Ep. 503: A Full Season on Iowa Public Land, Self-Filming, and Knowing When to Pass w/ Joel Burham // Whitetail Fit
East Meets West HuntShow Notes
Beau Martonik sits down with Joel Burham of Whitetail Fit, who moved to Iowa, got his residency, turned down an invite to a phenomenal private farm, and hunted public ground and only public ground for the whole season to see what it would teach him.
They get into the full self-filming rig Joel runs out of a saddle, the buck he figured at 160 that he had broadside at 20 yards and lost to the camera, the two public land giants he found that will never show up in a video, and what happened when he came to full draw on a three-and-a-half-year-old and let down. Joel also lays out the only test he uses to decide whether a deer is worth his tag, which has nothing to do with a score.
Also covered: starting from zero with no hunting family, three miles deep on Kansas public on the last day of a 10-day hunt, hiring his brother as a cameraman and then telling him he'd outgrown the job, and why time is the one thing in hunting you can't shortcut.
00:00:00 — Intro
00:07:09 — Starting with no hunting family
00:12:04 — First deer off a lawn chair
00:15:22 — Where "Whitetail Fit" came from
00:19:57 — Three miles deep on Kansas public
00:22:16 — How fitness changes your access
00:38:13 — What this job really looks like
00:47:49 — The 160 at 20 yards he passed
00:58:28 — Hiring his brother, then letting go
01:11:16 — Self-filming rig for a saddle
01:16:38 — Bodies, lenses, and low light
01:29:56 — Arm height, ISO, shutter speed
01:39:10 — Iowa public land only
01:46:57 — The bucks that never made the film
01:49:56 — Pressure and older deer
01:54:43 — The 190 and a wind switch
02:01:29 — Full draw, then let down
02:10:00 — What makes you grab your bow
02:19:34 — Where to find Whitetail Fit
Joel's IG: https://www.instagram.com/whitetail_fit/
Whitetail Fit YT: https://www.youtube.com/@WhitetailFit
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