Why Do You Hunt? – Frans Diepstraten

In this episode, amateur hunter Frans Diepstraten joins host Bruce Hutcheon as they tackle topics on the hunting lifestyle and why people hunt. Frans, a native of the Netherlands, has started hunting at the early age of six and then continued into hunting bigger game in his adult life. Listen to the podcast as Frans shares some of his hunting experiences, his passion for the outdoors, and how he is getting into traditional archery.

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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Why Do You Hunt? – Frans Diepstraten

We’re heading up to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We’re going to meet up with a friend of mine, Frans Diepstraten. Frans is originally from the Netherlands and he came over to Canada because he wanted more opportunities for himself. He loves to hunt and chase a wild sheep, elk, moose and anything else on four feet. He headed this way with his wife and he works there in the Calgary area. More importantly, he’s a fulltime hunter. He’s a hunter 365 days a year. He’s going to talk about that extensively. What does that mean? That means he stays in shape and he keeps his gears in shape. He keeps on practicing his shooting and does all those things for that one five-second opportunity that the critters give him. You’re going to enjoy the show. I know that I do every time I talked to Frans.

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We’re heading north of the border up around Calgary. We’re going to connect with Frans Diepstraten. Frans was initially from the Netherlands. We’re going to get into how he went over to Canada and all his hunting experiences. We are going to talk about the factor of conditioning and the thing that we’re going to unpack is, why do you hunt? Frans, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on.

How did a guy from the Netherlands get into the Canadian Rockies? Let’s talk about that right away.

That can be a long story or a short story. Growing up in Europe and after many decades there, things became congested. If you live in a country like the Netherlands now, there are about 18 million people there. It doesn’t sound all that much until you realize that the whole country is only 200 miles from North to South and about 120, 130 miles East to West. You can imagine how populated that is. If you like the outdoors and a little bit of freedom, that’s hard to find sometimes. We got fed up with all that. We’re also not too keen on the whole developments around the European Union. That’s a political thing that we probably won’t touch on.

We started looking around the globe where we could go. My wife initially had vetoed Canada because she figured it would be too cold. She also vetoed anywhere that didn’t speak English. That made the globe a little smaller. As I was looking at all the immigration regulations, Canada turned out to be the easiest option. While in Canada, we looked at where can we find mountains and employment opportunity close together. We saw the Calgary and Alberta area were good. There were some other areas that came to mind like Vancouver, but that has the same congestion problems that we were leaving. We ended up applying for immigration and got accepted. The rest is history.

That’s good for you. Let’s talk a little about the hunting tradition. Why don’t you share with the readers what was it like as a young man hunting in the Netherlands?

It’s not as easy as in North America getting into it unless you have family that’s already hunting. My dad never hunted but his lifetime friend and my uncle hunted from an early age. His dad also hunted. It was lease-based hunting in much of Europe. The landowner generally has the right to hunt but he can lease that out to anybody he wants. It’s usually for a fee. My uncle, friends of his and neighbors come together a couple of times a year to do driven shoots for pheasant and hare. Mostly hare, but pheasants do. They shot some geese whenever they come into the country when it’s cold enough up North.

As a young kid, I tagged along. I was 6 or 7 years old, trying not to be too much in the way. I gawked at all the guys with side by side shotguns. It was a magical environment for a young kid. It wasn’t until I was already in my 20s that I was able to do the mandatory hunting course. That required about thirteen weeks of evenings at a remote location. If you don’t have a vehicle, you can’t get there. In my early twenties, I was able to buy a little car, do that course, and do all the practical training that was required. I take the exam and finally, I got my hunting license.

