Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 499: Mules, Mountains, and My Arkansas Hunting Adventure with Clay Newcomb

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Ep. 499: Mules, Mountains, and My Arkansas Hunting Adventure with Clay Newcomb · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this week on the show, I'm joined
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: by Culli newcome to discuss and recap my Arkansas public
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: land mule back deer hunting adventure. All right, welcome to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Life,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and today we're continuing the series in which I'm recapping
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: my pretty wild season of traveling hunts. As I've discussed,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I've been on a journey of sorts this year, going
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: across the country to different regions of white tailed country
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to learn about how people hunt in that unique place,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: meeting with a regional expert to dig into what types
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of tactics they use, where they hunt, how they find
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: word of hunt, how the deer act in their area,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and what the hunting culture is there too. So that's
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what I did. I spent a day in Arkansas with
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Clay Newcomb and James Lawrence learning about the old ways
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of hunting, the mountains down south still hunting and hunting
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: terrain features, and finding public land deer and big woods
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: country really interesting stuff. So I got to spend a
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: morning with Clay and afternoon talking to James, and then
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: we actually went in on mule back deep into this
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: public land section and spent the next three and a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: half days myself on my own trying to kill buck
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: up there. So that's the story we're gonna share. It's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a good one, it's a fun one. It was a
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: heck of a hunt. It gave me a really interesting
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: glimpse into deer hunting in the South, into some of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the influences that Clay has had that come from a
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: time long ago, and why there's there's a certain appeal
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and certain value to doing things as a hunter that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: maybe we don't need to do anymore, but have value
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: in being less efficient and harkening back to a bygone era,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: talking about getting a little taste of what it was
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like back in the day for somebody like Daniel Boone
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: going in on horse or mule and staying out there
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: for a week or two hunting deer, hunting bears, whatever
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it might be. I got just the tiniest little glimpse
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of what that life might have been like. I'll tell
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you what. It's pretty cool. So that's the plan for today.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: We do also, in addition to Clay, have my buddy
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Tyler Emmett. He was one of the cameraman on this
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: trip and I wanted to have him on the show
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to help give some color and some perspective on the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: hunts because he was there with me, right next to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: me during the hunts on my own, but he was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in the airport hopping on a plane and timing ended
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: up getting goofy. So he's in here. He shares a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: couple of quick thoughts, but then has to bail because
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of the flight, so I didn't really work out. But
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: he's here. You'll hear a bit from him, but just
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: understand that's why he sounds a little distant. That's why
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: he wasn't in much of the show. But regardless, I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: thank you here to like this one. Me and Clay
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: get into some interesting debates around scent control too that
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna want to miss. So well that said,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: let's get into it. Thank you for listening all right
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: with me? Now, I've got Clay newcome and Tyler Emmett
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and the both of you guys were with me on
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: this heck of a heck of an adventure in Arkansas,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and so I appreciate you taking time to come here
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and help me recapit a little bit rather than doing
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the you know how you're doing, what's new, YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I just want to get right in the story because
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: we've got a lot to cover, uh and Clay. This
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: trip began mostly, I think it began when we got
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to James Lawrence's place. He's a mentor of yours, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: he was gonna help kind of set our sights on
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: what we should be doing, what we should be thinking about,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: what I should be targeting. There's a lot of things
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: like that that we're hoping to chat with him about
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: at his place before we headed to the mountain. Can
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you can you start us out, Clay, just jumping right
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: into who James is and how he was an influence
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: on you. Sure. Yeah, So James Lawrence. People that have
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: listened to some of my stuff in the past may
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: have met James Lawrence. He's been on some podcasts with
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: me and stuff. But James is in his I believe
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: James is seventy three years old, and he's just one
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of these guys that has lived his entire life in
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the same spot and has been a hunter since he
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: was a kid and has really dedicated himself two being
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the best that he can be with the resources he
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: has in the place he lives, you know. I mean,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: he's never traveled to hunt other than with me. In
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: in the last five years, he's he with me to
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Canada white tailed deer hunting. Other than that, he's probably
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not hunted out of the county he lives in, you know.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And I always I love those kind of guys. I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: really do that their their world is not propped up
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: by you know, kind of I want to say exotic travel.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: You know, that's probably not a good descriptor. But he's
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: just he's just dedicated himself to what what he's got,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and so he's we're down in the Washington Mountains and James,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: it's from the area that I grew up in, so
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: my hometown, which I don't live in anymore, and that's
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in the mountains of western Arkansas, and it's a difficult
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: place to whitetail hunt, and it is getting increasingly better.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I believe we have probably better deer populations right now
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: than we've had and even since when I was a kid,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: but just difficult hunting conditions you know, run good terrain
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and just vast stretches of continuous hardwoods, pines and just
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: closed canopy timber like you would find in a lot
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of places in the East. But the mountains make it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: harder because you've got a lot of topographic differences and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: changes and and and so James as he's developed a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: style of hunting that really he kind of came up
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: with on his own. And his story is pretty unique
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: because his family, they as in the tradition of where
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: we come from, with a ran hounds on deer and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: still due to the state people down there, it's legal
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and it's great. I absolutely love running deer with dogs.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So James grew up with that, but from an early
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: age he he didn't like it. Not for some ethical reason,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: he just you know, he just did. He just wanted
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to go out in the woods and hunt them. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: his uncle taught him how to track deer in the leaves,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: which is difficult. James learned how to still hunt, which is,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: you know, just moving through the timber very slow and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: going to good areas where he thinks deer are and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: just spending time on the ground moving. Number two, he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: he hunted out of tree stands some but just learning.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He learned how to use topographic features where these how
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: these mountains funnel these deer into certain predictable areas year
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: after year, And he learned how to hunt these saddles
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and pinch points and heads of hollows and flats, and uh,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: he's a big scrape hunter. He always liked hunting scrapes,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and so yeah, that's what we talked to James about
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: when you came down, Mark. Yeah, and I was so
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: glad that you were willing to introduce me to him
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and let's spend some time there, because it was it
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was eye opening in a lot of ways. First and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: foremost just seeing the success he's had down there. I mean,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it's kind of shocking when I was imagining the type
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of terrain he was hunting and how difficult it likely was,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and you told me about it, and then seeing you know,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and hearing about what he does and how he's actually
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's really filled the walls up with a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: whole lot of great stories and deer and uh, that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: was great. But then just hearing from like just getting
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a chat with him, I mean, as you said to
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: us prior to meeting him, he was as nice as
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you could get, as welcoming as you could ever imagine
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: someone like this could be. Um, I mean, just incredibly
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: kind and generous with his time and his insight, and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: he gave us, you know, me in particular. I know
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you've learned a lot from him over the years, but
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: me in particular gave me a really quick rundown on
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: some really helpful ideas for what I should be thinking
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: about and planning for when I head into to hunt
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: this kind of way. But I guess I probably should
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: rewind just a little bit and set the stage more,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: because you know, we we headed to James because he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: had hunted in the way that we're gonna hunt. But
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to start Clay when I when we approached you, we
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: we were talking last year, I think, and I said, Hey,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we've got this new show, and I think it'd be
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: pretty cool to come down hunt with you and and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: get like a genuine Arkansas experience. Why why was the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: hunt that we ended up having that genuine Arkansas experience
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that you thought I should have. We because we were
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: gonna take a mule heading into the heading to the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: mountains of public land, camp out there and and hunt
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: these hard to find big woods, big mountain deer in Arkansas.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Why was that the experience you thought that I should have,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: well Mark, because I like you so much. I wanted
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to share the gold of Arkansas that number one. Uh No,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: There's a ton of different places we could have gone
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that would have been better, you know. I mean what
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: we did. What did was really probably the hardest way
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to kill a deer here. We we have a broad
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: range of habitat and types of hunting in Arkansas. You know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you get over into the Arkansas Delta near the Mississippi River,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and you've got as good at white tail hunting there
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: is probably anywhere in the country in certain stretches. I mean,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: really it's like hunting the Midwest. And and then you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: get into so where I live in the Ozark Mountains
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: up here on private land and the Ozarks kind of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: some of these cattle pasture um or you know, cattle
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: farm type private land hunting. We've got quite a few deer.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: You know, we could have gone hunting and I would
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: have anticipated seeing seven to twelve deer a day, you know.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And in but this what I call interior mountain hunting
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: is the most traditional style of hunting because that is
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: what basicly the first white Europeans that came here were doing.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: They were using equal animals and doing long hunts. And
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: that is really what James did when he was younger.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And he didn't do it because it was cool there.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: He didn't do it because he was trying to replicate something.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: He did it just because that's that was a good
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: way in the in one of the most successful ways
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: he knew how to kill dear was to use an
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: equal animal, get back in as far as he could
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: with as much supplies as he could carry, and stay
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: back there and hunt and a lot of times solo.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And uh so that's what he did. And I was
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: always very intrigued by his stories and that kind of hunting,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and so that's what I started doing five or six
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: years ago under James. I've never what's kind of sad
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: is I've never actually hunted with James like that. You know, he's, uh,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: he's in great shape for his age, but he's he's
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: not he's not like he was when he was forty
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: or fifty, you know, And so we've not been able
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: to do it together. But but I've got mules. He
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: used horses, and he told me how he hunted and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: what he did, and you know he basically he would pack.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: He would use his horse to and put panniers over
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: it with your big pouches that drape over a riding saddle,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: which is key, and you'd carry all your supplies and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: walk the horse in. And we're not hunting. This is
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: not like the West. We do not have the big,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: vast country that the West has. So you know, you
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: might be walking in two to five miles and carry
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: all your stuff with you, and then when you get there,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you make your camp. And then once you get to
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: camp and you have all your stuff unloaded, you've got
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a riding saddle on your animal, and you can use
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that animal to ride, or you can just leave your
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: animal at camp and use it to haul everything out,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: including aim, which is exactly what we did. I mean
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: we not to give away the not to give away
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: too much here, Mark, but I mean we we kind
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of pulled it off just the way we hoped we would,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and it it's fantastic and it's a it's a fun
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say it's the most efficient way. I'm
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: not gonna say it's the best way, but you know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: with the way that we hunt. We absolutely every one
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of us there gets to choose the way we want
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to do something, and that is valuable. And to me,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: this kind of hunting is valuable partly because of how
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: much I love James, but but also because this is
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the most This is the way that guys would have
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: been doing it back in the early eight hundreds when
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: they were market hunting, digger and bear, you know. So yeah, yeah,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I want to dig into that more, but maybe a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: little later, since we only have Tyler for little bit,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to kind of pick your brain. Tyler.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: We you know, we got to bring you in on
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: this and you got to meet James and you get
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to see and hear his stories. And then you were
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: following along with us, capturing the experience as me and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Clay did what he just described, which was we threw
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: our gear on the mule on day one and we
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: hiked into this big stretch of public land, hiked all
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the way in, set up camp. What what was your
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: impression of this as we got kicked off? Um, well,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: it was great to go meet James, you know, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: from the beginning kind of got just seeing his uh,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: his garage full of you know, antlers and deer. Got
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: fired up thinking it was going to be low to
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a deer, but as we got kicked off, it was
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: a little slow. Um, and maybe I was a little
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: bit sorry about you know it, Um, I was a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: little bit uh because you didn't see much much sign
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of deer. So I was maybe a little bit um
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: over zealous by seeing his garage and all the success
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: he had. Granted that was over fifty sixty years of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: hunting or more. I can't remember how old he was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: or when he started hunting, but it was it was
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: cool to do it in this you know, as you're saying,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it's kind of it's not Western style but kind of
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: long hunting style to go out in camp and check
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: out the landscape. But it was definitely Uh. After a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: couple of days of scouting and hiking around, I was
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit nervous that we were in a success. Yeah,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. I mean, James, his wall, he said,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: is a lifetime resume there. It definitely did give me
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: even more hope than I was expecting because I thought,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: going into this man, this is going to be really hard.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: We're not going to see deer or very many at
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: least and uh, you know, if if somehow this happens,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be a miracle. And then we go to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: James's place, take a look at his his wall there,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and he starts telling some stories, and all of a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: sudden I started thinking, Man, maybe it's better down here
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: than I realized. Um, but we we we get up
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the next morning, we load up, go to a trail
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: head and then you know, throw the panniers on the mule,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: load all of our stuff on there. We've got camping gear,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: we've got hunting gear. I'll tell you. One thing I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: was surprised by, Clay was the fact that you run
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: your climbing sticks unattached, just randomly thrown all over the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: place and not back. Come on, Mark, come on, I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: should have known this was gonna come up. I gotta
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: give you a little gotta give you a little crap
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: for that one. Well, I wouldn't say that that's entirely
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: that's not my always m O. But sometimes you gotta
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: stick them where you can stick them. When you got
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a you know, paniers and you're trying to just cram
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: stuff and little little nooks and crannies. We caught it.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: We cat also carrying them. Sorry, go aheady. We also
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: were caring on a lot of camera gear on your
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: mule was caring a lot of camera gear too, So
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you're just probably trying to We're trying to just stuff
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: anything we could in that mule. Oh yeah, thank your
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: mule for that. Yeah, meal was super handy for all
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the heavy equipment we were bringing in there. And Uh,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I just thought it was really neat to get to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I've never done that. I've never been with any kind
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: of stock animal, horse or mule going into hunt. I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: don't Yeah, I don't think I've ever done that. So
