On the Hunt with Alpen Optics Dec, 30th, 2020
Transcript: [Music] welcome to on the hunt with alpine optics i'm lonnie robinson your guest host tonight and tonight we're going to be talking some black powder archery and we have one of our longest serving pro staff members and he is a 28-year veteran of the u.s marshals service mr jack code [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey welcome back everyone uh hey jack here it says your 28 year veteran of u.s marshall that's got to be an interesting job yeah lonnie it uh had its moments i really enjoyed my career it was uh it was enjoyable and it was well worth it and a great career basically tracking down people and hunting i used to hunt two-legged animals now i'm uh retired and i'm looking forward to enjoying the outdoors and my hobby and passion and hunting four-legged animals or two-legged animals with feathers yeah that and i want to thank you for your service there jack now you say you're going to be hunting that four-legged how long you've been actually hunting i mean uh did you not hunt when you was in service or as a marshal or did you hunt some then too i hunted and that's when i really started building a passion and love for the outdoors and teaching kids and working with the kids to try to develop and to try to bring back into our tradition the traditions of hunting that we have i started uh hunting back like a lot of people did when i was about 14 years old started big game hunting in new york state where i'm from at 16 but i never really considered myself a hunter until 1992 when i first picked up a bow i had a good mentor and my best friend at that time he introduced me to archery and i fell in love with it you know you can't it's really it's really tough not to fall in love with archery when you've really got to learn and that's what i had to do i realized that for the previous 18 years i never really knew what i was doing so i wasn't hunting properly i had to learn with a bow i had to try to bring an animal within less than 20 yards one of the most survivable animals in history or in the world right now a deer can adapt to anything anywhere at any time so i learned how to scout i started learning about making sure on how ambush trails are working what's the difference between a transition zone what's the difference between a feed zone where are they betting those are important things that you need to know so in 1992 i picked up a boat on the opening day in new york um i was in my stand all set i picked out my stand i had everything all set up i had in my mind i started to help myself understand what i was doing i used to tell myself just tell a story does the story make sense so i sat there my first four-point buck came walking through now mind you in the previous 18 years i'd only taken one buck and it was 16 years before i killed my first deer and i was still out there trying that sounds more like me you know well that's it right and that's what happens that's how you grow and that's how you develop this passion for this outdoors and at 10 minutes after sunup that buck came walking through just as if he got the script and he came walking through and he turned just perfectly for a broad head for a broadside shot and i you know released that razor sharp broadhead hit him in right in the vital areas right through both lungs he ran off about 70 yards and i had just successfully harvested and killed my first buck with a bow i was hooked so then i started getting into competition shooting uh as a means of being the best hunter that i could be you know i could never really devote myself to the national uh world because of my job which was very demanding in time you know with the marshals so i worked with a lot of local and competing local and regional areas and uh and helping people i was also as a marshal i was a firearms instructor and tactical trainer for 27 years and throughout my career so i love the idea of teaching i like helping people become better at what they're doing or to spot the errors that i used to find in myself to become a better marksman or a better archer yeah i've you know i've been helping the arkansas game and fish for a little over 10 years about 12 years as a hunter ed instructor and it's such a thrill to help people learn about the outdoors and help get them started in that right direction and i've been shooting archery since 78 and i even did some shooting uh competition shooting uh for the state and represented bear archery that's it that's what it is uh we have something in common that way lonnie i've been a new york state hunter safety instructor and both certification instructor because in new york you have to take a hunter safety course and then if you want to hunt with archery you have to take a bow class to show that you are um that you know the difference and how a bowl works it's a little bit more uh we can get a little bit more into the beginning parts of how to hunt how to set up wins tree stand location uh understanding the different signs and that stuff outside of teaching just a pure safety class like we do in the firearm section yeah i mean you know shooting a bow it's not like a firearm you pick a firearm up the week before