Spartan Forge models thermals from terrain, canopy and weather

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 40:27

   is to get people out right that's true every time your tech is actually yeah very good for people that are outside and it actually helps you and because people have less time they can scout at home or like when they really want to get out into the woods or the you know september 13th and they fly in two days it's like or i can go scout this mountain digitally find out places i want to go and look at and then mark them and then get on the app but i always tell people when we're developing the app too like there's a bandwidth between the brain the thumbs and a phone and the amount of i'm trying always trying to maximize that bandwidth so the less time that i have to interact with an app in order to get more information i've increased bandwidth right so less buttons less time just let's just get them the information they need and get them focused on

2. 41:14

   the woods because if i had my way about it they wouldn't pick the phone up once they're in the woods it goes in their chest pocket or their rig or whatever and then they're hunting um that this is the apps that i'm building like we're just about to implement an awesome thermals feature that we've been building for a long time and we can act now accurately map thermals so when you're elk hunting and you see like a you know i'm waiting for these thermals to switch because where these elk are where these elk are at um the sun is hitting the side of this mountain Thermals are rising from the bottom, and the wind is coming from the top.

3. 41:45

   So there's no way to get to these elk. So I need to wait for the thermal switch. So with this update we're going to put out first on the web, you can pick a day, time of the year. You can go historical and look up historical weather. So you can say these elk were in this area. I dropped this pin. Now I'm going to place this marker here, and I want to see how the thermals are acting in the area. This is what kills most hunters is not understanding how thermals work, especially whitetails and elk hunters.

4. 42:09

   They don't know how the thermals work or they don't understand it or they've never gone in the off season. What we're talking about with people that don't know what the fuck we're talking about, when the morning is happening, when it's cold and early in the morning, all the wind is going down the mountain. When it gets hot, then all of a sudden the ground heats up and then the wind starts going up the mountain.

5. 42:28

   So when these animals are below you as you're coming down the mountain, they're going to smell you immediately because all the smell is coming down. So you have to approach them from the bottom. And then when they're above you, if it starts getting hot out, you've got to get above them and you've got to get above them quick or they'll blow out. They'll blow out of there. And they can smell you from forever away.

6. 42:50

   I've seen animals smell me from 100 yards away. It's wild. I've seen good data on studies, and a buddy of mine, he used to take, a friend of mine, he died in 2017, but he's a prolific whitetail photo. He took photos of whitetails. He had a deer pen, and there was a mountain that was a three-quarter mile away from his property in New York. And when those does came into heat, all of the bucks would gather at the base of this fence to smell the wind coming off this mountain of these does that were three-quarter mile away.

7. 43:20

   So you think about that, like how well they can smell. And so, yeah, we're putting this thermal feature out. But the thermal feature, the reason I bring that up is because it's designed to be used at home. So you can map the thermals for an area. You can put in the temperature. You can put in the wind speed. And this engine beautifully maps exactly how the scent is going to move around on this mountainside.

8. 43:39

   Can I ask you this? Does it vary depending on the east or west slope? Because if it's the east slope, the thermals will rise quicker, right? Yes. Yes, because of the sun and the incidence of the sun. Because what we had to build into this was an extremely high-resolution topographic layer. We had to have this engine, but then we also had to put canopy cover into this. Oh, wow. So it modulates differently based on the type of canopy that it's in, whether it's elk on the side of a hill or it's in the open air, or it's elk inside of a bunch of hemlocks, or not hemlocks, but aspens or something like that.

9. 44:13

   It's going to change how those thermals work. And I've been using it just the other day. I've got these spots with whitetail. It's a little different because the bucks know where these thermals are as bucks get older and we'll get off the whitetail deer. I apologize, but you got me hyped up on hunting. No, I love whitetail deer. It's number one most hunted big game animal. Yeah, I know. I just mean hunting writ large people.

10. 44:35

    I doubt most people want to hear me talk about hunting. Who cares? I think people like hearing people talk about things that are very fascinating to them. And I think people that don't understand hunting, especially people that think it's easy, you really don't understand what it is. You really don't understand how complicated it is, particularly bow hunting. But even think rifle hunting is easy. Good fucking luck.

11. 44:57

    Good luck to you. Rifle hunting is not easy. It's not easy. There's so much territory. You have no idea how big the mountains are. When you get out there, it is insanely hard. It's all hard. Yeah, it's a little easier than archery in that you can be 300 yards away and accurately shoot. Okay, still not easy. That's like saying that boxing is slightly easier than MMA. Boxing's not easy. Shut the fuck up.

12. 45:22

    They're hard things to do, and especially to do them well and to understand all the different— Like, when I first started hunting, when Steve Rinella took me— That's that mule deer that I got right there in 2012. That's when I first started hunting. Immediately, I was like, oh, my God, this is so much more difficult. And there's so much more to learn than I ever understood. This layer upon layer, it's so complex.

13. 45:44

    Especially to be good at it. And I'm not that good at it. I mean, I'm successful at it, but it's also a lot of it because I use really good guides and people help me. And I can handle pressure. And I'm in shape. So there's those things. But I'm learning things all the time. I'd say like if I was a hunter, if it was like a jiu-jitsu belt, I'd be like a high-level purple belt, maybe a brown belt. But I'm not a black belt.

14. 46:06

    I know the difference. Like when I hunt with Cam Haynes, I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know anything. He's a six-degree black belt. He shows me things every time. I've known that guy for 12 fucking years, and every time we hunt together, he shows me something new. And I learn something new, some new approach, some new way to handle a situation. This is what's going on. They're going to do this.

15. 46:25

    This is why they're going to do this. You got to know that. You've got to get ahead of them. There's things he knows that I don't know. You only learn with time and with studying and when it becomes the primary focus of your life. For me, it takes over my life around June. Around June, it just takes over my mind. I do other things, but I'm thinking about September. Same thing. When I was driving yesterday, I was telling my family, I'm like, I'm watching the leaves change.

16. 46:51

    All I can think about is I want to be in those trees right now. There's something about – well, anyway, to finish the point on the thermals, I marked some of – using this model, I marked some of my best whitetail hunting spots in the mountains. And then I mapped the thermals and looked at the thermals. and it was it became apparent why deer were using these routes because an old wise whitetail buck knows he's getting thermals from like 320 degrees are funneling into this one spot based on the predominant wind for the area all these things that the app can tell you and it's like oh that's why he's always been in this spot because he knows the whole mountain before he ever steps a foot on it he knows he knows if there's a hot doe on that mountain he knows if there's hunters on that mountain he knows if there's anything on that mountain he can smell it and it really has opened

17. 47:33

    my eyes like i can't wait to get this feature out so people can see it but the goal to put a bow on this is to get people out and experiencing it because uh i think it's a great mechanism for like coming of age for young kids like hey you know you're 14 or 15 or whatever i'm gonna treat you like a man from today we're gonna go out and kill an animal and eat it together and get a bunch