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: just having the the added benefit of that was neat.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And then there's just a certain I mean kind of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: how you talked about Clay, how this whole style of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: hunting is a throwback and it's it's much more for
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the experience than just the efficiency. Um. I just felt
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: a certain lure to hiking into the mountains with with
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: a critter like that, just felt like I was tapping
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: into something different, something old, or something richer. Uh that.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I just remember walking in that morning and you know,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we hid. We headed in at first light, so the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: sun was still rising. It was a beautiful orange sunrise
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: on the horizon. I remember the color of the sky
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was was really notable. And We're hiking along and I'm
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: hearing the click click click click click cluck kind of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: slowly working behind me, and it was just I just
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: remember smiling. I have a distinct memory of just smiling
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and and thinking in my head, man, this is this
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: is it? Like this is pretty cool? And and it was.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: We hiked in there, got to a spot where you
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: thought would be a decent place to set up a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: spike camp, and we threw up tents and put your
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: mule on the line. And then the idea was to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: try to get a late morning scouting slash hunting session
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in before before actually having an evening hunt. And the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: idea was to spend this part of the day with you, Clay,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: see what you do, see what your perspective would be
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: on the landscape. UM, you would kind of share with
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: me everything you think I should be thinking about, the ideas,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the strategies, the tactics that might work here. UM, show
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: me around. And then after that I was going to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: head out on my own. So you and myself and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: then our two Cameramon Tyler and another guy, Joe took
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: off for hike. Um, do you want to walk me
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: through you know, what was on your mind? Like, what
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: was it that you wanted to show me? What were
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the most important ideas or tips or concepts that you
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: in your mind were thinking, Man, you've got to get
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: this across the mark for him to have success. What
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: were those key things as we were walking out there.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: You know, first of all, when you're hunting like this
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: or any kind of backcountry hunting, where you're camping and hunting,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: is you want to pick a campsite that is far
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: enough away from where you feel like the game is
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that you're not going to spook them, but also not
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: so are away that you wear yourself out coming back
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and forth the camp. And Uh, I'd say we got
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: close to right. We probably I like to be about
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a half a mile from where I think I'm gonna hunt.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Because what you found out because you guys ended up
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: going in further than we anticipated, mark, is that you
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: guys were hiking like a mile and a quarter or
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: something to get to where you were hunting, or actually
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to the farthest place eventually. Yeah, and and that's a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: little bit too far just to utilize to just be efficient,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: but you kind of gotta it'd be better to be
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: conservative than not, because when you bring in an equine animal,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you're bringing in a little more disturbance than they're used
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: to and you have a camp and you know you
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: might have a fire. So that was number one. And
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: we were on a big, big, long ridge top and
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: essentially why I brought you there was we were gonna
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: hunt saddles. And these saddles are essentially low spots, low swags,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: like the seat of a saddle in between two high
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: points on a ridge. So if you have a if
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you have a long ridge, that ridge is not gonna
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: be just flat all the way across the top. It's
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: gonna kind of go up and down and up and down,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and those low spots, deer that are traveling from let's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: say the north side to the south side of the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: mountain are gonna travel through those saddles. And any given
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: ridge might have multiple saddles on it, and that's what
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we were trying to capitalize on that. And I said
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: this before to mark there in any given set of mountains,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: there are probably ten things that deer do every single
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: day that is predictable. So this is just one of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the things that they do, and you're trying to calculate
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the amount of time you have to hunt, and a
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I bet a deer is gonna do this one thing
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: during the time I'm hunting. And what we were doing
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: was hunting saddles. And the reason I like the saddles
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: high on these ridges is that the wind that's consistent. Typically,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: if you get off down on the side of the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: mountain automatically, your wind is much less predictable, and there
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: are ways to predict what will do and you can
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: hunt the sides of mountains effectively, for sure. But that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: was the main thing. And what I was hoping to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: find was signed in some of these saddles, and the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: deer aren't gonna make a ton of sign right in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the middle of a saddle necessarily, you know, there might,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: but but we were looking forward. We were hoping to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: find some rubs. I was hoping to find a big scrape.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And one of the saddles we came through, which we
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: really didn't, but we walked three quarters of a mile
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: or so and found just a little bit of bucks
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: on a few acorns. And I had seen some year
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: in that area the weekend before. I've done a little
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: bit of scouting before, and so we felt like there
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: were some deer in the area, but certainly it's not
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the kind of place with your typical standards for assessing
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: deer sign You wouldn't go there and go, Holy cow,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: this place is smoking hot. I mean at all? Would
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you agree, Mark? And I think one of that that
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: was one of the biggest takeaways for me from our
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: our morning spent together, was that you kept reiterating to me,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you know, don't expect Michigan sign or Iowa sign or whatever.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You know. One I think I think we decided we
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: need to make a chart or something where we would say,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: one Arkansas rub equals ten Michigan rubs, one Arkansas scrape
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: equals fifteen Michigan scrapes, or something like that, because it's
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: just so different. And I think that if you hadn't
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: told me that, I would have been much less confident
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in these areas. I would have been thinking, man, we
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: gotta keep looking because there's there's nothing here. You know,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: one scrape means nothing to me at home, um, But
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to me or to you, you're saying, hey, one scrape
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: here equals a lot back home. So that was very
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: eye opening and helpful for me. And you know, I
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: want to reiterate to that this was what I would
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: call interior mountain hunting. Like you could go down into
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: other areas in that county closer to disturbance, you know,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: whether it be clear cuts where the cattle pastures, whether
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: there was you know, human disturbance and creating edge and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: different stuff, and you would find just number one, more
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: deer and so they would leave more sign. So this
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: was interior mountain honey, which is where there's the least
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: amount of deer. But that's just where we were, so
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: we kind of knew what to expect, you know, yeah,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, but I'd say that that was
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the main thing we were working on here, and you know,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: just hunting these mountains, there's other there's other things that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: you can look for, you know, benches, the heads of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: these big holl us, so there's big, big long finger
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: big long ridges, and they have fingers that fall off
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: these ridges, the heads of hollows. A lot of times
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: there's game trails and these fingers that fall off ridges
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: are typically you'll find there might be a mile a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: mile long ridge and there might be five fingers that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: fall off of that ridge, and you might scout those
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: fingers and and find one finger that has some buck
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: sign and some acorns, and you know, deer move up
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and down that mountain on that finger. That would be
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a good strategy. But there's a lot of things you
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: could do. But we were hunting high saddles. Can you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: can you elaborate a little bit on how you like
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to hunt the saddles, because that was one of the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: things like as we started walking along and you were
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: talking about the importans in these saddles, which is something
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that James had reiterated as well. Um, you know the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: thing I was wondering the most of I was like, Okay,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: there's a few saddles out here, I'm gonna scout them.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I'm likely going to spend some time in them. But
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: what's the smartest way to actually set up on one? Um,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: That's where my head very quickly jumped up to what
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: were your thoughts on that when you're sitting one of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: these what's the right way to think about how you
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: position yourself, how you think about wind, how you expect
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: dear to move through them, all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: so you just have to predict the wind, based upon
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the prevailing wind direction and the forecast, you know, and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: if the winds out of the north, you're gonna want
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to sit set up on the on the southern edge
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: of the saddle. So you know, I mean, if you
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: if you envision the saddle just as like a square,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's got there's there's for four
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: directions that you could go. You know, you would you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: would set up on the the down wind side of
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the saddle, hug that side, and then your access point,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: whatever side of the saddle you're coming into it from.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You're gonna try not to walk through that saddle because
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: ground sit in the mountains is is critical because these
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: deer don't they're not smelling humans very often. And you know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you can try to cover your ground scent. You can,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: there's stuff you can do, but still you you hope
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: to not have to cross through. So the ideal situation
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: is that you would slip into a saddle and you
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: would go to the favor hug the favorable side so
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: that you know, eighty percent of the places that deer
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: travels if he comes through that saddle, You're gonna be
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: good on wind and you just gotta be able to see.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You just that's the main thing. You just you just
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: gotta be able to see as much as possible in
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: that saddle. And if you hunt these saddles year after
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: year a lot, you you'll learn, Okay, the deer typically
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: hug that side over there, and maybe there would be
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: nothing that would indicate that that's just a inside of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: this micro environment. That's typically what they do. And the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: saddles that you were hunting were pretty big, bigger than most,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you could have probably shot a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: hundred hundred plus yards and lots of places you were hunting,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: which isn't entirely normal. Usually you're hunting a saddle that
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: maybe it's forty fifty yards across, you know, you can
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: almost you could bow hunted almost. So those are the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: main things mark just visibility to be able to see
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: all the way across it, and then just getting where
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the wind is most favorable. Yeah, okay, so here's another thing.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Then when it comes to these setups, I recall another
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: one of these questions I had was when do you
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: set up and post up in a spot like this
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and hunt a saddle versus doing what James had done
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a lot in the past. And which you know, we
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: were talking about a lot with him, and you and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I were talking about which was still hunting through these places,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: so actually creeping, creeping through the mountains on foot hoping
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to see one. And you had told me, well, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you know, that's what James does, and sometimes you do that,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but you also like to get up actually in a
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: climbing saddle, you know, up at a tree and hunt
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a saddle to which is what we just described. Um,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: can you elaborate on that, you know, why you choose
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to sit up in a tree more often than still
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: hunt and why James maybe still hunted a lot, uh
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and less so posted up. What's your take on that?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I think a lot of that is just
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: personal preference. You know, you just have so much time
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to hunt, and and James spent a lot of his
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: time still hunting on the ground, moving and a lot
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of that was just personal preference. But I think I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: would do that more, and do that more at the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: beginning of a hunt when I'm trying to scout, because
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that the great thing about being mobile on the ground
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is and still hunting is that you are hunting, so
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you're in the game, you know. But you're also scouting.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And what I would do is I might still hunt
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: for a morning and all of a sudden find what
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for, you know, find that saddle that's got
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: some sign in it, and I go, Okay, if I
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: sit here for two days, I'm gonna kill a deer
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and and then get up in a tree and hunt.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Um so, and I think to James back, James was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: most actively still hunting in the sixties, seventies and eighties,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and they're just weren't a lot of deer. So I
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: think he learned that, man, I could I can sit
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: on the side of this mountain or in a tree
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: for a long time and not see a deer, I
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: gotta go find one. I think now that we have
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: more deer, it's probably not as critical to move, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: it's a little it's just more conservative to just setting
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a tree and wait for him. I think that's probably
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: the the real story, you know what I mean? Now?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: That said, though, I know that you have done some
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of it, and James talked to you a lot about it,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: so you know, if one were to want to steal
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: on which was one of the things I did want
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to do a little bit. Um what's here like one
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of the best practices when try to do that, or
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: at least you know, what's the things that have worked
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: for you or that you think are important when doing
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Because that was that was one
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of the deals I was hadn't spent any time doing
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: in the past. I was particularly interested in seeing like, Okay,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: could this kind of thing work out here? So James
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: was almost exclusively still hunting using a firearm, whether it
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: was a muzzleloader or during the rifle season. And number one,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you got to get the wind in your favor, so
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you pick where you're gonna go based upon the wind direction.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Number Two, you're moving, you're moving slow through You're moving
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: very slow through areas where you feel like there could
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: be dear So maybe you you know, you get out
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of your truck and you walk to hundred yards regular speed,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: you know, and you get back there and you start
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: seeing a little bit of sign, you slow down. James
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: has said many times to me that because the biggest
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: question you have when you're doing this, well, these deer
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: can hear me walking and dry leaves? Why am I
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: not spooking every animal around here? And uh? And he
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: just said, you know, deer walk and make noise. But
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: what deer do is they take a series of steps
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and then they stop. They take a series of steps
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: and then they stop. And he said, you can about
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: walk right up to a deer if you do that,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: And it makes sense. I mean, we've all watched deer
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: and deer's out there feeding and it hears something, what
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: does it do? It picks up its head and it
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: watches and after some time it puts its head back down.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And you know, you obviously you're not trying to get
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: right up on the deer. You're just trying to get
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: within sight of the deer. And he's had a lot
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: of success doing that. And I can't say that I have.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I've just not spent a ton of time
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: still hunting like that. Nine percent of the time I'm
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I'm stand hunting the mountains or hunting on the ground.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Just and uh. But then number what I've asked him
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: several times is how do you know when to walk fast,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: when to walk slow? How much time to spend? And
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: he just kind of laughs and he says, you know,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you just go with your gut, you know, And he said,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I might I might spend a day inside of a
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: quarter mile stretch, but always moving just a little bit,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you know. Um, but he also might might walk much
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: further than that. And there are times when when he's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: moving fast, times when he's moving slow, you know, using rises.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Probably the final thing that I hear him talk about
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: is using these rises and changes in topography to just
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: creep over just you know, if you get a little
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: flat and you kind of come up to that flat,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you know, just creep your eyes over and just go
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: real slow while your body is being shielded by the train.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Just kind of probably standard standard stuff that Western spot
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and stock guys would understand. So so we did a
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: little bit of both of those things. I'll uh foreshadow
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: here a little bit and and say that we did
