Hunting Blacktails the Local Way with Jeff Lund of the On Step Podcast

What's up, everybody?

Jayden here. Quick heads up. I'm off chasing blacktails in Alaska until August 10th. While I'm out of service and living the good kind of struggle, you can still get help with your hunt using my virtual hunt mentor AI tool. It's packed with my hunting knowledge and hunting knowledge from a bunch of different mentors. So it delivers everything from E Scouting tips and how to avoid pressure in the hunting season to breaking down new units and figuring out how to seal a deal on a close encounter. Just go to huntwestplanning.com it's in the little carousel at the top. And then right below that to hunt westplanning.com fire it up and ask whatever it's on your mind. Seriously, it's like having me in your back pocket or some other good hunting buddy that knows what's going on and has done it before. But this one's not going to have the satellite delay or soak boots that I'm going to be having while I'm up in Alaska. So go give it a shot and let me know what you think. The first five messages are free. And then I ask for you to help recoup some of the costs of running that thing at $9 a month. So go give it a shot. Let me know what you think. All right, let's get into today's episode.

Welcome to the Hunt west podcast. Here's your host, Jaden Bales.

I'm excited to get up to Alaska and do this, like 10 days, no, eight days. Because this is a, this is an adventure that I feel like. I, I hope you feel this way too, but I feel like this is an adventure that is going to be fun. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be this like crazy goal oriented thing. And obviously we're going to work hard and we're going to have, we're going to push ourselves to, to have success. But it also is not like we're out here. It's not like a guided hunt or it's not like we're, we're traveling internationally. We feel like we got to get every ounce of our money's worth. I mean, so I'm really excited just to get the chance to hang out with you and hang out with Tyler and, and go play in the mountains.

Yeah, it'll, it'll be like the local experience since we're not doing big fly out. We're not doing.

Yeah.

All the logistical things are, you know, we're running like a weekend program that we would run as the local, which is pretty nice. Sometimes you go big and you don't really get a sense of the place that you're visiting. You're there for 15 minutes and then you fly up to somewhere else. So that kind of, like, when I'm down in different areas fishing, it's nice to go see the town a little bit. It's nice to not be so rushed and, you know, you meet some people who actually live there. So it's going to be fun to not only hunt, but also show you the community and then maybe do some fishing and hopefully do some fishing and then, as I said, get you guys hand pulling some shrimp pots from 300ft.

That sounds so. That sounds so fun. I love shrimp too, so I'm all about it. Is there crap? Is there crabbing right there, too?

Yeah, yeah, we got some crab. We have. There's an invasive species, a green crab that apparently is pretty bad on kelp. And it's.

Sign me up. I will. I will remove an invasive species. As long as it tastes good, we can.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's. I've heard that it's good. It's so pervasive, it's going to have to be part of the eating culture that it's not something that we can eradicate. And it's on the bottom of the ocean. Like, how would you even figure it out? So it's really unfortunate, though, because Dungeness crabs are so stinking good. I don't know if it's getting in the super deep habitat and it's going to affect Tanner crab or king crab. But, yeah, it looks like the Dungies are gonna have some competition, which is not great.

That's not good. No, but I'm looking, man, and I've been watching your weather, and it has been. It has been way nicer this last week or so than I had anticipated.

Yeah, summer showed up. So we have 10 days of summer, and it looks like it's going to go back to what it was before, but we'll see.

Oh, really?

Yeah. The rain accumulation will be the big thing in May. We had 28 inches of rain. Okay. So it's just miserable. It was terrible. Everything is super saturated and it was chilly, too. So I noticed up on the. On the mountains, the. The forage didn't really start to pop until later on, which usually we get a nice couple of warm weekends. And so they can really, you know, get stuff growing up there. And so you see the deer up top, but just wasn't really happening until a little bit later in June. So I don't, I mean that sort of stuff happens all the time every couple years. So. But yeah, everything is in, in full bloom and everything is, is looking good now.

Dude, that's great. I'm, I'm excited when, when we go hunt. I mean I'm just kind of looking at the weather forecast here and it looks like some days are going to be essentially equal. Especially if it's rainy or cloudy. It's going to be like equal in the day as it is at night. It's like 50° high, 48° low. Is that pretty standard?

Yeah, it's, you don't have the temperature variation. The ocean keeps things pretty, pretty cool. So that was one thing that hunting mule deer in Wyoming, where it would be so cold at night, but you knew that it was going to warm up during the day, which is super nice. But it's going to be very even and very consistent, which does help. So if it's like, if it is going to be 52 or 54 in Cloudy, you know, the deer can just be out all day.

You don't have, yeah, there's no temperature swing. For them to feel like they gotta, you know, make good time out of the morning or whatever, it's just, they.

Can just whatever, cruise and eat. And so it can really start to kind of wear on you because if you're out all day and sunrise is at 4:35 this morning. But if it's clear, it starts to get light around 3:30, 3:45. So we need to be prepared to be out of the tent and ready to go by 3:30. So there's no like wake up and cook breakfast and have coffee. It's. We are emerging from the tent ready to go at probably 3:30, 3:45. We want to be out of the tent and we're going to be close enough to where there should be some bucks around. We don't want to be like, I think you and I were talking about this before. You want to be like close enough to make a move but not like in their kitchen. So there have been times where I get out of the tent and I'm just looking around and then boom, buck is bedded 50 yards, 80 yards. So we're close enough to be on the edge of that habitat but not so far. Some people go right to the top and their camp on the top. And so your, your, your smell is just going all around the island or the, the mountain. So they don't have, they can't just do their normal thing throughout the day. So we'll be, we'll be just above the edge of the timber so we'll be able to see. But yeah, we'll get right out. We'll kind of look around a little bit and then, and then see, see what's going on.

So is there a shooting light? Like, is there a legal shooting light up there?

You can't, you can't use artificial. But you know, when you look at the regulations for like duck hunting, you have the legal legal light. So yeah, it kind of depends on. There be times that you won't be able to see it be 4:15 in the morning and you. It's just kind of too dark because the clouds are super, super dense and you wouldn't be able to see anything. But other times it could be 3:45 in the morning. So a good half hour before. But it does tend to be. If it is more than a half hour, there's not going to be enough light to really discern things and make responsible shots. So it's, it's kind of the. But you can't have the official regulation for shooting light because up north where the sun doesn't set, then you know, it's, it's different. But yeah, there have been a couple times where I've been moving around and, and the deer are standing so still and it's so dark still that you can't tell the difference between brush and buck. And then when it turns its head and oh, well, it's over now. That's. That's too bad.

