Sept. 21, 2020

Season 1 Episode 3 Kody and Mitchell's Youth hunt

Season 1 Episode 3 Kody and Mitchell's Youth hunt

This week we talk to Kody about his final Nevada youth hunt and his transition to a youth mentor and Mitchell about his first ever big game harvest. These are two great youth that have a very bright future ahead of them. You can join Kody on his Tiktok page @nevadamullet 

Transcript

Okay. We're back for another Battle born Duckers podcast who we got Who's your dad? 
Right here. 
You sure? 
Yep. Okay. 
And we got little Kenny powers over here. AKA Kody Burris is my boy, him and his super mullet.  today's episode, we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, this was two of our three youth that we took hunting with us last weekend, up Getting some mule deer. ,  it was a pretty good time. It was a little bit frustrating Wyatt is a buddy went with us and,  he's not here with us today, but he had a successful hunt as well, all three of the boys had a pretty good hunt. 
I'd like to address a something, the very important Kody.
How long have you been growing that mullet for 
honestly, at this point, I do not know. 
You want to, you won't let them know what your Tiktok channel is. That's not some pretty good mullet videos with you on there. Well, what is it?
Kenny powers.com. 
No come on and give you take talk thing out. 
It's a long tictok that I'd have to, 
okay.
We'll put it. We'll put, well, you know 
what? Down in the description. 
That sounds good. You know what, maybe me, your dad could put one of those mullet videos on that. 
Make sure you get close to that microphone. Cause we want to be able to pick up all the 
wanna put somevideos in there. Brian  
we'll put some mullet videos in for Kody.
er a Kenny Powers  eastbound and down. 
You want to tell us a little about yourself, Kody. 
So I'm Kody Burris. I have for the last school year, I was in multiple different 
leadership groups. 
 Most notably I was the Moapa Valley.
📍
 FFA  parliamentarian the president for the, Moapa Valley 4h t G I S  team.
And then I was director of community service for Moapa Valley JAG. 
You sound busy, boy. 
Yeah, Cody's a, a thing. Or is 4- H thing, sorry,  he's on the national GIS team.  he's a club president locally, but he actually got to go and go to ESRI conference, which was a pretty cool thing for him. He got to spend almost a week in San Diego with all the big time.
People is like a $10,000 conference or something like that. People want me, he competed on a national level, Kody, Also shoots 4 H he's 4. H shooting sports. He's a multi-time state, qualifier in archery, shotgun and rifle.  Kody is actually going to be our kind of our most experienced on our Kody is kind of transitioning with Ron and I co Ron.
I were lucky enough to go with Kody on his first ever hunt. And this year we got to go with him on his, for his last youth, youth mule deer hunt. so Kody's kind of made that, that full circle. So  what are your goals? What do you think you're going to do after you get out of high school? I'm 
hoping to get a successful job, make a living in the shipyards and I'll hopefully be able to make a family after that point, 
shipyards where 
shipyards up in Seattle, 
Washington, if you guys just had something really crazy happened on a boat to one of your kinfolk.
Yeah, my, My cousins, boyfriend is actually a, a crabber he's been a crabber for a long time. He was actually on a couple, on a couple of seasons of deadliest catch, and he was out doing some, crabbing this year and he was two hours from his last trip and he was going to retire and go back home to, to Oregon and spend some time in Oregon with his girlfriend and just kind of live his life out there.
And. Actually, I got crushed by a crab pot launch or in, and it's pretty good damage. He's a got some significant fractures in his pelvis at, at the point it happened. He was there. I looked off the boat. He had no feeling in his left leg. Big today. He has been through some surgery, has a crushed pelvis, has some blood clots that they got rid of.
Yes. And starting to get some movement back as left legs. So it's kind of just goes to show, you know, Everything we can put into place. And we, we think we have a plan. And then at the last minute, everything kind of come and change those plans. So kind of reminded me to kind of live for today and, and, let tomorrow sort itself out.
All plans are perfect until you start them. Huh? Exactly. You gotta be on them. Crab boats, Kody, or 
I'll be working in the shipyards. I'll be building the crab ships, 
huh? Yeah, man. I see up from underneath those crab pots. Okay. Because I need someone to, I need someone to pull the deer down the Hill. When I get old, 
I get ahold of our .
Our hope is we're up in a, with Kody, we get to go up and spend some time doing a little sea duck hunt, and then maybe it gets some King elders and, and Kody can kind of show us awake. Kody, a pretty motivated kid. His uncle lives up in Seattle and had offered the opportunity for him to be able to go up there after graduation and either work in the oil fields or the ship yards.
And. I think Kody's kind of decided he kind of wants to go up and try the ship yards out and try to see what his life is as well. There were, we're blessed enough in this community where we have a really good FFA program. Kody's been part of the FFA program now for four years and he's been in the ag mechanics and the agriculture side, both.
And actually he's done some other stuff in that, that FFA group. So he's learned the welding and right now he's rebuilding one of the pieces of equipment to, to maintain our ball fields. So he's pulling apart some hydraulic pumps and stuff like that to, to update that. So 
tell us a little about yourself, 
Mitchell 
I'm homeschooled.
I, I live 
no. So where, Tell us a little about your hunting experience. When did you start hunting? 
So probably it was at 11. I went, 
no, I'll go back further. Okay. 
Oh yeah. I went duck hunting, 
go back further, go back further with grandpa remembers and Avi Avi was just born. And you went on your first hunt when you were five years old with grandpa's Stoker.