Before, it only required me to be bold enough to ask my uncle if I could come along and he said, “Yeah, sure. Why don’t you?” My first time was a duck hunt and we went out to the river. I still recall the muzzle blast that comes out of a 12-gauge at dusk. I only shoot during the day but a couple of minutes, the duck came close enough and I managed to shoot it. That was my inauguration to the hunting fraternity. Opportunity is generally not that easy to get out there. If you know people and you get invited or you have lots of money that you can get at lease for yourself, the opportunities are there. If you’re the new kid on the block and without connections, it can be challenging actually to get into hunting. With that said, there’s only so much land to go around and there’s only so much hunting you can do during the year. I wanted more out of those types of activities. That was one of the reasons why we slowly started thinking about going somewhere where there were a lot more opportunities to be outdoors and to enjoy hunting.

Is your wife a huntress? Does she go to the field with you?

Not at all. She doesn’t even go on a hike. Sometimes we go out and have little strolls but she’s not a nature person. She’s more of a city girl.

She left the homeland and came to Canada so you can follow your dream? What a woman.

She must love me. That was quite a step for her to take. It was a lot easier for me. You come into a situation where you look for a job and you have day time things and you can follow your hobbies in your spare time. For her, it was a much more of a challenge, for sure.

That’s great. Now we’re in Calgary in the Canadian Rockies. You can hunt a lot of game right out of your back door. I’ve been up in that country a few times. There’s a heck of a lot of game within 100 to 200 miles of where you are. Is that correct?

Absolutely. We can hunt 9 or 10 species, something like that. There’s no whitetail. Mule deer are available outside of town. Sometimes you have black bears coming into town. I live Northwest of Calgary in a smaller community. I drive 70 to 80 miles when sheep hunts restart. You can hunt sheep, elk and black bears are available everywhere. You don’t need to be lucky but you can hunt cougar every year. They even opened up a season for cougar. You don’t even have to chase him with hounds. There’s a mountain goat season if you’re lucky enough to draw. There’s also bison season again. It’s a once in a lifetime draw for that.

When people talk about why they hunt, they are always quick to say they do it for wildlife management and conservation. Share on X

Is that a woodland bison?

Yes. The bison stories are quite the story but we have a hybrid bison that lives up near Fort McMurray in the Woodland Buffalo National Park. Back in the ‘20s, they transport a load of prairie bison up to that park. There was a remnant population of woodland bison, so they interbred. Now, we have a mixed hybrid going on there. There are still woodland bison through the Western province as well.

Have you ever hunted bison?

I have not. Those hunts are logistically quite challenging. Even going up North to Fort MacMurray is a challenge. That country is a swampy area during most of the year, so it’s hard to get around. I mostly hunt during the winter when everything’s frozen up and you’re looking at temperatures of minus 30 and colder. You are going to be needing a couple of snowmobiles at least, wall tent with heaters and things that. It’s quite a logistical enterprise to actually hunt these things on your own, so I’ve never gone through the effort.

They’re also quite large.

When you have one down, the work starts. You’d have to be at least with 3 to 4 guys in three snowmobiles, so you have enough manpower to cut it up quickly and have it into pieces before it starts freezing. We have the redundancy in equipment too. If one machine fails, you still have your two machines to get you out and things that. I would say that’s quite a thing and I’ve never had the guts to organize that.

Let’s stay right in Canada. I know you’ve hunted whitetails. What type of hunt is that? Is that spot and stalk? Do you use tree stands?

A lot of hunting is done in tree stands or ground blinds. I have not done that much but in Europe, we had to because we had a small lease in about 400 acres maybe. There were also 3 or 4 of us hunting there so you have to be in a tree stand or you’d risk shooting each other. I vowed not to be in a tree stand anymore because we have the opportunity to run around. There are some spot and stalk opportunities if you go to the South where the country is more open. You get lots of prairies and coulee. You can spot them, see where they bed and you can try to try to stalk him. It’s probably less successful than having a tree stand on a good trail. I find it a little bit more exciting.

Let’s talk about the Canadian hunt and you do that a lot. You’re going on an elk and sheep hunt. When does that hunt begin?

