KNEE SURGERY TIME (VLOG) ... Plus a 'lil Giveaway or Three

So you're gonna give me a nice elk cadaver for an ACL? Yeah, we're gonna take a... Come on in. Welcome to the vlog. Per your request, behind the scenes at Elk Shape, we just got back from Texas. Hopefully you guys are gonna watch those videos. That was actually Josh Jones and I have never hunted together, and I invited him to come down and hunt South Texas deer. I don't think he's done that before. It was a pretty cool experience for him. He had watched the video. I don't think anyone could get any luckier than him on his first one hour of sitting at a blind in Texas. He did a good job and he's got two taxidermy bills coming up. So these, believe it or not, I was able to put all this in my luggage. So I'll kind of explain, but like this is a buck I shot. This is the last buck I shot. He's probably four and a half and maybe he would have blown up to be something special, but I didn't think so. Really cool deer. I just cut him, skull capped him. I'll probably put him, maybe I can fit him in here. Come on. That's where he's gonna be. This guy was five and a half, broke off, not tall tine, and he was aggressive. And he was like, this, he literally rubbed a tree. Like he ran off a nice 10 point that was young, I couldn't shoot. And then he, once he ran that deer off the feeder, he went over to the tree and raked it, rubbed it, and then came back in and I shot him and I smoked him. That'll be on that video there. I just skull plated it, fit on my carry on. Maybe he'll go right here. Think we can fit him. Yeah, there you go. See if I can lift these up. So he's gonna live right here, which is cool. I'm gonna hang these in the gym. So my buddy, I was in Texas two weeks ago before this trip with Josh and these, all the deer I killed, I basically traded my cape for a Euro and kind of a cool deal. This was the first one I shot, severe quarter in a way, just kind of a similar buck. He wasn't as old, he was probably three and a half, but they didn't let, they wanted him as a Cole buck and I'm your Cole buck, I'll shoot Cole bucks all day. This seven I shot last, the seven point. So this is what cost him his life, just only being a three on that side. By this age, they want him to be like a big nine or a big 10 and with a big frame and he didn't have it. And then this guy was maybe not a Cole buck. Cody made me feel better and said he didn't like the short G2, which is why he gave me the green light to shoot it, but just a handsome 10. I'm gonna get these hung up this weekend in the gym where I keep all like my Euro whitetails. And then I have a few more whitetails in the rafters in that shop. You'll probably never see that. Over here, we got some products sent to us and I haven't tested them out yet. So we have this HHA Nitrix Pro. So this one is a dovetail, two pin, .010. So really small right-handed. This is more of my style. This is a three pin. I like four pins. From what I understand, they've gotten to the point where they can do like a third axis adjustment that's really, really friendly for shooting in. Let's just open it up. Their first rail adjustment has always been a pretty coarse adjustment. I doubt they changed that. I got parts flying everywhere. One thing I've always liked about HHA is the fact that you can kind of run dual sight tapes and then just loosen and put on a different sight tape for a different setup. Maybe you have a tack setup or a whitetail or an elk setup. You can just have an extra sight tape that slides on there and a zero stop to where like if you can, you can free spool this to adjust it. And then your indicators, you have three indicators and they're all adjustable. So you can pick, maybe you want to run 25, 35, 45. That's a pretty good way to go, something like that. That would cover you. So that's cool. When I say their coarse adjustment for the first rail, it's this guy right here. So it'll go right here and you can loosen and slide this in the plate. They also have ways to open up more light on the sight, which is nice. HHA out of Wisconsin, I've actually been to their headquarters and seen them make everything USA made, which is why I really like to support them and push guys. I think this is a pretty good way to go. This is just the first looks. I'm going to do a full review on it, which means I'm going to use it. And that's the way it should be. So I'll put all these back, but I had a three pin and a two pin. We'll mess with these. What else do we got for? I just got back. So I have some stuff to go through. I got a sight light from HHA. It's got a way to charge this up. Micro USB. So you'll plug that USB to micro. This little attachment here. This will screw in. This little attachment will go right here and then you'll screw in from the bottom. What's funny is a lot of states do not allow this. I think it's ridiculous because I don't know what the deal is, but if you're ever hunting in a dark ground blind, which we were just in Texas in the dark ground blinds, it's like, you need to be able to see your pens. And you're not like shooting past legal shooting light. You could be normal shooting light and it's just dark in there. So I wish they would change that. I know Montana now allows you to put like, there's a rule in Montana regs where it's like no electronic equipment attached to your boat, except you can now attach like recording device. So if you're like, want to use that little doodad and put your phone on there, you can film your hunts. I think that's cool. I ordered another set of XOs for the RS. I got this for the back country. This is that from Work Sharp MKC collab. So it's your field knife. You got a diamond on this side, a ceramic. Basically I just touch up my knife when I'm halfway through on an