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: some of the stand hunting up in the saddle up
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in a tree, and then we also tried some of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: this creeping along still hunting stuff. And before we lose Tyler,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: he's on a plane and about to leave. I do
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: want to get Tyler you're quick perspective on what you
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: thought about the two different styles of hunting without giving
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: away what actually happened. Um, what did you think about
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: getting up into his saddle for the first time in
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: hunting in a tree. That was something we had to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: teach you like that week. What do you think about
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that versus when we were doing the creep along still hunting.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: What was your experience of those two things? Um, well, yeah,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: it was. It was fun to get up in the
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: tree and learn that process. But you know, as I've
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: done a lot more filming on hunts in you know,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the West where you're hiking around and and so I after,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I have a little bit of a do
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: after a few hours in the tree and we weren't
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: really seeing much. I was like thwilling my thumbs a
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: little bit. But the spotting stocks was fun. Um, you know,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: definitely that like you were talking about, you know, like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: like James said, moving like a deer. Um, take a
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: few staffs stop, take a few steps stop. We had
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: that program going where I was what twenty yards behind
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: you bark and then I was just I was just
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: trying to film you from afar and like and just
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: kind of walking you off and do the uh you know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: just be the deer, and just I kind of enjoyed that.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It was nice, you know, walking a beautiful part of
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the country, even though we weren't really seeing much of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the time, but both were you know, had their I
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: mean we weren't seeing much deer and either either scenarios.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: But you know, there was when you're stuck up in
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the tree, you uh, I feel like You're like, hey,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: maybe there's something over there, and maybe I have that
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: like scatter brain mentality where I'm like, you know what,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: we should go check something else out. But once you're
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: in the tree, you're kind of you're there, right if
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you guys know better than anybody. But so yeah, we
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: uh I kind of say I would hear the spot
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and stock to send the cameraan because you're moving around
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: all the more. But but it was they were not
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: you know, both not really say we weren't seeing there.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So either way we were doing it, we were not
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: seeing dear so you could walk around and look for
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: deer or stand tree on my saddle and results. Yeah.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Well that was kind of a nice thing about it,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: was that it was actually, um, you know, we had
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: those options. So in some hunts where you're just stuck
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: doing one thing, you're you're just stuck with it and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that's the way to do it, and you have a
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: certain level of I don't know if it's stress, but
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: just um discontent. Knowing that well, there's no other change
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: you can make in this case, at least, you know,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I was able to said, well, let's change it up,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: and then you get this new boost of enthusiasm, a
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: little bit more excitement and optimism again. And you know,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and that's that's actually what we did, because we hunted
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: that first night in the saddle. I was able to
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: sneak in down this ridge, got to one of these saddles.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It had been a spot where we were when we
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: were scouting that first morning. We found one little, tiny
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: little rub that was the only sign we found. Um,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: So I thought, well, there's this little rub. There were
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a bunch of acorns in the ridge back behind us,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and then now here's this saddle, so let's let's watch it.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So you and me and Joe all climbed up into
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: trees sat up there that night and at you know,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the last half hour of daylight. So we did have
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: one dough move across the saddle way off in the distance,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I thought that was that was
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: encouraging to at least see a deer um. But the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: next morning we sat the same spot and saw nothing.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And so this is where having these other options was
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: pretty appealing, because after seeing one deer over the course
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: of a lot of hours sitting in that tree, you know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: it was pretty easy for me to say, all right, well,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: we've got another card we can pull here, let's get
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: on the ground, let's still hunt, let's scout, and let's
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: try to find something. You know, that's that's a little
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: bit more um oh, that's a little bit more promising.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So we had that option, which which definitely helped helped
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a lot. That's a good point about having those I
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: didn't really think about it like that, but like getting
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that new enthusiasm from having to get a couple of options.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I mean in the moment, I didn't really think about that,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: but that it's to the good point. But it also
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: can make the itch to switch mode is a little
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: bit too. You know, you're like, okay, this is working.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: You know, you can get a little bit that way.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But we saw a fox that morning. I forgot about that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: That was cool to see that. That was that was
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: a cool encounter. So so yeah, like you know, like
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: me and Tyre were saying, it's it's nice to have
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: these options and these things to work with. UM. And
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: after that that first morning, on the second day, I
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: decided to get out of the tree and kind of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: poke around a little bit more. UM. You know, one thing,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Clay that we haven't talked about but but did actually
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: feature into our scouting was looking for acorns. UM, can
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you elaborate a little bit on how important acorns are
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: and this part of the country and this specific scenario,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: because you know, I remember thinking two things. There are
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: two things that really well, three things that stood up
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to me if there was like the big three that
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: was in my mind the entire time I was hunting
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: on my own after spending time with you and James.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: It was one, trust your terrain feature that being the settle.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Number two was remember sign here is different, so don't
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: get you know, too concerned by the lack of it.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And number three was acorns. Why is that so important?
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: What are you looking for when it comes to that?
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I remember when we were walking around, you spent a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: lot of time looking at the ground and looking at
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: acorns and analyzing the acorns you found. Um, what was
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: your take on that? So you're always looking for trends
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: with acorns? I mean that any anybody around here. If
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: you were just to walk up to a deer hunter
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in the store, their high probability you would say, you
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: got any acorns over there, or you know, acorns falling yet,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: because that is just a key food source for when
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: we're hunting and talking with talking with some of these
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: biologists that I know this part of the country really well.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: It's interesting because acorns in the broad scheme of a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: white tail's diet are not as critical as we feel
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: like they would be. But the time we're hunting them,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: it is. You know, it's there. It's their primary food
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: source or what they're their preferred food source. And so
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: during October November, that's what we're looking for his acrons
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and man acron mast. Predicting acren mast, even with our
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: best science, is very, very difficult, and so I love
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: hearing guys talk about acrons because all all through the summer,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it would be like, man, we had a
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: frost and April and you know, my rooster crowed three
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: times that morning, and I think the acorns are gonna
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: make up high, you know, and we have all this
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence for why the acrons are gonna make in
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: certain places and that's important because what happens in these
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: mountains is that, well, actually I believe i've I've heard
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: that two out of five years you will have a
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: very good crop of acrons in this part of the world.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: So in a good crop of acrons isn't always good,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: because a good crop of acorns might mean that there's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: acrons in all portions of the elevation changes in the mountains.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: You know, there's acrons the pie, there's acrens in the middle,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: there's acorns down low. What you're the best case scenario
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: is that there's acorns in in pockets. There's there's sections
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: of the mountain that have a lot of acrons and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: other sections that don't. And so that's what I was
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: looking for. But then there's these other obscure years, which
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I would call this you're kind of obscure, is that
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to predict where they were gonna be.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: There were there were there were acrens up high where
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: we were hunting, but not a lot, not really enough
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to just draw the deer in and just be like,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: this is where the deer gonna be because there's acrens
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: um there were some acrons down low. There were some
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: akrons of pie. It was hard to predict. So really
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: what we're hoping is on any given year that you
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: could say with certainty, man, the acorn is made up
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: high and so that's where all the game is gonna be.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's kind of a descripture of what we're
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the way we're thinking and talking down there. You know, now,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I remember you grabbing acorns like you. You spend a
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: good amount of time when we did find acorns looking
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: at them, grabbing them, scratching them with your knife, um,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: examining the husks, all that kind of stuff that the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: nut Ah and you were talking about. Well, I think
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: this means that they're fresh, or they're not fresh, or
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you think this means the deer was eating them versus
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a squirrel or something. There's probably a lot of folks
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that have never taken the time to examine an acorn
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: and really read what the story is there. Can you
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: can you tell me what you were looking for and
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: what you know, what details helped you determine what actually
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: was happening or how recently it happened. Yeah, So I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: was looking for fresh acorns that fell this year, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I think what can happen is well, first of all,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: there's there's to two types of oak trees that we're
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: dealing with. We're dealing with red oaks and white oaks.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: White oaks fall and they sprout basic rely immediately and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: so they'll send out a root shoot down and they'll
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: and then in the spring they'll send the shoot up.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: But what that means is that a white oak acre
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: and begins to break down really quickly as soon as
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it hits the ground. That's important. Number two, the red oaks.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: The red oaks lay on the ground through the whole
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: winter and don't start to sprout until the spring. And
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: so what that means is that there's a there's a
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: shorter window of time that a white oak acre and
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: is laying on the ground. And a white oak acre
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and will not last through the winter. It will rot
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: or or you know when it when it sprouts, it
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: essentially becomes not as edible to an animal. Okay, a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: red oak acre and falls on the ground and it'll
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: lay there and in March it'll look and in the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: meat will be just as good as it was when
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: it fell. And October and so what can happen mark
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: is when you have a bumper crop of red oak acorns.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: They will persist. They just they just last longer on
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: the ground. And you might be looking at a red
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: oak acre and from two years ago that the hole
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: still looks good, but it's actually rotten on the inside,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: just because it it didn't sprout for whatever reason, the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: acren didn't turn into a tree and it wasn't eaten.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And you'll be walking through the woods and see a
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: whole acren laying on the ground and it is of
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: no value to wildlife. So I you know, you pick
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: up an acre and you try to determine if it's
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: from if it's this year and it's good food for wildlife,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: or it's last year's haul that's empty. And so the
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: way you can tell is just the weight of it.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: You know, old acre is gonna be phil hollow, and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: then you crack it open and you know it's just
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: mush on the inside and and uh, you crack open
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: a good acren and you have this white acorn nutty
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: me inside of it. And I think a lot of guys,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: if they're not really paying attention, might go into an
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: area and think, man, I saw a lot of acorns, Well,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: they saw last year's acrens. You know that that's that's
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the long version of what I was doing. And then
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: you're also trying to look into in the trees as well,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: especially the time of year we were there. We were
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: there in mid October, so there were still acorns in
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the trees, and an acorn in the tree is actually
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: as valuable as an acorn on the ground, because that
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: means that tomorrow that stand is gonna be as good
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: as it is today or maybe better because sometimes and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and there's so many variables and acron production, different trees
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: produced different amounts. So you still have two white oaks
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: that look the exact same there are twenty yards apart. Genetically,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: one of those might be better than the other and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: just produce more acrens there. You know, there's some unfavorable
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: advantage to that one being there and that one being there.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of oh that I did a
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: podcast with with Craig um Harpologists Craig Harper, Yeah, Craig Harper,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: University of Tennessee. We did a whole nerd out session
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: on acorns and oak trees and it's just fascinating the production,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: how they produced and whatnot. But you know. So, so
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: we're walking through the woods and you know, if you've
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: got bunoculars, you can look up in some of these
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: trees if you can get side of the canopy. But
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you're looking up hoping to see a bunch
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: of acorns in a tree, you know. Um, so that's yeah,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: that's the acorn story. You said that one acorn in
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the tree is as valuable as and acorn on the ground.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's some kind of like saying there.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: You know how they say, like a bird in the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: hand is better than two in the bush or whatever. Well,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: there's there's gotta be some way we can relate to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: an acorn in the trees a valuables and acorn on
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: the ground. There's something there about life we could figure
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: out some day. Ye yep. But yeah, so we're looking
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: for a corns. Found some, but not a lot. Uh acorns? Sorry,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: uh and uh. He did the saddle the first evening,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: saw the one dough hunted there again in the morning,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: saw nothing. And so I thought to myself, well, I
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: only have two two days or two and a half
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: days left, and I was I was worried about sitting
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: anyone place for a whole lot of time, given how
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: little I had to work with. UM, So I thought,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: all right, well, let's let's try to poke around a
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: little bit more here, explore and and try the still
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: hunting thing. And so that's what I did that afternoon. Meanwhile,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you had left and you were hunting a totally different area. Um.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Was there anything of note that you saw or that
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: you did when you were hunting on your own? Um,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: that might be, you know that were there any things
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: that you were doing that were different than what I
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: was doing that it might be useful to understand about
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: different ways of hunting this train. You know, Mark, what
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I primarily did the whole time you were hunting was
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I was. I was scouting. For the most part. I
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: did very little sitting. I think I hunted one afternoon
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: where I stayed in the same spot for you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: four hours and didn't move. The entire rest of the
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: time I was, I was on my mule and I
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: was just covering a bunch of ground, just trying to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: find I went into some new areas. Um. So I was.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: And the reason I wasn't hunting with you is I
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: didn't want to get in the way or use up
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: some potential spots that you would use. So you know,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: I was at camp with you at least one night there,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: but I had gone off and I didn't really find
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: anything encouraging during the three days that I was stomping around.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: And honestly, I don't even think I saw I do
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: not believe that I even saw it deer. And I
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: mean I went miles and miles on that mule. And
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: if you're on the back of a mule, if you
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: see a deer, you're just gonna spook it most of
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the time. But if you see deer, that's a day
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: to point, a very good day to point of Okay,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: there was a deer there at nine fifteen this morning,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: So why is he there? And you know, will it
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: be there tomorrow or would there be more deer through
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: here today? You know, so just scouting, speaking of that,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: speaking of you, Scotty on your mule, I remember I
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: was worried. One of the things I was worried about
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: out there was how do these deer react to human presence?