I actually remember that. Yeah. And then you've been, you went duck hunting when you're 11, right? So you've been hunting for quite a while. So what else, what else are your hobbies? You like Minecraft? What else do you do for fun? 
read 
books. Tell us a little about the books you like 
right now. I'm reading a book called Aragon.
I used to love 
that. 
a series called eight bit village 
were a letter. Okay. So you're a big reader. So what, what did you like about your hunting experience this year? Or do you got any stories or past hunts that you want to tell? Oh 
yeah. this one time I went hunting with dad and 
Brian, the director saying you got to look at the camera while you talk.
It's over here. So you went hunting with dad and Brian and Kody. Oh, you on Cody's first time. Hi, you were there. Yeah. Can you tell you, can you tell us sort of your first time Kody? So 
we 
came Mitchell, tell the story. 
Yeah, I'll go ahead. And 
I bet Kody can tell it better. 

I don't remember much of the story, but, all I remember is we've gone up there.
 we were hunting the main road. We saw this decent sized elk the very first day. 
Oh yeah. Oh, 
we said that big oil West side of the road. 
You see a bull on the side of the highway. I forgot about that 
happened again this year, man. It 
did. It must be an omen. Yeah. 
And that 
had a 
little bit further along the story.
He ended up going down this super sketchy quad trail. That was probably two or three miles long. 
I think it was probably two or three miles. I felt really long here and there for a while. So it's a who we are in our truck and runs dad's truck actually. And this trail was. Maybe wide enough for a quad, if that at 
it fit a truck, man, I know we drove it.
Yeah. It fits the truck. Now at one point we actually had to get out of the truck and, and bring some, some hatches and stuff out to actually clear some trees out from the front of our path. And Ron's pretty yet. Ron runs a little bit more than okay. 
Driver 
driving. Okay. Driver. But I 
get nervous. He knows something's wrong, but 
we will go down the down a Hill and then we'll decide that, you know, that's probably, wasn't the best place to go down this time.
Ron, normally super cool, calm, collected. Doesn't nothing bothers him, looks over at Mitchell and her screaming. I got a seatbelt on, I knew that's where we're kind of in a little bit of a sketchy spot. So we were, at one point, Ron looked at me and he said, well, you know, I think if we just turn the wheel to the left, we could probably ride that Hill all the way down.
And luckily we didn't take that course of action, but we actually got the bottom and that's, we can't hunt with as a group and have something that's not a memorable experience. And anybody that's ever hunted with Ron will tell you the same thing that hunted with Ron is an experience you just have to experience for yourself.
it's. W you, you get the job done and it's, you have a good time. You always have a story to tell at the end. So 
yeah, we've been really lucky and blessed, and I think God's really washed over us on her hunts because we've got away with a lot of stuff 
we probably shouldn't have. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As well.
I have a story. One time we have a Jared, one of our friends and it went all to save that one for us. And we'll say that sort for a later day, but it's a, it's a pretty incredible story of just God's grace and, and how he places things in your path that. That you can't deny that he was there with you 
so well, I w Brian, why don't you tell a little about the youth hunt in Nevada, because this is kind of a cool subject.
They kind of , really, something really cool for the youth team. A lot of opportunities, 
youth hunting Nevada is a lot different than some other States. So a lot of other States you can draw as a youth, but you're going to draw, you're going to draw either a, a cow tag or not a cow tag, sorry, a DOE tag or a buck tag.
And in Nevada, the youth are really blessed because the youth actually have the opportunity to harvest no matter what. So the youth of Nevada get the opportunity to hunt all seasons and it any, any speed, any sex, so they can hunt on a DOE, are they going to hunt a buck? So if you're out there on your hunt with your youth and they.
They're just having an issue with the bucks  or they can't, we can't get them on bucks, which we've been pretty blessed recently to be able to get on box quite a bit. But if you can't get all those bucks, those, those youth can still harvest, those don't tags. 
Yeah, no, I really liked Nevada. I mean the youth get hunt to all three seasons.
They get hunt, archery, rifle, muzzle, loader. And on top of that, they get a, they get to either harvest a DOE or a buck. So, you know, when I was at youth, they didn't, they didn't implement this program until. I was about 16. I remember going out for several hunts and just we chase buck and we we'd hike all day.
And my dad's a lot like me. So it was, it was a little rougher and a little bit younger. Yeah. Beat me up. But, at the end of the day, we'd go home empty handed. And that man, as a youth going home to hand is kind of rough. But, I mean, that's, that's life. I mean, we're talking to Ricardo and I was like, well, I didn't get one until I was 17.
But with these boys, they get to go out and, you know, worst case scenario, there's always a dose somewhere 
we've had that. We've had that scenario. So Kody was, was pretty lucky. His first year he ended up with a really nice book and, and not buck. We, had a taxidermy shop. It was around that. Actually that buck ended up, making it in the SHOT show .
Shall we change the antler pattern a little bit? And I made it in the shot show. So Kody was really lucky as first year it took us a couple of days to get it done. He missed a couple of shots, which is kind of be expected with, with youth. last year we weren't quite so lucky we had, we were just the shots weren't going the way we would, like we had two youth hunters with us.
Kody was one of them. My niece was another one, took a lot of shots and just weren't productive and. And Ron and I were, were the mindset. We're not there to hunt for, for horns. I can't eat a set of horns. Now. I'm not going to lie to you. if a  nice big trophy buck came across my way. I'm not, not opposed to taking that trophy buck, but you know, we truly are about filling our freezers and being able to feed our families.