Oh, dang. So, okay, that's crazy. That's the difference between the 40, lower 48 and Alaska I didn't ever think about was just the fact because especially like you said, far, far north, but even there it's like 24 hours a day is technically legal shooting light. But you have to just make your own decision because of the variabilities. That's crazy. Okay, so that sounds fun. But so I'm also doing the math here and saying it probably gets dark at what, 11.

Sunset's at 9 down here.

Oh, okay. That's not too. That's the same as Montana.

Yeah, but then you still get, you still get. And we're on the, the, the east side of the time zone. So Alaska used to be four separate time zones and now it's. I think it's two. Because part of the illusion changes on the other side of the international date line. So yeah, if you went to the, the western part of the Timeline, it would be all kind of distorted, but yeah. So it'll be. You'll be out until 9, 30, 10 o'. Clock. And if we're away from camp and we hike back to camp, you get back at 11, 12, you know, you sleep for two hours, you really start stacking. A couple of those days, it's. It can be pretty, pretty brutal. So we'll try to prioritize. I like the mornings. Evenings can be good, but it seems like the first bucks that come out in the evening are some of the smaller ones. Not that I'm a big trophy hunter, but just kind of in the experience we've prioritized the. The morning. Try to get a. Two good morning sessions per hunt.

Cool.

Look around there and then take a nap during the day if need be. But also you feel guilty because if you're sleeping, you're not looking. And there could be something that, that gets up out of a bed and is, is feeding. And like I said, like, if it's. If it's. Today is supposed to be cloudy. Yesterday it was super hot. So today is going to be cloudy. There's probably a little bit of dew and they don't like find watering holes to drink. They'll just eat the plants and they'll get their water through, through that. But because it's going to be cooler today, there's probably going to be more bucks moving and you know, you could, you could miss the little opening that has a deer in it as it's walking from one spot to another.

Maybe that's where we can take midday shifts. Like one guy sleep, so sleeps for an hour and two guys are looking and you know, and just.

We'll see how, how greedy people are if, if someone is. Is woken up by a gunshot, we'll know that it was.

Yeah, I. It's. It's gonna be fun because I mean, you and I have just in general have lived a life where we have hunted a lot. And Tyler, he's, you know, as you are, but young family man who has, you know, limited time and he hasn't done a ton of hunting with a rifle in particular. So it's like he's up like I don't really care if I see one and it. Even if it's a stomper. I'm over here like, dude, let's get Tyler on one. Or. Or you. It doesn't matter. Like, I'm not so bent out of shape about it. I feel like those hunts where guys are like all high, high strung and like worried about Getting one is when it can really not be as fun. It doesn't mean you don't hunt as hard. Right. Like, obviously maximize the time you have there, but at the same time it's just like, man, sweet. Got a buck. Like, who wants, who's up? You know?

Yeah. That's where those expectations can, can ruin things. If, if you've been watching videos and YouTube of people hunting Kodiak or Southeast or wherever and huge bucks and you're telling your friends about, oh, I'm going to go up and we're doing this and we're doing that, then all of a sudden it becomes the need to, to get a big buck. And if there's something that's less than your expectations, all of a sudden it becomes, you know, you're disappointed with, with this buck that was smaller than you expected. But if you're focused more on the experience and really enjoying the experience, then, you know, and that's, that's, that's what it needs to be. There can definitely be. Obviously you want to shoot a nice big buck with a lot of great tasting meat, make a good shot and have fun. Yeah. But you know, sometimes the, if you can only go once or twice in your life, there's nothing wrong with wanting a good representation, but you don't want that to ruin your experience.

So I'm looking at it and we fly in on the second. Does that mean we cannot hunt on the second? But we could hike in.

I, I have to double check this, but you're commercial, so we're not going to be scouting with Alaska Airlines. So I'm pretty sure that it's vague enough in the regulations to say that it's, it's more meant to target people who were flying bush planes or float planes out to, to different areas. But yeah, I would not include Alaska Airlines. Because you're not, because they're not looking.

Yeah, yeah. What is kind of the program, I mean, as far as context here, we fly in at like 8am Right? Like, is that something where you're like, okay, well we, we'll get back to the house, get everyone's gear lined out and then hike in and be up there by, you know, the afternoon evening glass.

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how thing that, that's kind of the, the goal. We'll see weather wise and just, you know, things with catching the ferry and all that in the, the boats and everything, just sometimes it adds up a little more time. We'll try to get up there as, as soon as possible. For the, for the evening. That's kind of the. Especially since we have a couple days, it's better to just get up there and start figuring stuff out rather than, you know, taking our time getting up there. But it'll be interesting to see because the second is a Saturday, correct?

Yep, Yep, it's a Saturday.

So the opener is on the 1st. So it'll be interesting to see how many people like are taking Thursday or coming up, they're going out Thursday after work, hunting the opener, and then are staying through the weekend just because they want to get that. August 1st versus people who are going to wait until the 2nd because it's only the 2nd. Yeah, it's. It's always a. Yeah. You just wonder and worry, are we going to have this spot to ourselves? Are we not? Is there some going to be up there before or after? I know you go crazy thinking about all those things, but yeah, we'll get up there as soon as possible and then we'll. We'll see what happens. And if we have to come down, go to a different mountain, we can do that.

Okay, so when it comes to like the, the time allocation for each kind of spot, I'm a big. Like when I'm talking to clients in the lower 48 or for my own plans, I basically go, especially backpacking. I'm basically looking at two or three day rip in one place and then backing out and then going to a new place. Is that kind of the program up there too, or do you go up there and kind of camp out?

I don't know how I phrase this. Typically it's like an overnight hunt. That's just kind of what we do either because of time or because it's a weekend or whatever. So it's not that we expect to get a buck and if we don't get it in the evening session and then the next morning session, we just come down because we don't want to camp a long time. But that tends to kind of be just how it works. Maybe two days, but.

So you bring in two nights worth of food, basically, like.

Yeah, just. Just in case for, for. For anything. But yeah, we usually don't get up to a. To. To somewhere and then not see anything. Usually there's something worth it and it's, it's a, it's a roll the dice. You're planning on one night, maybe two, and whatever shows up, shows up. And if it's a nice one, you take it. If it's a little one, then you don't. And that's just kind of what you do. And then you can go up to the same mountain a week later or something and then, you know, something else could show up. You really don't have. It's hard to pattern these animals because there's such a huge. It's just open expanse and there's no. They're not hemmed in by, by anything. You're not naming these bucks because they're going from this feeding spot to the bedding spot. They're just kind of all over the place and you can have.

