Technology is continually advancing and there are massive apps for hunting made available in the app stores today. One worth trying is the Hunt’n Buddy app. The man behind this genius is Joe Rogan. Today, he breaks down the key features of this app. With a passion for helping an everyday hunter to get from point A to point B, to log data, and to do the mapping in just a tap, Joe shares how one can draw people to go outdoors and try hunting for the experience of it. On the side, learn more about his hunting tradition and gears.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Deer Hunting – Hunt’n Buddy App – Joe Rogan
I’ve got Joe Rogan. He’s from Long Island and he’s created an app called Hunt’n Buddy. Joe, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
What is this all about? We got together and talked on social media and I said, “We should put a show together.” Let’s talk about the beginning of Hunt’n Buddy. Why does it exist?
After years of hunting and wanting to start incorporating new hunters into the field, we wanted to get something going, help experienced hunters and novice hunters that are brand new to the whole aspect. I came up with a few ideas and put it on paper and checked out other apps in the market. I tried to come up with something that was simple but had any feature that would be necessary for an everyday hunter to use to get from point A to point B, to log data, and to do the mapping. It gives an extra set of eyes in the field where sometimes that’s needed when there’s a lack of communication between other hunters. I felt it was a necessary tool that wasn’t on the market for hunters. We all have our phones with us and that’s where I found this whole idea.
Hunt’n Buddy is a free hunting app on the App Store and Google Play. Tell us about it.
It’s 100% free. We did this on purpose as well. We’d like to keep all the features that we offer for everybody to use, everybody to test and everybody to try out. There’s no trial period. There’s no monthly subscription. The app itself is free. We do offer a yearly subscription for $29.99 and it’s for parcel data. On the free version, you’d get eight parcel selections per month. Its main feature is it does the mapping. You can post the waypoints, you can look up parcel selections and parcel data. There’s a camera setting. You can take pictures off of your trail cameras and implement them into your phone and drop them on your waypoint. That’ll be stored.
If you have a trophy buck that you take down and you want to take a picture of it and remember the exact location where it is, you can take that as well and log it into the app. One key feature with the mapping is there’s a group hunt feature. It’s where if you and I both go out into the field and we go on a property that I own and you’ve never been there before, I don’t have to go through the whole process like, “This is one stand. This is the next trail.” All I have to do is send you a friend request as long as you have the app. If you accept it and I invite you to a hunt, we’re both live on our phones on a group hunt. You’ll see every parcel selection that I’ve left, every waypoint that I’ve put down and my live location. I’ll see your live location as well.
In theory, I’m sharing all my data with you who could have walked off and never been on the property before and have full access to everything. To speak on that, there is a feature within that you can hide a waypoint or hide anything that you don’t want another hunter to see because we all know that everybody has their little secret honey holes that maybe you just want to keep to yourself. I don’t want to see complaints and some questions from subscribers, so we added that feature and that seems to be well-liked by most users. There’s also a weather feature which gives detailed weather forecast, barometric pressure, and a seven-day forecast. There’s a solar-lunar feature, which some people swear by and some people think it’s a hoax, but I personally use it and I like it. It goes by the moon and the tides. There’s a peak activity time, which I found myself and does work.
Given different scenarios during the rut and stuff, I know things get thrown off, but there is some truth to that. There are many books out on it and we felt that it was necessary to be put in. There is an alarm and reminder feature, which is basic with any phone. You can set up an alarm and we wanted to put this into the app to gear it that if you have something specific for your big day, it will come up on the hunting app. It’s not separate in your calendar with other business or other personal reminders so we wanted to put a separate one within the app. One of our flagship features is the SNS, Safety Notification System, with patent-pending technology on it that you can select any contact in your phone book and you could select multiple contacts if you want. You enable the SNS location and it will automatically send out a text message to the selections of your latitude and longitude, where you’re hunting and then a Google Map that pops open to your specific location.
You don't know the feeling until you experience it. Share on XOnce this is enabled in your phone, you don’t have to be continuingly using the app. You can throw the app in your bag or your pocket and keep hunting. As long as it’s enabled, every hour it will automatically resend a text message like, “Joe has moved to this property. Joe is at this property. Bruce is at this property,” until you disable it. That has multi aspects of use. These were obviously for safety. I’ve hunted alone a lot of times. I know other people that hunt alone. I have some family that has medical issues that hunt alone. I have my own medical issues so that was something that is very personal to me. If anyone or my family gets into an issue and doesn’t come back when they’re supposed to, using this app, we know where to find them.
What about land ownership like onXmaps?