And we have youth that have tags. It gives me the ability to help provide for their families. And so last year we made a decision coming up on Sunday. We were going to leave Sunday afternoon. We had two hunters with us that we were going to harvest does at that point. If, if we saw a buck, of course, we'd take a buck, but you know, we really weren't so worried about a bucket.
It's just getting these kids to be able to fill their tags and Kody harvested a DOE here. And, and, my niece harvested a DOE here, and Kody was lucky enough to where we had the ability to send Kody to, to Idaho last year to do a combination hunt. And he actually. Got a shot on an elk. His uncle took the elk after Kody had a shot on it.
and Kody got not only did he get a mule deer in Nevada last year, we got a white tail in Idaho as well. So yeah, those opportunities that, that you're not afforded very much anymore. And just the opportunity I think for kids to get out with their dads and we're missing that in society or their mentors or men are, are.
Are taught that it's not right to be, to do men things and, and hunting gives us the ability to get out with our kids and, and show them it, not all masculinity is a bad thing and that we can provide for our families. And, and there's important things about, about growing up and, and sometimes the, I don't know, the military use of the term embrace the suck.
So part of hunting, especially for kids is they gotta embrace the suck a little bit and, I know Mitchell's been in the truck with us many, many miles. Kody's been in the truck that was many, many miles and long days, three o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock at night. And both of them have a pretty good ADDitude.
Even, even when Ron and I might be a little bit overbearing on him, I guess we get a little irritable and 
we get 
tired. We do, we get a little bit irritable. Well, I think we just want the best for our kids. And I think everybody, every dad wants the best for our kids. And Cody can probably tell a story about.
When I kind of got a little bit on him, this last hunt with, I've 
got a, 
how he's, how we, sometimes we get tunnel tunnel vision, and, and I think Cody realized that after the fact Cody, why don't you tell what, what kind of happened in that little spot? 
Yeah, we were lined up on a couple, a couple of spikes, and then there was a five point 
or something like that.
Just a little bit off to the right height. And I was. Locked in on this one, tiny little spike. And I, I was trying my hardest to look at as far right as I could, but I wasn't seeing it. So I took the shot off on the spike and I ended up ruining Mitchell Shot on the same buck. 
It wasn't even Mitchell shot.
It was Kody shot. And I think Kody realized after the fact that buck kind of turned in and bolted a little bit and yeah. Yeah, I think we all as hunters get kind of locked in sometimes and they get that tunnel vision on. We have a job to do and, and we're, we're on an animal and Kody realized a pretty valuable lesson.
Sometimes you need to take a step back, stop, take a breath and look at the whole area. Before we make a decision. That's one of the, one of the drawbacks of hunting with multiple people. We had three hunters in the truck, three tags. Just because that you have a great , which you consider a good shot doesn't mean that that's not going to ruin somebody else's chance at a bigger buck.
So 
yeah, something you said about embracing the suck. Mitchell has a, has a pattern method for how to embrace the no sleep Mitchell. And you've been hunting with me in one of the elk hunting Arizona. We went on that deer hunting came in even as several haunts. I mean, I mean, you're, you're a first time Hunter in Nevada, but what do you do when we have to wake up early in the morning?
What's the first thing you do when you get into the truck, bring a pillow and then what do you do? Sleep? You go back to sleep. Why do you do that? 
So I'll have enough energy to shoot the buck. 
Is that why? 
And so I won't 
wait a minute. I heard an opposite story. Mitchell told me he does not sleep in a truck 
when we are on rope.
We're always on a Bumpy r 
road. You know, the, one of the, it's kind of a funny story because we go on and we had already had two of our tags filled. And so we got get to Saturday and Mitchell's the only one left that has a tag to fill and we're going up and we're kind of coming up in our hunting area and I'm like, you know, we come across the buck, Ron Mitchell.
And he's passed out. I mean, he's, he's dead. I'm like 
I told you, I said, I gotta deal with him, man. He goes, and he gets asleep when he could sleep. 
And Ron's like, Oh, he'll wake up. So we get on a buck. You got to get out of the truck to get Mitchell set up, take the shuttle on this buck. And Ron's Hannah Mitchell, the gun and the bucks to the right.
And Mitchell's eyes are to the left. Oh 
man. 
So what happened is. He was dead to the world. He was dead to the world, even hunt for about, we got up before sunrise. We always did. You know, we averaged about five hours sleep a night, all the boys. Yeah. And so he was dead to the world. And if you, if you have ever just woken somebody up out of a dead sleep and had it, them they'll pretty, do much, whatever you tell them.
And so he was dead too, the world in the back of that truck. And we see a buck and Brian stylers holler, and I started hollering and Kody's hollering and we're throwing him a gun. W w w we're safe, we're safe. He wasn't gonna shoot any of us. We, we put it up and we put it on a stick. He was ready to go, but man, I don't even know how he got the shot off, man.
No, and that's the thing is, so this, this hunt was man, Ron and I hunt hard and, and we, we usually get there about two o'clock in the morning, midnight, two o'clock in the morning. And then we get up the next day and hunt at four o'clock in the morning. And this particular trip we. We left, tried to leave on Wednesday night to hunt Thursday morning and you know, just life.
Got it. We had some issues getting out of town by the time we got up there Thursday, we 
knew about the issues, man. That's all hunting. 
Yeah. We had some trailer, light issues and yeah. And just getting everything ready and. If we get up there, we had time to drop a trailer and go up and head to hunt. So we were seriously on time.