elk. So, and it's a nice way to like take a break, get some water and then touch up your knife, get rid of any burrs. I usually use a ceramic side. This sucker only weighs 2.6 ounces. I think it's like only 30 bucks too. What else did we get? I'll bring this stuff to you. So, oh, we got a box from Wilderness Athlete. And this is not what I planned on doing. Like, hey, check out all the cool stuff I have. I just haven't been home in about a month. Met with the surgeon yesterday. I'll play you a little bit of footage from that, but I met with my surgeon. Surgery's next Wednesday. And this guy's cool. My surgeon is Dr. Cody. I've known him for 15 years. He's the guy I scheduled knee surgery with 15 years ago and canceled knee surgery because I went elk hunting and told him, dude, I don't need an ACL. Everything feels good and he's awesome. He just got back from hunting in Mexico and killed almost a 200 inch mule deer. He showed me a picture of his Nevada bull last year that was like 395. He's a really good hunter. He's 66 years old, tall drink of water. And he says he can hit the back country just as hard as anyone. He's real passionate elk hunter. So he understands what's at stake for me. The biggest wake up call for me was we went over my MI results in person. I hadn't actually seen them. I just read the report. Holy crap. So two months ago, trampoline, kids, trampoline park, not even doing anything crazy, just normal jumping and my knee, I basically dislocated my entire knee and my fib and tib slammed together so hard that both of them were pure white in the MRI and they should be pure black. And he said, that's indicative of massive bone bruising. He's like, you've probably been in a lot of pain. And I'm like, yes, I have. And so he said I should be weight bearing in about a week or so after surgery. And then he said that I should be potentially using crutches for one to three weeks and then not to, pardon my language, things up for six months, like don't do anything stupid, which I'm going to obey. I'll start PT right away. I'm going to a bow hunting PT down the road at U District. That's going to be cool. So I'm just like using bow hunters as all my resources. And then I'm probably gonna be out of work for about a week just with lots of swelling and on pain meds, which I don't look forward to. All right guys, so meeting with the man, Dr. Cody, thank you for your time. Bone bruising was pretty bad. Really bad, like severe. Okay, and then like this right here, everything white is the bruise. And you said I almost broke my tibia when I'm on that trampoline. So on this scan, so when you do an MRI scan, there's T1 and T2 weighted imaging. And in this image, the bone is black, the muscle is gray, fluid is white. And a bone bruise is excessive fluid buildup in the bone from trauma to the bone. So some people get tibial plateau fractures when they dislocate their knee, kind of like you did. And you were close, but we don't see a fracture on this. So you're gonna give me a nice elk cadaver for an ACL? Yeah, we're gonna take a tendon out of an elk's knee and run it right through here, that's where the ACL goes. I think it would be cool to cut a bowl up with you. I bet it would be different than like your average guy. You know what I mean? We can cut up a bowl really, really well. So we don't have to touch the PCL, the MCL, and then you're gonna take a peek at the meniscus when I'm knocked out. We take care of whatever we find. And like I said, I make videos of all these surgeries so people have a record of exactly what we find and exactly what we do. It's kind of cool to be able to watch your own surgery. Think I'll be in crutches for a week or two? Yeah, one to three weeks is average. Okay, and then I gotta behave myself for a certain amount of time. Six months. Okay, I can do that. Scout's honor. Behave yourself for six months and then go at it. Have you ever killed a bull in Mongolia? Yes, a moral stag. Okay, and then- With James. With James, that's crazy. And you just got done hunting with a mutual friend in Mexico, same place MFJJ was. Killed just almost a 200 inch mule deer. A really beautiful mule deer. That Nevada bull, was that this year? No, that was like six years ago. Okay, damn near 400 inch bull. So bow hunting, is that your number one passion? Yeah, you know, I love bow hunting and I bow hunted starting when I was 12 years old. I've gotten to where now, you know, it's not as easy for me to draw a bow anymore. Yep. You know, it's tough on your shoulders. I've had five shoulder surgeries. Oh. You know, so I'm nervous about bow hunting too much. Yeah. And I just like chasing elk. I bow hunt in Idaho every year. Yep, so you guys, this is my doctor. I'm so thankful, all glory. And surgery's next week. We're on it. Thanks man. This is from Matrix, I think. They're out of Montana and they have this core and I haven't shot it yet, but he said it would fit in the three, six, five cube that I have, like the big three, six, five targets. He said this would fit and it's got some great faces on it. And he said, I can, it's impossible to shoot this thing out, challenge accepted. This guy's a direct to consumer guy, so I don't sell it. I'm just going to try it out. Five, it is pretty heavy, but it is durable. And also you can just throw this in the back of your truck for elk camp and shoot it in the field. So we're going to test this out, but he said it's probably the best thing he's made. And he's made really good targets. I don't have a relationship with him. I don't work with him. I just, I like, honestly, I like promoting archery companies whether I work with them or not. So we'll test that. Wilderness athlete, new flavors from Remy Warren. So we've got some shirts, but I'm really interested in seeing