It’s the same data. We pull from 97.5% of the United States parcel data, ownership name, the acreage that they own and all that stuff. That’s where the subscription comes in. It is free up to eight parcel selections per month. Every month it recycles and then you have eight more. Every other feature that I just spoke about is all free. The only paid subscription that would be is if you wanted more than eight parcels selections per month, then you would buy the paid version. That would give you unlimited parcels for all 50 states. That’s another big thing that we offer even on the free version. We offer all 50 states parcel selections. Some other companies limit it to per state and we’ve decided that we wanted to share the wealth with everyone and that’s where we came up with that feature.
Have you integrated this with game management units throughout the country?
We’re in the process of that. I was previously in law enforcement and we have some connections with them that we’re working on now.
That would be huge. I know onXmaps and a number of companies do that. It’s so helpful because I’m hunting in the state I don’t know. I’m in Wyoming. I’m in unit 67. I get an antelope tag and there’s no fence. Is that private land or public land? Who owns that land? I don’t want to do it. To have that ability to say, “Here’s where I am. I’m right on the boundaries so it’s a no go or whatever.” Give me the backstory. You’re smart. How did you create this?
A good friend of my brother wanted to get into hunting and we took him hunting. He’s a super smart kid. He’s around 25 or 26. He told me, “I have some dealings with making apps.” My brain started turning. I told him the ideas I had and he said, “Write it all down and we’ll see what we can do.” Long story short, I came up with a whole idea of this and that and implemented it. I pushed it forward and started rolling with it. I used all personal experiences throughout my life to come up with the majority of these features and functions that are in the app. I don’t want to say it was easy, but it came to me quickly because I’ve had a lot of good and bad experiences throughout the years. That’s how we got to where we are.
Where did your hunting tradition come from?
The first original experience I had was in Upstate New York with my uncle Larry. My family went to visit them. They had a river cottage. Being born and raised in Long Island, going there was the equivalent to the Alaskan wilderness. That sounds silly maybe to some people, but that’s how I felt at however old I was. My uncle Larry is a lifelong hunter. His son is a hunter. He’s about ten years older than me and they showed me how to handle a firearm, a BB gun at the time. I thought it was a big firearm. That’s where I practiced with a BB gun and then went on a few squirrel and chipmunk hunts. From there, my dad started deer hunting. I started going with him and I was still underage. I wasn’t allowed to carry firearms, but just being there watching all the grownups do their thing, sitting back and learning. I’ve always watched things. That’s how I am.
The one big thing in life is patience. It is a deciding factor if you're going to get something or not. Share on XI knew that I wanted to do that. Once I was old enough to hunt, my family bought a house in the area of uncle Larry and we started our own little hunting camp. Every deer season, we would come up. Everybody worked long hours and stuff. This was our vacation for the year. With all my uncles and my cousins, we would all gear up and talk about it from the month coming up to it. We would celebrate the night before the opening day of deer season. We would have a big feast and then I would try to get the wild game from somewhere or from the previous year and make some dishes. That’s what led up to going to that. In 2011, my dad was diagnosed with cancer and that threw a wrench into everything. We all fell apart from that and he ended up passing away in 2014.
Our old hunting camp and everything, we’ve never done it again. I want us to go hunt, but at the same time, I felt bad and I also have some medical issues that limit me. This goes back to the app that is somewhat of a helping hand when you’re alone. I can make sure that a lot of things that normally you would do with a group, you can do on your own. I want this to spiral into a platform for new hunters to use it as a social method of hunting together. There are group features and that’ll bring more hunters together. It is hard and everyone has their own groups, and this is a way to reach out to other people to get them involved and engaged in hunting in a different way than what we grew up with. That’s the meat and potatoes of it.
Tell me about your first deer.
I was nineteen. It was me, my dad, my uncle Paul and my uncle, Larry. We were at our friend’s property. My uncles and my dad always joked with me. I had a ground blind. We were hunting off of a gravel pit and people would dump in there. I found a little love seat and I dragged it in the woods with my four-wheeler. I put the ground blind over it and set up a shooting rest on it. I had a little heater and everyone was making fun of me. They were all sitting on hot cushion seats in the third and I was sitting in a recliner with a ground blind around me. It was the second day of the opening day and we hunted in New York. I had most for 70 pounds ahead. I still use it. I pushed no scope on it. It was 8:30 in the morning and I saw a buck come out. It was about 75 yards downrange from me and I was watching him. I got on the roadside and I had my gun up.
I don’t even know how I possibly hit him because I was shaking so much, and it sounds like there was an earthquake in the ground blind. The whole thing was rattling. I wound up. I got steady and took a shot. He dropped right where I hit him. My dad and uncle Paul were 500 yards away from me or more. I looked up and they were there. They were so excited because they knew I shot. Uncle Larry was there and he showed me how to field dress. It was a bonding experience that I have never gotten any other place throughout my life. That sticks in your blood. It’s not about getting or harvesting the animal at all either. It’s just about the whole experience. Everyone teaches different things. We dragged it out together and we celebrated afterward. You don’t know the feeling until you experience it. It’s almost indescribable to me.