So we had zero sleep, Ron and I went back and took a nap that afternoon, about two o'clock in the afternoon for an hour or two. And the boys all stayed up and then we got done 10 o'clock that night. We finally got back and back to camp and got the guns, cleaning it in bed three or four hours of sleep.
And we're up again doing it the next day. And yeah. Got Kody was his, his buck came literally with a minute to shooting lot tall shooting light. It was over. So, 
I think in the dark try 
and back in the dark, I really done, we were at 11 o'clock at night to get in bed again and up at four o'clock in the morning and go back to hunting.
So it's a long trip. These kids did really, really well. They, they didn't complain. 
Yeah. So on that point, something with your youth hunters is like, if they need to sleep. Make sure they're comfortable. Let them sleep, let them enjoy the experience. Don't, don't be hollering at them the whole time and don't be pushing and saying, you'll you gotta, you gotta man up.
It's not about man enough. It's about it. I think it's about enjoying the 
experience and we have two options we can do is we can either be really hard on our kids and make it to where they don't want to hunt. And it takes them years to be able to, to get the desire to go back and how to again, or we can make them excited about hunting and.
Anytime we end any, I think anytime a kid harvest an animal, they're going to be excited naturally. But those times that the kid you get onto an animal and they don't, it's not the harvest they wanted or we don't harvest it all. You want to make those times still enjoyable enough to where they want to be able to go out and try it again the next time.
So it's important for us as mentors to. To make it enjoyable for these kids. So, 
Hey, Michelle soul, you were hunted with a muzzle loader, right? Yep. So Brian mentioned that every night you had to go back and clean them. Do you want to explain that process and how you did it and why you did it and what you use?
Just this. So someone hasn't muzzleloader haunted, I just want very, very proud of both our boys. We didn't have to help them zero with getting those muzzle loaders up and going. 
Yeah, that was a good thing. It was Ron and I could kind of concentrate on getting animals processed and we, we had a third boy with us that.
Isn't with us today, but all three of them just sat down and put their heads down and got to work and do what they needed to do. 
Tell him, tell him how you, how, what you do with the muzzleloaders every night when you came back, why was it important to clean them? 
because when you shoot them, the powder will clog up the gun.
And if you don't clean it, your gun will break and it's less accurate. So first you have to get the gun open, take the primer out. Then you have to unscrew a bolt 
bolt. What's that called? Brian's a bore 
yeah a 
bore plug 
yeah, I forget that out then. There's like some kind of, 
kind of it smells good. Huh? 
So it's bore butter is what Ron and I all know the bore cleaner.
Cleaner. Yeah. What 
ETL you 
spread that down there. You guys scrub it. 
You got a wire brush, right? Yeah. 
Yeah. Get that all cleaned. Then you gotta go through it with us. Cloth to make sure it's all clean, then you have to make sure it's, slick. So the bullet can go out in it. So you need bore butter. 
I do that.
Yeah. It's tip, 
don't leave it out at night if it's like below. 
Yeah. We, we learned pretty invaluable lesson on that. So it got down into the twenties at night and all the board butter and stuff was sitting in the truck and. The boys had shot their first round for the day and, and we need to reload. 
I started yelling at you.
Yeah. And the problem was the board butter was not coming out of the tube. It was frozen solid in that tube. So it was trying to get it all soft. And that's where you get where you can make it work. And the boys just kind of went to work at it. We had we'd harvested. We have one at one deer on the ground.
That was a kid that wasn't isn't here today and he had , a small spike on the ground, but. And I'll, I'll tell you that that was a pretty cool experience for me is, is all the boys. I had shots on Thursday afternoon. Everybody had a couple shots and they get nervous and they're not concentrating as much. And sometimes they just education from a dad's standpoint, isn't there as much.
And, and we don't explain things like we know how to do them. And so there are some. Miscommunication issues there. But Friday morning, we were able to take a first time Hunter. That's not only a first time Hunter, but man, just so a very limited outdoorsman. I mean, he caught his first fish a couple, a couple of weeks ago, and the first time he's ever been hunting, his family's not there, not their speed, speed, not their style.
And we were able to get him and got him set up on, on a little buck and he'd had some issues with, with accuracy. on Thursday, I was able to sit there and talk to them and just kind of coach him through it and talk to them about breath control and slow slow trigger pull, and, and man, as soon as he did that, he just was dead center.
He dropped it. It was that. You know, he did a great job. He was a little bit far back, but 
he was so excited, 
man, kid  before I think before that hit deer, you hit the ground. I think he was on the phone to his mom telling him he just harvested, harvested a deer. So, that's something that kid I'll never forget.
I mean, and that's one of the things that ties us to the outdoors and this lifestyle is. to be able , to experience is that you don't ever forget right 
now, South of that bore butter. I know I've got frozen and cold, but that's stuff that I just recently learned about. So if anybody is going out muzzle or hunting hers, that, that stuff usually average about three shots L muzzle, or before you have to clean it, when you're with youth, you're going to be shooting more, you know, and the bore butter puts you up to five shots and it makes the bullets go down just so much easier.
Yeah, man, it's a lot less effort. at that point where we had frozen tubes, we just, we were, we were manhandling. It takes a lot more effort to, to load the muzzleloader without the board butter. I mean, certainly has been. A God sent us. I mean, that's mean it makes my life a whole lot easier. We're trying to get kids back on animals.