the supplements. All right, so we have a new Brute Force Alpha, black raspberry. So this will be like a pre-workout. It's got aminos, probably something for mental acuity, 200 milligrams of caffeine. I'm not a huge pre-workout guy to be honest, but black raspberry, I tell you what, in this vlog, comment below if you would like some pre-workout and I'm going to give one of these away. I'm going to pick a random subscriber and I will only, only ever announce winners on a video. Never email. So if you see some copycat saying you won, you got to like give me money for shipping. No, when I give something away, it costs you nothing other than your address. And I only announce winners on video. Speaking of which, I have two massive giveaways that I'm going to be doing. Right now I'm working on the particulars, but we have a bear hunt with me, Bill Vander Hayden out of Colorado, the guy who owns Iron Will. We're going to take you to Saskatchewan to hunt giant bears. And I don't have the giveaway details figured out, but it's going to be something like, when we make the video that you need to like this video, be subscribed and fill out this form. And this form will capture basically your contact information, your email address. I will not spam you and that'll be it. And then I will announce the winner on video. And we'll probably, I'm trying to work with a couple more companies so I can hook you up with maybe like a pair of boots, some Peaks equipment gear for the hunt, maybe some broadheads from Iron Will. Like I want to not only, and so you don't have to pay the outfitter or the tag. You will have to get a hunting license and you will have to cover your transportation. We will cover everything else. Like we'll get the food. We'll film your hunt. It'll be awesome. The other giveaway is TAC in Montana. And I'm going to give away a spot to shoot TAC. I said you could pick Utah or Montana, but I'm going to make you pick Montana because Bodie's going to be there. And you don't want to shoot with me, man. You want to shoot with a professional, legit, one of the best archers in the world, Bodie. So we're going to figure that out, that giveaway as well. It'll be something similar. And it's only, I'm not going to do it through Instagram. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it through YouTube. I love YouTube. I appreciate your guys' support. If you're not already subscribed, make sure you are now because that's how you, the only way you're going to be able to win this stuff. Let's go over this stuff over here. All right, so I said I would show you the supplements I take from Wilderness Athlete. Joint support, obviously. I do three capsules a day. Turmeric, glucosamine, sulfate, chondroitin. I take creatine right after, one scoop, right after I'm done working out. I work out five days a week. BCAAs with the creatine post workout. I usually replace one meal. It's usually like my first food encounter. Brute strength, one scoop. It's got protein and carbs. And then my all-time favorite is for hydrate and recover, which has got branched chain amino acids, electrolytes, is Blue Raz. Like I order probably 10 tubs of Blue Raz. And the reason why I order that many is because my son and my daughter put it in their drinks and that's fine. So my kids, I'm competing with them. I literally stole this from home because they would use it all. Oh yeah, these are live on the website. We worked with, so this is the one original one. And all we did was just took that off and put Elk Hunter on there. So that's the difference. It comes in ranger or coyote. They're on the website. We ordered X amount and get them while they're hot. I do think they'll sell out. Have you guys been over to the Elk Shape podcast and training channel? We've been really crushing over there, just getting everything. So make sure you're subbed and checking out some of those. The Public Land Hustle, I finally finished editing them. I advertised summer 2025 because I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to edit those. Well, I just exported the last video and uploaded it and scheduled it. So I think once the Texas hunts are over, we're gonna roll right into every Monday, dropping you one of four Public Land Hustle videos. We start out in Idaho and go right to New Mexico. Then we go back to Idaho. Then we go down to Utah. That video is gonna be interesting because I keep it really real and show you the good, the bad, and the ugly there. And then Montana, we finish in Montana on a solo. People were asking, well, where's Jeff? Jeff was working for me as a contract employee. And so that enables him to be freelance. He has decided to do way more freelance, which means not just be stuck working for Elk Shape. So he's doing a bunch of projects right now. He was over in Montana filming a bison ranch. I think he was doing some stuff for some local companies. And so he's not punching a clock here nine to five, but I'll tell you who is. Give me that camera. This is my nephew, Riley. What's up? He is 18, almost 19. And I'll let them know, I just basically, he's in intern mode right now. And I think we're gonna go ahead and pull the chair and get him working here. So Riley's really a stud. He's a bow hunter, he's a pilot, he's a college student, and he's super passionate about filming, photography, editing, and he obviously knows me. So he's gonna be helping out too. And then I'll still hire Jeff probably from time to time. He's just busier now. And so Public Land Hustle, be on the lookout. It's coming soon. I need you to smash the sub, like those videos when they come out. I want them to blow up. I want you to realize that the only thing this channel is trying to sell you is hard work, separations in the preparation. Catch you on the next one.