a berry for really hard. Our whole thing was like, is this, we just wanted to be bigger than a dog.

Cause we've all seen the ones that get shot and they're like dog size. And, we try to do that, but at the day, you're taking care of the population control and you just, a bear is a bear kind of to that extent, to get the population down. But yeah, yours was definitely could have done some damage on you.

Like 200 pound bear coming after you, I would not

Brandon Travis: be happy at all.

Nate Rozeveld: Well, congratulations on that. That's awesome.

Brandon Travis: Thanks man. That was a cool story too. I love going up there and doing that. That's one of the, one of the most fun hunts like I can do because, and I've done, I've been with people who have done like guided outfitted [01:04:00] bear hunts, and there's nothing wrong with that.

If that's your thing, that's your thing. But I don't think I'll ever do it because the fun for me is. Running the baits and, picking the spots and the strip behind it and the work and all of that is the fun part. I like shooting bears too. You don't get me wrong. That's rewarding,

Nate Rozeveld: but, whitetail hunts rewarding because like your food plot game you're doing all these things.

You're put, you're picking the right tree. You're doing all that work. It just means that much more when you like for you to go up there and do all you guys did all that work yourself. You were there for, yeah, you got to take, you guys were there for two weeks almost, or whatever it ended up being, but you had to do, you had to pick, like you said, like you're dissecting the area, you're making, you're making decisions and it comes together.

It almost, you almost can't believe it when it happens. Like it's really happening right now. Like you have to almost shake yourself. Cause you've been just staying there and sitting for so long. It's like that buck that finally comes out of that draw that you've been sitting over. You hear a deer coming in and the buck's bumping a doe across or.

That buck you've been seeing all summer pops on the [01:05:00] food plot, 30 yards away. You're like, Oh my gosh, it actually happened. Like you don't even, it's that reward you get is so much more fulfilling than, yeah. Like the guy thing, nothing against it. Like you

go somewhere that someone else made the food plot or someone else, has told you, Hey, this is a good spot. So you like go, it's just different. And I think it's just that nature of where you are as a bow hunter, you are as a hunter in general, and I suck at fishing. Like I'm not a fisherman by any means, like I have buddies that are.

So I know the first few times I go fishing with a river, it's going to be all at the mercy of them. I'm going to do whatever they tell me to do. I'm going to just learn as much as I can. I might have to do that for a few years and, maybe I will catch like some sweet fish for those first few years, but I'm not even going to really be able to grasp.

The concept of what I've done, because I was so new to it now, fast forward, 10 years down the road, you learn more, you do more. That just means a little more, when you get to put forth all that effort. I think that's just how a lot of guys are wired that like to do these kinds of things and are tore up by it.

Yeah.

Brandon Travis: And I don't, a lot of people [01:06:00] don't have the ability to take the time, right? Correct. Two weeks is a lot of time away from. Homework, whatever it is, a lot of people don't have that ability. So yeah, if, if you draw a tag and you want a decent shot of getting a bear, like going with a guide is perfectly fine.

Yeah. There's no shame in that, no shame in it, none whatsoever. But like for me the fun of it is the work, and that's, like you said, it's just like whitetails. I love the work of doing the food plots and the, all the, property work we do up North and all that stuff like that.

That's a lot of fun for

Nate Rozeveld: me. It was really cool shooting this dough, like on a food pot that me and Henry and Ashley went out and did, like the first time that we actually like legitly like rotor tilled and did all that stuff is like. That was cool. Like it worked out like, and that Henry went out there, and he helped me get the deer and, did all that.

And he's man, this is really cool right here by the food plot, dad. That's just cool memories. And, it means like for, each person's got to figure out what they like to live their life for to an extent, and it's that's a memory that I will [01:07:00] cherish for a long time.

And, there's a good chance that in the next few years he's going to probably shoot a deer off of a food plot he helped. Do you know, at a young age, like I just started doing food plots in my, I'm 33 years old. First time I've really had the good opportunity to do that. And I've been able to pass this.

I've been past my grandpa and my, dad and uncles and all these guys have given me so much help throughout the years and the food plot thing was never really an option because everywhere we hunted, that was farmland. So farming for cows and dairy and all that was priority. Now at this point in life, we're finally able to transition out of that just a little bit.

So now it's like this next generation is going to come up and do a lot for the wildlife and do that. And it's, I love it. Dude it's a whole nother thing. But you said like the time is not everyone has time. Like I've got a lot of time invested in these little food plots I've done.