Now, 
also something you said, you said something with being able to coach Kody gave a lot of coaching in the back as a mentor to those boys. And you know, sometimes when us old men yakking at their ear, sometimes it goes in one out and another. So what are some of the tips you gave those boys Cody while you're out there with them?
So the number one tip that I gave them was. Typically you will follow the shoulder line and then aim 
just below the shoulder 
for the perfect shot. and I, I don't remember really. What other advice do you remember? What advice 
Kody is? Oh, he's actually, you know, speaking from his dad, am I go out one ear and out in one ear out the other, but Kody is actually one of those kids that he's an older kid, but he really.
Kind of works with, with the younger kids and tries to explain things to where they can understand it. And Kody is really, I'm really proud of Kody because he's, he's stepped into the mentoring role really, really well. And, and I think he enjoys it. I think Cody, Kody had some issues earlier in his life to where he was really didn't want to be around a lot of people and stuff.
And he stepped into more of a leadership role. And when you develop. As mentors, we try to develop people and you teach them and you mentor them. They in turn, go on to mentor others. So my hope for Kody is that he goes on and, and not only teaches his own kids, but teaches other kids how to do it. Kody's he got to go shooting on a little shotgun shoot with this church the other day.
And, and, you know, he came back, he was like, dad, he goes. I was having a hard time telling the kids that they're doing it wrong, but being nice about it. And part of the problem was it wasn't the fact that he has an issue with being nice about telling kids they were doing it wrong. It was the kids' dads had no clue what, what was going, going on.
They didn't know the right way to do things. And, and Kody's always been like a sponge. He takes everything from around him and tries to learn as much as possible and then push it on to kids. It's like, like Mitchell and Wyatt and. And Nicoma before. And so it's, it's something awesome to see that when you, when you mentor somebody that comes up and mentor somebody else, it's a, it's a great thing.
So 
Kody, let's hear about your, your story this year on you. You get in the deer. Everybody likes to hear a good deer story. So tell us yours and we'll have Mitchell tell them. Honestly, 
I don't remember much. My mind completely 
just went blank. 
Yeah. So Kody, we Kody we'd gone Thursday, Thursday at a couple shots 
Friday.
I think it was Saturday or 
so Thursday, Thursday, he had, he had a couple of shots. Didn't harvest anything Friday morning. We'd go out. Wyatt had. Harvested a deer, a little small Forkey and, and then Kody, we're sitting down and it's, we're, we're working, you're working here and all we're seen as dos and they're super skiddish on, on Friday afternoon.
Well, tried another area and, and got on we're driving and runs kind of spot. And Rons was like, 
Oh, the back of the truck. 
Those are those just gone. And I might know, they're not, I'm like there's at least a spike in there. And so, 
they had a better angle tonight. 
So I might know there's th it's a spike.
So we stopping Kody gets out and we start looking at it and there's are no K buck there. It's a little, two point super tall. Kody has a history of Kody. Doesn't take a normal buck. So Kody doesn't take the buck, the spreads out wide, everything he takes, I'll go straight up in the air and for the sky they're super tall.
And so we get on this buck and. And like, well, Kody sets up, he gets a good, good spot on it. Pulls the trigger on it. It hunched up. So Ron and I knew he hit it. I mean, there was no doubt in my mind, he 
started running away all where, well he did, 
he, 
that, that I knew he hit it when it rolled over that 
that buck buck actually took off.
It wasn't a dead sprint. No only went 20 yards or so maybe if at that, And then it stopped, laid down and rolled down the mountain. So at that point we knew, well, he knew he'd harvested it. It was actually really good shot both lungs. So it was, it was a solid harvest shot. And again, he got a two point, but it was a super tall two point to go with a super tall three point from his first year.
So, it was a decent buck. And then, you know, we got home. Harvested late into the night and it's man, that was, I was so beat by the way. Not even remember, 
we got back up the next morning and 
go back to the next morning. And then Mitchell, we had a little bit of an issue on your, on that first, first shot you had Saturday morning.
I didn't wake up 
there. That was my fault. You know, I woke up from a dead sleep. He shot twice and he shot, he shot right over both of them. Right. And I was like, what the heck are you doing? I was kicking dirt in the road and I was pretty angry. It wasn't, I. Okay. I don't know why you still hunt with me 
you're a good kid. Anyways. I was pretty hungry and I was like, how are you Aiming? And he goes, well, I put the dot above the triangle. And I was like, you gotta put it in the triangle. 
No, I was just putting like where it would block the triangle. Soon as I lowered it down a little. 
Yeah. So I, that was my fault.
Yeah, it was. So it comes with miscommunication. Right? We talked about that earlier and you know, you're talking about mountain, the putting, putting the sun in the Valley of the mountains. Right. And so Mitchell, his, his thought process was you put it up on the top of that was  where it goes. And so that never got clearly communicated Mitchell.
Pretty it's all we can do at that point was shooting just a little bit high. Yeah. We officially ride on the backs of them. And as soon as they 
tell us what happened, tell us what happened, what happened? We come up on that Hill and there's that herd and there's that nice two point velvet, right? What'd you do 
got out 
of the car
put it on the stick in right through the valleys hit. 
That was that. Huh? 
So Mitchell got himself. Not only to get him a little buck, but I mean, it's. It's late September, it's mid, mid to late September and we get up there. And that, that bucks it's a two point buck. It's a little, the horn. Set's a little bit shorter than Cody's, but it it's him full velvet.
