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The Hunting Stories Podcast
Elk. Bear. Hog. Turkey. Deer and More. Hunting Stories that will make you laugh or maybe cry; real life chronicles from the field.
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 137 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Matt Lewis
Matt and I recount some of the wildest hunting experiences, from a once-in-a-lifetime antelope rut encounter to the chaotic and comedic moments of turkey hunting with an elk rifle. This episode isn't just about the thrill of the hunt; it’s about the process, the patience, and the puzzle-solving aspect that makes hunting so captivating. Whether it's the strategic planning for an antelope hunt or the unexpected behaviors observed during the rut, there’s always something new to learn and appreciate about these fascinating creatures and the environments they inhabit.
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Howdy folks, welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael. We've got another great episode for you today. Today we're actually connecting with someone that, ironically, I had actually met in person before he came on the podcast, but I didn't know that he'd actually signed up. So I want to introduce you guys to Matt Lewis. He is a hunter and outdoorsman. He's a resident of Colorado. I've had some beers with him. He's a good guy and he has some great stories for us today. So, to my listeners, if you guys have some great stories, be like Matt. I've got a form. You can find it on the show notes. You can find it on my Instagram. Just go on there and just fill it out and then we will get in touch with you to schedule some time to hear some of your stories. But other than that, make sure you review and you're liking the podcast. And now let's kick this thing off and let Matt tell you some of his stories. Thank you All right, matt. Welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. Man, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing well. How about yourself?
Speaker 1:I'm doing well too, man, it's great to have you here. Man, it's funny that you're here. You told me why. I had no idea, but you went on to my online little thing and said, hey, I'd like to tell some stories. And we reached out to you and then you're like, oh, dude, we met, we were at a BHA Pite Night and I was like what, oh yeah, okay, no, you look familiar, and so I'm sorry for not knowing that ahead of time. I'm going to blame my buddy, jared, who I now have scheduling these things. It's on him, right? Okay, not my fault. But let's do this. Man, let's kick this thing off with a little introduction of yourself, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. My name's Matt. I live out here in Colorado, Came out here from Washington State. I grew up in a pretty rural area on the West Coast, right on the bay, you know. So kind of being in the middle of nowhere outdoors is it's what you do for fun. Yeah, you know there's not much. You know shopping or you know it's kind of a food desert. You know, if you want to burn some time, you went out in the woods or you know it's kind of a food desert. You know if you know if you want to burn some time, you went out in the woods or you went and got on a boat, did some fishing, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and washington has some great forests, man some phenomenal on the on the western side and the eastern side.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful country yeah, yeah, I definitely miss it sometimes. Just you know, uh, you know, like moss over there covers everything. It's like when you go walking through the woods it's like you know carpet pretty much. Yeah, first you have a a dry fall out here.
Speaker 1:Every step sounds like, uh, you're stepping on like firecrackers yeah right, I can't think of how many times I've like set up somewhere and I spend the like first five minutes setting up just moving dead dry brush out from underneath me so I could just like turn without making noise. So it's definitely different definitely different Washington to Colorado, but both beautiful, and both wonderful in their own ways, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh anyway. So kind of with my upbringing, you know, as a kid, um, I didn't do a ton of you know hunting big game. Uh, we did some duck hunting, some grouse hunting, okay, um, out in the woods, but uh, the main thing we did as a family is we went out in the ocean and did some fishing. So I grew up right on willapa bay, so if you go you'll look at a map of washington. You're going to see this uh kind of big, uh like mud flat bay and it's got a finger that comes up on the west side, and so we were kind of nestled in there and you know salmon, all sorts of stuff in the bay, and then we'd run over the wilpa bay bar and do a lot of ocean fishing very cool man yeah, so so out there, you know it's kind of a, you know, salmon, halibut, lingcod, rockfish, uh, we went out a couple times for tuna.
Speaker 2:You can get uh albacore up that far north oh interesting yes, yeah, you have to have a warm enough summer for them to come and you know, 50, 60 miles or so, yeah, but uh, anyway, yeah. So we, we had a big old chess game freezer, but we weren't filling it with elk at that time. It was okay yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know this, matt, but I lived in washington for like four and a half years in this in the seattle area man, but I loved it like uh, for well, it rains a lot, it isomy, and that's why we ended up leaving, because we needed some more sunshine in our lives Same here but man. We went, crabbing all the time and shrimping. We went twice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the first time man, we failed so hard at shrimping. The first time I spent hours just researching what we did wrong and we figured it out. And then the next time we went, we limited it out to the point that we were like grabbing children and pulling them on the boat and then buying them licenses while we were out on the water, pulling our pots up so that we made sure to stay legal.
Speaker 1:So it was, it's just so much fun. We took all of these shrimp back to our VRBO because it wasn't anywhere near where we stayed or we lived, so we had to rent this place and every person picked a different dish and we just made shrimp like 12 different ways it was. It was like it's one of the highlights of like my life that that's shrimping up there in washington.
Speaker 2:It's so fun yeah, yeah, and those spot prawns are amazing tasting so good although I never realized how viciously sharp they are.
Speaker 1:I was so sliced up processing 500 of them. So yeah, sorry, I interrupted though, but yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No worries, no, I you know. I love talking about hunting, you know, but I'll talk you off about fishing too. So you know, segue, my first store is actually a fishing store, if that's all right.
Speaker 1:Perfectly fine by me.