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Because you know, there's some places where deer are super
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: kg about, you know, walking around there, and if if
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: you walk through an ara once that might you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: shut them down. There's other places where they're so used
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: to people being around that it's not as big as
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: a deal. Um. I remember thinking, man, we're hiking, you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to get to that first settle. As a mile and
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: a half to get to that first settle, I hunted something. Man,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I just hiked a mile and a half across this
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: ridge and I just laying down a ground trail that
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: will eliminate all this area behind me the whole time.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: And then later after that two days of hunting or
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the two sets of hunting and seeing nothing, and then
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: I decided, okay, I want to do some still hunting
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: and explore more. I want to scout more to figure
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: this out. In the back of my mind, I was
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: also constantly asking myself, well, how far can you push
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: it without spook and stuff too much? I was always
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: trying to I just didn't have the context or history
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: to know, like how sensitive our deer in a big
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: woods area like this on public land to to me
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: being here or me having been there yesterday. What's your
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: take on that? What's your experience been? Are they forgiving
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: or you know, once you walk through an area hunting
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: area once or twice, it's it's going to be shot.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I would say these deer probably somewhere in
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the middle of that pendulum. You know, there's certainly not forgiving.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think this is not
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: true wilderness in this in the very by definition it's not.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And so these deer experienced humans coming through there. And
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: you know, you're always trying to minimize the amount of
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: scent that you're leaving. And I've I've had a lot
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: of different responses from deer with ground scent, you know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've had and I know you have to mark.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you walk into a stand and you know,
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: an hour later a deer just walks right over your
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: ground scent and doesn't even show any sign of nervousness.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And at other times you walk in and you know
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you've done whatever you're gonna do for sent control, whether
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: it's you know a lot of times I just stomped
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: my feet into the dirt and try to get dirt
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: up on my boots. Sometimes I like using cover sense
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to cover ground scent, whether that's doe, estris or something
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: not an attractant. Well, not estra stough. I think you
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: can use estra stough, but a doe dough, urine, synthetic
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: dough you're in just something that's not gonna spook them.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Or if you're hunting in areas with livestock walking through
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever you got there, cattle, cattle, uh, cattle droppings, whatever,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: you know, get that on your scent on your boots
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: and cover that ground center because you are leaving ground
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: scent wherever you're going. But boy, it's just unpredictable. But
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I wasn't too worried about us walking through those saddles
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: and and dear and if you did it every day
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: for a week. Yeah, I was more concerned about just
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: our scent, especially with Camberman and whatnot, just blowing off
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: down the side of the mountain and settling down into
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: where those deer were bedding and then going like, hey,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: there's like five guys up on top of the mountain.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: So so this this is the perfect place then to
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: dive into the thorny controversial topic of scent control. Clay,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've been targeted. Yeah, well we've talked
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: about in the past a little bit, but I feel like,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: you know, since we spent some time together in Arkansas
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: and then you know, we're doing a whole one week
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: in November show where uh you dove into this topic
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit, uh, accusing accusing me of being like
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: a bag of pooh and thinking that, yeah, the bag
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: sent for you, but the pooh inside the bag isn't.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I think you made some kind of analogy like that,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: So I may have. I wasn't directly targeting you, though, Mark.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: So here's here's what I want to get your perspective on.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: You and me were talking about this a little bit
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: with your dad too, and um when we we actually
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: stayed at your parents house one night in between trips,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and uh, you you told me that your position on
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: scent control has actually evolved a little bit and that
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: you understand my perspective maybe a little more than you
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: did even months ago or a year or something. Can
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: you can you give me a the what your stance
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: on scent control has been over the last you know,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: five to ten years or whatever, and then be what
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: is your slightly evolved perspective as of right now if
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: that's still true? May it's not true? Yeah? Now, basically,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: my dad grew up inside of the he came of
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: of fruition in his hunting world right at the time
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that commercial scent control products began to come out in
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: the early to mid nineties, so he used them extensively.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: So I grew up with a I mean you you Mark,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: he could go up to Michigan with you right now
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: and hunt and you and him would I really feel
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: like beyond like the exact same page with every just
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the very detail oriented sent control you know, not dressing,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: not using your hunting clothes in the truck, not you know,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: pulling your rubber boots out of a scent contained box
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: with baking soda. I mean like he, he did it
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: to the fullest extent. So I grew up hunting that
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: way for years, years and years and years. And when
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I went to Call and kind of left the Gary
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Newcomb deer camp, it was it was more an issue
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: of just practicality, Like I had limited amount of time
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: to hunt, limited money to buy sent control products, and
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: I started hunting different though than he did because of terrain.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I started hunting uh private land where we were hunting
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: the same stands over and over based on terrain features
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: in these lands. And I pretty much just was like
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: the wind's blowing out of the south if I'm setting
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: in that tree. It doesn't matter what I smell like.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: And so I started not using sent control practices and
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: and I really poke fun. And if your people are
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: listening to this and they've heard me, I love to
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: poke fun at people because I think it's fun. I
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: think it's fun to argue about this stuff because it
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: is so insignificant in the sense of this is really
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: if this is our biggest problem in life. If your
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: biggest problem is deciding whether you should use syn control
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: or not, that you've got a fantastic life, you know.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: So that's why this is a fun topic. But it's
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: highly divisive. So but my comments are not lightly spewed
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: out there just from you know, two seasons of anecdotal evidence. Basically,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: I started not using scent control and just hunting the wind,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: and I killed deer, you know, I mean it just
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it just didn't matter. If the wind is predictable, you
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: know where the deer are gonna be, you know, seventy
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: percent of the time, it doesn't matter what you smell like.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: That's just the bottom line. So that's the way I
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: hunted real hard for lots of years. And then I
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: was like, I recognized the amount of energy effort, time,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: money that people were putting into scent control, and I
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: was kind of like, hey, you don't have to do that,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: just use the use the in Okay. That So that
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: that's section one. Section two is this idea which you have,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: and and I agree with this. There there are things
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: you can do. There's science behind some sent control products
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: that probably reduce your human odor, that do reduce your
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: human od that's science. What Clay Nucom says is that
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: in his experience, I have not found that amount that
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: it does reduce your scent to be a functional value
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: in the field. And that's kind of where I stand.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: That being said, Um, I mean, I just think because
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you two years ago, I started kind of
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: getting back into hunting a specific deer is what it was.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I had a big deer that was on some really
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: small properties, and so I thought, man, I'm gonna dial
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the scent control back up. Let's just try it, let's
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: just go all in. So two years ago, uh, I
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: started washing my clothes, all the all the clothes, and
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: set free bags, baking soda in the in the bags,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: pine and cedar chips in there, using the spray, using
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: ozone products. And now this might be anecdotal. The first
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: time that I put all my energy back into sent control,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I went out and had dear smell me at daylight.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding Mark and I I almost took
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: it as a sign just like you're wasting your time.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Uh really it just had deer just blow at me
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: that just hardly got down wind. And I was just like,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's because he go in the woods with
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: a gallon of tuna fish with you every day I do.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: This is gonna be used against me. No, No, see
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: at the at at the sick Control, I wouldn't have
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: done that. You know, I wouldn't have done it. Um No,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: so can't Can you reduced human odor with these products? Yes?
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I do. I believe you can. Um do the ozone
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: products work. I have a hundred percent believe the science
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: of ozone. I mean it works. What I have yet
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to find is to work real consistently in the field. Um.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I am swayed when people tell me that it works,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: like I had. I've had two guys in the last
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: week and they didn't know kind of my banter about this,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, man, I started using ozonics
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: when I was in a in a in a deer
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: blind and I stopped getting smelled. And I'm like, okay, yeah,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: I sorry to argue with that. Also, there's a ton
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: of guys that I know that have had the same thing,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the same scenario, and it not work. I guess my
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: my philosophy is that there's only so much energy, effort,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: time and money that we can put into hunting. And
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking for limiting factors inside of hunting. What
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: is the real the real problem, What is the real
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: thing that keeps you from being successful? And I have
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: found for me that it is not that sent control
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: products are not in the sphere of things that make
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: my success rate go way up. That that's all um,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: that and and and and then I guess the other
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: core component of what I'm saying is that, yes, sent
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: control products can reduce your scent, but I do not
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: think that as significant in the field. Because if clay
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Nukem is it a odor with no scent control, wind
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: is blowing forty yards away a deer, a doe walks through,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: my scent blows smells me like crazy. Scenario to Clay
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Nukem using full throttle scent control using ozone products deer
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: walks forty yards down from his scent into his into
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: his wind. I find that, dear still spooks, you know,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean it just it just still spooks. Now, was
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: there less out or yeah? Did the deer? How did
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: that dear interpret that? I don't know, but I've not
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: seen that, dear. Just go, well, he's probably not there.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: He's probably he was probably here two hours ago, and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: then just walk through it. So anyway, no, So Mark,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: aside from me, like, I'm not trying to incite argument,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: like what what do you think about that? Do you think?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: What would you say? Yea? So, so first I will
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that you're you're onto like something that makes a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: lot of sense and that I grew with in in
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways, which is sevent the time when
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: the winds predictable, you don't need to worry about sent
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: at all, and it's it's not a big deal. And
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: you know, it depends on how much energy you want
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: to put into it, and if the return on that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: energy is not worth it, especially if scent of the time,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the end is just the way you want it,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: and you can play the wind and deer will never
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: be down wind of you, then you're great and you're
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: gravy and your gold and then it's fine. And I
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: also understand that there's certain situations where you simply can't
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: pull off a strong scent control regimen because of the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: limiting factors of the hunt. Like the hunt that we
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: did in Arkansass that we're talking about, there's no way
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I could have really practice cent control because we're camping
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: up there for a week. You know, you're sleeping in
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the same stuff and the tent you're having, Like, even
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: if we wanted to, it would be nearly impossible. And
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: if we did want to try to practice scent control
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: on that hunt, it would be miserable. Um, you know,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: can't have a fire, can't you know? You have to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: have all sorts of different clothes and try to bring
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: extra storage to keep stuff clean, and try to bring
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: all this extracent control stuff. It's just not realistic in
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: a situation like that. So in that scenario, I get it,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: like it's just not gonna work. Um. But and and
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: to the point you made in the One Week in
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: November episode, You're like, hey, you can do everything you
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: want to the bag, but if there's a bunch of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: crap in the bag. The deer is still gonna smell you, right,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: And you were saying the bag is like all your
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: clothing and try and keep that scent free. Doesn't change
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: the fact that there's a stinky human in that bag.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: All of that is true. All that is true and accurate,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and all that I think makes it really hard for cent.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: It makes it really really hard, nearly impossible to keep
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: deer from smelling you. That's said, Yes, seventy percent of
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the time there's consistent winds or seventy percent of the time,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: you know where deer are gonna be, and you know
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: you can just make sure your wind is safe. What
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about is that other thirty percent of the time.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned how right right for you? You're limiting
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: factor isn't the wind. There's all these other bigger problems
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: you need to deal with to kill a deer. Well,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: what if I've already checked the boxes and all of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: the other things, and what if I'm hunting in the
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: place where Man, it's that you just don't know where
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: the deer are gonna because there's so many deer here
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: and it's unpredictable how they move or there's shifting winds
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: um or or guess what these are wild animals And
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and yes, seventy percent of the time that buck is
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: going to go out in front of me through the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: pinch point. But what about that one time on November
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: seven when he does something crazy and he comes behind
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: me in the place I've never seen the buck go before.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: What do you do in that situation when you are
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: only counting on the wind being in your favor and
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: you didn't do anything else. I'm worried about these little things,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: those little moments. Where can I stop you right there
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: because I've got a question that that's a fantastic example.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: But have you seen dear be dead down wind of
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: you within yards that you honestly knew that they got
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: your wind, but they went ahead and walked through it.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: And let me let me put a caveat on that too.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I think there wind is so un scent and wind
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: are so unobservable by human senses. We can't smell at
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: that level. Number one, Number two, you can't see it
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: with your eyes. And number three like because I could
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: tell you times when I've seen dear walk dead down
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: mind wind to me and not smell me and it
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: was because the thermals there is because it's something I
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: couldn't see. It wasn't that they that I fooled him
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: because I wouldn't use them sink control. Do you have
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: some real examples of when a deer should have smelled
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: you and didn't because of your sin control practice? Great question,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and and so my answer to that is absolutely hundreds
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: of hundreds of examples of that. But I will preface
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: that by saying that I have if I have hundreds
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: of examples of and maybe maybe it's a dozens, but
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: dozens or hundreds of examples were dear definitely were down
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: wind of me, and I could tell you for a
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: fact that I observed them analyzing the wind. If that's
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the case, I can also tell you that there are
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: thousands where they got down wind of me and still
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: did wind me. So all this is to say that
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: if you do every if I were, if I do