How would you describe that to a non-hunter? Not somebody that’s anti-hunting, but somebody that doesn’t understand hunting. How do you take your story to draw them into it? You could tell a great story and maybe that’s as simple as it is but in our battle for recruitment, we need to reach people that have never had that experience. How do we do that?
That’s something that evolved since I’m a little older now. When I was younger, I used to be a little aggressive about that because I knew what I was doing was humane, right and ethical. Some people would say the word hunting and they jumped down your throat and I would get somewhat combative. I’m at the point where if you don’t want to hear it and if you’re an anti-hunter, I respect that. Don’t bring upon me that if you refuse I’m not going to do that to you. At the same time, if it’s someone that doesn’t hunt, I have a lot of families and friends that don’t hunt. They make jokes, but they respect it. I honor that more than the person screaming at you.
90% of my friends never hunt and never will hunt. If you said, “I’ll give you $1 million to go out in the woods,” they wouldn’t do it type of thing. They respect what I do and they respect how I do it. I’ve started trying to process my own meat. I cook everything and I eat everything. It’s something that you have to experience. I would encourage someone that’s not an anti-hunter, but someone that has an open mind even just to go and experience it. It’s one with nature and something that you can’t get anywhere. You either feel it or you don’t feel it. That’s what I can say to try to explain it to someone. If you have an open mind and want to learn or want to see what it’s about and where we came from, our ancestors did it as a way of life. You’re going to feel that and that’s what it means to me.
Experiencing hunting is being one with nature that you can't get anywhere. Share on XDo you still have your cabin up north?
Yes.
Why don’t you invite some people up and start doing it again?
We’ve got a buddy of mine and my brother and we were working on a couple of things that we’re trying to set up. We’re involved with the app and getting it going again. That’s still somewhat raw. We try to keep it alive. That’s what he wants us to do. We’ll work on a couple of things.
I’d like to see how this journey goes and watch you because a lot of people come on with a lot of great apps. You know what you’re doing. You create an app, get it out there and they all work. I’m not an expert. There are plenty of people out there who Google hunting apps and you’re going to find them. It’s a personal part of it that when you want to be safe, it automatically sends every hour those email addresses. There are a number of apps out there that do well and are very successful doing that. The thing is hunting is challenging physically and we’re entering it on a period. I know in Colorado that we have a lot of growers. Weed is legalized in Colorado. They’ve been using the public lands to grow for a long time and now there’s more pressure on that.
That puts more people that could care less about hunting. They’re just up there growing. To have the additional safety feature, latitude and longitude and all that, it’s a real thing. People say, “You’re crazy. It doesn’t happen.” It does happen. I was in the wilderness and we were approached. Nothing happened. Everything backed. My partner and I got out of there. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew what was happening and I said, “I’m backing up. I’m leaving. We’re out of here. We’re gone.” If you think about that, you go, “That’s different.” It’s no different living in New York as I did a long time ago. Stuff happens in New York.
You just got to have situational awareness but have a tool that with a couple of clicks, people know exactly where you are, what the situation is, and can send help. Not to mention a broken arm or some accident, but some other things that could happen. There’s a big need for these apps in the marketplace. I’ll look forward to testing yours out in the summer. When you think about you now and say, “I sure wish I knew that several years ago because I would’ve been able to harvest more deer.” I call it one big thing. What’s your one big thing?
The one big thing in life is patience. I’m still going 100 miles a minute. I have a cervical fusion and a spinal injury and that rocked my world. It made me change every single aspect of my life and quit hunting. I have five herniated discs and one collapsed disc so I’m limited to what I can do physically and sit and that whole thing. That forced me to have more patience and rethink everything. Sometimes letting that spike go by or letting that four-point go by and the big guy comes. In 2015, I had a four and a spike came out an hour before this guy. It was the opening day. It was 7:00 in the morning and the second deer I was going to take. I was like, “I’m going to wait. I’ve got to have patience. I’ve got to remember.” Many times I’ve done that and then the trail cam, the neighbor or someone down the road gets the big guy who was there, but the little guys come out first. I remember to take a breath, let him go and wait for the big guy. If it doesn’t come, it’s okay. This guy came walking out and started going away from me. I grunted, turned about 65 yards, hit him, went about 40 yards and that was it.
That’s something that when I was younger, I would be all gung-ho trying to shoot the first thing I see and that’s all I cared about. I know that there’s management. If you’re hunting and you want to get a big whitetail, sometimes patience is the deciding factor if you’re going to get it or not. I try to teach that. My brother hunts with me a lot. I try to teach that to him. He’s in his twenties and was just like me. He wants to get the first thing he sees because he’s excited and that’s the way we all feel. That’s something that I continue to tell myself. Physically, I had to relearn that and have a lot more patience with everything I do now because I can’t do things as fast. That’s something that I would think I would be a better hunter several years ago than I was now. I hold down a bit, assess and then went at it.