Most of us think about it year-round but in fact for sheep, we’re in a lucky circumstance that we can buy an over the counter tag so you can start planning early. When it comes to time planning, the opening week is usually a good time to go out. The sheep feel unpressured with the longer summer ranges and you might find him there. These things start by picking your period. Do you want to do on opening week? Are you going to do the last week when you maybe start seeing some sheep get into the ruts and leaving some of the protected areas? That’s the first thing but it starts way earlier because you’re always fiddling with your gear and you’re always preparing physically to get ready for a sheep hunt. Sheep hunts start next year when the sheep hunt this year is over.

Thanks for that. Readers, I know a lot of you hunt the back 40 or you’ve got 120 acres. Think about, as I know a lot of you do, of being a 365 hunter because the deer and the opportunity to hunt is available to us all year long. The preparation, studying, shed hunting and all that are working your land and seeing where the rubs are. Think about becoming a 365 hunter. If you’re going to head out west, that’s a minimum of 12 to 18 months quest to get ready logistically and get your gear. Let’s talk about getting your gear ready. Do you hunt with a bow and arrow?

Yeah. I find that for the last couple of years, I predominantly hunt with a bow and arrow.

Let’s talk about how you get ready to hit the mountains. It could be for a moose, antelope, mule deer, or whitetail. Let’s talk about how you get ready for your hunt.

Over the years, I developed a system so it’s easier now than it used to be. The minimum things you’re going to be needing are a tent, sleeping bag and something to lie on. Those are the big items that fill up your backpack. You need to bring communication devices. I use an inReach these days so I can shoot you a text via satellite to your home to see if everything is okay. You also bring some basic medical stuff to get over cuts and bruises and hope that nothing worse happens than that. Look at your clothing. I used to bring a lot of spare closing that filled up the pack. I’m starting to get more minimalistic and trying to get by with what’s on my body when I leave the house.

I have one spare base layer and some extra warm stuff. That’s important when you go into the mountains. When you get into the high country, you can get snow any time of the year. You need to be prepared for that with rain gear and then some warm gear. For cooking, you can rely on making a campfire but the situation in Canada is there’s a fire ban everywhere in the mountains because it’s so dry. You can’t rely on being able to make a fire. You’re going to have some stove with propane. Most people will take some freeze-dried food. I’ve switched to dehydrated food. There’s a small company in Alaska called Heather’s Choice that makes quite flavorful and healthy food that’s dehydrated.

What’s the name of the company again?

When you hunt, you're much more participating. You look at everything that you need to see and look for traction, for a sign. Share on X

It’s called Heather’s Choice. It’s a small company that started a couple of years ago. They’re already making big strides. What I like about it is, first, they have more flavor than the average freeze-dried food and she uses only healthy ingredients. You know what’s in the food you’re eating. It helps you keep your system operating if you’re in the back-country hunting for a longer period of time.

If you’re going on a DIY backpack hunt and you’re away from a base camp, you need protein and carbs. You have to have them or your body’s going to stop. It’s amazing how much you burn in the mountains. Your thoughts on that, Frans?

I have friends who kept by on gummy bears and Sneakers bars. I don’t know how to do it. I can’t live on a diet like that, especially not in the mountains. What food do you need to bring? We can talk for three podcasts about that. There are some people out there that say that protein and good fats are important to sustain and to help you endure the mountains. It’s one of the reasons why I like the food that I mentioned. They put lots of protein and good fats in their small package that helps keep you going. There are carbs in there too but not in the form of refined sugar, so it’s good food. Without that and after a few days, you start feeling so rotten from eating all this crummy fruit and candy. You can’t keep hunting with the same intensity. Food is important.

I would stay away from my sugars. I drink a lot of tea when I’m in the mountains and so I have a lot of honey. That’s a good source right there but stay away from the Sneakers bars and gummy bears. I love M&M’s and I do have it on my trail mix but you’ve got to stay away from that. This world and environment are completely different. You can be back in your truck, cabin or farmhouse inside in 20 or 30 minutes. In the mountains, you might be 3, 4, 5 hours from your truck.