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: everything right. So first I'm talking about there's a small
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: percentage of situations where the wind, but we're playing the
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: wind wouldn't help me. Okay, so we're talking about this
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: thirty time, and then within that thirty percent time, if
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I do everything right, I'm still getting winded maybe on
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: average seven times at ten. So now I'm talking about
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: there's a thirty percent of the time you're hunting where
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: this applies, and then all that only thirty percent of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: those times do I actually pull it off. But that
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: is worth it for me. So because if that one time,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: if I'm just getting five percent better chance of killing
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: a deer or killing the deer I'm after, or whatever
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: it is, that little bump is worth it to me
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: because of the time and energy I invest into all
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and I want that little extra bump. I
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: would if if the one time that this actually works
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: happens to be the time when it's a oh that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: walks through this down wind hole and she stops and
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: she sends you know when. The reason why, I can
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: tell you without a doubt, like not anecdote, I can
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: tell you I could point to dozens and dozens of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: deer that did this. I can tell you with confidence
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: that they were within the cone of my wind and
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: they were considering what's up there is because typically when
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: you're using an ozone product um which helps this a lot,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: they'll stop, they'll hit your wind trail, and they're win
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: that wind cone and they'll be like, oh, there's something
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: up there. I've had this happen with ozone. I think
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: also using like a cover like nose jam or something
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: helps with this um where they will hit your wind
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: and they will stop and be like, oh, this is
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: something and they'll stop, they'll lift their nose up, they'll
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: kind of shift their head around, they'll lick their nose,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: they'll stare in your general direction. And then I've had
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: this happen so many times, and it's like the moment
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: of truth. You see him hit the wind, and then
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: you sit there and you're thinking, well, what's it gonna
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: be today? Is am I gonna pull it off today?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Or no? And you're sitting there on the edge of
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: your seat and one of two things happens. Either they
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: spook like normal and you're like, well, it didn't work today,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: or they analyze the situation. They sit there, they sniff,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: they sniff, they lick, they stare, and they say, hmm,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: there's something up there. I don't know what it is.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: It's not enough to really spook, but I don't know.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: I don't like the situation. And O those turn and
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: walk back the way they came or option number three
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is they'll do the thing, they'll sit, they'll think, they'll lick,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and they'll say nothing, keep going. And I've had all
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: three of those things happen. But I've had enough deer
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: that moved right on through. They analyzed it and deemed
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: it safe. I've had that happen so many times, Clay
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: that I even though even though seventy percent of the
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: time they don't do that, the thirty percent of the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: time that they do that is like such a miracle
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: and such a useful thing to me that I want
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to do all that work to get that of the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: third percent in time. Um Because if that's a dough
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: with a buck behind her that I end up shooting,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: that was worth it. If that's a if that's a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: if that's a single dough that if she did spook
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and started blowing, fifteen deer that we're behind her would
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: blow up, or the fifteen deer that are in front
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: of me would blow up in the whole night's screwed.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure that one deer doesn't spook
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: because that might be the key to everything. Um So,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: so it's worth it to me, But I do know
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that it's it's not gonna work most of the time.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Even when you do everything right, it's a pain in
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: the butt. And there's certain situations when it isn't even necessary.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: All those things are true. Yeah, now that's a I
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: can get behind that mark um for real. You know,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: we joke a lot about or we we get we act.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I've intentionally gone on and on about SA control.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying, and and I mean, if
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: you say you've seen that then and you believe you,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: then uh, that's great. I think. I think, I think
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: what gets under by and for whatever reason, maybe I'm
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: a jerk and so I key in on stuff like this.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: But like the guy that you know drove in his
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: truck to his deer stand and gets out and like
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: sprays down with scent shield and is is thinking that
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: he's a hundred percent eliminating his odor. It's just the
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: product just doesn't work that good, you know. But I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: know how you're doing it, and I know how my
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: dad does it. And if you if you can go
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: to that level of legitimate scent control, then it could
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: be worth it. But you gotta do a whole bunch
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: of stuff, right, you know, you gotta be you gotta
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: be highly detail oriented, which you're fantastic at. And uh,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: and so is my dad and and I can be
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: a hund percent to and have been. And so that's
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: a thing if if you're gonna do it is one
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: of those things. If you're gonna do it, you gotta
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: do it a thousand percent. And then, like you said,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: to think that you could do that level of stint
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: control and like a hunt we were doing, it's just
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: really not it would I don't know anything is possible,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: but it would have been ridiculous to even try. Yeah, Like,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: like the way I look at it is, Man, if
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: there's any chance I can do this a little bit better,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't I. It's like, Okay, I know that, like
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: most people, it's hard to guarantee that every single time
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you take a shot at an animal it's gonna be
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: a perfect shot. Right. I can't tell you that every
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: time it's gonna work perfectly. Right, Some days a deer's
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: gonna do something crazy. Some days I might pull the trigger,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: some days the wind might blow it. Like so, if
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: if I were to say, well, since I'm never going
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: to get it perfect, I might as well not practice
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: and try, you know, that doesn't make sense to me,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: So the same thing goes a win like, well, I
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: know I'm never gonna get my scent control perfect, and no,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: I'm never gonna get I'm never gonna not gonna get
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: deer spooky me. So I'm not gonna try then like that.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: To me, I'm like, no, if I can, if I
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: can get a little better, if me practicing a little
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: bit more this year might improve my odds for the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: next shot by one percent more, I'm gonna keep practicing
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: more if I can do a little bit more with
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: sent control, and maybe that helps me one percent more
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: two percent more this year. Yeah, I'm gonna try to
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: do that a little more. So that's that's the way
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: I look at it. But I see all sides of it, um,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: and I definitely definitely agree like man, doing one or
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: two of these things is basically just a facade. If
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: it makes you feel better, okay, great, it's not going
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: to help you a lot. I think. I think, like
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: you said, you gotta go, You gotta do it all
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: to get some kind of benefit from it. Um. But
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: anyone who tells you that they are one sent free
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: and never ever get winded by deer uh. And never
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: you know, anyone who claims there instable in this regard,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: I have a really hard time believe in them. Yeah. Now, hey,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: here's here's one other this is this, here's one other thought. Mark,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: if we're talking about statistics, and we're talking about a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: real world not like on paper, but like real world
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: functional stuff, that's gonna it's gonna make us better. And
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: and we all have to evaluate, like what what do
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: we have the resources to invest in? Is? And and
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: I guess I guess I'm thinking about what you're saying,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: is that we are talking about what you just described
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: is a minuscule amount of favorability in your favor if
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: you're really looking at it, because how many times the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: thirty percent of the thirty percent, how many times do
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: you go hunting in a year and see a shooter
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: buck twice? And so you're talking about or tell me
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, I'm talking about in a thirty year
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: period of time, with those statistics, maybe sent control would
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: help you killed maybe one dear, maybe two dear? Is
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: that is that that right now? And then my my
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: combat the thing that I'm I'm not trying to combat.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm trying to.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm distilling down the way I think I would. I
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: would say, if there's that much energy going into extent
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: control for me to kill one more buck over the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: period of let's just say ten years, I could take
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: that energy and put it into something else and maybe
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: kill two more bucks. You see what I'm saying. Totally
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: get what you're saying. And and the only uh thing
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I would offer differently is that I'm not worried just
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: about like that big mature buck winning me. I really
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: care about every single dell that might win me, because
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: every dough that wins you could be the dough that
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: blows your whole hunt, especially, And that's that's what I'm
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: saying too. It's like, how many times, though, is that
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: gonna play out like that? Because usually a dose spooks
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: or dough walks through your sent and she doesn't have
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: a shooter buck behind her. You see what I'm saying.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: I do. But but what I'm more referencing is, and
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: this is because I hunt a lot in high deer
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: density areas, and like, if a dose, even if there's
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: not a buck on the dough, even in early season,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: next season, yeah, next week. Well, not even that. I'm
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: talking like, if a dough blows out on hunt today,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: on December whatever, mid December, I'm not worried about they're
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: being buck behind her. But if a doe starts blowing,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: that's my night. Like if I have one dough start blowing,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: my entire night's done. If that happens every single one
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: my hunts, I'll never ever see a mature buck um.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: And there's so many doughs where I hunt, there's always
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: dough is gonna be done with you. It's nearly impossible
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: in a lot of the places that hunt to ever
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: get a place that's bulletproof from a wind perspective. There's
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: I mean I hunted places where you can see forty
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: night and you just know like eventually something's gonna get
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: down wind. I mean most of these places, and I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: you know, there's just a couple of places where you
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: can hunt with a pond. But when you hunt flat
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: country in agg land, where there's not water, there's not
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: big valleys, there's nothing to act as like a blocker
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: for wind where deer won't ever go, you just know,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: well it's gonna happen. And so the question is will
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: I have a night where a doe starts blowing and
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: gets down winto me and alerts the entire two acres
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: to my presence, Or can I get away with that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: dough passing through giving me the benefit of the doubt
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: and then all the other deer that come through up
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: wind to me? Just keep doing the thing that is
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: almost in every single hunt occurrence for me, Clay, and
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: I need those three days out of tend to work
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: out to ever see a mature buck. Yeah, man, that
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: makes a ton of sense. And that what you just
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: said to about about flat ground, Like almost every place
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: I hunt over here has a significant topographic you know,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: elevation change, and if you're on the edge of something,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: you're sent I mean, there's just first of all, there's
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: a high probability they aren't gonna come from that way.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: You can almost know that, and that your your sin
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: is gonna be blowing off the side of a mountain
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: kind of inconsequentially, you know. So now, and that's a
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: great point is that apples to apples. Were not comparing
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: apples to apples when we're talking about our white tail hunting, really,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? But no, Hey, everything you
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: said is a percent reasonable, Mark, we have done it.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: We have come to terms here. No longer would it
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: be this hostility between us. I am saying, great job, Mark, Kenyon.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: I believe you, and and I'm right back at the clay.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: I can see your perspective on it, and there's it's
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: it's warranted, and I can totally understand your argument. So
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: the the nasty tension, the oozing disc comfort that we've
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: experienced whenhere around each other, can now be gone. You
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: can just put it to bed. So so okay, moving
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: on from sank control that taking care of Day three
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: or Hunt three or whatever this was. It was the
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: second day of the hunt, but it was the third hunt,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: so that that's the second morning saw nothing. So I
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: decided to still hunt that afternoon. And I'm curious what
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: you think about what I did here, Clay, because I
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: decided to move on from that saddle after hunting it
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: and evening in the morning, and I wanted to slowly
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: still hunt my way down this ridge, looking for any
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: new sign, looking for anything that might clue me into
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: there having been a a bit more activity here, and
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: then push on past where you and I had ever
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: been to before together. Because that that morning before we
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: had gone past the first settle, and we got we
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: got close to the second. There's another settle on the storge.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: We got to the edge of that and then turned around.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: In my head, I thought, all right, I'll still hunt
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: my way through that. I'll get to the second saddle,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: I'll examine it again, and assuming there's nothing new, I'm
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: gonna keep moving and I'm gonna head into new untouched
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: country and see what I find. Well, what happened is
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: I get I come up out of the first saddle.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: I get to the side of this ridge, and I
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: remember seeing a bunch of acorns and I was like, cash,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: I don't remember there being so many acorns here. So
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: I stopped for a second. I was just kind of
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: looking around and thinking. And then I look off to
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: my left and I see a little knob come off
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: of the main ridge that I hadn't noticed the previous morning.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: And there's this knob, kind of like a spur point
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: that came off the main ridge, and I noticed it
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: was just thick. For whatever reason, there was not a
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: mature canopy over this little knob, and it was really
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: thick new growth. Some of the thickest stuff that I
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: had seen so far, and I thought to myself, Man,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: if I were a buck, I would be betting off
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: this little spur ridge that comes off. This's the thickest,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: nastiest stuff I've seen yet. And I thought, you know what,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: let's just watch that, like, let's just edge this way.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: I had seen all these acorns here and this little
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: spur ridge, and I thought, I'm just gonna kind of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: edge my way over there and take a look and
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: see what's going on. So I started, I left the
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: main ridge and started dropping off to the side and
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: just really slowly edged my way along and as Tyler described,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and Tyler had to leave now because it was flight.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: But um, Tyler would be about yards behind me, and
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: then my second cameraman, who we bring these two cameramen
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: to have different angles in different coverage makes it very
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: hard from hunting perspective. But I had him stay back
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: like seventy eight yards and he was getting this far,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: far distant view. But I just didn't want three of
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: us right together trying to walk through the woods and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: making all this noise. Um, So I started just lipping
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: real quietly around this knob because the ridge was heading
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: up to the top of a basically a high point
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: on the bridge, and then there's a little spur that
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: came off there, and so I moved my way through there,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: and then here's a rub and then I see that,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: thinking all right, this is this is great. This is
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: only the second rub I've seen. Yet I keep moving
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: a little further another like forty yards, and here's another rub. Man,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: this is good. And then I move another like fifty
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: yards around this knob, circling and here's another one. So
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I've found three rubs all around
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: this spur point coming off the ridge, and I've been