Speaker 2:All right. So one thing my family would do we'd occasionally take kind of like a kind of like a fishing boat camping sort of vacation. We'd just kind of, uh, take the boat up and you know we'd be sleeping on the boat at night and we just kind of fish here and there throughout the day. You know mostly you know we'd be sleeping on the boat at night and we just kind of fish here and there throughout the day, you know mostly. You know catching something for dinner. You know we did that out, you know, like Orcas Island area. That was a pretty good trip and then one after that we went up into the west coast of Canada and so we were kind of boating around through, uh, through that area, um, catching, you know, much the same. Up up there you can catch a yellow eye rockfish.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, there's vibrant red, crazy golden eyeballs. Taste excellent, by the way. Excellent, by the way, that's fish tacos ever, yeah, anyway. So one night we're, we're kind of getting towards this inlet, we're going to camp for the night, um, and my dad's looking down at the fish finder. He finds a pretty good, uh, you know, like Rocky structure down there. And there you know, uh, do you know, when you look at a fish finder and you kind of see the uh kind of uh it's, you know, like little arch shapes all over it, I'll be honest, man.
Speaker 1:I have a couple fishing stories, but I by no means I'm a fisherman. I need to learn a lot more. So no, I don't. But I'm sure some of the listeners are like I know what matt's talking about all right, no worries, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when a when a fish shows up on your sonar, it looks like a little arch, okay, you know kind of like a little eyebrow or something, right. So there's rocks coated in those things. So we pull out the gear and we're kind of thinking we're going to catch, you know, a few rockfish, make some fish tacos and you know that's going to be a good culinary evening, right or to beat fresh fish. So we get set up and we've got our bass gear and we drop down and we start jigging. Okay, and you know we're jigging along and I go to pull up, you know, and I just feel it stop and my first thought is, oh man, I've snagged this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm never going to hear the end of it from my dad because he handed me that rod and said hey, this is my last one of this lure. You can't lose it, you know. And so I'm just sitting there going. Oh no, people say that like whenever someone goes.
Speaker 1:This is my last one of these lures. They're saying that because they know eventually it will get lost and that way they can blame someone else Exactly. That's just the way it is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, I pull up, reel down down, and you know I'm trying to do is either, you know, pop this thing off of whatever it's snagged on um or break it off and go get a new lure so I can get back to fishing. Uh yeah, so I pull up and reel down on it and you know I keep getting some slack and so at that point I'm kind of thinking, you know, maybe I've snagged something bigger.
Speaker 2:You know I'm picking it up and you know, at that point I kind of yell at my dad who's at the wheel. I'm up on the bow, you know. Hey, I think I'm pulling up a big pile of kelp or something you know. And he looks at the, the sonar and goes you got something on there. You know, looked like a pretty big blob.
Speaker 2:We're in about I don't know 50 feet of water or so okay so, uh, you know, I've got this thing about third of the way up at that point, right. So I keep doing this and I get to about two-thirds, three-quarters of the way up and whatever I'm snagged on takes off and it's just ripping line out of the reel, yeah, and and I'm sitting there kind of in shock, right, I'm expecting, like you know five 10 pound rock fish.
Speaker 2:I'm on super light tackle. There's no way one of those things is supposed to be taken line like that. So I'm thinking, okay, maybe, maybe it's just like one behemoth of a lingcod, right, they like hanging out around rocks. Uh, you know, so, you know. So I ended up fighting this fish for quite a while. I didn't, you know. I kept the drag pretty light. It was on a light gear, right. So I knew whatever I had was big enough that if I really dialed on the drag it was going to snap off. Okay, I wanted to see what this thing is is I feel like that's half the joy of fishing is figuring out what on earth you got right.
Speaker 2:So, you know, a while later, you know, we get this thing in the surface and it's a decently sized halibut, like the, the biggest one I I'd caught. Uh, you know, weight wise, you know, over over 50 pounds. I don't think it was over the 70 pound mark, but we didn't have a scale. But I mean it was a pretty big halibut. Yeah, we're, yeah, we're used to catching, you know, like 30, 40 pound ones yeah, over in washington right that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Did you actually get them up in the boat?
Speaker 2:well, eventually, yeah okay, so, yeah, so we get this halibut to the surface. Um and uh, dad grabs the fish gaff. You know, big old, big old hook on a pole right, yeah uh, you know, punch it through the thing and we pull it up on the uh bow of the boat, um, and we just start whaling on this thing with fish clubs. Um, it was kind of you know, yeah, so both of you are you like, taking turns, both of us.
Speaker 2:We had two clubs on board. Okay, just got after it. Yeah, so those bigger, bigger fish can break stuff on on a boat. Uh, because they get up there and they start freaking out, flopping, you know, um, so we're beating it trying to get it killed. It's, it's, uh, you know it's got a hole through its head from the gaff and uh you know, yeah, by the time we've gotten done whacking it, it it's got like an eyeball hanging out.
Speaker 2:I mean this thing is done, right, but yeah, so, oh, I skipped a step. We had threaded a rope through the gill plate and through the mouth so it can't slide off the side of the boat as we're dispatching of it, right, yeah, through the mouth, so it can't slide off the side of the boat as we're dispatching of it, right, yeah, so, um, now that rope was tied to one of the the bow railings and, um, so it kind of had to do a transfer. Okay, so, grab the fish, pull the rope out. Second, the rope leaves the thing's mouth, it comes to life and starts flopping like crazy.