a season go to the range go to your local range pop three or four shots yeah i'm in and you go hunt archery and i tell everybody you need to be shooting archery 12 months out of the year you can start you know when off season you know just after season five arrows in the morning five in the evening get a month before season you should be shooting 20 arrows in the morning 20 arrows in the evening and you've got to stay practiced up with a bow or you will not be successful when you're out there hunting exactly correct um that's one of the reasons why i really enjoyed the competition side because when i could do it in that here in buffalo new york believe it or not uh we start our archery 3d outdoor season the first weekend in january mercy so and then we go and then we go every week until april and every sunday saturday and sunday so at times when i was out there shooting you would have over 400 competitors out there and wow at that time there were two to three different leagues running and we'd be out there in all this weather where you really learn how well your equipment handles how well those arrows fly how well does that bull work when it's cold but that's where i started getting with the competition and working with helping out um archers and and just becoming better i i really believe that there is a um there's a commonality with handgun training and archery training they're very similar in that it's your form that really makes you a better archer if you can control your body you'll do fine yeah i mean yeah and you know in competition uh you got a minute and arrow and i've seen these guys as fling fling fling flying flames laying them arrows uh you need to be able to draw that boat with ease and sit there for two to three minutes at full draw because it may take that deer two to three minutes to step out from behind that bush so you get a good clean harvest on that animal and a lot of people don't do that no it's tough one of my practices for hunting is that right about the last few weeks before the season which certainly opens up here in new york october 1st generally about september i'll start getting into a practice where i may if i'm home and i've got nothing to do i might be watching tv i have the luxury of being able to shoot in my backyard so when a commercial comes on i take one arrow and i take that one arrow and i go out and shoot a target good or bad it doesn't matter i get one arrow one arrow so then i put my bow down get my arrow walk back in watch my tv show next commercial out i go again so there's no makeovers when you're in the woods no it's generally very difficult uh to get a second shot that's right i mean you know it's not like a rifle you know you very seldom ever get that second shot uh and away with muzzleloading two we're going to be talking about later but archery it's a one-shot deal out there and if you aren't practiced up and you're not sure of that shot don't take that shot no that's it you know and and when we when we start to go in that's why i um i really suggest to a lot of hunters to start getting involved in their local areas to start shooting 3d or getting some outdoor shooting getting used to being the outdoors getting used to seeing how your arrow flies when it's flying in the woods yeah how does that trajectory carry to your target when you're looking for it but you can learn that with the 3d circuits so a lot of areas have open local and uh open to the public shooting plus you can be uh and get once you start doing it you're gonna get hooked i guarantee you oh i guarantee you you don't want to compete you know you're gonna be wanting to shoot all the time that way and and people and people have come up to me in my classes well where are these at go to your local archery shops you know we have two or three four of them around here ask them where these 3d tournaments are at or 3d targets open ranges you know look ask questions and you'll find these tournaments uh we have them almost about nine months out of the year we have there's uh 3d tournaments around here and then our archery and schools programs are just going gangbuster here that's that's it the national uh scholastic shooting programs have really come forward and that's up and you look at it up here and up here in new york we've got the uh um the archery and now we're starting to get into in new york's not really gun friendly or you know bull friendly but we're starting to get into uh introducing trap shooting back into the high school and having high school competition yes uh our trap program or i say ours uh the game of fish is it's arkansas youth shooting sports program ayssp uh has just it's probably one of the fastest growing uh activities that the kids are doing nowadays well the one thing is that we want to make sure of too is that we're um getting back into working with the young or even first-time shooters uh you know don't be afraid to introduce you know their favorite uh female friend or any of your friends who may never have shot they may not be hunters so what that doesn't stop them from becoming archers that's right you know uh you can get out there and and introduce people to their sports because let's face it our hunting