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: looking at my map and I'm looking at the sign.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, this is interesting. And this also happens
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: to be just just at the head of that second saddle.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: So I stood there and just glassed that little brushy
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: knob for I don't know, half an hour, maybe watching
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: it and just seeing like maybe could there be a
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: buck bedded down there? And yes, no, I'm not sure,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: but I watched and watched it, and now we're down
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: to the last hour of daylight maybe, and I thought
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: to myself, well, this is interesting over here, but I
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: also know there's that saddle just around the corner. So
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: I decided to move edge down just a little bit
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: further so I could see into that saddle as well.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: And I thought, you know, i've got a gun. This
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: is a muzzle loader hunt. Um I could if I
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: can see down into this valley or this starry of
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: the saddle and then also be tight up next to
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: where this little spur is, maybe that's like the best
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: of both worlds. If there's bucks cruising the side hill
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: of the ridge, I could take advantage of it. If
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: there's a buck coming off this little point that I
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: thought maybe something might bet on. Given the rubs and everything,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: I could see that or be within range of that,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: and then I could also be within sight of the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: saddle and see if anything was crossing there as I
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: move over. I also remember that when you and I
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: took that first walk through this area, we had found
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: a little scrape right in the top of the ridge
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: in the same zone. So now all of a sudden,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: I've got acorns. I have a little scrape, and I
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: have three rubs all right next to the saddle. And
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: as you have described, like one rub equals ten in Michigan. Well,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: I've just found three plus a scrape that sounds like
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: an amazing concentration assign. Now, Um, so I was encouraged
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: by that, sat down next to a tree on the ground,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: kind of overlooking all this and figured, all right, I'm
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: gonna watch it and just see what happens. And sure enough,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: before dark here comes four does by far like the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: most dear we'd seen, and they come across that saddle,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: across the saddle, go to the other side. They're out
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: of range. Um, and this brings up a point that
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: we haven't covered yet, but we should, which is what
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: I was going to target on this hunt. I've been
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: asking you leading into the hunt. You know, what do
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: you think is realistic that I could see? Um? What's
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: realistic when it comes to bucks? Should I should I
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: try to take a dough? Should I hold out for
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: a buck? Should I hold out for an older buck
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: like I usually? Do? You know what's possible here? And
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: you brought this up with James, or one of us
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: brought us up James two, and he had some really
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: helpful insight. Um, can you just recount what that was
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: and and what your perspective was as far as you know,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: I had three and a half days or whatever it
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: was to hunt. What was your perspective? And James is
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: as far as you know, how I should adjust my goals.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: You know, with three and a half days to hunt,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: My my advice to you was shoot any legal buck
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: you see or legal deer. And James had the same
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: advice right off, without hesitation, shoot any legal buck you see,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you know. And um and boy, anywhere you go in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: the country, with three and a half days to hunt,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: you know, your your your odds, there are the odds
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: are already against you for taking a mature buck. I
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: mean even in some great place, you know. So on
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: this kind of hunt, we were looking for just a
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: legal buck and we hoped, we hoped it would be
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: a nice buck, and that would kind of just be
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: a game of odds, you know. I mean, this is
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: not a place we had cameras up. We didn't. We
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: had no clue what kind of deer were in the area.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: But so, yeah, you were just looking for for a
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: legal deer. And you know, I think you would have
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: shot a dough if you would have thought that it
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: was lone and it wasn't gonna you know, it wasn't
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: being followed by a buck, and um, so, yeah, we
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: were just this was kind of a meat hunt, you know, definitely.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: And when I saw those four doughs, I I even
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: tried to slip closer to them, just on the off
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: chance that maybe they'd come back through, or maybe there'd
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: be another deer behind them. And and to your point,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: I had decided that, yeah, getting any deer on this
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: hunt would be a heck of an accomplishment. So I
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: was excited seeing four shooter doughs, um and and yeah
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: that was how that night ended. Though they never came
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: back through, no other deer came through. But I had
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden a lot of confidence in this
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: little area and figure it, Okay, I'm gonna be right
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: back here first thing in the morning. Maybe adjust my
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: location a little bit closer into the saddle, a little
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: further into the saddle, so if something comes through there
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: like they did, I could get a shop and uh,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: you know, fast forward to that next morning. That's what
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: I did. I slipped in there before darker, before daylight.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: I found a spot where I could kind of hunker
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: up next to a tree and hide my cameraman behind
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: some down logs. And at first light, yeah, pretty soon
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: after first light, here comes some doughs through that same saddle,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: but they were further back, almost almost out of the saddle.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: They were kind of side killing it um and still
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: out of range now and kind of passing through some
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: thicker stuff. So they came through, and after I saw that,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: I thought to myself, well, maybe I need to be
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: deeper into this saddle, because you know, now both of
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: the groups of doughs that I had seen had been
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: on that farther side of it. So after I don't know,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: an hour after daylight, now maybe I'm like, okay, let's
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: make an adjustment again one more time. And this is
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: where hunting on the ground I think, really appealed to
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: me on this trip and on some subsequent hunts where
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I was using a firearm. You know, so often I'd
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: like to be up high and in a tree, But
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: when you've got a gun, you know a lot of
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: you're you're not as um vulnerable to getting spotted by
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: deer as you are with a bow. When you need
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: that deer to be forty yards away, and you know
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: you have to have them that close to get a shot,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: that's hard. But if I can kill him at a
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: hundred yards or kill him at seventy yards and see
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: them at that distance. You know, I'm not worried about
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: them seeing me next to a tree on the ground.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: And so I had thought to myself at this point, man,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: the benefit of being able to easily adjust my location,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: you know, just on like, hey, I need to move
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: and just walk thirty yards, that benefit outweighed the added
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: stealth I would get from being in a tree, just
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: because of how different it would be to move locations
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: to you know, put sticks and stand up and then
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: pull it down, move to another tree, put sticks and
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: get up in there in the saddle again, especially with
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: cameraman too. So in this case, I mean, I'm very
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: glad that I was on the ground because I just said, okay,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: well I saw what they did here. I'm just gonna
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: get up. I'm gonna move forty yards now a little
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: bit further. And I moved to a spot where I
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: could see down into that sad a little bit more
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: and shoot to the other side of it if deer
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: dig crossed through there, sat down the ground again. And
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: now this is what I can't remember what happened. First, Um,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: we had a spike come in directly behind me. And
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: it it walked right up on one of my cameramen
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: and spooked. What I can't remember is if that happened
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: before or after the next thing I'm gonna tell you about.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what happened first, um, but that's not
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: too terribly important. We did see a spike. I did
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: not get a shot of the spike. But what happened
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: either just before or just after the was that while
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the ground with my back back against
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: the tree, looking down at this saddle, I hear a
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: twig snap to my right, kind of right back from
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: where I'd come from. Just imagine, there's this ridge, and
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: then the ridge dips down right into the saddle in
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: front of me. But that ridge also there's a high
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: point under ridge, and then it falls off on either side. Right.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: I was just a little bit off to the left
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: side of the ridge, so I'm just slightly below the
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: highest point. I hear twig snap just to the right,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: just off of the high point, to the right side
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: of the ridge, and I spin my head when I
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: hear this snap, and as I looked to my right,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: I just see the tip top of times just beneath
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: the rise of the hill walking parallel to me down
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: into the saddle right away, I whispered to Tyler. Tyler
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: buck right next to us. I mean he was, it
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: was forty yards away maybe, as it was slipping down
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: the other side of the ridge, and I'd get up
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: on my knees, pull the gun up, put the gun
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: up against this tree I was that was sitting in
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: front of me. And yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what happened, right,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure I was sitting up against the tree.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: And then there was another tree in front of me.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: So I got up on my knees and put my
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: gun against that tree and spun, and as that deer
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: came out all from behind that rise, he stepped into
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: an opening and it had this all happened in like
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: five seconds, four seconds. He was there, he was in
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: front of me. Boom shot him. Hardly had time to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: even look at what this buck was, but I knew
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: it was a buck, and it was you know, a
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: legal buck, and it took a crack shot him. He
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: ran off like a hundred yards and then immediately went
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: down like bedded down though, And so I knew it
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't why I didn't know, but I appeared that it
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't an instantly fatal shot. He didn't crash down. He
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: ran off and stopped and went down, bedded down. And
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: so I repositioned myself first shot for the follow up shot.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: I could see like times in the grass, but couldn't
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: see him. And to make a long story short, he
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: ended up getting up, went back down, couldn't get a shot,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: got up, got back down, couldn't get a shot, and
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: finally got up and stood still in one position long
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: enough that I was able to get the follow up
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: shot and dropped him in his tracks right there. And uh.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: And I had killed a buck on day three of
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: the hunt. Walked up on him and he was like
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: a really nice I mean not a big big buck,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: but a nice eight point buck. Um, it was incredible.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: It was awesome. Yeah, man, thrilled. Well, I really feel
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: like for a for a three and a half day hunt,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: you did really good, especially in that part of the world,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, just to kill a nice racked buck, you know. Um,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: So I was thrilled. You. You messaged me. It was
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: it was later in the morning, like in ten o'clock
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: thirty out and you said shot at eight point and uh,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: I was. I was as the crow flies really not
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: that far from you, I mean, you know, ten miles
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: but it took me two and a half hours probably
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: to get to you. And by the time I got
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: back around and yeah, man, I was thrilled for you.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: It works. You know. That's the thing about these this
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: kind of hunting is you can't be validated by seeing deer.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, we deer hunt because we love deer. Oh
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: it is. It's ridiculous how fun it is to watch deer,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, like you see you see these
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: videos of like cats like looking at a window at
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: a bird, and you know, you can just tell how
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: pump they are to be watching this bird. Um, we're
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: like that with dere We love to see just watch
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: a deer that we're not even gonna kill. And that
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: is part of the fun of hunting. So if you're
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt for four hours, you know, to not see
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: a single deer except the one that you shoot would
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: not be as fun as if you had seen ten
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: before you killed the one that you did kill. But
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: but the result was the same, you know, And that's
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: kind of what I thought would happen, is that if
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: you sit there long enough, it's gonna work out. And uh,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: and the plan worked. We stuck with the plan, you know,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: hunting these hot stackles and with just a little bit
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: of sign, it just kind of worked like it was
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: supposed to, you know. Yeah, And I'll tell you that
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: was one of the biggest challenges though, was trusting in
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: that plan. You know, I'm so used to you know,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: especially when you're hunting in high deer density areas and
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: you know, what I do most of the time is
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: trying to target a mature buck. You know. It's it's
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: so focused on finding the best of the best sign
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: and high concentrations of it and getting right into the
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: middle of it and making sure you're on the freshest, hottest,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: biggest sign, and you need all these different points of
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: validation to confer them that yeah, you're actually in it,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: and if you're not actually in it, you're wasting your time. Well,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: that's the exact opposite in this kind of scenario where
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: it's man, you're not gonna have any of that, and
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: you simply need to trust that this thing is good enough,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: this terrain feature is good enough, and wait and trust,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: like there's nothing to tell you. Oh yeah, I'm on
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: the right track. Oh yeah, this is you know, here's
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer okay, yep, or here's a bunch
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: of sign yep, you're on the right track. Nope, there's
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: none of that. And so I remember, you know, talking
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: about that to the camera, just about how kind of
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: unnerving that is, and how I just kept on trying
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: to remind myself, like, trust the terrain. Just trust the terrain,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: to keep on trusting it, and you know, eventually, you know,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: there's the possibility could work out. And unfortunately it did.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: Um but you know, very different than what I'm used
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: to in in so many places. And Mark, if we'd
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: have had more time, like ideally you would do it
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: hunt like that and have a week to hunt, you know,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: and if you'd come in and had a full week
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: to hunt, we probably would have spent more time scouting.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: We we would have tried to find a little more sign,
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: or you know, one of us would have hunted. If
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: we'd have been just hunting together and we'd have found
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: one spot that had a little bit of sign, it
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: was a good historic saddle. It might have been like, hey,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: you hunt here tonight, I'm gonna go over there and
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: check that out and and still hunt a little bit.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: But scout and you know, about day three, just like
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: all these hunts that happened, you know, we might have
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: found something that was way better than what you were
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: sitting on. But boy, I just calculated that. Man, if
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: you just sit there, if you just stay in this
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: area and do this, especially for the short amount of
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: time we had, then it'll work, you know. And there's
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: a couple of different responses to to hunting, and a
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: guy just kind of has to figure out what he
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: wants to do and what is successful. I don't have
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: a hard time hunkering down when times get hard and
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: just sticking with something where like so for instance, like
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: I could go sit in the saddle for you know,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: three or four hunts in a row and not see
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: a deer and go into it on that fifth hunt,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: thinking today is the day I feel better than I've
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: ever felt. You know that it's gonna work out, just
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: because statistically, you're like, deer is gonna come through here,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: and I've been here four times and he hadn't showed
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: up today. There's gotta be a deer come through here,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: and and it works. At the same time, one of
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: the best hunters I know down in western Arkansas. It's
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: a good friend of my name is Scott Brown. He
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: won't hunt a place more than once if he doesn't