I mean, just, you couldn't ask for any better for a kid's first ever buck. I mean, to be in velvet soul, 
I was worried because Michelin Kody, they both liked the Euro mountains. Well, that's the easiest and cheapest way to do it. Mitchell is actually doing a year old mouse for all his buddies this year and that velvet, I didn't know how to do it.
And so I went over, I went over to Coots taxidermy and I talked to Bradley over there. He's just a phenomenal guy. And a, he, he put me onto this velvet spray and all you do is you, you take the antlers off you, you wait until they thaw out a little bit, gave him a couple spritzes with that spray. You're done 
well.
That's, that's goes to the, Testify as to how, how important it is to have good contacts and, and just be good to people because Ron was able to go over there and we'd actually saved all of our hides. Just take over there to see if they needed any of them for anything. And actually Mitchell's hide.
They're going to use, use it at some point because it was velvet at buck. So, you know, it's a little bit different height than, than normal, but yeah, those. You build those relationships and you can get things like that out of those people. And you know, that, that turned into a, we're going to end up taking the boys from Coots, for opening day of, for one of the areas we hunt for ducks.
So, so we'll, Will be up on a podcast with us. Let me share about that, that opener duck season 
he's, he's duck hunting before, but he's never done it out of a watercraft. So that will be interesting. 
And it's going to be opener in an area that should be a pretty good area. It wont be opening day. It'll be the day after, because we have some obligations opening day for that area.
Yeah. But it should be a really good hunt. And it's just, when we take the time to build relationships and build, build a. Just build bonds with people, then you can end up getting things out of people that other people can't Ron. And I had an experience just this week. we have a low, state waterfowl hunting group that somebody had just moved to the area and asked kind of where to go to hunt.
And, you know, it's crickets in that room. And, and my, my reply was, well, I don't know much about Northern Nevada, but. If you're ever down in Southern Nevada, let us know, and we'll at least get you into an area to hunt. You know, we don't necessarily well we are not gonna give them her honey holes or whatever, but we'll get them on some birds and, and somewhere  to hunt.
Well, His reply was, well, I live in Southern Nevada, so I got on and had a pretty lengthy conversation with them about just the different areas and kind of what they hold. And, and we didn't give any specifics of spots lots and let him explore for himself. Cause that's, to me, that's part of the hunting thing, right?
So it's part of the journey, you know, an area, but you don't know exactly where to go in the area. And so it's trial and error. We make things work and we hunt hard, but I just don't understand. Pushing people out of a sport when it directly affects your ability to harvest in the future. Yeah. 
It's not that hard to be good.
I mean, he's going to get out anyways. And like Brian said, I think it's important not to give him the direct spot, like the X on the map, but it, cause he might go to the X of the map and it might not work for him. But if he's you give him a general location, he gets out there and hunts it. He might hunt a differently.
You find more stuff out than you. And then. since you gave me that tip, they might come out with you a different time and you, you get to collaborate on that knowledge. I mean, 
we're going to learn something, this, this particular Hunter was, he's an Arkansas Hunter. Yeah. So he's hunted timber and stuff like that.
And, and he is going to have a different technique than Ron and I have. And yeah, 
probably definitely be a better at callin' tthan me 
when we talk about, you know, giving them an area. We're going to give them, Hey, go up to Key Pittman and go up to sunny side. Those are areas that you can hunt there. Sunnyside has how many lakes up in Sunnyside to you?
You can hunt. I mean, 
that's, that's the one that's hard to hunt without a watercraft up there 
though. That's the thing is he's also a Hunter. That's, you know, he's going to walk into most of his hunts because they don't have a boat, but you know, there's the ability for us out here in the West. to kayak kind of a little bit.
And I gave him some tips on where he can go pick up a cheap kayak somewhere and 
sell for cheap while back. 
Wow. We, we, you know, people overlooked things like swap, swap meets, and I think next year, what we're going to have happen is everybody went out and bought 
all 
their water toys because of the COVID coronavirus garbage and everything was shut down.
They're going to realize after a year that it's a lot of work and they don't want them anymore. And so you're going to be able to pick up some of that stuff really, really cheap. And it is about the way we grow our sport is, is by getting more people to buy hunting licenses in our States. And then for duck hunters, the duck stamps, man, those it's going directly to increasing the hunting environment.
Right. So we're gonna spend some money on game preserves and stuff like that. The other thing is, man. We were pretty lucky out here. We've got some wildlife management areas that, you know, do a fairly decent job, but what I see is people don't step up and go out and help in the WMAs like they should. And so if we actually go out and help those guys increase the ability to be productive out there and you know, whether it's planning, millet or.
He going out and do service projects to build some blinds, 
sweat equity in there, out there. 
Exactly. That's that's going to be important. 
So I think it also like, I, I might be superstitious, you know, some people don't change their underwear during fantasy football season, and I honestly believe I'm more successful.
The more projects I get on and more sweat equity I put in, I think it helps me do really well throughout the hunting season. Hey, Mitchell, I want to ask you, you have something that you really like to do when you're hunting. What, what's your favorite. Food. And how do you cook it when you're out there hunting?
So we have our own little tote or 
no, no, that's not a little tote. That's like 700 pounds of canned food. 
Nope. They're not 
camp they're soup. 
Well, 
that was in a can. 
Okay, go ahead. So what do you do we get the soup? What's your favorite kind of soup clam chowder. 
No saying it so, yeah. And 
the way you do. 
We have this little burner propane burner where you put it on there.