Speaker 2:And you, like you wouldn't have believed after you've clubbed it a hundred times, yeah, after we've clubbed it, it's got an eyeball hanging out, it's got a hole through its head and it's flopping all over and it, you know, flops, flops. You know, I think I was the one uh, it kind of dropped it first, right, so flops out of my hand, and then my dad kind of tries to like kind of like tackle it, uh, but slides out from under him. Then I try the same thing, slides out from under me. Uh, they're super slick fish like this, like a snot sort of membrane on the whole thing, right, but yeah, and then it slides right off the boat into the water.
Speaker 2:No, way yeah, right into the water and we were heartbroken and you know, just huge bummer for both of us, right? And you know I, you know something like that. I mean, just the disappointment is just seared into your mind. You're like man, I can't even imagine how long did you fight that fish on the light tackle. You know probably about 35, 40 minutes.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's not too bad, but still that's disappointing.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you hear about someone who's like, tied into a big marlin or something, you know, I mean that's a different class of fighting, for sure, but yeah anyway. So yeah, we kind of collect ourselves and there's more of the story.
Speaker 2:So we get thinking, you know, maybe there's more halibut down there. We don't really know why there would be right. They usually hang out on like muddy bottoms where they can kind of shimmy under the sand and whatnot, and, you know, catch fish as they go swimming over them. We got thinking, okay, if there's one, maybe there's a few more. So we drop, you know know, gear back down, you know, start jigging again.
Speaker 2:Um, and the, the swell is starting to pick up a little bit and my dad's kind of watching the swell and he sees something kind of sitting up on top of one of the swells. He, he asked me to go. You know, looking over there goes, hey, I think a seal might have your fish or something, right, yeah? So I'm like staring at this spot and the wave turns, just right, and it doesn't look like a seal, it looks like there's a big pancake on the side of this wave and I go, you know, I think that might be the fish. So we drive over to it to check it out and, sure enough, this halibut is just sitting on the surface. It's, I don't know, maybe so messed up. It didn't dive right, you know right, but yeah. So we found it again. We're able to re-hook the sucker and and get it back on the boat, and this time we brought it into the back of the boat where there's gunnels, and it couldn't escape.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's amazing yeah.
Speaker 2:We had halibut, tacos, rockfish.
Speaker 1:That's an amazing story. I like the fight and then the retrieval and all that man. It's funny. I hear a lot of guys especially like duck. Like duck hunting stories are just duck hunting stories.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like fishing stories is what they compare it to.
Speaker 1:But that's a good fishing story, man, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, after it happened, my dad looked at me and said you know I you'd be hard pressed to ever come across a better fishing story that you know you've experienced yeah, and yeah, I haven't beat it, you know I, I can't imagine like losing like first off, catching a fish you're not supposed to catch online, you're not supposed to catch it with, getting it in the boat, beating the hell out of it, and then it still gets away. Like just getting to that point is crazy yeah, but yeah, that alone finding him just floating away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it sounds like you gave him enough of a beaten. So that's a good story, Matt. Thank you for sharing, man. Unless there's anything more to it, I don't want to cut you off If all of a sudden no no, it didn't get away again. So all right, cool. Well, what else you got for us?
Speaker 2:man start, and again, I think it's only like the second or third fishing story ever told in the podcast. So I appreciate it all right. Uh, yeah, so about 10 years ago or so I moved out to colorado, uh go to college and, um, you know, kind of during that time I was, you know, pretty busy. I was doing, uh engineering school at Carl Rouse School of Mines, uh wrestling and uh working as a tutor, so I didn't have a whole lot of time for outdoor recreating. Uh, one thing I wish I did during that time was pick up big game preference points didn't realize you could do that as a college student yeah, so I'm with you, man, I I, when I started hunting, I was in washington, so I've been.
Speaker 1:I was born in colorado, right, I've lived here most of my life and I I have accumulated four points, spent them. And now I have one point, like I should have so many points, being that I've been here my whole life, but nope yeah, no, oh well, we live and learn.
Speaker 2:Yep, it happens, yeah, anyway. So after college, you know, just to kind of fill some time, I started trying to learn about, you know, big game hunting and getting into that. I'd done some small game hunting growing up. We had a duck dog so we did quite a bit of duck hunting in the area and some grouse hunting. We did quite a bit of duck hunting in the area and some grouse hunting, but I kind of wanted to get into big game. Before my parents moved out to Washington, my dad had done quite a bit of big game hunting in Idaho where they lived.
Speaker 1:Why did he stop when he went to Washington? I mean, it's not like a trophy state by any means, like not known as the best ever, but there's plenty of elk there.
Speaker 2:In fact I killed my first elk in washington. Yeah, I, you know, I I think he was kind of mainly he was just kind of following the I guess the food resource he was most interested in, okay, which is seafood yeah, no, that's.
Speaker 1:That's a good answer. You only have so many hours in a day, right, and so many days in a year. You're gonna do it all fishing, especially if you're on the coast, right, that, or rosies right, okay sorry, plenty of questions anyway.
Speaker 2:So, uh, yeah, I got into, uh, you know, big game college um kind of totally caught the bug. Um definitely, uh, definitely a steep learning curve big game it seems.
Speaker 2:You know, like every species you you look at and go, you know, I, I think that might be tasty. Uh, you know, you gotta learn a bit of biology, you gotta learn patterns. You know you gotta learn a bit of biology, you gotta learn patterns. You know when's their breeding season? I mean, you name it it's. It's a really fun puzzle. Um, you know, so, as an engineer, I I do like puzzles. So just the whole hunt planning process, uh, I get a pretty good kick out of that. Um, all right, so so stories let's see here. Um, so, yeah, you know, so let's see, this would have been so my, my introduction to big game was antelope hunting.
