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Brian Martin, Extreme Adventure Hunting

Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of White-Tail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon and we’re going to head North of the border to a good friend of mine, Brian Martin, Extreme Adventure Hunting. Brian Martin has been a guide and outfitter for a long time in Canada as well as he’s the owner of Asian Mountain Outfitters. Brian travels throughout the world bringing exceptional trophies to exceptional hunters. So, Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian: Thank you, Bruce. It’s nice to be here.

Bruce: So let’s just jump right into where your hunting tradition came from. Did it come from a family member, your dad, or an uncle? Why is Brian Martin one of the top, when I think, hunters in the world today?

Brian: Probably because when I was a young boy we lived out in the country. We had a farm, the nearest neighbor was two to three miles away and the highlight of my dad’s year on the farm and ranch was when his old friends come and go hunting for a week, mule deer hunting on the ranch. And so since I was a little kid I would go along, since I was one or two years old where I could walk I would go with them on the hunts. And so [inaudible 00:01:20] so I had to sit in the truck, other times I was able to go along. We’ve got some big canyons out there but I always remember that was good times. My dad, one of his hunters who came out with him was one of his college professors when he took [inaudible 00:01:33] wildlife at Oregon State University. He would come out and then my uncle would always come out and then one of his good friends that owned a sporting goods store would come out. And there’d be about four or five people plus my immediate family, my mom and dad and then sometimes my dad’s brother-in-law would hunt with us.

But normally it was just about five of us. And as I got older I would always [inaudible 00:01:57] and walk and [inaudible 00:01:57] bush. But I started doing a lot of hunting [inaudible 00:02:01] by international hunting through my dad’s old hunting magazines. He had a huge collection of Outdoor Life and [inaudible 00:02:08] but mainly Outdoor Life Magazines. That’s back when Jack O’Connor and [inaudible 00:02:14] and Klineburger and these guys are writing about hunting in Asia and hunting Africa and hunting through the seasons and brown bear. And so I would read every magazine he had and he had literally, I would say 150 to 200 of them, maybe more. Probably like 15 to 20 year’s worth of magazines he kept and so I always would read those. And then he had also books on hunting in Africa. We used to read stuff by Peter Capstick, we read stuff by John Hunter, and so I would read all that and it was just interesting to me and I always wanted to be a good hunter. And even when I was young I would try and get good products. I remember I was one of the first person that we glassed with binoculars and back then most people on the farms and ranches would just shoot deer and look at them with their rifle scopes.

But my dream was always to go to Alaska, the Yukon, Africa

I remember I saved up a bunch of money when I was between my grade eight and grade nine year, so I was like 14. Saved up a bunch of money to buy like a $250 pair of Redfield Binoculars. And I was the only guy other than my dad that was really using binoculars for hunting. Everybody just used rifle scopes. And I ended up getting spotting scopes and tripods and we tried to spot deer in their beds but we ended up doing, most of the hunting was spot-and-stalk and jump-shoot hunting. In the middle of the day the animals would lay in the big patches of sage brush on the side of the canyons overlooking the John Day River [inaudible 00:03:32], so it’s very big, steep country. Now there’s big-horn sheep in it so that’s kind of how I grew up is doing that. But my dream was always to go to Alaska, the Yukon, Africa. But that was still a good start. It was real hard hunting, we had to walk most of the day and at the end of the day you’re really tired.

And we also did a lot of chucker hunting and some quail and goose hunting and then coyote hunting. And then when I got older the elk started moving to the areas so we had some playing there also. So that was kind of my start. So my dad was always an avid hunter, he came to Canada once hunting moose and he would go every year for about two weeks elk hunting with his friends. And so he would probably hunt [inaudible 00:04:10] deer which is part of this [inaudible 00:04:13] rancher, farmer-type person.

Bruce: Let’s talk about right now white-tails and some of your experiences with the white-tail deer and we’ll get into the global adventures. Because I want our listeners to understand really what it takes to be a mountain hunter and I know you wrote that in your blog on Asian Mountain Outfitters but so many times today people don’t think of being a hunting athlete and there’s a lot of people that are really promoting that and Cameron Hanes is at the forefront of promoting extreme hunting, I guess, as an athlete. So let’s just pick up right now and talk about white-tail deer and your experiences with them and then share with the listeners about some of the trips you have up. I know you’re going to Kansas this year. So have at it and let’s talk about some white-tails.

I’ve hunted them a few times. I’ve hunted them in Montana, hunted them in British Colombia a little bit, hunted them in Alberta, and then hunted them in Washington.

Brian: Yeah. I mean white-tails, I’m not [inaudible 00:05:14] call a highly-experienced white-tail hunter. I’ve hunted them a few times. I’ve hunted them in Montana, hunted them in British Colombia a little bit, hunted them in Alberta, and then hunted them in Washington. Most of my white-tail experience I started hunting when I was back in college at Oregon State University, we would get time off for Christmas vacation starting around the 10th, I believe, 12th, 15th of December and I would go with one of my good friends Frank Sanders who now lives in Alaska. And we would go up to, I think it used to be called Little [inaudible 00:05:47] Wildlife Management Area up out of Cohiva, Washington north of [inaudible 00:05:53] about two hours and there’s some big white-tails up there and it was a late-season bow hunt and we would put up tree stands.

But the way I learned to do it and Frank [inaudible 00:06:04] black-tails in California, Northern California which are very similar to white-tails so I learned a lot from him. And the deer would, they had the feeding area and a bedding area of course but this area doesn’t have food plots, it doesn’t have [inaudible 00:06:20] hunting or anything so we were just trying to ambush the deer as they [inaudible 00:06:23] back and forth between their native food area and their bedding areas. And there was some farmers had some hay fields and some crop fields but they weren’t planted specifically for white-tail so by that time of the year the white-tail had pretty well…They would use it some. And you might see when you’re driving up the road at night you’d see some run back and forth. So we would just find where the highest concentration of white-tail does and bucks were crossing. The does were still being followed by the bucks and I never…

normally you think of white-tail hunting and if they’re in the rut in November

Because normally you think of white-tail hunting and if they’re in the rut in November…But for sure they were still chasing does in mid-December. And I also remember shooting [inaudible 00:07:02] finding white-tail shed. But they had just dropped them and we were hiking and looking for…So what I would do is I would walk 90 degrees to the tracks instead of walking down the trails the deer would walk in I would go in off the road and maybe 300, 400, 500 yards so I’d circle around through some heavy brush where the deer weren’t traveling and then I would hike until I found what I thought was the highest concentration of fresh deer sign moving back and forth with some big buck tracks in it and I would set up. I would take not a climbing tree stand but the strap-on steps for my tree stand and I think I had six of them and I would put the tree stand about 18 to 20 feet up. It’s a little worn and [inaudible 00:07:44] tree stand that I used to throw in my day-pack and I wore it as a backpack. So I take a little hand-saw with me and as I climb up the tree if I had to cut any branches I keep carrying them with me.