world is slowly diminishing less than six percent of the population last year or two years ago i believe that the uh u.s fish and wildlife was um had placed the hunters at about six percent yeah that's a small amount yeah in arkansas i think we're losing about 10 a year and that's a good number i mean you know for a small state that's a good size number we're losing and i know i'm going to get in trouble when i get home but uh you know here it goes my daughter got married in uh first october 3rd uh the gentleman she married love him to death but he had never hunted he'd never really messed with any firearms until he got with my daughter and now he's he's just ate up with you know target practicing and we're getting ready to go at the end of january going to take him on a quail hunt and he told me last night or him and her dead that if it goes good and he likes it as well as i say he will they're looking to get him a german shorthair to start hunting with and so i couldn't be more proud of my daughter and her husband for that fact you know we're teaching someone new to get into the sport and he's going to be you know my daughter shoots archery i do uh so and he's got a bow now so he's going to be in that archery world that's it yeah you know and that's what we got to do we have to encourage the people uh by whatever means that they want to come in and let them know that it's enjoyable a lot of people in new york don't like the idea um they don't like the idea of knowing that their food was killed um even though it's killed yeah and and i started using the word harvest but hey jack i know you've been into this a long many years now what all kinds of companies do you work with or that work for you or you work for them uh what's some of the companies you work for okay well i've been um i've been in the uh industry for for about 25 years now i started off with alpine archery a small company out of idaho and in the bull world i've gone from elpin or from alpine sorry about that from alpine to uh to elite archery and now i'm with another small company i love the small companies because they tend to be able to provide a little bit more uh service to the one-on-one one-on-one that's what it is so i kind of like that a little bit um you know some of the other larger companies they're large for a reason basically i say you know as far as a bow everybody says what should i get what should i do and it's like you know what go out and shoot them all which bowl feels the best to you that's going to be the one you want yeah and that's when i'm telling someone uh and then grab the grip see if it feels good in your hands if it pulls see how it releases you know it's got to have them three features or you're going to put it in the closet and the price of the bows i can think of a lot better things i'd rather do than throw my money in the closet that's it so some of the other companies i've worked with that are very are well known throughout the industry and throughout the nation are um my longest ones were summit tree stands i'm still with those guys and then i've worked i did 17 years with nightingale and i work with goldtip now uh scentlock is a is a uh is a company i work with um you know so there's been a lot of different companies and and like you said alpine i've been around because if you can't see it you can't shoot it that's right it doesn't matter what it is it doesn't matter if you're hunting if you're archery if you've got a rifle with a scope on if you can't see it clearly in low light you cannot hit it and that's why binoculars are so important in the archery world because you've got to be able to see small rings a small target in the dark in the shadows and try to be able to put that arrow in that half inch area in order to score points yeah the person who could put it in that area that small area is going to score more points and he's going to win more tournaments and when you get really good and you get up into the level with some of the pros up there you're going to be um you're going to be making money yeah so it's uh you know this industry is real tough to make money and that's why i've never i've always been happy to be with a company as a staffer because i like my hobby and i've always had this adage that if you start needing to make money at your hobby well it's no longer a hobby it becomes a job it's fun that way well jack i think rick's on over here he's wanting to get in on some stuff we're going to talk with rick white here in just a second um he's going to talk about some muzzleloading uh but jack it's been awesome talking with you tonight thank you very much i'm really honored to be on and uh enjoying these uh these first few maiden voyages for the uh on the hunt yes me too i'm looking looking forward to it so i'll be around for the rest of the evening if uh you know you got any questions for me or something along that line yeah just chime in anytime you want hey rick what's happening oh man just uh listening to jack talk he's always got some great stories it's fun to listen to him yeah he does hey i heard you got some snow last night up there oh boy did we ever yeah we uh in my area here we got about 12 inches uh now western part of