It's been a long time again.  So long I forgot what episode I was on.  I said 15 in the podcast, but it is 16.  This one kind of rambles a bit because I just had to get one done so I sat down without notes or a plan and hit record.  There's been a lot going on around here with the biggest thing being that I had a "cardiac event".  That story is intertwined with the recap of a rifle coues deer hunt I guided in November and a brief bit about my archery javelina hunting so far this month.  There's a good tip hidden in the coues deer story so listen up.  I'm sti ..read more

I finally got back on the board with a nice velvet coues deer!  In this episode I explain a little about my history chasing velvet coues deer with a bow to explain why this was such an important success for me.   This hunt took place very close,  sometimes too close, to the southern border with the Border Hunter himself, my buddy Lance.  I'm very grateful to him for sharing this spot.  I recap the hunt, including the vicious doe mosh pit, and go in detail about how I preserved the velvet and still made a Euro mount of the skull.   I think this is a game chang ..read more

Once again I've been too long in getting an episode out.  It's time to catch up and talk about Arizona archery deer season.  In this episode I talk about my daughter's bison hunt, other cool stuff I've been up to and go in depth about my approach to the early season archery deer hunt in Arizona.   I give some of my stories and tips about hunting tree stands and blinds, mostly geared towards coues deer in Arizona, but applicable no matter where you are.   I even throw in a story about my recent death march hike. I have been planning to do another episode for a while and rea ..read more

It's been quite a while since my last episode, but I'm back! Since Christmas Janice and I have been pretending to be retired, not just from our regular jobs, but also our pack llama business.  No social media, podcasts, or YouTube videos.  Just fun enjoying the Arizona backcountry.  In this episode I first catch up on some of the adventures we've had and tell a couple of hunting stories.  After that I go into an  analysis of the data from the first year of the Arizona archery deer hunt quota system.  I get into some of the questions I've had like: How did it work ..read more

Josh has a wealth of knowledge, and more importantly, experience with backcountry search and rescue, whitewater and technical rescue, wilderness first aid, exercise physiology, and lots of other interesting and useful stuff.  He's a family man and very accomplished hunter, college professor, SAR and SWAT team member, and all around good guy.  He's one of the very few people I will hunt with anytime anywhere.  Even when things are rough he has a positive attitude.  He's also the guy you want backing you up if a mountain lion is about to jump on you!  In this episode we ..read more

For this episode I took my recorder into the field to document my 2022 rifle coues deer hunt.  I packed into the Arizona desert wilderness solo, but with a couple of my llamas carrying all my food and gear.   It was a great time to be hunting in the desert.  I go over some of the gear used as well as tactics I typically use for this type of hunt and recap the hunt as I go.  For the first time I ran into some other guys hunting in the area and one of them, Alex, shot a real nice buck.  Listen up to see how it went down for me. I also talk a little about the AZ OTC elk ..read more

They say the first step is admitting that you have a problem.  In this episode I do just that, and talk about my debilitating addiction to archery hunting for trophy coues deer.    This quest has caused 30 years years of frustration and unfilled tags not to mention the paranoia that came with finding and pursuing a true world record class buck.  Yes, I spent six of those years attempting to match wits with and obsessing over a giant buck I called Big Fork.  After he died of natural causes in 2013 I was crushed and hit rock bottom.  Because of that I quit archery ..read more

Archery elk season is right on top of us!  In this episode I cover five big picture strategies that I think are the most important, overlooked, or misunderstood aspects of archery elk hunting during the rut,  especially if you are solo hunting.  This isn't meant to be a comprehensive treatment of elk calling, tactics, and gear.  There are already many sources for that kind of information.   I could write a book about all the lessons I've learned from chasing big bulls, but here I have summarized  an overall approach to solo elk hunting that has evolved from first ..read more

 As I said in my first episode, I hunt all kinds of things.  In this episode I give a brief introduction to meteorites and meteorite hunting and describe a couple of trips I took in June.  It's been a while since my last episode because I've been out of town and busy with some of the stuff in this episode.  If you ever wondered about how people can find meteorites listen up!  ..read more

For this episode I had originally planned to get into the details and pros and cons of changes coming to Arizona OTC archery deer seasons.  At the last minute, I decided to more generally address why they are happening.  Spoiler alert:  It's due to the increasing mainstream popularity of hunting, monetizing hunting, and rapid technological innovation.  These things are putting increasing pressure on our western game species and forcing the wildlife managers to react.  Thinking about these changes reminded me of an article I wrote for the 5th edition of the Bowhunting i ..read more