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: see a deer, and he's hunting the exact same type
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: train mark and Scott. Scott will tell you, boy, if
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: you go in someplace and don't see a deer, then
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: go somewhere else. But he also knows all that country
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: really well. He lives there. He and that's his strategy.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: His strategy is, actually, I'm gonna kill a deer the
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: first time I go in somewhere, So I am going
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: to maximize the number of first times that I go somewhere.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying, And a lot a lot
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: of times. And I like that. I like going too
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: a totally new spot and setting up, but I also
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: like to kind of hunker down and just wait for one. Yeah.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: It just takes, like it does take some under some
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: knowledge of that place, or some confidence in that place
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: to do that, at least for me. Yes, you know,
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: I'm fine sitting in place over and over again. If
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: I know, like hey, I know that bucks use this
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: area in this kind of way. I know that eventually
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: he'll come through it might not be today, it might
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: not be tomorrow, but it will happen. Like I love
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: a place like that. The hard thing for me this
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: year was just I'm just you know, I just got hunches,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: or I've just got a suggestion, or I've just got
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: a man, this is supposed to work like this, so
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: I hope so um. That was the thing that kept
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: my mind swimming day after day in these different punts,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: in these different locations like this, where you're just like, man,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: this is how it's supposed to work. I just don't
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: have the time and history here to tell you that
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: I know for sure, And so you're just kind of
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: you're hoping and wishing on a prayer. And and fortunately
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: this case, you know it, it panned out the way
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to and and it was a really cool experience.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: And you came rolling in a few hours later on
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: your mule, and uh, and I guess that's something worth
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: talking about because you know, as you alluded at the beginning,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: you know, going in like we did and camping out
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: in there and bringing the mule, it's not all about efficiency.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: It's really a lot about chasing a certain experience. But
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: there is something awfully efficient about having that mule. I
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: was we were four miles away from the truck at
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: this point. Um, that'd be a heck of a drag
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: or a heck of a hike out with him on
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: my back. But we were able to grab that deer
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: and throw it on your mule, and uh, you know,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: make for a much easier exit strategy. What's uh, can
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: you talk to about the best way to pack a
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: deer out, how you did that on the mule and
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on that side of things. Yeah, So that
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: that was really cool. And that is the probably the
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: biggest the biggest cherry on top of hunting with a
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: mule is that you're not worried about killing one way
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: back in there. When I years ago, I remember I
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: was bear hunting back in the mountains and my dad
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: would be like, well, what are you gonna do when
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: you kill one back there? And that was a legitimate
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: question for us back then before I had stock. Is like,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: holy cow, that's gonna be a major deal getting it
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: out of there, and um, and and that's just not
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: an issue if you've got a mule that'll carry a deer.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: And what was cool about this deal too, is we
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: carried the mule carried all our stuff out and the
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: deer so and in the same one trip. So if
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: we'd have been back there without that, without the mule,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: we'd had to make a couple of trips back in
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: and out of there to get the whole deer out
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: and everything. And and the deer wasn't a huge body deer,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: you know, so it wasn't wasn't a big deal for
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: the mule. But what this strategy that I used, or
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: the technique that I used, was you got the deer
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: and then you cut about a four or five inch
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: slit in the ribs, kind of in the middle, the
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: middle section of the ribs, and you it takes two
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: guys and and it can be kind of hard to do,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: but you basically put that slit over the saddle horn
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: on your saddle, and once that saddle horn goes in
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: the slit of that rib, you don't even have to
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: tie the mute the deer down. It looks like it's
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: just draped across the saddle, but it pretty much won't
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: come off. And so that's what we did, and uh
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: it uh. And then you can also still put your
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: paniards on and pack all your camp and so we
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: came out of there and the mule had all our
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: camp in the deer and um, you know the other
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: the way that when I bear hunt and how a
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: bear out, as we'll go ahead and quarter the bear
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: and just put the quarters in there. You could do
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: the same thing with the deer. You can quarter the
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: deer and put the quarters you know, in your in
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: your pants. And um, I've also seen guys tie them
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: up like basically drape them over the saddle and then
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: tie their feet and not do the slit the slip tactic.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I enjoy that stuff. That's it. It's pretty handy. Yeah,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: well yeah, I mean I was really glad, really glad
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: we had iusy for that one. Uh. It was it
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: was just it was helpful and then just cool again.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: It was another one of those moments. Hiking in I
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: had a moment like that and hiking out again, like
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: looking back and seeing seeing my buck slung over the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: top of a mule. I mean, that's uh, that's a
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: site you don't get every day. And and so much
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: of this this week was like that, uh, you know,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: in in the modern deer hunting experience or most of
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: us you know, so much of hunting now is you know,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: at least maybe it's maybe it's just me, me and
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: people I hang out with, but it's it's kind of
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: like your I don't know, like a like a military persons.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: Sneaking in like assaulting a target is sometimes how we
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: talk about. Like you're on a mission. You've got your property,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: you get in there, you get your fancy scent control stuff,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: you get your you know, your thousand dollar bow and
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: your saddle in your ultra light sticks, and you hike
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: into this place or you ride an e bike into
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: this place or whatever, and you check your trail cameras
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: and you look at your phone and you see what's
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: on the cameras, and you're doing all this stuff, and
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: it's very intense. It's very technology heavy these days, and
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: in certain ways it's and oftentimes solo, it's often very
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: very end goal oriented, like I'm trying to kill this
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: one mature buck, and if any other deer comes through,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: I don't care. All I care about is that one deer.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: And so there's these very high stakes and I sometimes
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: catch myself like being surrounded by pressure and stress and
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: technology and uh, you know, all these things and I'm
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: out there and I'm like, I'm not even having fun
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: right now, Like I'm just piste off, or I'm just
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: stressed out, or I'm just like overworked, whatever it might be.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: And I'll catch myself sometimes thinking what are you doing?
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I don't love a lot of
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: these things a lot of the time, but there are
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: days or moments and I'm like, WHOA, this is not
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: what I wanted to be all the time, and that's
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: why I hunt. Like what we experienced together in Arkansas
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: seemed like such a great reset where I wasn't worried
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: about all these things. I wasn't stressed out about a
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: big buck, I wasn't worried about trail cameras. I wasn't
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: bringing any technology or send control stuff out there with me.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a solo tactical assault man. I was there
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: with a group of people. We're having fun together, We're
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: having a shared commune experience. We were out there in
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: nature camping hoping to see some deer, but if not, well,
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: you know what, that's hunting. And it was very much
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: a throwback to how I imagine a lot of people
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: experience these things and and I've noticed Clay with you
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: that you seem to actively, um, you actively are seeking
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: out those types of counter culture, counter mainstream culture experiences.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe like you've you've made a choice to get involved
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: with mules. You've made a choice to go and do
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: these kinds of you know, hunts in the big woods
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: that are a lot harder than what you could be
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: doing in other parts of Arkansas. You've you've done and
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: you've explored different arenas within the hunting culture like this.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: You've you've gone and you've tapped into things like you know,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: getting into coon hunting, bear hunting, all these different things
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: that maybe you're different than the mains dream? Um is that?
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: Is that purposeful? Is that mindful? Is that? Did that
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: just happen because of how you were raised? Or have you?
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: Have you thought to yourself at some point in your life, Man,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: I think they had something right a hundred years ago
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: or two years ago. I want to get a taste
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: of that. I want to be more like that. What
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: does any of that make sense? A resonant? You know,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's probably a combination of a of a
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: lot of different things, you know, talking about this kind
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: of romantic hunt in a sense that we did out
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: there with mules and hunting this way with really not
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of technology. Uh, that's not the way I
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: always hunt, you know. I mean that that is there's
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: probably some media bias towards that because that's what people
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: want to talk to me about, and that's what I
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: enjoy talking about. But you know this, Mark, I mean,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of my white til hunting is not
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: that dissimilar to yours, you know, I mean like hunting
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: a single buck, you know, driving a truck to where
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt, and getting out and getting in a
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: tree saddle, and you know, so a lot of my
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: hunting is just pretty standard. But I find that I'm
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: pretty goal oriented over periods of time. And I spent
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: about ten years in this part of Arkansas trying to
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: kill a three and a half year old plus age
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: buck with a bow. That was my goal every year.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: I want to kill a three and a half year
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: old deer or above every year. And I mean, I
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: really can't say how many years I did that, but
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: after ten twelve years, I was like, Okay, I can
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: do this, Like I could do this probably for the
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: rest of my hunting career. You know fairly successfully, you know,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: and and I just kind of proved myself that I
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: could do that, and so I kind of I didn't
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: forget that because I still do that, but I moved
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: on to something else. And really it probably was six seven, eight,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: ten years ago that I really started hunting National forest
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: in the interior National Forest like what we did. So
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: that's not something I necessarily just always targeted. You know.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: When I was a kid, we were trying to get
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: away from that kind of hunting, you know. We we
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: were trying to go hunt the private land. We were
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: wanting to go to the Midwest, we were wanting to
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: do something different because that was tough. And so when
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: I became an adult and after I kind of did
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, I went back to that. And
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know why I like that
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I just, um, I do like to
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: continue to challenge myself. I mean, like with traditional archery
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: would probably be a good example of that kind of stuff.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: You know. I've hunted with a compound since I was
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: in the third grade and used to shoot. Gary Nucam
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: hauled me around to every bow tournament within four hours
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: of where we live and shot a lot of uh
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: archery tournaments and stuff, and you know, when I got
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: in became an adult, I was like, well, I'm done
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: with that. Um and it just wasn't that interested in that.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: But it had built a skill set and shooting bows,
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: and if I started, I kept bow hunting, and I
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: just felt like I was carrying a rifle, you know.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: And there was some strategic people in my life that
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: were traditional archery hunting, and I just remember going and
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: talking to those guys and going, holy cow, how that
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: dude is bow hunting, you know. And and for me,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: I was challenged by these traditional archers and so I said,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know if I can do
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: it or not. Let's see. And so for about seven years,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: I really heavily focused on traditional archery, and that was
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: my go to weapon for everything. And Mark I missed
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: a couple of real nice bucks. I killed some deer,
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: killed one nice buck, killed bunch of bears. That was
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: my main target during that period was bears. And about
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: two years ago I woke up and I was like,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: you know what, I've kind of done it for me,
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: for my standards, you know, I was like, yep, I
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: can kill stuff with a traditional bow with consistency. I
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: love it. It's awesome, And I said, but I think
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go back to the compound. So for
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: the last two years I've shot compound and love it,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: just love it. I mean, when I go out with
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: my compound bow right now, I feel really good about
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: just killing a deer, and um, you know, the two
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: years from now, that might wear off and I might go,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going back to the triad. Bo
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: I just kind of like to keep things fresh. I
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: guess I get that. Get that you you talk about, Um,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: you talk about in in a number of your pieces
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: of work, you know, like your podcast Burglaries, about some
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: of the influences that you've had and and someone in
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: particular who you would have liked to go back in
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: time and shake their hand and look him in the face,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: like someone like Daniel Boone or one of these other
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: long hunters, mountain men, frontier types. Um, it's funny. I'll
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: step out of my question and as in the side,
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: I don't remember where, but somehow my son UM heard
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: me talk about Daniel Boone or something, and then we
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: were riding in the car together when I was listening
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: to one of your podcasts about Daniel Boone and so
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: he's like, oh, this is Daniel Boone and he started
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: listening and he's three mind you. Um. He then found
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: the song from the Daniel Boone TV show, Like my
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: mother in law someone must have like heard him talking
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: about Daniel Boone. So's like, hey, listen to this song.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: So she heard that Daniel Boone as a man and
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: he is. Now for the last two months since I've
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: visited with you, he has been in full blown Daniel
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: Boone obsession. Old like we we listened to that song
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: every morning on repeat and the two of us will
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: sit there singing he was a big man. And he
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: pretends to be Daniel Boone and he I mean, he's
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: he's in it. He obsesses about these different hunters like
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: he's he you know, he likes to pretend to be
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: Steve or you or Janice or whoever. But right now,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: Daniel Boone is the top of the game for him.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: And I bring that up though to to just I'm
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: curious how much these historical figures, you know, you mentioned
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: we kind of romanticize these kind of throwback hunts a
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: little bit. How much to folks like that enter your
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: mind when you go out and hunt in this kind
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: of way or you go into a place like this. Um,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's some kind of appeal even like, like,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: even though I don't hunt this way a lot, I
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: still I'm like, Wow, there's something very attractive about what
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: that must have been like and not wanting to tap
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: into it just a little bit. Yeah, that's a good question, Mark,
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: And the answer is I think about it all the time.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: I really do. I mean I really I think about
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: Daniel Boone. I think about Frederick Gerstacker, who's as a
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: guy that hunted in the early eight hundreds here in
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: Arkansas that I've read a lot about. And I think
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: about these guys all the time. And I think, what
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of on the search for, among probably all
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: of us, is personal identity. And we we unconsciously draw
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of personal identity from sources that we don't
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: even recognize. And you know, the question I always bring
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: up on Burglarys and I ask people constantly is why
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: is it important what some dude did two hundred years ago?