There's food and, and bedding everywhere.

Everywhere.

Yeah.

You're not hemmed in by anything. I guess there's, you know, the, the spots in between the mountains. It's super, super rugged. It's all glacial carved. So enforced. So it can. It's really difficult to see where bucks might be or, or where travel corridors might be. And it's super cliffy. So they're probably not going down one mountain across and then up the other one. But like on your mountain there's. There tends to be a fairly good population. Just a matter of if you're going to see one of the nice ones there and then also other people, hunters can run them off. Pack of wolves can come through and, and stir things.

That makes sense. So as I'm looking at my pack list and Tyler's pack list, we've got a spreadsheet going here. One thing I was curious about is if you have a kind of like a no down policy or like a no down preference. Because like a lot of the down jackets I have like, I have a Sitka puffy and I have a first light big puffy and both of them are like a treated down. Do you recommend like not doing that and just do two different layers of synthetics or are you a. It's like you'll figure it out. You'll dry it out if you need to.

Because it is just usually like a one night, maybe a two night. I'll bring the, bring the down just in case, whatever situation, you know, it, it works. Um, but no, I don't really have any hard and fast rules. Except for no cotton.

Yeah, yeah, no cotton.

So if, if it is nice, if you are soaked from just the day, from the sweat from the rain, whatever. If you can like take all that stuff off and then you're in the tent and it's dry. That, that, that would be the application of the puffy that we tend to use.

It's.

Yeah, it's like it's dry. Yeah. Your Warm up thing back in the tent. I tend to not really use those outside. Yeah. Maybe if it's just like a quick trip or something like that or if the weather is decent and dry and we're cooking but otherwise don't.

But it's kind of funny that actually is going to change how I pack probably because I will opt for my synthetic mid layer or my synthetic. Yeah. Puffy layer instead of bringing my big puffy jacket. Because that means, that means like I am not going to use it much outside if it's nice out. When a puffy jacket is most applicable, it's probably warm enough. I don't need it.

Yeah, yeah. I rarely bring, I, I usually bring mine because you just want to have stuff there in case you need a rapid rewarming or something like that.

Yeah.

But as far as using it, I'm like, why do I even bring this? Because I never use it.

So that's good to know. And then for the hike in, man, one of the things I was, I was contemplating doing and this is my game plan at this point, but I wanted to run it by you is like I kind of was thinking about as long as it's relatively warm, a.k.a. in the 50s, I was thinking I was going to wear a, like a synthetic short sleeve on the way in and just get, get that thing soaked. Like I don't expect it to be dry at the top, but it'll dry quickly at the top. Once we get to the top, I can put on a long sleeve layer and have some fresh, some fresh clothes for the top. It's basically just like a synthetic or it's like a all grid fleece mid layer that you can wear next to skin. When I get to the top, is that a decent game plan or do you normally just recommend trying to put rain gear on?

And it depends. It's. I usually like to go long sleeve just because there's a lot of brush and something that's going to be strong enough to, to maintain the brush. The mat, the mountain that we're going to head up. I got to go check the. I might have to do a little extra trail maintenance, but you get a lot of just brush and devil's club and stuff so you can get kind of scratched up. So it's nice to maybe have the long sleeve, but the more clothing you're wearing, the more you're going to sweat. And ours is a pretty steep hike. There's some scrambling, there's some grabbing on the roots and pulling yourself up stuff. It's still Going to be muddy even if it hasn't rained in a while, because there's some kind of slightly tilted mountain muskeg that we're going to be going up. So there's. We got. We got second growth, we got old growth, we got muskeg. So you're gonna get a lot of ecology. But yeah, I really try to avoid wearing rain gear on the trip up unless it's raining because you're gonna get wet from sweat. But getting wet from sweat, you. You have heat generated so it can evaporate. Whereas if you get wet from rain, then you're going to be getting cold. And as soon as you stop and that can be a problem. And I've had that a couple times where just got abso. Soaked on the way up from both sweat and rain. And then we get on a buck and we're just kind of waiting for the fog to clear and you just start getting cold. And I was to the point where I'm like, my hand started getting purple. And, you know, my buddy's just waiting for this buck to. To stand up. It was a decent three point. He saw another forky. And I was like, dude, I got to go after the forky. I can't just keep laying here. So if you get to the point where you can't feel like your feet, like from the ankles down and start to get really tired, that's the initial hypothermia. And hypothermia can happen during the summer up here. You know, it's 54 and radius. The cold water, the wetness, that. That'll do again. So I just had to get up and get moving, which it did. And so I, I heard him shoot and that fork, he was, Was. Was right there. So we had two shots within about 20 seconds, which was. Which was awesome. Yeah. So it's. The other concern there is that if you are going to go in like a rain jacket or rain pants on the way up and you sweat a ton, being able to replenish that water and you're gonna be behind on your liquids because the, the hike and because you're just sweating so much. Yeah, but. And it's tempting as soon as you get up there to just start hunting or whatever. But staying on top of the fluids is important too, because that can help with. With. It's not a good, like, hypothermia can happen more if you're. Because you. Your body needs to use water in order to try to stay warm. So staying on top of the water, finding a water Source up there and pumping or boiling, whatever you need to do there. So when we get to the top, if we are. If we have sweat a lot, we'll try to replace the. The liquids and go from there.

Okay. No, that makes total sense. So do you go. Do you hike in? You probably don't then hike in with rain pants on, because I'm sure you're gonna get soaked on your legs.

Yeah, yeah, it depends. Depends. I do. I like bringing one pair of. Of hunting pants and then like the rain pants. So sometimes I'll do the, like the rain pants without like, maybe some leggings underneath it. And then also you can manage your heat by just slowing down a little bit. So if there's a section that's super steep, get to the top, vent some of the heat, and just, you know, take a break, get some water. So getting up there in good shape is. Is important too. If you just try to smoke your way to the top and then you're super, super tired and you're super wasted, then if you do see something, then you can just be kind of behind the eight ball or not have the juice to go for it. So, um, being meaningful and purposeful with it. But yeah, it's. It's pretty brutal when it's super rainy and you're going up in your rain pants and your rain jacket and it's. You feel like a rustler cutting weight. It's just. Just miserable.