the state had uh anywhere from 16 to 2 feet so uh yeah we got some snow [Laughter] and for our listeners uh rick is up in iowa correct yeah i'm i live in cedar rapids and i'm actually uh i'm actually heading out tomorrow uh heading out to western iowa to start uh my muzzleloader hunt uh i'm a little late getting started this season uh just with the christmas holiday and and you know i'm doing this and then uh the snow we had put me off a day but uh yeah i'm gonna go start hunting tomorrow evening and uh with this snow cover it ought to be pretty good well you know the late season sometimes to me is better early season it's too hot to hunt you know muzzleloader comes early and this year is just too hot to get out there with muzzleloader well you know it we have two seasons here now we have an early and a late season muzzleloader and i've always hunted late season it fits into my schedule better for one but but you're right you know early season can be very good but if it's hot it's tough now it's the same thing for late season if you don't have uh some snow cover and cold weather it can be it can be a tough one as well but i think everything's falling right in line i have great luck late season uh should i should have pretty good luck uh you know i'm just ready to get out and this will be my last probably my last deer hunt of the season and then i've got some predator hunting coming up yeah what what kind of equipment you using when you're muzzleloading well i you know i sh people ask me that all the time i shoot a thompson center uh a pro hunter and uh you know a lot of people ask me what load that i shoot in my gun and stuff and i shoot 120 grains of blackhorn which is equivalent to 150 grains of pyrodex i shoot a 250 grain shockwave bullet and uh that has been very successful for me over the years my gun shoots typically the same at 50 yards as it does a hundred so it makes it easier and i and i sight my gun in about an inch height 100 yards and i can shoot all day long out to 200 probably more if i wanted to but 200 yards and in is where i feel comfortable and uh you know and you can wear your loads anywhere in between there if you want to shoot a little less powder uh or a lighter bullet or a heavier bullet that's fine but you really need to know how your gun shoots at all those distances because if you go with with say a hundred grains of say pyrodex uh and you're shooting a 250 grain or 300 grain bullet your effective range is out to about 150 yards so you need to know that and if you change bullets and stuff that makes a big difference uh now are you uh using black powder when you predator hunt as well no no we'll be we'll be using we'll be using a rifle modern uh the other thing before i get into the black or before i get into the predator stuff uh the other thing that that a lot of people ask me about is is the optics that i use on my black powder guns you know there's a lot of people out there that think that putting a higher powered scope on a black powder gun is is is better but i actually uh i shoot the brester scope the one and a half by six and that is a plenty of of range at 200 yards in uh and i like it a lot better i have a a good field of view i've got low light capabilities i mean it's it's it's like a 50-yard shot that one and a half the your deer they're not covering your whole scope you can still see the deer and see what you're shooting at well absolutely plus you've got you've got some weight gathering capabilities at the lower power so you're you're going to be able to actually hunt and see well out till legal shooting time so you don't need you don't need that 12 power or 24 power on on a gun that you're shooting typically at 100 yards or less you really don't you don't you don't yeah i was looking at the new uh alpine two and a half and that's what i think i'm gonna put on my rifle this year yeah it's a great choice jack you were gonna say yeah i was gonna say i i've been a big fan um i worked with night muzzleloaders for for a long time for about 13 years before they closed up their doors and uh sold out when when tony knight was there and uh my favorite one that i've always liked like what you're talking about rick is i like a three to nine or three to nine power by 40 because it gives you a lot more it's more of a typical type scope but one of the one things you got to remember is that you need a scope that's got a durable housing on it like like we've been seeing with alpine and then the presser i've been very impressed with some of the pressure scopes i've been looking at because you got to remember like when i shoot at night my scope sits over my breach port so powder you've got to be concerned and make sure that your scope housing can handle black powder because we know after it's fired it becomes very caustic so that cause some damage to it so you got to make sure you're cleaning your scopes and taking care of them and that they're able to take a beating and keep on ticking and that's what i found in that and you know when you talk about your load and that stuff we were talking the other day about that black horn i'm going to look into it i'm basically myself i'm a triple seven guy only because i've got