Just one on backpack,   propane burners. Yeah. So yeah, it does. It doesn't have to be too expensive and you're out hunting with you. It's a little things like that's when your favorite memories, right. When we did that elk hunt  Arizona, what do we do every night? Get the 
propane burner out. 
I make Kansas soup, like homeless people, 
you know, 
and 
that's shout out, tell my whole suit, a little clam chowder.
And I must've heard clam chowder, 17,000 times within a period of three days, Brian Hill, I clown 
shatter. And he's like, let's go get and dolls. And then she was like, listen to me 
for sure. 
The whole tote of clam chowder in the back, Brian, I will cook yours for you. Right. I was like, listen, I don't want you to crappy clam chowder.
And I was like, well, 
Okay. So we do have, Ron, I have a tradition we're up in the area that we like to hunt. And so we're generally around the Ely area and man, we have a celebratory lunch or dinner depending on, on when you harvest your animal and 
we must be fat boys, man. We talk about food, every single podcast 
we do.
So, so  we, we loveRacks. 
we should put you, you can put the picture up in the podcast picture. Yeah. 
Okay. So, if you're on an. Ely. I suggest you go there. The service is really good. The foods 
time they don't get, they don't get mad. If you have blood on your 
clothes. I mean, we're, we haven't showered in a couple of days and blood everywhere and, and it was funny the first time Kody harvested an animal and we'd go in there and then we go to leave and the waitress looks and says, well, well, good luck boys.
And Cody looks at her with this big smug look on his face and says, I already got mine. So, but. It's kind of nice because you get communities like Ely and I'm sure there's a lot of communities across the United States that are, are depending on those revenue dollars from hunting and Ely is one of those apps, some mining revenue, but the Hunter is bringing in a big, 
definitely support the places that love the hunters.
You know, if you have a bad experience with a place, you know, go back, go somewhere that loves you. 
Yeah. I mean it's votewith your dollars is what I like to say. And I'm not a big one of, of. Boycott this or boycott that, but man, I'll sure spend my money where they're, where they're good to me. 
Yeah. Say it with your cash, 
right?
Yeah. And I'll tell you that, you know, we've run and I are part of a couple of different, charities and stuff. And all we have to do is go up and ask Racks for, for donation. And they're more than willing to, to help us out. Yeah. There's, 
there's also two big chains in town, right. That do a lot of sports and stuff.
And there's one that will give you the shirt off their back. You, you look at them. You say, I want this Sportsman's warehouse. We'll give it to you. There's another one. it's not so easy to get it from a Sportsman's warehouse, Chris, down in the Henderson one, he is one of my favorite people. Are they anything you want?
He gives it to you as a charity. 
We go into them and say, Hey, you know, we're looking for some simple like buckets, we're looking for buckets. And then they'll give us a branded of buckets or whatever, or Hey, You know, we're looking, we we've got this, we do a big banquet every year. And so we've got this banquet and so they they'll give us gift cards.
And so we'll take that, those gift cards and go around and turn them and spend them in that store and, and buy things to auction off or, yeah. Right. If you're 
discounting them, they, I washed them with between prizes and guns that gave us and other things , they gave us over. Probably close to 10 to $20,000 worth of donations to our wildlife habitat group.
And so when it comes to me spending my money, I'll say it with my cash down there, portion warehouse. 
I'll tell you on that note, we have another big warehouse, box hunting, outdoor store in Las Vegas area. And you know, we'll, we'll see how it goes, what they've offered. They've been pretty gracious enough to yeah.
So allow us to maybe bring our youth in and try to do some stuff for our friends at NRA programming and. Sell some raffle tickets for some guns and stuff to help support that program as well. 
But up in Ely to sports sports world, they've also, they've also donated every single time. We, 
Ron gave sports world, a paycheck, this, this last weekend for a cooler up there  
I did.
I didn't even, I didn't even feel bad, 
you know, and it is, you go in there and we've gone to the sports world and said, Hey, can, can you give us something? And even though they're not in the Las Vegas area, they. They generally step up and give us a little bit of something. So my, my thought process is if you're no matter where you're at, if you're gonna, if you want to get stuff out of your sports stores or businesses, man, make sure you make it worth their while.
So we've got a, a guy in town that owns a sunglass company. It's international sunglass company. That man he's given us anything we've ever asked for. So anytime we get a chance to. Can I pimp his brand out online. I do it. And what happens is he wants to come back and donate later on. So 
don't  give them all our secrets, Brian.
No, no. We keep flowing close to the vest, our 
honey holes away. Okay. 
But it's pretty cool. I mean, Ron and I are pretty blessed to be able to be home with our boys and, and this, this trip was our boys and an extra and Mitchell's, it was his first ever big game animal. Kody. It was his last ever youth big game animal.
So both of them have a different experience. 
super impressed with these boys. I mean, they helped us, they got their hands bloody, but the end of the day we shot this thing up on a Hill and him and Mitchel only, I didn't have to lift the heritage. Right. 
Yeah. I know. 
It's so nice. 
They're growing Mitchell's out, you know, by themselves and run, I kind of stepped back and watch and made sure everything was okay.
And man Mitchell, how excited were you to have. Velvet on that buck, man. 
So excited  
I mean, so you'll never forget your first hunt anyways. I don't think, but she'll 
never forget your first kill. He is a miss successful that elk Hunter, that other deer hunt we went on. 