Yeah.

But yeah, we'll. We'll just kind of see and. And go from there.

That sounds good. So in the same vein, I know this is getting super technical nerdy, but I like this stuff a lot.

Yeah.

I'm looking at my two different. Two different types of rain jackets and pants, for that matter. But I think I know which pants I want to bring. But in my rain jackets, I've got like a one and a half layer Gore Tex. It's like kind of lighter.

More.

It's more or less lighter. It's been really. It's been awesome for. Even in Oregon, western side of the state, where it. It has that same low underbrush where it's just. You're wet. It keeps the rain and water out pretty good, but it's lighter weight, so it does eventually, you know, saturate. Yeah. And then I've got a three layer which is like, okay, this is the step below a rubberized, you know, jacket. The three layer is heavy and not very breathable as far as that's concerned. Would you rather have the heavier rain jacket for when it does Downpour or do you just basically look at the weather and say we're going to make a game time decision?

I look at the accumulation. Sometimes it says it's going to rain and the accumulation is 0.1 inches. So you're thinking, okay, it's going to be wet, but it's not going to be soaking wet and it's not going to be super cold. So 50, 50, once it gets closer to 60, it tends to mean a little less accumulation. But if it's like 54 and there's going to be an inch and a half and I kind of go with the, the heavier stuff just for the insulating factor too, so. Oh, if it's gonna tran. It's not going to breathe, which is kind of what you want, so you're not wasting a whole lot of that heat as you're getting wet. But that's horrible to hike in, so.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, on the way in. But again, I guess if, if you're hiking in, if you're hiking in and I'll Long sleeve synthetic, you know that, and you're just getting wet anyway. It's not a big deal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Well, yeah, because I did a, I did a backpack scout trip just a few days ago and I was like, man, this pack is heavy. And it wasn't even that heavy. I weighed it, it was £40 and I was just like, dang it.

Yeah.

But it was, it's kind of funny. The, the backpack trip I did was almost identical to like one of the routes that you sent me going in, but where it was like, I think this one was 2,000ft and two and a half miles or something. It was, it was pretty classic as to what I think you had, you had showed me. So.

Yeah, yeah. The big difference was the, the pace. And going up some of these mountains, if you can go one mile an hour, like, you're doing pretty well. And it just, it's. Everything is so thick and you have to look at where you're. You're stepping and hold on to stuff. So just really, really slows you down.

And hunting speed is very different than me out here trying to be like I'm, I'm bombing in as fast. Like, it's like I did it as a workout hike. You know, I was like, I want to test myself to see how, how I, you know, I got to the top and was smoked. So. Yeah, like you're saying when you're hunting, it's like, like, let's Just take our time. Like there's no, there's no rush. It doesn't get dark until 11.

Yeah, yeah, I gotta. Baby is just, she's just crying so I'm going to hold on, try to, try to get her calm down for a second.

Okay, no problem.

It. Yeah, baby was up a little bit, a little bit too early. She wanted to party and now she's suffering the consequences. She's over tired. So yeah, she. Once I picked her up and put the pacifier and she was in pretty good shape.

Okay, cool.

Tired. Yeah. So it should be nap time.

That's great. No, it's. That's dead life, man. That's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So one of the things also I was looking at on my list, I heard you say this on a previous podcast recently and I don't remember specifically which one, but you were talking about using micro spikes, like the Katula micro spikes or something.

Yeah.

Are those. Are there's a must bring or. If not everyone in the group has them, then it's like, yeah, well we won't go to those kinds of places.

The vegetation, the alpine is, is unlike what most people are used to. When you get to the top of a mountain, you just think of scree, you think of rock, you think of, you know, maybe some dirt, but it's just this carpet coated with vegetation. So even if it's dry during the day, like the. You get it's like a oversized clover looking things, but there's only like one petal and it's a large leaf. And so you walking on the leaves which is pretty slick and then underneath it stays a little bit damp. So going up and going down, having the micro spikes just kind of, it keeps you from kind of curling your feet and wearing out your feet as you're trying to go up because it's super slick. So having the micro spikes for going up for stability and going faster is nice. Having them for going down is nice too because you can just kind of, you know, just walk or you can kind of side hill it and just not have to worry about. About slipping. This can also be achieved by using trekking pole, so you definitely got to have one or the other. Probably trekking poles would be, would be better. A buddy of mine had both trekking poles and the micro spikes and just a section gave out beneath him and he fell and it was pretty brutal. He fell off a, fell off a small cliff, rolled a little bit, fell off another cliff, really sprained his ankle, hit his face so bad he had to have Surgery, lots of bleeding. So they had to helicopter him off the, off the mountain.

Oh, were you there with him when they.

No, I wasn't. Heard him, Heard about it later and then talked to him about it. And it's, it's pretty. It was a pretty, it was like a legit near death sort of experience. And that was with all the things it was just. And he said he got this feeling in his stomach that something wasn't right. But it's just part of the mountain just gave way and it was, that's just. It was sunny, but they just. You still get this, this Pete Mossy type saturated landscape and it's. Yeah. Not bad to have. If you have them, great. I don't use them all the time, but I usually bring them just in case.

Okay, I'll bring my micro spikes and my trekking poles. Yeah, yeah, just. We'll double down. This is great, man. I was talking to Tyler and he was talking about, well, I don't know if I'm going to bring two pairs of boots, et cetera. And then he got me thinking, well, do I need two pairs of boots? With the program we're running where you're going to be up there for, you know, let's call it two and a half days and then coming back down. Do you think one pair of boots is fine? Because every couple of days we can come down and dry our feet.

Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say that that's, that's the way to go. Usually just have, have one and we can drive if need be. But the makes the socks pretty important. And then when you're walking around on some of that alpine musk, I guess we're getting up there, there's a chance your feet get wet just because if you're crossing a creek and your foot is only in the water for a fraction of a second, then your waterproof boots are going to be fine. Unless you go up over the top. But walking on a wet sponge for 300 yards and then through some mud and another one of those like it just really just a lot of water exposure so it can saturate. But yeah, you just kind of get used to wet feet. Okay. But yeah, a new pair of socks would be good. And if the feet do get wet, it's like a full on saturation. It's not a. Some people put hand warmers in their boots overnight and they're like, oh, they're dry in the morning. Well, not if it's wet because you sweat. If that, if they're, if they're soaked from being sweat, then yeah, that warmth will, will evaporate the, the moisture in there. But if it's from alpine muskeg or like real wet, there's nothing that, that, that hand warmer is going to do.