You have to live on what you bring. You can’t rely on making a quick dash back to back to safety or back to the grocery store.

If ptarmigan is in season, you have an opportunity to get some ptarmigan. If you hit some high altitude lakes and if the ice hasn’t hit them, there’s an opportunity to get trout. That is something that you get a bank on for your daily supplement. The only thing I would say and then we’ll move on away from the food is to have a daily plan. You’re going to be in the mountains for ten days. You’re your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks every single day. There are some good companies out there that do this online and it will help you calculate the protein, carbs and calories for each day. Forget about 2,000 calories. You’re going to be up around 5,000 calories to keep your engine going. Frans, let’s talk about that and move on.

The 5,000 calories are a lot to eat and digest. You may not be able to eat that much but you’ve got to strive to eat a lot more and a lot better than you do when you’re sitting on the couch.

Let’s say I’m going to hit the mountains and I don’t know what type of shape I’m in. Let’s talk about conditioning and how you’re in shape 365 days a year. Are you working out?

That’s true. I used to be a gym rat. When I came out of high school, I weighed about 115 pounds at age eighteen. I did hit the gym. I managed to put on some weights, but I’m still scrawny. For most people, it’s a big challenge if you have to transition from sitting at your desk for eight hours and then watching TV at night to going hiking up and down the mountain for eight hours and sitting on a rock. It’s not only for one day but you got to do it for 5, 8, or 10 days in a row. That’s quite a challenge. Generally, I find that when you’re running in the mountains, the mountain hunter has to build from the legs up. The legs are what keeps you going. If you hit the gym, you don’t focus on getting big biceps because that doesn’t help you get up the mountain. I try to be active 365 days a year.

There are a number of things I tried to work on. You look at a marathon runner and you’d think he’d be in decent shape and he’d be okay for mountain hunting but you’ve seen a few examples where it’s proven that’s not the case. Put a marathon runner with 50 pounds on his back and put him on the in a field and he has to work up that. He’ll probably do okay for a while but I don’t think he’ll be up to with the challenge of doing it for days and days on end. I’ll give you one example. I don’t know how it translates to humans but a couple of years ago I read up on training horses for endurance racing. What they said was it takes about three weeks to get a horse’s muscles up and going.

It takes three months to get their lungs to where it needs to be. It takes years to get the tendons and joints trained up to the level where they can do an endurance race of 25 or 50 more miles of running. That may be a bit extreme for your average mountain hunter, but it’s to show that you need to start as early as you can to get ready for this hunt. When I say early, I don’t mean 2 or 3 months. You can probably pull off a hunt but you’re not going to enjoy it. You’re going to be suffering. Having spent so much time at the gym I’m shying away from that. I try to hit the mountains and the slopes as often as I can.

Try to find uneven terrain. Get your ankles, hips and everything used through wobbly terrain and sudden movements to correct your balance and things that. Gradually increase the weight on your back and make sure you don’t hurt yourself. Start with ten pounds. It’s important to go up and down anywhere you can find. It’s easy for me because we have a hill behind the house and mountains within 45 minutes. If you’re living in the flats, that’s going to be more of a challenge. You’ve got to be creative and find stairs somewhere. You can go down from your basement, up to your second floor and back. Do that for an hour or so. Climb with a weight on your back and gradually increase it without hurting yourself.

There’s also the elevation to take into consideration. I live at 4,000 feet, hunted and climbed up to 11,000 feet. It didn’t bother me much but for people coming from sea level you might get sick quicker. One way of increasing your ability to deal with less oxygen in the air is by interval training. Interval training means sprints. Do uphill sprints if you can. You run upstairs for shorter periods of time like 10 to 30 seconds and you’re walked back down. Do that five times in a row and give it five minutes and try and do it again five times in a row. Those types of training increase your body’s ability to transport oxygen. That’ll help you when you have to hunt that at elevation.