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: You know, for whatever my connection would be to him,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: whether it would be he lived in the same place
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: I did, or he was interested in something I'm interested in,
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's a family member, or maybe it's a
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: geographic geographic connection or whatever. And that answer, the answer
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: to that question is not entirely tangible, but it is
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: extremely clear that we draw an enormous amount of personal
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: identity from a bunch of stuff that happened a long
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: time ago. And there's that that can be positive and negative,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: big time mark. I mean, humans are just sponges for identity.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: We're all trying to figure out who we are and
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: what is the functional expression of who we are that's
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: gonna make us be successful and have a good family
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: and be good deer hunters and be able to make
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: money and and and make whatever impact we feel like
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: we need to make on planet Earth. And uh, you
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: just can't do that absent from history. And I don't.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: I'm really not a history I can't say that I'm
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: like a history buff. I don't just devour history books.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: But I get into certain you know, there are certain
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: things that that I do get into, Like Daniel Boone,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: that series like that was fascinating to me, and um
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: and I learned a lot myself inside of all the
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: research and talking to the all these guys about Daniel Boone,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: and I think there, I think it makes your outdoor
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: experience more robust. And that is something I'm very interested in,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: is in all areas of life, is to have a
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: robust human experience and whatever you're doing, whether it's with
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: your family or your career at you know, the I
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: T place you work at, is like to be beyond,
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: to have a beyond the surface level understanding of what's
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: going on, who you're working with this life. And so
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: if I can, if I can understand about the way
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: these long hunters hunted and the history of North American
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: hunting and how they market hunted animals out. But then
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: there was the reintroduction of animals to kind of in
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: the in some places actual reintroduction. But if you know
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: the broader picture of conservation, then it makes a ton
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: of sense and adds a ton of value to that
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: you know, average eight point that you killed on the
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: side of a mountain in Arkansas that otherwise might not
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: have that much value. So I think knowledge just almost
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: always brings a more robust experience to anything that you do. Yeah,
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: you know, so true, So much of a hunting or
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: any kind but so much of a hunt or hunting
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: experience is experienced between your ears too, and having that knowledge,
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: that context, even even being able to imagine all this
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: greater greater and struggling to articular exactly what I mean here,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: but but but it adds this whole other level, this
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: whole this sense of depth to to everything. Um and
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: and I can't help but find myself romanticizing these things too,
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: and imagining these things and putting myself into different places
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: in different times and thinking, man, what what have that
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: been like? How much I would have loved to be there? Man?
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: So often like man, I was born two years too late.
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: Um So, if I gotta ask you, if if I
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: could go back to any time and like plant myself
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: in a spot and experience something I would have liked.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: I've thought about this a lot, so it's easy for
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: me to answer now. I would have liked to have
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: been on the Lewis and Clark during That's where I
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: want to go. I want to have got to go
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: across the Great Plains and see be one of the first,
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: you know, euro Americans to experience what that was like.
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: The vastness of the wildlife populations and being able to
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: go and see what the Rocky Mountains were actually like
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: and going up into them, and you know, all all
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: along that trip you don't know. You don't know what
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: you're going to come across. Your your surprised by everything.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: You've heard, rumors of things, you've gotten reports, some scouts
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: on different things, but the whole way, it's man, I
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: don't know. And then seeing the the amazing plenty of
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: what the American West was actually like would have been amazing.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: That's that's what I would like to to see and
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: do if I could go back in time. Ah, what
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: would your spot be? Would you go back and be
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: one of Boone's buddies, cross into the government gap or
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: what would you choose? Okay, I'm gonna give you a
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: layered answer, mark because I am. I am thrilled to
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: be alive in like, I'm confident that Daniel Boone or
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: the Fulsome Hunters were doing a podcast series on Bear
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: Grease right now about the the Fulsome site, which is
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: a ten thousand plush year old site where they killed
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: thirty two bison using this unique style of point and
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: it's just an unbelievable story. And those those guys if
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: they if they inside of their life could peer into
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: the life that we live, they would be more fascinated
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: with us than we are with them looking back. You know,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: we we live we're trapped inside of time, which makes
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: us think that our lives are normal and our lives
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: are not normal at all. In this last podcast, I
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: did a section because I was kind of trying to
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: quantify that statement right there, and they say that there
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: they estimate that there's been about a hundred and seventeen
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: billion humans that have lived on planet Earth. Ever, you know,
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: Homo sapiens hundred and seventeen billion. Right now, there's seven
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: point eight billion people on planet Earth. Um, it's hard
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: to analyze those numbers, but basically, the vast, vast majority
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: of humans that have ever lived have lived radically different
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: lives than us, with not the amount of technology that
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: we have. So I say that to say, I'm I
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: think we're we're pioneers in a major way. Like I
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: think just like we look back at boone and go,
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: how did he do it? How did he travel that
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: all that way? And buckskins? And how did he handle
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: the cold? How did he can handle the hunger? How
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: did he handle the thread of uh Indians? How did
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: he kill all those animals? How did he do that?
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: You know, they they'd be saying the same thing about us.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: How did how did they manage the all the stress
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: and how do they manage that this and that? How
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: to deal with trolls on Instagram? Exactly? Yeah, but I would.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: I would love to go back into Boone's time. I would.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: I'd love to be Dan Boone's buddy. I just have
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: a ton of respect for the guy. I just really,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: there's so much we know about Boone and these weird
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and Rannella said it so well so many
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: times on that series, But we know a ton about
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: Boon obscure, an incredible amount of stuff we know about Boon,
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: down to his personal emotions and opinions on really specific things,
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: which is kind of unique. And I think I would
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: like old Dan Boone and uh but and this is
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: probably because I'm deep into the research and kind of
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: the heart of this podcast. I'm fulsome but I cannot
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: get over trying to understand the human experience that applies
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: to Seene Hunter would have had. I mean, I just
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: like to be in their camp. I mean, were they
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: happy or were they just miserable? Because of the life
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: that they lived. Where there comedians in a group? You know,
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: there's ten people in your camp. Was there one guy
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: that was like super funny, cracking jokes about you know,
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: applies to see Dad jokes um, And the the answer
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: is yes, you know he was there. There would have been.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: They were just like us. They just didn't have the
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: the knowledge or the technology that we have, but they
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: had a whole other set of knowledge. So so either
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: applies to scene Hunter or Boone Boone, you know, being
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: around when old Boone was around. But I guarantee you
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: if we were there for a week, we'd want to
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: come back. I mean, oh, just incredible. And and it's
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: also incredible to think about the resilience of humanity too,
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: to become whatever we have to become to survive. So
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: we look at some of the stuff that Boone went
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: through and just went like, how was it even possible?
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: Because you know, me and you go out and set
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: four hours in a tree stand and get a little
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: bit chilled, and we're like, man, I'm I'm ready to
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: go home, you know, and uh, and these guys, you know,
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: Daniel Boone once spent two years on a hunting trip
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: by himself without you know, no rain gear, living off
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: of wild game and what every foraged and just a
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: toughness that that would have taken. And to think, holy
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: cal if me and you went and did that today, Mark,
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know what, how would we respond to that?
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: But if we were there and didn't know any different,
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: I guarantee it would have not been that big a deal.
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: So just interesting stuff to think about. Yeah, for sure,
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: it definitely is, and it's it was. It was really
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: cool to have, you know, a short opportunity to immerse
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: myself in something that at the at the just very
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: very little surface level could give you a tiny little
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: opportunity to to experience what that might have been like
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: just a little bit. I mean going in there, this
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: whole this whole hunt for me was um, it was
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: just a real treat, getting that taste, getting a feel that,
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: getting to be out in the mountains, big woods, public land,
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: camping out with the mule, hoping touh, hoping to still
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: hunt my way into a buck, hoping something will come through,
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: Hoping I'll bill sling a deer over top of a
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: over top of a mule. I mean that that whole
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: thing was just it was a really great adventure. And
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough, Clay for show me around,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: for for taking time to share with me how you
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: think about these things and and how you go about it,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: and man, it was just a great time. So thank you. Yeah,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: well man, you're welcome. But really I I thank you
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: for coming down. I mean for you, uh and and
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: you're the white tail guru. For your to think enough
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: of what we're doing down here to come down here
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: was honor to me. So I appreciate you coming man,
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: because you you knew you were walking into something that
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't an ideal. It's not the kind of place you
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: travel to go hunt, you know. So yeah, I had
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: a great time, and you know it. Man, you can
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: come back anytime you want to. But me and you
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: were kind of trapped in this media world where we
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: gotta produce content. So and there's always pressure and it's
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: dumb to talk about it, but there is a you know,
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: producing media does put a big time strain and an
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: unusual difficulty on a hunt that is not typically seen.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: Even in this conversation we're not talking about that, but man,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: that that that makes a difference. So I sell that
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: to say when me and you retire, Mark and we're
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: no longer making outdoor media. Come down to Arkansas and
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: we'll go out and hunt for a week. Set up well,
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: we'll set up a big camp and we'll we'll really
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: do it right. But we can't be documented. I mean
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: you can't. Nope, I'm on board, Sign me up. I'm
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: I'm in for this one. This sounds good to me, Clay.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: I thoroughly enjoyed our time, and I want to give
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: you one opportunity here real quick for folks that want
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: to learn more about Boone or the fulsome Sight and
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: all the other cool stuff that you've been exploring or
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: getting into. Can you just plug where they can find
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: all the good work you're doing these days. Yeah, So
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: check out Grease. So bear Grease is the Meat Eater production,
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: just like Wired to Hunt is. So Mark and I
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: are colleagues, and um yeah, Bear Grease podcast type it in.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: Bear Grease is a documentary style podcast, typically under an
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: hour long, and on any given podcast, we might have
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: three to five different guests that talk about these issues
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: and and uh we will will pick topics and um,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like we did a whole We did three
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: part series on Daniel Boone. We had really the best
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: guests you could have in North America. I think I
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: feel like so we we we We're getting some good
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: guys on and the Fulsome site would be a good example.
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: We're doing a actually a four part series on falsome.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: My dog's treating a squirrel out here, Mark, I don't
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: know if you can hear that. I probably need to
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: go shoot it out. Yeah yeah, and uh, she's looking
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: at it too. And when she when test starts barking
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: like that, she's looking at it. Um. The Falsome Sight
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: Uh series is just fascinating. We went to the world's
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: expert on Fulsome and archaeologist named Dr David Meltzer and
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: um so anyway, yep, fun stuff man, kind of kind
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: of a deep dive but kind of different, different than
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: most podcast I guess. Yeah. Well, I've told you in
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: person and I'll say it again for everyone to hear
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: it is. It's truly fantastic, Like you're really doing a
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: great job. There's a lot of podcasts out there these days,
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: and I don't like to listen to most of them,
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: but but Bear Grease is real deal. So well done, Clay,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: and uh, thank you for doing you and thanks for
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: having me up there this year. Yeah, Mark, I really
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. Man, Thank you all right, and that's it.
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you being here. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday season.
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: I hope you with friends and family. I hope you
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: are enjoying a little time off, maybe some time outside.
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: And uh, I just hope you wrap up this year
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: in a really great way. Thanks for being with us
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: all these past twelve months. I can't tell you how
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: much I appreciate it. Until next time, stay wired to
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: h