it i've used it and i've had good luck with it so it's been consistent for me but my rule of thumb was always real simple if you're going to shoot 100 grains of powder or 120 like you're doing because you probably got the mag are you using pellets or using loose powder they only make loose powder okay i used um like triple seven came out what they call magnum which is basically about a 65 grain pellet because everybody was looking for a little bit more powder but i like the idea of putting two powders you know two pellets in if you're going to shoot 100 to 120 grains of powder you want to shoot a 250 bullet um in that and if you want to shoot because a lot of guys like to shoot a heavier bullet 300 to 350 you've got to almost get up to where you're going to be shooting about 150 grains or 130 and up is what i generally used to kind of draw the line at so you know um that's a little bit more kick it's got a little bit more to it i really love the way that uh that 100 grains 120 grains of powder and a 250 bullet feels and it's a real consistent load yeah yep absolutely uh well do either one i mean um hunt turkey [Laughter] are you asking me if i hunt turkey yeah you know uh i think he's well ago you said you did but you know i need to come up there sometime or find out where you're going because i've never got to go turkey hunting and that's one thing that i'd really like to do sometime yeah i know i've been uh i shot my first turkey back in 1978 uh and i've uh i've shot quite a few cents uh i hunt anywhere from nine to eleven states uh every spring season and uh we'll do so this year again and i also got into competition calling years ago and i've won the the iowa state calling uh competition eleven times i have eleven state titles more than anybody in the state of iowa and then many many other states and called at the grand national level and and but nowadays i'm not calling anymore kind of retired from that but i'm judging a lot of the big contests down in nashville and and so on and so forth so yeah i've i've been turkey hunting a little bit chasing well i was hay in the field and one got up in front of me so that's the closest i've ever been to turkey hunting yeah well you know i mean it's probably one of my favorite sports i mean i you know i'll start in march uh and down in georgia in florida and then i'll kind of move throughout the united states as many states as i can fit in until uh you know the first part of june that that's my neighbor you know if it's during turkey season he won't go after the deer he says i'm after the turkey you know he said that's a lot more fun and they heard him with the shotgun and with archery yeah and listen i'm still i'm old-fashioned i guess but we're still doing a turkey hunting video every year uh well i should say that with the exception of this year because last spring we had coveted and we didn't get very many turkey hunts in but i'm still putting together a turkey hunting video through the eyes of a hunter we've got three seasons out they're great videos i know not as many people watching videos anymore but like i said i'm old-fashioned i like to be able to throw a video in and watch it over and over and that's what i do so well you know getting to turkey and that i worked with nightingale for a long time and then i was with dual game calls and harry blodgett who used to make uh a lot of game calls made a great game call he is a great game call maker manufacturer here in new york um i only hunt turkeys nowadays with a okay 1992 when i took up a bow that's when i was introduced to turkey hunting too by my my good friend gary thomas and i fell in love with it the main reason why i started turkey hunting rick was because i wanted another reason to get off my butt get out into the woods to start scouting for deer so i figured what better way than to go out there and do a little turkey hunting and then you know my passion got bit again and uh and i got very involved in it and and i love it so i've only i haven't hunted with the uh i haven't hunted with a shotgun for turkey and probably since the late 90s and uh since then it's either been a muzzleloader uh because nightmare i had my uh tk2000 when he went to tony and i made the uh the muzzleloading shotgun and uh and then it's with the boat so my last my last bunch of birds uh knock on wood somewhere if i could find some i got it all behind me um is is i've got 26 birds with a bow in the last you know over the last like 15 16 years and i get out to a few states i love going to nebraska every year for turkey hunters if you're looking to get out and take that one trip nebraska is a great state birds are all over the place uh the people are really friendly they don't like turkeys so it's easy to go up there like the old days and knock on the door hey can i turkey hunt and a lot of times the answer is yes please kill him i've uh i've i've shot a lot of turkeys in nebraska over the year and it's uh i hate to say it but it's it's it's easy turkey for the most part but and i've shot a lot of turkeys with the bow and i've shot a lot of turkeys with a muzzleloader shotgun but my muzzleloader shotguns are one of those things that uh oh they shoot pretty good but