The last advice is to try and do something every day of the year because your hunt is going to be ten days maybe and you’ve got to perform for ten days. A friend of mine has a quote and he says, “If you can hunt this hard on the last day as you did on day one of the hunt, you’re doing okay.” That’s true. To do that, you’ll have to work on it. As an example, for my last seven days on Wednesday, we climbed about almost 5,000 feet to a 10,000-foot-high mountain. The next day we did a two-hour hike with weights. On Friday, I took off. Saturday and Sunday, we went scouting, so I had a backpack on for two days. Monday morning, we did a lightweight run up a mountain at about 2,200 feet. Tuesday evening, I did the same again but with 25 pounds on my back. That’s the training regime that gives me confidence. Hopefully, when it comes to going time, I’m ready and I can do it for 5, 8 or 10 days in a row without slowing down.

How much elevation did you gain over that week?

It was probably around 15,000 feet.

Trophy hunting is something that's misused by people who don't understand or who maybe have an agenda against hunting. Share on X

Think about that, folks. It’s three miles of elevation to climb. Living out in Colorado as I do, I know if I haven’t paid attention to my cardio and the strength of my legs, going 1,000 feet would kick my butt. That’s how much the elevation change can suck you out plus the air. You’re going, “Where’s the air?” It’s like what Frans is saying. Frans, let’s wrap up the show and spend a few minutes talking about something that you had on Crooked-Arrow.com. Let’s talk about the blog and tell people why you started it.

I got this idea to make hunting life even more difficult. I only start doing hunting with a longbow. I put a longbow together a couple of years ago and I shot it. The first time I fired an arrow out of it, I was hooked. You could see the arrow jump off the shelf and make the arc to the target. That was such an experience that I thought that I need to do more of this. I bought a custom longbow. I figured that since I was new to all this that I thought I would share some experiences from the perspectives of a new guy in the traditional archery world. Hopefully, you’ll have some interesting stories and some lessons learned so other people that will try to get into it can get a take away from that. Besides that, I like writing and sharing my thoughts. That’s why we started it.

That’s good. What’s your URL again?

It’s Crooked-Arrow.com

Why do you hunt? That came right out of his blog at Crooked-Arrow.com and I liked what he said. We’re going to wrap the show up with his thoughts on why do you hunt.

I always find it a bit of a tough question to answer because it’s usually such a loaded question. I read a book that I can recommend, it’s called Hunter’s Heart by David Petersen. It has about 40 essays on hunting. There are lots of people in there who are trying to explain why they hunt and why they don’t hunt. It has a lot of challenging thoughts on other reasons that you throw out there when you talk about why you hunt. We’re always quick to say, “We do it for wildlife management and conservation.” I don’t think there’s too many of us that wake up in the morning, grab their rifle, and walk out in the woods and say, “I’m going to contribute to conservation today.”

That’s not why you’re out there. For me, it started out with food. You’ll see my dad butcher a hare in his shed so that planted the seed. I spend days as a beater on those driven shoots for the off chance that maybe there was a hare or a pheasant leftover when everybody would have their share and I can take that home. I’ve never been good at passing up legal animals. When we were in Europe, we filled our quota by shooting at the first deer that came around because we like to have the meat. There’s more to it. When you go out into the mountains for a hike, you find that you’re a bystander. You go in and you go out.

You enjoyed the views and that was it, but when you hunt, you’re participating. You look at everything that you need to see. You look for tracks, signs, and you play the wind. I find that’s a big thing too. When you’re out there, all the decisions that you make are yours 100%. During your workday with family and friends, you always have to take things into consideration how might other people feel? How might this affect that? When you’re out hunting, especially when you’re out hunting on your own, you live by your decisions 100%. I find that liberating to experience. It’s always a good time on the mountain. Those are my drivers.

When you talked about why you hunt, you talked about the questions that people ask you. Can’t you buy meat at the store or are you one of those trophy hunters?

