1 Week Post Op & Special Delivery... (VLOG)

Welcome to the vlog. Post-surgery, one week out. ACL reconstruction, I'm still pretty swollen. I'm meeting with the surgeon tonight, Dr. Cody, and I don't know what that meeting entails, but maybe he goes over the procedure. I did watch the video, and it was pretty cool to have him narrate what he was doing, and he did shave up the meniscus a little bit, and then my ACL had been torn for 15 years completely, so he trimmed down the nubs of the anterior cruciate ligament, and then he picked out a big old fat ACL, threw it in there, watched him drill into my bones. It was cool. So how do I feel? Honestly, people have asked, how do you feel? Honestly, every day a little bit better. I'm taking all the supplements and eating pretty clean, and the peptide protocol, which a lot of questions on Instagram, I posted showing people me injecting, or actually my wife injecting me with it, but it's a peptide. You should do some research, see if it's for you, but it's just like a body protective compound, and I'm doing the stack, like the Wolverine stack, so it's got the TB500 in it as well. I can't remember. I know the BPC, the dosage is like 375 micrograms a day, subcutaneous. We're not poking it at the knee yet just because it's too swollen, so we're just doing it at my belly. So my wife's doing it for me. She said she's gonna do it for another week, and then I'm on my own, and I don't really like injecting. I've never done needles, so I guess I shouldn't say I don't like it, but hopefully that stuff works, and hopefully I'm meeting with the PT soon, Matt over there at U District. We are gonna document that journey and publish those videos on the Elk Shape podcast and training channel, and if you're interested in watching that journey, cool. If you're not, I understand. So let's walk around, give you guys an update in the studio, because it kind of reminds me of the content we're making, so we can kind of tease what you're about to see in the coming weeks. It's been in the 20s here in the Green Acres and in Post Falls, so typically I'll go out and start all my machines up. I don't have them on tender, so a couple four-wheelers, a couple dirt bikes. This bad boy wouldn't start. It wanted to start, so I just brought it in here. I'm gonna leave it in here, plus I'm gonna do a couple upgrades. We're gonna throw a new chain on, a couple of different sprockets. As you can see right here, front and rear, new chain, just super basic maintenance on this two-stroke. It's a Beta 300. Honestly, I bought it from a girl. It was a chick's bike, and it's really, really good in the woods, tight, technical, single track. I don't ride dirt bikes for fun. Dirt bike riding's not... Dirt bike riding for me was born out of a necessity to get to the elk in North Idaho in that single track dirt bike trail stuff, but now that we hunt other places in Idaho where dirt bikes really aren't allowed, it hasn't been used very much, but I use it for spring bear, Lord willing. Looking over here, we got... We built this for my son. My son is into shooting sports, but not archery, so I ordered him a 22 long range. It's a long gun, and then I ordered this off Amazon and built this with Riley real quick, and so we wanna get this set up where he can shoot here at the property. We're in a zone where you can shoot. If you went across the street, you can't shoot, so we're pretty fortunate here that we can shoot, and it's 22, so we'll probably take him to the range, get that gun doped in. It's got a suppressor. I mean, it's awesome. I gotta pick it up. They shipped it. You know the whole FFL, go to a... Do all that jazz, but sent it to Idaho, so it should be pretty straightforward. What's up, dude? Check this out. Look at this. I just put that sticker on it, and when you hit it, it makes a mark on there that you can see. We just... Riley and I put... I did it. Do you like it? Okay, I'm going back to work. I love you, buddy. Bye. Built this. We'll take him to the range, get it doped, and then just get my son shooting something and learning safety of guns, and speaking of safety of guns, I'm guilty of just keeping it really real. For years, I've had a handgun in my nightdresser. Somebody breaks in your house in the middle of the night, you're like, you shouldn't have done that, and I don't like that my son and my daughter, both eight and 10, and I don't like that gun not being locked away, but I also want it to be accessible, so there's this company actually here in Spokane called Stopbox USA. You guys have probably heard of them, and they make these cool gadgets that you can almost fingerprint touch, and it opens up. I'm not sure. We're going there on Monday, and we're going to bring cameras and just learn more about it, and I'm going to buy a couple for some of my handguns that I have, especially for at the house and just for safety, but maybe we'll bring this on this channel. I don't know. I do like shooting long-range guns, honestly. Not hunting, but just target, so we'll probably do some more shooting content. Comment below if you're here for it. Comment below if you're like, no, I'm an archery purist. I respect either answer. Over here, oh yeah, dude, so I ordered some 5.0s, some 300s. This is a sneak peek. I don't want to talk too much about it, but we got a video coming out in a couple weeks, but we're trying to decide what arrow setup we're going to use for Elk in 2025. We'll have