sometimes you can just close your eyes and squeeze the trigger and just hope you kill one so i remember years ago a story i was actually shoot i had two gobblers out in front of me i was actually shooting there they were probably three or four feet apart and i was shooting at the one on the right and killed the one on the left so all that you know we're all talking about this about the optics and stuff uh paul's sitting here and we got to talk about our special tonight guys we've got the bresser model lr 625 range finder and when you're out there target shooting and you're out there hunting you need to know them distances well tonight we have our the special this week and it's good from tonight till midnight sunday night uh the lr 625 rangefinder it's normally 219.90 and you go to the bresser website bresser.com or bresserusa and dot com and you can when you get there you'll find this bresser rangefinder and when you go to check out you'll if you put in on the hunt all little letters o-n-t-h-e-h-u-n-t this 219 range finder will be a hundred and ten dollars that's fifty percent off and you can't beat that deal i use one of these myself uh because i need to know the distances i ain't as good at judging that as i used to be you know rangefinders and judging distance is the number one characteristic that you need to have and the ability to to know when you're using a bow you have to know how far your target is because plus or minus two yards makes a difference between a hit a good hit or a wounding or a miss yeah the wounding is the worst so it's like that so a rangefinder i i live with my rangefinder and i use that same one this past year during turkey season and during deer season and it performed perfectly on every opportunity i even use it with a muzzle loader because sometimes when they're out there 200 my limit is 200 yards for a puzzle motor okay so i you know sometimes 250 yards because i'm a close-in guy looks looks like about 175 yards so i need a range finder just to verify myself hey rick who are we going to have with us next week uh we've got edwin schertz that's going to be on next week mr wing bones calls himself he's another iowa native and he's going to be talking uh oh he's going to talk about some of his calls he makes a great custom call and he'll probably be talking about a little bit of turkey hunting and yeah you never know what he's going to be talking about but edwin shirts will be on next week awesome uh and i i'm glad i'm doing this i'm getting to meet a lot of good people here uh and i can't wait to meet some of these in person uh you know you can come down this way be sure to look me up too will do i'll get down there here before too long i hope and uh i really appreciate the opportunity this has been fun uh being able to see rick and that stuff we talked on the phone a lot over the last year or so but um it's been a long time and of course i met rick a while ago when i was working with nightingale and uh i think um chris parrish introduced me to you um one of the ata shows and that you were around when you're with hs okay so um so it was always uh you know i look for up to those guys uh i followed yours also along in the turkey world rick i i've gotten to the point to where i couldn't travel as much so i couldn't compete nationally i just couldn't take that time but i work doing a lot of the judging i judge a lot of the state contests in pennsylvania ohio and uh new york yeah and uh and i enjoyed that you really get to listen for those little those little sounds well we're going to talk turkey hunting in the future episodes but i think lonnie wants to kind of close things down so back to yolani okay i appreciate it and i want to thank you gentlemen for being here tonight i want to thank all of our guests out there watching uh we appreciate it remember the special tonight and we'll see you next week all right take care guys take care [Music] you know good optics are a must for a hunter particularly binoculars not only during hunting season but times like this when it's time to start scouting but there's one thing you need to do when you get your binoculars that a lot of people don't realize you need to set them up for yourself everybody's eyes are a little bit different and here's how i do it it's simple and easy just take the binoculars and just kind of grab good focus on an object and i go and put my hand over the left lens the doctoring which is on the right side i will go ahead and adjust that until that right eye is in focus once it is i take the hand off the other side both eyes in focus and you're ready to go it's simple and easy and it's a must that you do this before you go out and use them [Music] you know good optics are a must for a hunter the new alpha tetons they're lighter they're better in low light excellent excellent glass you'll be hard-pressed to find that glass for under a thousand dollars everything that you would want in a pair of optics i know what i'm looking for and once i know what i'm looking for and find what it is that's what i'm interested in buying the bottom line is they're affordable they're lighter and they're great in low light the new alpine tetons [Music] another deer coming out