Speaker 2:Uh, okay I got a guy at church I was going to at the time and you know I've been talking to him about learning. He's like, hey, you should, you know, come out, you can pick up a you know a couple doe tags on the leftover list and, and you know, I can kind of show you the ropes of antelope, which is, uh, I really like antelope hunting, uh, from the standpoint of you get to see a ton of animals and you get to try to stock up on them a lot, but yes, that's you know are you are rifle or uh, a bow hunting for these guys.
Speaker 2:A rifle.
Speaker 1:Okay, phew Okay.
Speaker 2:Keep going. Yeah, even with the rifle. I mean you'd think that it's. You know, I'm sure you end up stocking a lot less with the rifle because you don't have to get nearly as close, but those things seem so good. So good, so good. I mean you. I mean you'll be like 500 yards away, you know, crawling, and one will pop its head up and the whole herd moves.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's crazy. I don't know if you listen to my episode about my, my, my season of antelope hunting, but I got one with my bow this year it was just so frustrating man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you can see him over there, but I'll show him to you later. But yeah, it was just crawling. I ended up just not hunting antelope but hunting an opportunity. So I was looking for ones that had made a mistake. It's like you see them. You're like, oh, that one already sees me, there's no point getting out of the car, like, let's keep moving, we'll find another antelope down the road. And it was like we ended up. At first we went, oh, antelope, get out. And an hour later we're like we never had a chance, like I saw us the whole time. Just got to learn which opportunities to to take and eventually I found one that I think uh, had been in a fight, was exhausted and made a mistake. Then I got lucky and that's all there is to it, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They're crazy critters anyway, yeah. So yeah, antelope is kind of my introduction. You know, uh, I'm gonna fast forward really quick. So a couple years later, uh, you know, I'm still, you know, hunting kind of the same tag, um, and so we, me, a buddy, we get up nice and early, um, and we were kind of hunting off our feet. Uh, it's, you know, just a, a chunk of private farmland.
Speaker 1:You know just one of those blocks out there, okay, uh, but you, like, asked for permission to get onto, or is it one of those that, like, gives it space to the, the coral parks and wildlife?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's. Uh, yeah I. I had permission through the guy I knew, through church.
Speaker 2:So Okay cool, very cool, yeah, but anyway. So, uh, we get kind of walking along a fence line, kind of at the bottom of the property, sun, at our backs, um which I found to be a pretty good technique on antelopes, right around first light, uh, because they know you're not a fence post but they're not quite sure what you are. So they get a little curious, yeah. And so if you think about a triangle and you're kind of walking along, you know the uh one of the edges of it, they'll kind of angle themselves to where they you know the uh one of the edges of it, they'll kind of angle themselves to where they. You know, if you both kept walking, you'd kind of meet at a corner, um, so, just kind of doing that, eventually get to the point where you're like oh yeah, we're within a couple hundred yards. Then you just pop down with your pack, um, anyway. So we're, we're doing that, um, and then there's there's this pretty good group of like eight or nine uh, plenty of does and a buck I've got a, we both have doe tags um, so we're walking along and we hit about 300 or so yards and I start noticing, uh, the hairs, you know, on the flanks of a couple of the does starting to stand up. So I tell my buddy like hey, I I think they're starting to get spooked. I don't know how much closer they're gonna get. How are you feeling about this?
Speaker 2:It was, it was his first time hunting antelopes. I kind of wanted him to get a shot first. And he looked at it and said you know, man, I'm a little more comfortable around. You know, 150 yards, go for it. And I said okay.
Speaker 1:So what distance are you at? I'm sorry if you already mentioned it, but we're at about uh 300 or so. Okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I get set up, uh, pack laid out and we're kind of and we're kind of on a bit of a null shooting down at them. So get one picked out. That's just kind of standing there, your perfect stereotypical broadside shot. Take my shot. I get the good, you know that thump sound. You'll get yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get the. You know good, you know that thump sound you'll get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So get, get the thump sound. Um, she takes a couple steps, lays down. I'm like, okay, great, perfect, uh, we'll be cleaning antelope in 15, 20 minutes, right? Um, and the rest of the does? You know they were obviously spooked by the shot. Now the buck, he was fired up that day. So the does are trying to get away and he's running around them, just hurting them back over to where that other does laying down. He's not at all spooked by the shot and you know he's shoving them around, you know, poking them with his horns and just putting on a real show.
Speaker 1:That's cool I've never seen that yeah, it was awesome to watch.
Speaker 2:You're just sitting there with her binoculars and, um, then he comes up to the doe I just downed and she had her head up and and he took his horns kind of under her midsection and shoved her back up to her feet okay, so she wasn't dead, she was just laying down yeah, she was just laying down, it was the shot went through, uh, both lungs okay, so it's kind of a back lung shot um a little farther forwards, better for sure, but uh, anyway, so he uh knocks her up through her feet and then he proceeds to mount her.
Speaker 2:And uh, what? Yeah, yeah, he, he mounts her and and we're just kind of sitting there in shock. I'm, you know, I've got another bullet in the chamber going, you know. Okay, maybe I should put another one in her, you know, I'm, I'm not liking watching this yeah, what a terrible way to go. Yeah, it was I, you know, and we're just both sitting there, just like you know, swearing, calling this buck, all sorts of yeah, you know names.