Thanks for sharing that because we all have little things that impact us. We have to mature into it because of the insurance of deer hunting. In some families, they’re hunting for meat and any legal game on their farm and they’re going to use it to feed their family for the next year. I have hunted whitetail for a number of years for a couple of different reasons, but I’ve let a lot pass because I finally realized it’s got to be a special deer. The deer over my shoulder is a special deer. I shot him in Iowa. I haven’t shot a deer since then. Having said that, it’s fun because you don’t get all crazy inside, which I used to and I still do when I get excited. You know what you’re looking for. I talked to a guy and he said, “If I reach for my bow, I’m going to shoot that deer. If I don’t reach for my bow, it’s a nice deer and I’m going to let it go. If I go from my bow, my mind is already made up. I’m shooting.” We all do it differently and we all learn at different levels. When we move forward on that hunting experience, the more we learn, the more we can share with other people. That comes back to recruitment and taking kids out and women out. Making sure other people have the same opportunities that we did. When you look at your gear, what are you shooting? Talk to me about your gear.
We hunted in New York and you can use a rifle now, but we always use a shotgun only in the county that I hunted. In some parts in New York, you can use a rifle. I started transitioning into muzzleloaders Remington Genesis .50 caliber or that 870 that I had since I’m eighteen years old. It’s the 870 press with scopes and everything. It works so I never upgraded or changed. That’s what I usually just go to. I do go bow hunt. I do have some issues with that whole thing with my injuries, but I like to bow hunt. It’s fun and comfortable to practice with one shot. I don’t hunt as much as I would love to, but that’s going to be here. I’ll take it. I take other people out and show people that want to learn. That’s more to me than my own animal. If I can teach someone something that I’ve learned through the years, if I can teach them in a couple of days, it means a lot more to me than going out everyday hunting or whatever.
How do people get a hold of you? How do they find you on social media or your website?
We have Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It’s all the same handle @HuntnBuddyApp. The email is [email protected]. There’s a link on the website. Anyone of those channels, you can get ahold of me or one of the team and we’ll get back to you.
Let’s recap. Hunt’n Buddy is for whom?
It’s for everyone. It’s made from beginning to expert. This is the easiest way I can describe it to my family members and the people that don’t use apps or anything. It has as much or as little technology and uses as you want it to. If you want to use every function and feature of it, you can be there for days using it. If you want to drop where your trail cameras are so you don’t forget, that’s all that you have to do with it. That’s also another reason why we left it as a free app. I want my uncle to be able to have it and have all the features without having to pay for it.
The Outfitter Plan is $29 or the Guide Plan is $19.99.
The Outfitters for the year, that one we’re going to push. The Guide we might be removing. The guide is for ads. What you press on most apps when you press no, you’re going to press yes on this. This is something you want your location to be shared with the app because it’s helping you. You want to use it only when using the app.
Do you have to have special features for your password?
No, it’d just be a standard. There’s also a feature to log in with Facebook so you don’t have to put in the codes, but it could be a standard password that goes in.
I’m excited to see where this goes. I wish you a tremendous amount of luck. I want to stay in touch and see how we can help you brand your brand and grow the business. Give one more shout out for Hunt’n Buddy.
Thanks for everyone’s support and all the feedback. I love you guys. This is what we’re here for. If you haven’t downloaded, download it now at HuntNBuddyApp.com. Thank you, Bruce. I appreciate you having me on. Take care, be well, and talk to you soon.
On behalf of the show across North America, I’m thankful for you. Our numbers are climbing. They’ve doubled. Something is happening with the show. We hit 250,000. Thank you to all of those and thank you, Joe Rogan. This is fun. I’m looking forward to seeing how this thing goes.
Important Links:
- Hunt’n Buddy
- App Store – Hunt’n Buddy app
- Google Play – Hunt’n Buddy app
- onXmaps
- Instagram – Hunt’n Buddy app
- Facebook – Hunt’n Buddy app
- @HuntnBuddyApp – Twitter
- [email protected]
- HuntNBuddyApp.com
About Hunt’n Buddy
Hunt’n Buddy was created with the hunter in mind.
Our team has spent countless hours reviewing and critiquing our own personal hunts, along with the experiences of others. This led us to the creation of the Hunt’n Buddy App, where technology and simplicity mend together for a seamless transition.
Our goal is to increase your success in the field while making the user experience a simple and easy one.
We have geared this App to be used by hunters of all levels of technological abilities, from the super tech savvy hunter, to the daily smartphone user.
The user-friendly capabilities of this app allow you to customize use to your personal skill level. Enable as many or as few of the App functions to your liking.
May all your hunts be safe and guided with Hunt’n Buddy in hand.