And it's really hard to get that. I'm, I feel blessed to have the opportunity. And maybe I've structured my life in a way that gives me more time, there is a little something to be said about that. There's sacrifice and everything you do, but. That's good stuff. So you videoed this, huh?

Yep. When and where can someone, [01:08:00] when is this going to be able to be seen to the public, you think? So

Brandon Travis: This hunt in particular, the one I was just on, will be on our season next year. So our show usually starts airing in July. So it'll be on we're, as of right now, we're on. W. L. A. And Channel 19 in the Grand Rapids area at 4 30 on Saturday.

Northern Michigan Fox. I think it's Fox 32 is Sunday mornings at 6 30. That's where a lot of people watch it. And then on the pursuit channel that'll start around the same time. And I don't know what our time slot is going to be for that this year. Yeah, for next year. This year's season is Starting in October on the pursuit channel and the shows.

So be from 2022 hunts that show this year, they're airing now on those local channels. So local

Nate Rozeveld: channels, cause you started what was it? The first week of September at start or that or something, or when did, or what would you guys start for

Brandon Travis: that? That was in July. They started on TV and YouTube. [01:09:00] So September in September, we started putting the hunts on YouTube after they.

It varied on tv. Yeah. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. And we have a lot of people that watch your stuff on

Nate Rozeveld: YouTube too. Now, do you have a what w the hunt hard segment. What is that? The YouTube

Brandon Travis: base too? That, so that's, we hunt Hard is actually the name of the show. Like Vital Shop Productions is the gotcha.

And the production company. And then yeah, and the people are Team Vital Shot. We have 20 ish people that film and everything for us. And then the, yeah. The show is hunt hard, so I cannot

Nate Rozeveld: 20 people worth of footage. You get to go through like

Brandon Travis: these. It gets it's a lot. There's 4 of us that do, 99 percent of the editing and yeah, it's a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of work.

But it's fun, man. I really like doing it and I've learned a ton about editing. My brothers, obviously

Nate Rozeveld: you guys like it. Cause you've been doing this for a long time. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't still be doing it. Yeah. And you guys are getting better every year too. I feel like some [01:10:00] stuff I've seen, I haven't watched everything you've done, but I've seen quite a bit of it.

And I like seeing it's good stuff. Like I like it. Yeah. It's,

Brandon Travis: and we've talked about it before. It's like real people hunting stuff. We're not, we're not going to. Big outfits in Illinois and shooting 190 inch deer, like that's not what the show is. It's us hunting mostly in Michigan, mostly small chunks of property.

It's us taking our kids out. We got some. We have a ton of youth hunts, but we put some youth hunts out there and we'll do some out of state stuff too. We'll usually do an episode or two out of our Indiana trip every year. We've got a guy that goes to Montana and Alaska, and then usually somebody's got like a Kentucky or Ohio on in there or something like that.

So we've got some out of state stuff to you, but the bulk of what we do is bow hunting in Michigan. Yeah. It's

Nate Rozeveld: very relatable. That's what I think it's probably it's popular because of that. Like you're not, it's a very, what, the success you guys have on that farm that you guys have up North, that food plots you guys do doing those things.

And you can [01:11:00] see how it works for you guys. That's attainable for a lot of people, going to having a, you Place in Iowa is not very attainable for a lot of, majority of the hunting population, being Pennsylvania, Michigan, we have the most hunters, Wisconsin, we don't have that kind of a property all over the state.

Like we, most of us don't have the opportunity to do that. So watching a show that. It feels like you're the guy you could either be the guy that's doing that is, is fun, to an extent, don't get me wrong. I love watching Marjorie shoot a 200. It's awesome. And see, yeah, exactly.

That's really cool. But also there's asterisks there saying not saying it doesn't work his butt off and work really hard for doing that. But that's not attainable thing for me in my life, the way my life structure right now. So I love watching the videos. That's like real dudes out there doing it.

I can relate to you. And yeah, that's what Vital Shot is. It's,

Brandon Travis: It's really cool. Yeah. So we try to keep it that way. That's what it's. We got a little over reduced for a couple years and we got some backlash on it People were like, this is too much talking. [01:12:00] Just get back to hunting So I was like, all right, let's watch some stuff die.

Yeah Yep, and we usually have a couple public land kills on there in the seasons do we have a lot of guys that hunts public land and Yeah, I've 100 public land quite a bit recently close to my house, but I haven't killed a buck out there yet, but we've been on some decent ones, man.

That's the thing that, people that, and we talked about it a little bit before too last time, but. There are good bucks in Michigan on public land. You just have to be smart about it and you have to do the work. And I think the biggest thing is just going where the people, where most people aren't willing to go.