Speaker 2:It's just like dude, leave her alone, you know, and, and, and so, yeah, we're just sitting there, you know, basically waiting for him to. You know, get off of her. And you know we're debating like, should we, you know, shoot one around them, try to spook her off? You know offer, and you know I, yeah, and he was just persistent, as can be, but, you know, eventually gave her some space and she gave me just this beautiful, beautiful quartering away shot, so, and then that spooked the rest of the herd.
Speaker 1:Goodness gracious, I was worried that exactly what happened was going to happen as you said. He lifted her up and I was like oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2:Animal kingdom? Yeah, and, as you said, he lifted her up and I was like, oh no, yeah, animal kingdom, yeah. Well, and at the time I didn't know they would do that sort of thing. I'd never not had antelope just run away, you know, after shots fired yeah, normally they're so skittish, but he just well, he had other things on his mind, all right it's funny about antelope, but they seem to know exactly like where, like what weapon you're using and they hang out at that range where they they feel safe.
Speaker 1:Like you said, you couldn't get in within 500 yards on most of them. What's funny is when I was bow hunting it was like 95 yards, like they were right at that 100 yard mark and they just wouldn't let me any closer. So it's, they're. They're interesting critters, man, but I've never, I've always wanted to see, uh, the rut. Of course, archery season's like really, really early, you know, august compared to the rut, which is what november, sometime late october, um, so I've never really seen any of those that rut activity.
Speaker 1:I've even brought decoys out. No, no interest whatsoever. So it's a very different game. So, um, it's cool that you got to see him acting that way. He took a little too far, a a little inappropriate, but as a whole.
Speaker 2:Man, that's a great story. Yeah, yeah, just unbelievable. Yeah, you know, quick one on the rut stuff, the that first year I was out there I had a couple bucks. I got to watch him kind of fight and battle with each other and I just, you know, pop down. You know know, I had doe tags so I wasn't gonna do anything. But you know, I was just watching them with the binoculars and man, that was just an awesome experience and they were going. I mean it was hard, it was fast pace. I mean you see, like deer lock up and you know, shove each other. They were like popping their head back, heads back, knocking them together and spinning circles. I mean dust was going everywhere that's cool yeah, it was I.
Speaker 2:I highly recommend hunting the red. If you ever get a chance, I might it's cool.
Speaker 1:I am currently feel burned out because it was so hard archery hunting them and like so many opportunities were just blown for stupid reasons, and it's just such a difficult thing that but you. But I'll tell you what as soon as I'm putting for tags, I'm probably gonna be fired up about it again, uh but just because it's so recent.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't want to do that again. That sucked, uh. But yeah, I I would love to actually hunt one during the rut. I'm saving up points in wyoming so I'm hoping to go up there and probably I'll probably end up doing rifle whenever that tag does get drawn. Cool.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What else you got, matt? You've had two good ones so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, one critter I've been, you know I haven't gotten a tag filled yet on this one, but turkeys, turkeys are like a fun little springtime puzzle, yeah, and so I I've been hunting, you know, the mountain marians we have here and it is a way, way different bird than what you see in the city. I mean, in the city they're, you know, dumb as can be. You know we had some at work. Uh, let's see, this was, yeah, in the fall and there was a jake there standing at one of the windows at work just ruffling up, getting all worked up over his own reflection. But man, yeah, you go into the woods and it's a totally different bird. They turn into these little, you know ninjas, yeah, you'll see them once, and then they're just gone just see the tail feathers right, just yeah, run away but yeah anyway.
Speaker 2:So I've been pursuing turkey for about, uh, probably about five years, and my second season is the closest I've gotten to uh taking one. I went, uh, I've got this spot up in the mountains, um, on public lands. Uh, I'm not going to disclose that because not a lot of people know about it. For whatever reason it's, it's weird. I've run into uh one other hunter, yeah, in five years there, which that is you see birds every time yeah well, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're getting into birds every time, yeah there's, and they stay talking through may too.
Speaker 2:I I had hunted this area that had like really really high pressure and after about week two they stopped gobbling yeah they.
Speaker 2:They had kind of figured out that wasn't in their best interest, yep. But yeah, so I went up to this area, uh, you know, packed in that kind of camp for the night, and so I was going to spend the evening kind of mostly trying to locate some birds, uh, figure out you know what general part of trees they're going to be roosting in. And then, new idea being the morning, you know, I kind of set up near that, hopefully get one pretty soon after they fly down. So, um, I get up on this ridge and I just I just set up and started calling and you know, just hanging out and uh, you know, at that point, uh, I didn't know if my calling I, you know, use a pot call, I didn't know if it was any good at all. I just kind of been watching YouTube mimicking that right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same that's how I learned it as well. Yeah, so I'm sitting there calling and I'm getting no response. No response. I'm kind of in my head going, oh man, maybe they haven't gotten up high enough yet. And um, then on the other side of this clearing, this little clearing, I just this cobble just explodes out of the bushes. I was like, okay, they're coming in quiet game on, I might fill my tag tonight yeah right. So I keep calling and the hens that are with this tom, they start talking with me.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of having a turkey conversation with them yeah I guess, okay um, yeah, and so they, they get working around the clearing and they're, they're moving around, and then I start hearing them like right behind me, like 10 feet behind me I've got my back up against this tree, of course, and you know, and I heard some kind of rustling to my left, some bushes to my left. I'm like thinking, all right, here we go. You know, I kind of like move my eyeballs to the side, to kind of side side eye. You know, see him coming in right, and it's just this hen's head sticking out of a bush staring directly at me. Okay, so she had gone in first, you know, the tom's back, presumably near, but you know, so she, she gets a good look at me and then goes skittering off. I don't hear again from them the whole evening. So I decide, you know, okay, I'm going to leave them alone. You know, I know roughly what way they headed to. I know there's some really good roosting trees there, so I'm just going to be back. You know, in the air in the morning, you know, and hopefully it goes better then, uh, you know in the air in the morning, you know, and hopefully it goes better then.