Okay, but gators are still useful then in.

Oh, I love gators. Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely use gators.

Okay, sounds good. I. I know. Yeah, I think I had. I've got a couple different styles and I heard you say you rock like the Stone glacier. Tall gators or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, no, that'll work. Good. I'll bring. I'll probably bring both sets just in case someone's fails. AKA mine or Tyler's. Yeah, but that'll be good. And they're flat. They lay so flat. It's like. It's not going to take up too much space though. That's great. So one of the things that we had a pretty good conversation about in our text thread was about the tent. And you know me bring in the four person tent with a net and insert so that there's. It's a floored tent, I think was where I landed. And then we can build a fire outside the tent to warm stuff up with a, with a tarp over the top if we want to. Middle of the day. Does that seem like a decent combo or would you prefer floorless tent with the stove?

I don't know. So the floorless tents concerned me just in I. We. We have a seek outside that we've only used during rut. But the concern is when you get up in the alpine there there's just gnats and there's bugs. So if we have a floorless tent it would. I would think that they're just the gnats and everything would be trapped in there and it would be terrible. But I have heard that the heat from the people rises and so they're like up higher near the top of it. So it's not a problem. The latest in the year that I've gone alpine hunting was in September and we took a floorless one. It was so unbelievably saturated. Had to put down some. One of those pads first. But you had to be careful where you stepped to because if you stepped, it was just you. We were on a sponge. It was, it was brutal and you couldn't like roll over otherwise you'd be in water. But there weren't many mosquitoes and so that ended up being fine. So that, that would be my concern.

I'm not a big fan of bugs. I Don't want to get eaten alive. So like I'll just bring, I'll bring the insert like a normal tent.

I don't, I don't know if trying to build a fire outside because you're going to have to tend to it and if it is raining, you're not going to want to go outside the nice dry tent to try to tend the fire. That's maybe underneath this tarp type thing. It could be a huge hassle. So we might just, if it is going to be rainy, might just take the tent, not worry about the floor. And there's probably someone who, who knows for a fact that it's not going to be an issue. It's like, dude, it's not going to be an issue. So yeah, I, I would say we probably look at the weather, bring all the stuff, we'll look at the weather and then I think we'll probably end up going stove but no floor and we, we should be fine.

Okay, sounds good. And then we'll. Yeah, so like whatever. It's funny because that tarp, if it's, if we brought the insert, I was going to bring the tarp for us to sit under. If, if we didn't bring the floor, then that tarp becomes my ground sheet and then we can obviously middle of the day when we're not using it, like use it as a tarp outside to glass under. But yeah, no, that's great that that helps. I'll bring it, I'll bring it all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have a space, it's nice to bring it all. And then you know, when you're getting flown out, if you're getting flown out in a, in a, you know, true bush plane, then it's, you know, you have to worry about weight. But if you're going to doing a fly out like an otter, those things can carry quite a bit of. Depending on the lake that you're going into, they can carry a little bit of weight. So you can take everything up there, leave stuff at your, your transporter if need be. But you can make a determination. You don't have to make the call regarding weather. You know, days before when you're leaving your home, you can make the call appear, which is nice. So that's what we'll do. We can drop off stuff at the house before we head up to the mountain.

Oh, that's great. Do you guys get gale force winds at the top? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

We had a small craft advisory a couple days ago and it was just you know, at four foot waves and it's fairly protected here in Ketchikan. There's a lot of islands between us in the open ocean, but it was just kicked up and it was brutal. But this time of year it tends to be a little bit more stable. So when it is rainy and windy, it's a lot more of like a, you know, blowing 8, gusting to 16 rather than sustained winds of 30 or 40, which is like Montana or Wyoming at all times is just. Yes, what you're gonna get.

That's what last weekend when I was scouting, it was, dude, it was all night. Sustained winds, 25 to 35 miles an hour. And that dang thing was I was in a good like shelter next to trees. And then every once in a while a gust would just catch the bottom of my tent and just go whack. And I would wake up like, ah, grizzly bear. No, just my tent. Yeah, yeah.

There's some, some texture up top that we'll try to get in one of those so that we're not like in the wind the entire time. It's nice to be able to kind of like calm down. If there is a little bit of a breeze. It's nice because then you can sit outside and you don't have to worry about bugs quite as much. If it is super still, then, you know, you could, you could get some, some, some bug action there. But yeah, we'll kind of see what the wind's going to be doing and, and make our determination.

We, we've talked about bugs and then it's funny, my stepdad, we were talking last night and he had done this long motorcycle trip through Alaska and he was talking about how the mosquitoes could carry you away. And I have never heard you say that on where we're going. Is it real, real buggy? Like, if it's like, do people wear bug nets or is it one of those things where it's like, yeah, just pull your hood up, you're fine.

It depends. I. They're terrible and, and I hate them. They're not as bad as up on the North Slope like that kind of really. But in southeast Alaska it's so wet here that there's definitely mosquitoes and there's gnats and there's no seams and everything. We try to just get kind of used to it. I think the worst ever sometimes down here is when you're fishing in the title areas and it comes up out of the seaweed. So like that is the gnats and Noums are absolutely terrible. So up on the mountain they are horrible and terrible. But I think once you've established a frame of reference of the worst ever is low tide at this beach in the evening when you're fishing and your hands have, have salmon on them, that's the worst. Or, or on the north slope and the tundra, that is the worst. So this is bad, but it's not that bad. I usually bring a net, but, but typically don't use it.

So do you bring bug spray then? Just like a little?

No, I just try to go with covering skin.

Okay.

So really light gloves. And we can get some really light gloves up here. Atlas is a nice brand and they're like 10 bucks and they're super nice and they have, you can get the ones with a coating on it. So if you do happen to grab onto a devil's club, it's not going to go through, but yeah, just covering the hands. And if you're processing a deer just wearing your, your latex gloves, it's, that's nice. But I just try to cover, cover the skin and just go that way.

Okay. I, I'm excited about that. Just going and grabbing a set of like gloves for 10 bucks at the thing I've got like, things for in my world. It's like, either it's cold and dry, so I've got like a fingerless set of gloves or I've got like mittens for when it's cold. But I don't have a good wet country like glove. So we'll just go snag some cheap ones. And I like those. Honestly, that's what I usually buy is like just like a leather work glove or something back home.