That’s true. Especially my boss who doesn’t hunt, he’s probably anti-hunting. He has this tendency to throw these bombs out there. Can’t you buy meat at a store? You can. I’m not sure how that changes things because whatever you buy at the store has it been bred for that purpose and has been killed by somebody else. The animals that we hunt generally had a better life. Even their deaths are a lot more pleasant. They didn’t get dragged around a big semi to the meat processing plant where they have to stand there and wait for their shot through the head. I don’t think why buying meat at the store is any different than collecting it myself. When it comes to trophy hunting, that’s such a loaded word and I hate it.

I hunt, I shoot an animal and sometimes it has antlers on his head. I always take him home and I usually clean him. When it’s a special occasion or a special event, I take it to the taxidermist and have a mount made. I bring it to my home, I see it every day and I enjoy it. It’s a way of bringing the mountains into your house. At the same time, your freezer is full of meat and that gives you a happy feeling too. When you open it up and see all those packages and you can grab some steak or burger, it makes me feel good inside. Is that trophy hunting? I don’t know. It’s just hunting for me. Trophy hunting is something that’s misused by people who don’t understand or who maybe have an agenda against hunting.

Thanks for sharing that. With that, why don’t you take a minute or two and get some shout outs to your partner, Kyle Steed or whoever else you want?

Kyle Steed, the poor guy, I sucked him into joining in this experience of going hunting with the longbow. He’s in an unhappy circumstance because he’s still waiting for his to arrive. We purchased our bows at the Stalker Stick Bows. South Cox, the owner there had to have to move in and wait for his new permit. Kyle is unfortunately still list awaiting. I like Heather’s Choice Food. That’s something I can recommend. It’s a taste that maybe some people might not enjoy because it’s fairly spicy and tasty. Try some to see if you like it. It’s healthy. That’s why I enjoy it. That’s about it for companies. I’m not a pro staff or sponsored. I’m only a guy going out hunting and enjoying being in the mountains.

Frans, on behalf of 160,000 audience members across North America, thanks for sharing life in the Rockies and being a hunter. As you said and a few others have said, “I’m nothing special. I’m just hunting.” That makes you special in my eyes because hunting is a tradition. I appreciate you being a guest on Whitetail Rendezvous.

It was a pleasure. Thank you.

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Coming up on the next episode of Whitetail rendezvous is Tim Kjellesvik. Tim is the host of the Thinking Woodman Podcast. The show is dedicated to helping us all think. Think about hunting, strategies, industry, and how we can get kids in the outdoors. He’s got a great podcast going on. The thing that he’s going to share is the outdoor industry is full of people waiting for the next best thing. Do you know how did set yourself apart and be successful? He’s going to talk about what makes you salable, marketable and promotable in the outdoor industry. Tim’s got a wealth of information and I can’t wait to share his story with you.

Thanks for reading. Before we go, can I take a moment and say thank you? When we started the Whitetail Rendezvous podcast journey, we had no idea what to expect. After years, we received a ton of feedback from over 400,000 listeners and climbing 500,000. Speaking of which, we are now closing in on over 600 featured guests. Thank you. A quick shout out to all those who have left an iTunes review and your feedback, I get those and appreciate it. It’s awesome to see what you have to say. We do read every single one of them. I want you to know that I am incredibly grateful for your kind words regarding the show.

All the ratings and reviews help us attract more audiences. If you’re one of those new audiences, welcome, it’s great to have you. By the way, if you haven’t taken the time to rate and review our show and like the Hunting on Private Land Strategy on how to get permission to hunt private property go to WhitetailRendezvous.com as a special gift for rating and reviewing our show. When you get there, look for the start button to get the details. I’ll share with you the top techniques from some of the top hunters in the country on how they get permission to hunt on private land. I’ll share with you the exact techniques they use to get permission as my way of saying thanks for rating and reviewing this show on iTunes. Join us next time. Remember, we’re all on this journey together, learning, sharing, and becoming 365 hunters.

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Why Do You Hunt? – Frans Diepstraten

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:

Why Do You Hunt? – Frans Diepstraten

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