Speaker 2:So next morning, uh, get up in there, um, and I got up on top of the ridge and it's kind of walking it and there's all these um, uh, like bowls kind of off the ridge. So the kind of strategy I was doing at the time is I'd get to the top of a bowl, do a bit of calling and see if there's a response. So like, uh, you know, second or third bowl down, I get a pretty good response from the tom down there and okay, so they're kind of at the bottom of the valley under the ridge. So I start working my way quietly down there, um, and I get to the point where there's there's this big old boulder and and they're right on the other side of it. So you know, this thing's like, I don't know, maybe 20 ish or so feet across, right, yeah, and so so I kind of, you know, get on a corner of this boulder, um, and I hear them kind of clucking and browsing around in the grass on the other side and they're kind of working their way around.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking, you know, I'm just going to sit here quietly and they're going to walk out in front of me. The Tom's there and I'll get a shot on him, right? So I'm doing this and I'm, you know, peeping on the around the boulder and a hen turkey head pops out, just the head, and turns, looks right at me and I, you know, I don't know if it's the same hen or not, yeah, could have been, I don't know, but yeah, smart bird. So she sees me and takes off running and the tom follows her and I take a shot at him. And what I didn't think through at the time is when you have a full choke in your shotgun, uh, you, you don't lead it like you do a duck so I just you know created this explosion of you know duff and grass right in front of him.
Speaker 2:He spun the other way and never saw him the rest of the day. There you go. Quiet too. They're a fun thing to hunt, man.
Speaker 1:I've had a little bit of success. I got two rios and one miriam. But man they are, they're tough and they're tricky and they're stupid and they make you feel even more stupid because you can't get close enough to shoot one you're like where are you? I'm right here and you're like, I still can't do it like they're. They're crazy birds, man, but I've shot one with my bow, I've shot one with my shotgun and I've shot one with a 270.
Speaker 2:So I've run the camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was in Texas. It was legal there. Okay, it's a short story, I'll tell it to you. So I'm hunting, I met a guy who helped me hunt some white-tailed deer on public land in Texas and he has a very small plot of land, maybe 10, in texas, but it's like I don't know like a mile long and like 150 yards wide, so really not very wide, and I'm there to hunt axis deer, like that's what I show up for. But as I'm prepping, he's like hey, it's, you know, it's turkey season. If you want to shoot one, go ahead, we got plenty. And I'm like, oh okay, well, I'm not going to shoot turkey unless I'm done axis deer hunting, because I want to shoot one, go ahead, we got plenty. And I'm like, oh okay, well, I'm not going to shoot a turkey unless I'm done axis deer hunting, because I want to shoot an axis deer.
Speaker 1:But I bring my bow because I want to be a bow hunter. I'm trying really hard. But I bring my rifle because I'm an opportunist, right? If something shows up and I've got this 100 yards down the down the way, I need to just be able to take the shot and and and harvest the deer, cause that's what I want is some meat. I don't care if it's a doe or a buck. So I'm sitting there in my blind. I sit there for hours. It's boring.
Speaker 1:The morning starts off, there's turkeys calling everywhere, white tail deer are walking through, but it's not. It's not white tail season. Um, uh, and I'm hearing birds and eventually I'm like, okay, well, this is dumb. Nothing's nothing's responding to my slate calls, I'm not seeing any access to here. Let's walk the property. It's right on this river. I'll go and see if I can spot something. Maybe the river, cause I can hunt there technically too.
Speaker 1:Um, so I just start walking around and so I've got like it's so dumb now that I think about it. But I've got like my rifle in one hand, my bow in another hand and a slate call in a pocket. So I'm like trying to call, trying to hold both my weapons, just like it's like a cartoon when they go camping and they have like all of their gear, like way too much gear. But I'm just walking around. So I walk around and I spook one bird. Um, I see, I call and I see his head pop out of the grass, but he didn't see me.
Speaker 1:So I I, you know, in the process of putting my stuff down and getting my slate called back out and all that I spook him. He runs off. I'm like, ah, and of course he had 15 feet and he's off the property. Damn, okay, what are you going to do? So I keep going, spook another bird and eventually I make a big loop and I come back and I'm like a week before I had the idea for this podcast because I was going to Dan Staten's Elkshape Camp in Texas but I get back to the blind and I set my gun down, I set my bow down and I'm like, well, I guess this is a tear down. I got to go to that camp and I'm like I'll give it one more call and we're talking like 2 pm in the afternoon. So I'm like right.
Speaker 1:And it just goes off and I'm like, oh shit. So I'm standing next to the blind, so I throw everything in the blind and I get in the blind. And I get in there and I get ready and I make another call and he's coming in hot, like he's fired up. So, um, I get my bow on my lap, I make another call. Every time I call it just ripping, ripping a gobble. And so I see him and he pops up and I range him and he's like 30 yards, 35 yards, which I feel good about with my bow. But I pull back and as I'm looking through in my blind, there's like, now that I think about it, I should have shot like grass, like nothing. That would have stopped my bow. But at the time I hadn't killed hardly anything with my boy. I think I'd killed one other turkey. And I was like, no, at that distance, with five pieces of grass in my way, there's no way my arrow will get through. I don't want to injure this bird.