that decision made, and that video published sometime in February. Be on the lookout for that, and that's a thorough video. I think you'll dig it, so been doing some arrow tinkering and building. What else we got over here? So this will be more like, this is from obviously Latitude Outdoors. You guys see the sticker on there? And Latitude is a partner of mine in 2025. If you don't know about Latitude, I want you guys to check them out. Over on the Elk Shaped Gear channel, I made a full video of their setup, but as you guys hunt, bow hunts, whitetail, or big game out west, I am convinced that saddle hunting has a lot of utility out hunting out west, specifically for like DIY bear hunting, like spring bear hunting over bait. Instead of hanging up stands, permanent stands way back there, we're going to use the Latitude system for saddle hunting for bears, which means I can change trees depending on the prevailing wind that day, or if you get there early enough and the thermals are right, and then they switch, you can get down real quick because bears can smell better than a hound dog, better than a whitetail. Bears can smell, bear's world is smell, so I had to order, I don't want to sell film if I don't have to, so the guy behind the camera didn't have a saddle system, and I'm like, well dude, if you're hunting with me, you need to be in a tree as well, you'll need to have a saddle. And then Tyler from the Elk Shaped Gear channel doesn't have anything saddle, really wants to get into it, so I talked to the team at Latitude and I sent in an order, and I think that's this. Let's take the time to do a quick sneak peek and see what we got. Oh yeah, I did order knee pads because I didn't have any, and these are in Bottomlands. Who doesn't like Bottomlands? So real quick, these are mine. These are Tyler's. All right, so we have the Maverick Ultra Light Saddle, and you are skinny mister, so this is going here for you. Tyler, I just lost my crutch, Riley. That's for you. And comment below if you've saddle hunted, man, like I've had a tethered system, and it was good, but I thought the Latitude system when I tried it was a little bit of an upgrade, and I really like the boys at Latitude, like we hit it off. They also have a YouTube channel, you should check out their Grit series. I really like it, and I want to be, I want to collab with them on their Grit series in 2025. It's all DIY Midwest whitetail hunting, something I haven't done yet that I'd really like to do. Okay, this is another saddle. So you guys have, this is the XL Method 2. We're going to give that to Tyler. This is the regular method. We're going to give that to Riley. And this is like, it's a bow hanger that you don't have to screw into your tree. Did you guys know a lot of states don't allow you to screw in bow hangers into trees on public land? Did not know that. So the 10 millimeter lineman belt, you guys, I guarantee you that's what this is. So you have the choice of this guy. I ordered the bottom lands for me because that's how I roll. Did you want the bottom lands? Okay, good answer. Carbon SS climbing sticks. We always put our stickers on the fridge. So check these out. I'm from an elk hunting standpoint, which is the filter I run a lot of my decisions through. Probably too many decisions go through an elk filter, if we're being honest. I look forward to the opportunity to hunt elevated on elk in certain places. I've especially high country elk where water is like gold. There's a lot of times where I'd like to set up on a wallow or a spring and punch a clock from like 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. every day, instead of taking a nap on the side of the mountain. Especially if you don't have the elk bedded and it's a real productive watering hole. A herd bull could leave his herd to go get a little sneaky drink of water or go get wallowed up. And especially it's getting hotter and hotter every September. I like the idea of getting into elevated. And there's even a couple places in Idaho that I've hunted recently where I'm telling you, man, like there's a couple of cliffed out areas where these elk are bedding and it's really tough to get in on them. But these trails are so pinched and steep to the cliffs. There's trees, I could get elevated and just be patient and wait for them to come out to feed in the evening with predictable wind. Shoot one from a saddle. And these systems weigh nothing so that that's what we're gonna be doing. I'll help you, Riley, get all this set up. And then we'll give the same thing that Tyler has. Put it over there. It's gonna be like Christmas for Tyler. And I ordered apparel to rep. Yay. That'll pop. And we really believe that saddle hunting will elevate our ability to hunt elk predominantly as well as obviously whitetail, which I've hunted whitetail a lot longer than I've ever hunted elk. And I've hunted elk for 25 years, I'm old. Also for spring bear, which we have a video coming out soon announcing how you can get yourself in or to hunt with me this year. And Iron Will Bill from Iron Will Outfitters in Saskatchewan hunting large mega giant black bear. Next week we have episode number three. That one hurts me to show, but gotta keep it real. And then Thursday we'll drop the last one, which will be in Montana, solo hunt. Separations in the preparation. Shoot your freaking bow. Break a sweat every day in the name of better elk hunting. We'll catch you on the next one.