But I think when you add something like velvet to it, I think it just makes it all a better Kody was, was lucky enough his first year he got a good buck that  was a good size buck. And then later on that year, he was duck hunting and got a beautiful wood duck, which is almost unheard of down in, in our area of town. So, 
Hey, Kody, it says we're kind of, we're getting close to wrapping up. Yeah. So we're close to now close to wrapping up. Why don't you give us some, if you are going to pass on some knowledge, so new youth hunters, what are some few tips?
You'd give them 
get the best sleep you can. The night before. Correct. And don't get shook by the small things. 
Right. 
Always be hammering down to get that bigger buck, get that. And don't just look and be like, this is the first animal I see. I need to take it. And don't get flustered by missing that animal.
So Kody did, 
that was a good advice for you now that don't get flusterd where missing the animal that comes right from your heart, because when you miss those first year, what happened that first year? 
I was frustrated and I was missing. 
So you could tell Kody's demeanor changed that first day. I mean, he 
was just 
cloudy.
He was pretty depressed. And a I'll tell you this, we hunted one day really hard, his first ever hunt. And then he was, he was depressed cause he missed, he missed on some good, really good solid bucks. 
That's some solid advice. So Tony, I appreciate it. Michelle, you got any advice for these new hunters? I knew youth hunters.
Make sure you stay there if, to get the buck. 
So you had the opportunity to go home, but you stayed. Yeah. Yes. So if you're, if you're up and Hunter has put out his time, you say, just go ahead and stick with it till it's over. Yeah. 
So both of the boys, fairly early on Mitchell was Mitchell. Just wanted to be able to take something.
He just wanted to harvest the animal, which is like, Hey, there's a doe. I'm going to shoot it. The DOE Cody was the same way as like, I'd rather have a big dough than I have a buck. And so both of them learned a pretty valuable lesson. I think that that sometimes when we have a little bit of patience and we pass up on the dose or, or whatever, that we're going to have the ability to harvest a really cool buck.
And both of you, I think got really cool bucks. I mean, they're not record breakers, but man, they're, they're cool, man. It's hard. It's not an easy thing to, to just be. Any buck, but I mean, those bucks were, are good, solid bucks in there. You guys will have having some enjoyment with those. 
Yeah. And then, no, it's really proud.
You guys did good. And I think if there's any takeaway points from this, is that when you're taking new youth hunters out, make sure they're comfortable. Make sure they're having a good time. And try to keep your tempers old hunters. 
Well, and I think that's something Ron and I really had to learn, learn is it's hard to be a dad and take your kids out hunting because you just want the best for them.
And so, and I hope you guys understand that, you know, Ron and I both are kind of like your, both of your dads, right? So, so we're hard on you because we want the best for you guys. And, and it's. Well, you guys did really good about not taking it personal and just moving along and trying to figure out what we did wrong and fixing that.
So I enjoyed my time out. We'll hunt with both of you and Wyatt too. I mean, it was, it was good to see you guys be able to harvest and that was really cool. And then we sat down and had lunch and  Watch, got to see Allie command and after she harvested. What else did we end up getting to do on that little hunting trip?
That was not quite veer related. Do you guys remember? 
Yeah. 
What do we do, Mitchell? Well, I'm telling you he is Brian 
clam chowder. If you want to talk about your Sage grouse, you better bring it out because he's going to be louder. 
It was blue grouse, number one, but I was talking about Ron's little episode with a certain pest.
Oh man. Oh 
yeah, the wasps 
Kody tell us the wasp  story. 
So we were just walking around after a little bit of grouse hunting. Cause we were bored for 
the afternoon. There were many deer walking 
and we were walking along this little cliff edge  where it looked like there was a little rock quarry and we saw this big swarm of wasps.
Plus we originally thought by passing it up. but then we decided to get in the truck, light it up and then haul out of there. 
I had to shoot it and then jumped back in the truck and take off. So 
Kody Kody actually, that's one of his wonderful tiktoks . We were pretty cool. We got to do for the first time.
we saw some, some, blue grouse and some ruffled grouse run around in the area. And Ron, I never. I had the opportunity to be on it on grouse before like that. And so, man, I will tell you if any of you hunters know that the proper way to actually kill a grouse, man, those things are, are pretty resilient.
I've got a guy that's a grouse Hunter. He said, he'd come and show me. 
So 
I networked with him. 
We got shots on probably 10 or 15 grouse and man. They were solid shots in the middle of our pattern and we harvested one. So. They're a tough, tough thing. So, man, I think it's a. It's about time for us to wrap us up.
And I know Ron I'll be back. Ron and I are getting ready to head up North and do a little duck opener in 
about an hour. We're going to have a couple of new guys with us up there. 
So we'll, we'll be back with a podcast with, Ricardo and Morgan Morgan and, and talk, man. I'm excited. Cause we're getting to transition the duck season, man.
I gotta get my gear ready. Yeah, 
it's here. 
Get that boat up and running. Now we will wait for all, all, all year. And. Man, we appreciate you guys spending a little bit of time with us and we appreciate being able to spend some time with our boys and getting them out hunting and man as always just be good to each other and take somebody out and get them in the outdoors.
Be good to other hunters. We're all in new ones. We're all in here together. It's we can't be better hunters unless we bring other hunters. 
If everybody's what Kody  was doing under  the table all the time, the hunting dog Rock is under the table . And so he was petting him  the whole time. If you're like, what's this kid doing?
That's why Cody can't get rock to listen. Yeah. To him because he spends too much time giving him love. 
Okay, well, we'll see you next time 
alright  see you on the next one. 
Thanks.