You gotta go places that you can't just walk. You've got to get creative getting into places that other people aren't going to go. And there will be big bucks there.

Nate Rozeveld: Yep. There. Yeah. That's, and you gotta go or like that whole thing where people don't go, that can be. Something close to a road or a property boundary or like a [01:13:00] weird thing, because I'm like targeting those kind of like odd places right now, the pockets are small one of my spots I'm really intrigued to see what the camera is going to be.

I had a camera there all year last year, and I've talked about this before on the podcast, but I just went in there and it's funny. There's tree stands all around. Like people hunt all around the spot, but just for some reason, this, where this spot is made sense to me when I scouted it and I think it's just overlooked.

Like no one's really, they don't think the deer are going to be here because I think if you look on a map. There's a couple of spots that look really good like that that's the pinch point. So then everyone's hunting off that one pitch point. So I look for the very subtle things like I talked about I look for licking branches, not the big scrapes on the ground.

Like it's not obvious, like really look at it. And the same thing with the beds are like, the, the spots is intriguing to me because I found just giant rubs on a field edge. It was probably 80 yards and off a field edge. And I was like, Whoa. What is this? And then of course there's tree stands all around that.

You can see where people are [01:14:00] hunting close proximity to those giant rubs. But then I'm like, okay, let's break this down a little more. And yeah, finding the subtle things really can pay off for you. And sometimes like for me, I'm blessed with having places to hunt. So like I can just set a camera there all year.

And see if I'm right. And sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes I'm right. So that's yeah, like you said, find a spot that it sucks to get to either because it's a long walk or you have to get through some crazy mucky water or something. Just maybe get creative. There's, I've heard guys talk about it.

Inflatable, like canoes or like little like hackable canoes, fold together and I talked about doing, weird stuff like that. And you can have really good hunts, I think, doing that. But we're so like, I do want to touch base a little bit because this Indiana thing's cool.

And you talk about how that's like more of your is that something you've done for quite a few years? Like you spend you don't really run on in Michigan at all. Do you?

Brandon Travis: No, I haven't for a while. That, so that property, it's actually, it's my aunt[01:15:00] who was married to my dad's brother.

My dad's brother died, but he was one of my biggest bow hunting mentors. Like, when we started bow hunting he was already into killing big bucks with a bow. So he was my mentor with that. And he married her. They ended up moving up to her family farm. And he yeah. Ended up retiring up there.

And so when he retired and moved up there, that was when I started going because he didn't, he didn't work anymore. He lived there. So that's when I would go down there for my rut hunts. And that was probably gosh, 10 years ago or so. So

Nate Rozeveld: yeah. So you've been spoiled for 10 years.

Brandon Travis: Yeah, I know. And that, I don't know, I don't know how long we're going to have.

Hopefully for a long time, but you never know. So it's one of those things where I try to take advantage of it, not advantage of it, but I try to spend the time there.

Nate Rozeveld: Correct. That's so that's like how I do November 15th. I always go up north. Is there better opportunities at bigger bucks?

Maybe somewhere else. [01:16:00] Like I have a better chance of shooting a bigger buck on my gun. If I hunted elsewhere over 15th. Most likely, but guess what? I'm going there every November 15th because that's the family place. Like you see the family do that. That's like the tradition that I have. That's like my deer camp, like hanging out with my family and doing that.

And it is, oh gosh, it's so much fun. Like I love. My grandpa and grandma and seeing them, I, my siblings or uncle, that's there, that kind of stuff. It's totally worth it. You just happen to have that in a

Brandon Travis: spot. There's giant, it's the same group of guys. We've been going down there for a while now.

And yeah, it's we all, people go there sporadically through October and some, some of the couple of guys will muzzle loader hunt, but usually. Usually somewhere in those first couple weeks of November, we're all there and together and hanging out and yeah, it's a ton of fun, man.

I look forward to that every year.

Nate Rozeveld: So how do you pick your if you had any words of advice, do you, how far ahead do you have to schedule that rut hunt? Are you, is it like set in stone months ahead of time, or can you be [01:17:00] flexible with

Brandon Travis: that? I can usually be a little flexible. It I it'll be different this year.

This year. It'll be pretty bear hunt and stuff. Yeah. Cause of the bear hunt. Usually I'll take I'll save enough time up where I can take two and a half, three weeks in November off. Which is pretty sweet. Most people don't have that ability, but yeah. But but

Nate Rozeveld: that's a good sample size, so yeah.