So, yeah, having the dexterity is nice. And you know, I had a pair of, a nice pair of Sitka Gore Tex gloves with the fleece insert and they just get totally soaked through because you're grabbing onto stuff out of necessity. And then the brush, you're going through the brush.

It's.

It's so not worth it. And so then like the fleece doesn't insulate anymore. And so you just got these, these cold hands. So if it's really going to be bad, then we'll get the totally waterproof ones. But there's, there's no insulation. But your hands will be dry. You'll end up getting kind of clammy because they'll be wet from, from the sweat and not breathing. But like, you can grab on anything and it'll be fine. And so we'll Kind of make again that determination there. And if it is, we do have to get a set of those. Those are like 15 bucks. So. Yeah, they're like the commercial fishing gloves for. For deckhand.

That sounds awesome. I know we had talked about. We talked about optics and I was like, I want to bring a spotting scope because I love digiscoping so much. Like, I want to. I want to put my thing on and get videos and whatever. But you were also saying, like, you don't necessarily have to bring a spotter. Most of the time you, you're. You're basically. Are you doing binos on a tripod for glass in like. Is that your game plan?

The cool thing about up here is that if you see something, it's very obvious because you've got green backdrop to like a. It. It. The yellow and orange deer. So it's pretty easy to see deer. And then you look at up top and you see. You can just kind of see. All right, that's something worth going after based on it's moving its head. Like it's got some stuff up top. Let's go check it out. Because you're kind of in these micro areas, you're not looking across because you can't make a move on anything across. So a spotter would be good if you're looking at the next range or the next mountain. But since you can't get over there, we just kind of resist ever looking over there. So if there isn't anything like on our mountain, well, it just maybe glass over there. See if. So there's something interesting and you can make that call with just regular binos. Some people like the. The spotting scopes and, you know, getting pictures, getting images, things like that video, that's a. That's a lot of fun. But yeah, typically it's just binoculars. Sometimes use a tripod, a lot of times don't. Again, it's you kind of up there and if something's going to happen, it's going to happen. But I think the spot we're going could be difficult because there's a lot of that buck brush. And so something could be feeding across or if something is bedded. So you guys are pretty good at glassing. So being able to pick something out of the buck brush I think will be good. That stuff can get so stinking tall, you can get five to six feet tall. So something could be bedded there. If it does happen to be warm and it just vanishes in there and we don't see it come out the other Side or we're not really sure. You get these veins of brush, you're not really sure how, how, how thick it is. And if anything came out of there, did it, was it able to slip down to the next vein and now is it down in the timber? So yeah, it would be a unique glassing experience for sure. But as far as just seeing deer, it's not super difficult given the contrast. Just be a matter of maybe try to find something if we don't see anything. Otherwise, looking into that buck brush and seeing if there's something that's bedded.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I like, I like doing it just because sometimes it gives you something to do during the middle of the day too, when they're not popping out. Whether or not it's, you know, it's basically one of those tactics. It's like, look, I don't expect this to work every time, but then every, you know, one in every 10 days that I do it, I pick something up and I'm like, aha, it was worth it. So who knows?

Yeah, I think that it can get where you're up there and just kind of looking and then you're like haphazardly glassing. You're not like really gritting stuff out. And I know that like in my impatience I probably missed out on, on bucks or oh, there's nothing around here. It's too hot or it's too this or that because I didn't, I didn't have my binos on a, on a tripod or I didn't bring the spotting scope. And I wasn't just breaking everything down. I was just looking with the naked eye, bringing up the binos for a second and then back to the naked eye, just, you know, very passive or not, you know, really getting after it. So I think it'll be good to, to really scrutinize and look around in case, you know, there's, there's stuff that's, that's moving that we might not see. So we don't, definitely don't want to be missing bucks.

I think that this is the, this is the difference between game rich environments versus some of the dry, less dense, low density stuff that I've hunted in the west is like, if you're in a game rich environment, it's not as critical. Right. But if you're over here looking across a vast expanse of Wyoming desert and you're like, I'm looking for one mule deer that's out here somewhere.

Yeah.

Then it, then it makes more of a difference to be. To be diligent like that. So, yeah, it's. It seemed to be the same thing in Argentina where it was like guys just freehanding because they're like, yeah, we got enough red stags around, like we'll find one. So it just is situational. Yeah, it'll be fun to. It'll be fun to see what. What the difference is or isn't when we get up there.

Yeah, and that's the. With the, the timber. Once they get into the timber, like, it's go anywhere. So it really gives them the advantage. And this is not a. A lot of the mountains in this area here. You're not seeing like, herds of. Of deer up above the tree line where you've seen some pictures of just a whole bunch of bucks that are together. This is more of a. There are some bucks around and you might see like two spikes and a little fork. So there are targets, but. And they are legal, but you're just not.

Not jonesing. Yeah.

Yeah. You're not getting a whole lot of meat off that. So if you do hold out for bigger bucks, you're getting a substantial amount of meat. The, the whole. If it's brown, it's down. Does make some sort of sense. But if you were to wait and get a more mature buck, you're going to get twice the amount of meat. So if you shoot four every nubbin, every spike that you see, you get the equivalent of maybe a deer and a half if it's a fully mature buck. So scrutinizing and, and maximizing your tags, I don't think is a bad thing. You don't have to fill out your tags. You can get the same amount of meat for two bucks than you did with someone who's shooting every spike that they see.

Yeah. No, that's exciting. Yeah. I. My freezer is out of red meat. I've got two grouse left. So I, I am over here going like, very excited to fill the freezer. But also, like you said, maximize the opportunity because we got. We have some time. You know, we'll be up there. I think we have what, seven hunting days.

Yeah, it should be good.

And do you have to.

I did double check the, the regs on the airborne. It's against a lot of hunt or help someone else hunt. Take big game until 3am the day following the day you have flown. This does not apply if you have flown on a regularly scheduled commercial or commuter airplane. So because you're flying Alaska Airlines, We're. We're totally fine there It's a regular scheduled commercial flight, so we're good to go. If there's something that evening, if we happen to get up the mountain in time then. Or on the way up, we'll see.

Oh, that's.

I doubt it. Yeah, severely doubt we're gonna see something on the way up.

Do you. Here's. I was just thinking about rifles because you were like, on the way up and I was like, well, do you ever bring a. Do you ever bring a bipod to shoot off of? I just was realizing, I was like, I bet you the, the ground is probably hard to get a bipod shot, but maybe if you've got rocky stuff that you can set up on.