Speaker 1:So I was like no, I'm not going to do that, but I can use my rifle. So I let down my bow and I set it down next to me and I grabbed my rifle and the turkey's gone to me. And I grabbed my rifle and the turkey's gone and I'm like, oh shit, where did he go? So I grabbed my sleigh call. His head pops up and now he's about like 60 yards out and I'm like, all right, man, let's go.
Speaker 1:And because I was expecting an access here to walk down this field 300 yards away from me, I'm at times 10 on my scope and I can't find the bird. So I'm trying to find him. Like, oh, hold on, I dial it down to three. There he is and I'm like I hope there's something left. Is like literally what I think as I pull, as I pull the trigger and we're talking, I'm I'm just holding it up, I'm not resting on anything, I'm just holding the gun to my shoulder, 60, 70 yards on a turkey and boom, um dropped him just and, uh, it actually ended up being a pretty decent shot. So I shot him high, which means his breast was totally fine, one of his wings was.
Speaker 1:The back wing was basically blown off, but the meat itself like the, the, the breast and the and the and the thighs were more or less in perfect condition, so you wouldn't have known, and I think, I think that's actually his feathers right there behind me. So, yeah, not many people have shot a bird with an elk rifle. Yeah, yeah, I've said it before, I'll say it again I'm a hunter of opportunity. I'm not good enough to not use everything that I possibly can to get it done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, not a lot of people can say that yeah, yeah, it was absolutely ridiculous and I told a couple people, like what are you 270? Everybody just assumes the bird blew up. But uh, yeah, no, just it's it's backside wing, otherwise it was fine. Good, good eating made a kfc bowl out of it from. Uh, I don't know if you'll feel the plate he's, uh, he's been on my podcast before but he gave me a kfc bowl recipe and delicious, delicious, all right, and and didn't have to pick any shot out, which is a real benefit of the 270 if somebody else wants to try it yeah all right, sorry, I stole the stage there.
Speaker 1:Go ahead, matt.
Speaker 2:What else you got for us, no worries no worries, yeah, so um more more recently hunting wise, uh, um I've gotten married uh and congratulations my wife thank you.
Speaker 1:My wife loves hunting um, so uh is that from before you, or did you introduce her to it?
Speaker 2:Uh, is that from before you, or did you introduce her to it? Uh, I, you know, I'd kind of say both.
Speaker 2:So you know, before me she hadn't been hunting herself before uh but her grandfather was really, really into hunting, um, and so you know she had kind of, you know, grown up around you know, grown up around, you know the you know culture of you know, you know we can go get meat for the freezer and you know that's, that's a normal thing, you know, um, anyway. So so, yeah, um, you know, and, and for us, you know hunting's, you know it's, it's a really big you know food thing. I mean, you know, don't get me wrong I've got a couple of Euro mounts on the wall and love a nice set of antlers as much as anyone else. But you know I also like doe tags and cow tags Absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so, you know, just me talking about it and us dating. You know she goes, you know. You know I want to, I want to get involved with this. You know I think it's really cool that you do this and you're thoughtful about what you eat and where you get it. And you know I'm like, all right, right on Last last year I packed out an Alkalone. I would love the help.
Speaker 1:So you know like don't want to do that again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So so, yeah, she went and got her hunter safety, um, you know, and uh, we both got cow tags that year. Um, uh, she didn't actually end up filling a tag that year. Um, we, uh, uh, we had a truck kind of spook the herd we were trying to set up on, so it's kind of one of those last second, uh, you know it it was.
Speaker 2:It was a I guess less, less than you know ideal setup for a new hunter. And you know, I asked her, like how do you feel about this? And she goes, you know, hey, not this time, go for it. So, uh, you know we, we got a cow and, uh, you know, we just gutted it and we're dragging it out. And she looks at me and goes, this is awesome. I want you to know I'm really into this. I was like, okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So, so the year after which is, uh, this last season, uh, you know, my goal is like okay, you, you're gonna get something. You know, um, you know we're gonna get, get you a deer tag, we're gonna get you a cow out tag and you're gonna fill one of the two of those. So, um, so we were really kind of working on the deer tag. We had a good area, um, and unfortunately, this year the rifle seasons were plagued by this just beautiful, beautiful, warm, warm weather, um, which don't keep the deer moving very well. So, um, you know, my, my, uh, buck tag it was a second rifle tag, um, and I saw 12 does not a single buck the whole season. Um, so you know, then her tag was third rifle. It got a little bit colder.
Speaker 2:We get out there and we're hunting her tag out on the western slope. Mine was out on the east side of things, kind of close to home. We were hunting hers out on the western slope in an area I've gotten a deer before. It's an area I knew pretty well. It's pretty confident we could get something put together. Um, so we get out there and we proceed to spend three days like just behind the deer, like haven't seen a deer on public land this whole time. Uh, we had one like really cold day, it was snowing, yeah. Um, I was expecting all sorts of just great activity and there was, it just didn't happen. In front of us, um, actually, you know, walking back we found this pile of fresh deer scat. Uh, that was like you know how you know it looked, looked super fresh, so I just kind of hovered a hand over it and I could feel some warmth off it. So I'm sitting there going, okay, so they've wandered and there's like fresh deer tracks all through the snow yeah, but yeah for whatever reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, didn't see them all day. They're just, you know, doing laps around us, I guess. But uh, yeah, so it's the last day of the season and we're just kind of driving back out. You know, I'm trying to think, okay, where else could we check? And uh, you know, we get going by this hill and there's a doe there, and so I stopped the truck and I go okay, jen, I think we might be doing one of those hop out, get 30 feet from the center of the road and see what happens.