So what time, what do what are, like, if you're able to spend that much time on a tree in November and like a good spot where there's, mature bucks running around , does weather make a really big impact? Do you feel like, is it still time of year is the most important thing,

Brandon Travis: man. It's. I go back and forth, honestly, because there's been I don't spend the full three weeks down there.

That's nobody like you're bouncing around. Yeah, I'll try to get down there for at least a week. Usually, hopefully 10 days won't be that this year. But but I will base it on whether if I can if I can flex it, a couple of days forward a couple of days backward based on whether I'll do that because I think whether is important, but at the same time, [01:18:00] I've had hunts down there where it's been 80 degrees for three days and if it's that right time of year, we see bucks chasing and it's, so I think the time of the year is like the most important thing.

I think bucks will be on their feet. In November, like it's just going to happen, but if you can get a good cold front or some good weather, it's going to make it that much better. If yes,

Nate Rozeveld: I agree. That's like how, so I like, I asked that question selfishly because of our lease in Illinois, and I have flexibility to like the first time I actually have flexibility to out of state hunt.

That's in an area that's good, so I think that's what I'm going to do target right time of year with. A good weather front or something. And this kind of capitalize on that because if I can do it in the three or four day window opposed, like I hate saying wasting, but there's sometimes when you're sitting there on a five or six day hunt, you're just like, yeah, today's not, I wouldn't hunt today if I [01:19:00] was at home because I would get all my other stuff done, so maybe take that approach down there.

I think it'd be a good time. Yeah let's, I think we're going to wrap this up cause it's late already. But I do encourage anyone who's listened to this give vital shot an opportunity and, sit down and watch some of their stuff, support these guys, because you guys are Michigan, your local real world.

You're a guy that works full time job and does a CPR stuff on the side. And then, I don't know how much of it on the side it is. It sounds pretty busy to me. And then you're doing all this, you have to stay busy and doing this and you guys love it. And if I, if I can support that and have a lot of people look out to this, why not?

Go give it, give

Brandon Travis: it some love. Yeah. Check it out. And yeah, we're going to keep putting stuff up. We've already got, like I said, we've got a couple of youth hunts already this year. We've got a couple of bears. We've got two bears on camera killed already this year. Yeah. We'll have some good stuff.

They're

Nate Rozeveld: now good. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah, man, I appreciate doing this again. Sorry. We had to do it twice. No worries. It's

Brandon Travis: all good. I'll do it again. I don't care. It's [01:20:00] good. It's a good time.

Nate Rozeveld: And I would like to extend the invite out maybe even, after the first week of the season, even if you don't shoot anything, maybe get on here and talk about your hunts and maybe get into a little detail about, what you're thinking when you did it and if it ended up working out, because it's what I want to do during hunting seasons.

Let's have a few guys on, talk about a little more of update okay, I hunted this week. This is what I saw, maybe do a quick little snippet. And I think you'd be a great guy to do that with because you've been doing it for a long time. And yeah. And I would love to just update throughout the year for people.

So

Brandon Travis: yeah, definitely. I'd love to do that. That'd be fun. Yeah. And then

Nate Rozeveld: hopefully hopefully we can do it late at night and not get in trouble because that's my wife. She's you just did all this and you're going to do that again. Yeah.

Brandon Travis: And that's, yeah, that's. Talked about the editing stuff, but that's a lot of what I do when I do that is kids bed, wife goes to bed and it's I gotta, it's 10 o'clock, I got a three hours worth of editing. I can get in at night. Yeah that's when it happens. Yeah.

Nate Rozeveld: I'm pretty sure I got some work stuff to do after [01:21:00] this, so I'm gonna go through and bust out that, doing that.

But no, I appreciate it man, and thank you for your time. Dude, congrats on that bear. Even the angles might've helped, but it looked fantastic.

Brandon Travis: Like that bear is, it's like the head size. Yeah. That's what you're saying. I don't, it's big melano. So

Nate Rozeveld: that's sweet. You got me fired up, man.

We've got a doe down for me and then a bear for you. And yeah, we're going to be hunting in two weeks.

Brandon Travis: And

Nate Rozeveld: we got, i, my trail cameras have been hit or miss, but the couple of bucks I have got on camera, I'm like, yes, looking good. So I'm really looking for the next 10 days and see what shows up.

Brandon Travis: Yeah, it should be good, man. It's it's almost here. It's that time of year. Yes,

Nate Rozeveld: sir. Hey, have a good one. You guys give everybody a shot opportunity and look them up on socials and all that stuff.[01:22:00]

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