Yeah, there's usually like an outcropping or a little nub or something that you can, you can use on. A buddy of mine definitely uses his. I have one. I'm. I'm gonna bring it just because you might be able to, to, to use it. So. And it's pretty light, so it's not like you're. I had one of. It's like a swagger brand and it had these crazy long legs and it was just. It would get caught on everything and it was super heavy and it was attached to the rifle stock. It was just super annoying. But some smaller, low profile ones could be the difference between having to set up on your pack and then not. So, you know, if you want to put your. Your pack, like lay on the pack and then use the bipod, like, that ends up being pretty nice. So I'll be bringing mine up.

What are the. What are kind of the furthest? I mean, obviously a guy in this scenario probably could take as far of a shot as he wanted to, but that's not the point. Like, what's the furthest average, you know, shots? Is it like 200 yards? Like, are we looking at some. Some three plus.

Most of mine have been 150, 200, maybe even less than that. So. Yeah, no, no further than about 200, 250. There are. There might be opportunities for something a little bit longer, but it. As you're kind of moving around the mountain, you kind of have, I'm gonna say, like, have just be. Know that in any bit of texture there could be a buck that's just staring right at you. So you come over this little rise and you're not tops, you're not even on the ridge, but there's just these crazy little folds in these. It's like a serrated edge that's completely covered in green Heather and, and deer, cabbage. So like, the bucks can be anywhere. And in this, there's just this little drop and it happens to be in the shade. And so you're just walking along, you don't see anything, and all of a sudden you're 15 yards from a buck. They're just staring right at you. It's bedded and then it stands up. So it could be like a quick draw, western type type situation there. Or you, you know, for whatever reason, you come around the corner, it's just right there at 50 yards or 100 yards. So there's. That is the expectation once we get out of the tent and we're going, you're ready for something within 50 yards or 15ft. You know, just something could be right there and then maybe spooking something, but then, you know, getting ready, knowing it's going to kind of do its bound, bound, bound, and it's. It could bump but not spook. You know, spook is when they're just kind of out, out of the country. Whereas sometimes they're just really nervous, they get kind of jumpy and so they, they kind of bound off a little bit and then they turn and look. So staying in the game that way, but also not moving so fast where you're just bumping a whole bunch of deer. And then there might be something a little bit further and a little bit higher that's looking down at you. So that'll be the tricky thing. I don't want to be all the way on the top or you just walk through a whole bunch of the good territory. But also because you're not at the top, then, you know, there might be some stuff that's up a little bit higher, so that has the high ground on you. But yeah, so, yeah, we'll see.

I may, I may opt because I know you said you don't often, you don't have to bring your tripod all the time, but I'm going to bring my tripod. I've got an attachment for my tripod to my rifle. And I was just like, okay, if we're working with 300N, like if I need to set up on my tripod, I could do that. But otherwise, you know, I don't need. I don't need. And not that I do this very often anyway, I was just analyzing my personal kill shot analysis or whatever and I was like, all of my average shots have been like 180 to 220 yards. Yeah, it's like, let's just. Yeah, but, you know, let's let's just save some weight and bulk. I mean I think that's half of it is when you're walking around with like my tripod in particular sticks out a little bit and I just foresee that thing grabbing branches and grabbing club and stuff. And I'm like, oh, this is good.

There are 10, there's opportunity. Some people like to take 400 yard shots up here. Some people like really like building an awesome rifle that's good at making shots at those distances. And they, they like that as part of the experience there tends to be enough cover where you can make maneuvers you're not. Sometimes you get this is as close as as you can get. But other times there's a way that you can meander around. The biggest buck I ever shot was at the base of this cliff. So we'd actually hiked up above it and around looking for mountain goats. And then we're able to kind of get to 300 and then I can get closer than that. And so we got popped up about 180 and it was, it was pretty nice. Well shooting across, it wasn't shooting like we were in, in the same bowl. It wasn't like shooting down. It wasn't shooting up. It was, yeah, we're about the same latitude.

It sure sounds like the other cool thing is because of the time structure of your day, it's not like, it's not like oh, it's last light. Oftentimes anyway it's not last light. They're going to get away. Like I got to make this shot before they go over the ridge or whatever. It's, it's usually like oh well we see where they're at. Even if they disappear in the next few minutes, like we'll be right, you know, we'll get in position and then be able to when they get up and feed again or whatever, like pop out again. You can make a shot. So I'm all about it, man. I'm, I'm down with. Because I do have one of those high speed rifles. Like I was out practice into 6, 700 yards a couple weeks ago and I was like, but I don't. Yeah, it's not, it's not going to make the experience for me. I had a client last year shoot a bull. He was. And he proved it to me beforehand. But he was really good a long distance. He shot this bull at a long, long ways. It took him 40 minutes to get set up and get a really good platform down. And I'm like, brother, we could have been 300 yards in 40 minutes. Like. Like this long time to be good, because he did. He was so focused on getting everything perfect, which was great. So I would hope someone's doing if they're shooting a long ways, but I'm also like, okay, well, in that 40 minutes, we could have cut out all the variables that you're account for. So, yeah, I'm all about getting closer, man. Let's do it.

Yeah, it'll help to see where the thing goes too. There it's. It's pretty steep. And if it does slide down into the timber, it can be really hard to find. Is you have. You just don't know. And that can be a difficult thing too, with scouting where you're going. If you are trying to look at another mountain, you don't know how to get up through the forest. And you can look at the topa lines, you can see that they're pretty close together. But even that might not tell the story. It could make all of the change in 10ft. So it's not kind of a gradual steepness. It is a sheer cliff. And if something slides down into the timber and you don't see the little cliff where it goes off and like, who knows? And there could be a black bear that's waiting to take advantage of it.

So this just happened to me in the alpine last week. I was like, I'm just gonna take this ridge up. And I came up to the base of a cliff that was hidden in the trees that I didn't know about. And I was like, God dang it. So then I dropped 300ft to get up to go around the cliff. And I'm like, God, this was not in my game plan. And obviously in, you know, where I was at, there was no underbrush that prevented me from doing that or whatever. But, yeah, that makes sense. It's a good warning to be like, hey, you could. You could end up walking up to the base of a cliff and be like, ah, crap.