Speaker 2:So it's a deal and just buying that dough, a little four-point buck pops his head up and looks over at us and I go, okay, yeah, that's that's what we're doing. And so she hops, you know, turn the truck off. We hop out, the deer doing what deer do, just kind of standing there staring at us. They're like I don't know, 50, 50 yards at the most away from us.
Speaker 1:Okay, so while you're in the middle of the road or once you've walked your 30 feet off.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we've walked off and gotten into the bushes, yeah, so they're just standing there staring at us and you know so she takes a knee. It just, you know, super excited. This is the first shot which that happens it does.
Speaker 1:It does, especially when you're that close right. Sometimes you aim a little uh and a little high, shoots a little high, just it happens yeah, yep, but uh yeah. So she took a, a breath, took the second shot, did they move when she shot the first shot, or did they just stay put?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, he just stood there staring.
Speaker 1:I'd rather be lucky than good any day, but I'm neither man. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah and no he's a super merciful deer. Yeah, right, but yeah, no, the second shot hit beautifully. He went right down and yeah, that was just an awesome experience seeing my wife get her first deer and yeah how's she?
Speaker 1:how's she? Real life, you know, some people are overwhelmed and tears and all that, but like how did she do?
Speaker 2:she was really stoked, you know, at that point, um, that was kind of like our last, last huntable day of the season. So you know, at that point we had just days and days and days of getting skunked. Yeah. So I, you know, there's just kind of that relief of we've got fresh meat yeah, you did all that work for something um that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, it's cool that she's so hooked on it too yeah, no, it's, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's cool that she's so hooked on it too. Yeah, no, it's awesome. We love getting out in the woods together and looking for critters. Yeah, so hunting's just a fantastic, fantastic way for us to go explore together and make memories.
Speaker 1:That's cool, man. I actually heard a great idea today. I told you I interviewed Mark Kenyon as well today and he told a great story about he went fake turkey hunting with his kids, where he went out with his kids and they got on turkeys and his son had an umbrella. Why did he have an umbrella? He's still not sure why, but his son, with his imagination the kid's three turns that umbrella into a shotgun in his imagination and then he goes through the whole story. I recommend everyone to listen to that episode once it's published here. It'll probably be published before this one, so it'll be out. But yeah, man, it was just cool to get out. Hear about him getting out into the woods with his kids and having like no real uh stakes in it, just like having fun getting close to the animals, and so it's cool to have that experience, especially with your wife, where you actually do have the stakes. But also just being out there, man, um, it's something I wish I had.
Speaker 2:My wife has no interest in hunting.
Speaker 1:I'm working on it, Um, and I plan on taking her on a fake Turkey hunt with our kids and hopefully getting her as excited as the kids get, Because my son right now really into basketball the Denver Nuggets Nicole Jokic, she's just all over it. My wife wants nothing to do with sports, but she wanted to take him to a game and now she's really into the Nuggets. So I'm like, okay, hold on, I can use this strategy.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get my kids fired up about this and have wife see it and I think I'm onto something. But so I'm jealous of you. But it's it's cool that you were out there with the family man and just doing it, cause I think that's what everybody wants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely great making good memories with people you love. You know.
Speaker 1:For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean memories with people you love.
Speaker 2:You know, for sure, for sure, you know. I mean, you know it doesn't have to be hunting, but I like that it's hunting for us, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:and then she shoots a deer and you get to eat it. Nothing wrong with that, yeah, yeah, nothing wrong with that um cool man, what else you got? You got any more stories? Or is that what you had for us today?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know I I think that's kind of the high runners. So okay, perfect man yeah, well, what?
Speaker 1:what we'll do is we'll get together for another beer sometime. I think I owe you that. At least. Sounds good, yeah, man. But beyond that, we'll have you back on sometime in the future and I'm sure you'll have plenty more stories for us.
Speaker 2:Sound good, yeah, sounds good, cool, matt, normally at this point, people share any kind of socials if they want people to follow them. Is that something you care about or are you just going to walk off? Into the sunset. Yeah, no, I think I got to take the latter.
Speaker 1:I don't have any social media. There you go. I got an email. Good for you, good for you, man Not posting that. How did you find my link then? How did you get to that thing?
Speaker 2:Oh, your LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:No, my link that I put on my Instagram to say hey, I want to come on the podcast and tell stories. Where did you find that thing?
Speaker 2:Oh, you got a link on Spotify.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. Well, there we go. Look at me doing things. I'm better than I thought. Okay, cool man. Well, thanks again, matt. I appreciate it, man. It was a lot of fun. Um and uh, yeah, we'll definitely grab that beer and we'll definitely have you back in the future all right all right, thanks, you have a good one all right, guys.
Speaker 1:That's it. A few more stories in the books. Again, I want to thank matt for coming on the podcast, having to be with me. Hopefully I get to hang out with him again soon. To listeners do like Matt man, Reach out to me. We have a link in the show notes as well as on the Instagram page a little form just basically for me to reach out to you so that you can come on and tell us all some of your favorite hunting stories. Beyond that, please give us a review, a like and share the podcast with one other person. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it, Matt. Thank you again for being brave, coming on here and sharing your stories, and that's it. Guys, Get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