Yeah. And that's the tough thing too. If you do get a deer down and you think, well, rather than go up and around and go back the known path, let's just do this and we'll just head down the mountain this way. And that could be way worse than going back through to the. To the known route, which might take a little bit of hiking up and back to it, but in the long run, a lot of times it's worth it if you do commit to going down an area that you don't know. And there could be A lot of cliffs. It could be impossible. It could just be frustrating and take a whole bunch of extra calories and whatnot. So.

Yeah. Yeah.

Recovering and then where you go from. There are things to consider, too.

That's good. I was, you know, just looking at this last night, and then you mentioned this guy who had to get a helicopter flight out, but do you have, like, a backcountry flight insurance?

No, I have. I have the inreach. And then we do have guardian, which is. It's not like a helicopter come picks you up. But no, we. I don't have a.

Okay. I think I'm going to. Before we go, I'm going to. I need this for just in general in. In the work that I do. I need to have good insurance for it. But it was one of those things. You'll probably also have pretty good insurance through your schoolwork, too, so. But I.

We. We got a really good rescue squad here, too. Like, very competent, really good squad. That responds so cool.

Yeah. And it's certainly not, you know, I would much rather play it safe and not get into a pickle, but also, you know, play plan. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. So. Yeah. No, that's great. Do you. Speaking of that, do you have anything in your med kit that you feel like might be different than the lower 48? It's.

It's pretty standard. I think one of. One of those emergency blankets. The, like, I don't know, whatever it's made of that you. You just, like, if you get super, super cold, you put that thing in, it radiates the heat. So that's just a standard thing to have in here.

Cool.

No, probably pretty standard.

Oh, that's awesome. I'm excited, man. I think. I think we're. We've done a really good job of planning. And I was talking to my brother, dude, he's already packed. He already packed his stuff. We're more than a week out. And. But he was like, well, I just wanted to make sure it all fit, you know? And I was like, all right.

Yeah.

Oh, another question I had. And maybe this is. Maybe this is just dependent on the person, but I. As I was flying, I was expecting to take the foam out of my rifle case and fill that with all of my clothing and some gear and then have a carry on. And my backpack. And a backpack. So that way I'm only checking one bag on the way up. What do you think about that versus keeping the foam in there and checking two bags?

Was it 50 bucks for the second bag.

So it's 35 for the first and like 65 for the second, I think.

Oh, it's 35 for the first one?

Yeah.

Dang. Alaska Airlines, I think I get two free bags being residents called Club 49. They're just like, hey, you know, because you live here and you have to. Everything is so stinking expensive. We will give you two free bags.

That's cool.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Preference if you have the money. Like, I. I don't. Whatever.

I might. Yeah, I might. I might save on the money because shipping stuff back is also going to be kind of expensive. I mean, hopefully either. Either way, if we get a deer or if we go catch fish, like we got to ship some stuff back. It's. It can be pretty expensive. It seems like once you're trying to get meat home.

Yeah, it used to be pretty easy with Alaska Airlines cargo. You could just go to the cargo. You could make yourself a known. A known shipper and you could do that. But I think a lot of people started taking advantage of that, and so they. They took that away. So that's. That's unfortunate. I think within the state, you can ship cargo, but the known shipper to the lower 48 for exactly that application, I think they kind of closed that loophole.

Okay, so you're not a known shipper to the lower 48?

No, I'm not. No.

Okay. Dang it.

And I don't think you. I don't. It's like the. I don't know if you can become one. So I can known ships some stuff or like, if I go up north and. And get a moose, I could known shipper to myself on a cargo. My buddy can ship it down. That's. That's no big deal. But if you're not. If you're from the lower 48, you come up and try to known ship. Right. I don't think that works anymore.

So does that basically mean that you're essentially just checking each cooler that has £50 that maxes out at £50 is its own check bag, and then you just keep adding check bags to your ticket?

Yeah. So people who are leaving town with six boxes of 50 pounds of fish, like they're paying a ton, which just sucks because a lot of those people probably don't even cook the fish. They just want to cook the fit or they just want kill the fish and then get the pictures and then it's going to get freezer burned back. And wherever they're going back to, which is. It's frustrating for. For the locals to see all that fish leave, but it's. It's wild when you. When you show up at the airport and you see the amount of fish boxes that are headed south, you think, man, how is there any fish left?

That's crazy. Well, hopefully, you know, like, so what's a. What's a Mostly processed or. Obviously we're not gonna. We're not gonna grind up hamburger and stuff, but, like, let's just say deboned, mature blacktail. How much final meat do you think you get? £50?

Get around. Get around 50.

One in a box, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it. Depending on what happens, you know, if. If, you know, we get them, we could process them here and get them frozen, which would be nice. Easier to pack down, save you a little bit of money there, but.

Okay. Well, that sounds awesome, man. I'm so excited. So thank you for. Thank you for hosting my brother and I, and I'm excited to just spend time with you, too.

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. Be fun for sure.

Well, good stuff. I think that's all the questions I had for today. Did you have anything that you think we missed?

I don't know. I'll think about it later. When baby wakes up from the nap and I'm. And I'm. I'm feeding her, then I'll probably think of something. But, yeah, great to talk to you, man. It's. It's always good to. To go through these things. A lot of times you have the program that you run and you haven't really looked at the nuance of. Or the small details of it. And so if you're to give people advice, you miss a lot of those things. And there'll probably be some things that just in. In how we do things up here that I don't even mention, but you'll just pick up by observing. And that's usually how I've learned a lot of things. It's not what someone tells me to do. It's some little thing that I notice, like walking through a musket, like where to step and where not to step. Like, those sort of little things you'll pick up. So it'll be. It'll be a lot of fun.

Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I'm. I'm. It's. Like I said, it's just a new adventure for me. So thanks for showing me the way. Yeah. Fun. Yeah, it's going to be a blast. And yeah, I'm sure we'll we'll do another podcast, maybe recapping our adventures at some point, so it'll be fun.

Sounds good.

Cool. Well, thanks for hosting and thanks for doing another podcast on this. Setting it. It feels like this was as much for me as it was for our listeners.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. But no, I think the Q and A is. Is a. Is a cool format. So, like, your host doesn't have to be. They can just be the question answerer. So that works.

Yeah, for sure. Well, cool, man. Again, appreciate you.

Yeah, thanks, man. Thank you for listening to the Hunt west podcast. If you like what you heard today, the best compliment you can give is to share the show with a friend. We will see you on the next episode, and we hope one day to see you.

Hunt West.