Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #190: QDMA Founder Joe Hamilton Talks Deer, the South, Late Season and More

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #190: QDMA Founder Joe Hamilton Talks Deer, the South, Late Season and More · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This is episode number one ninety
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and tan the show. We are joined by Joe Hamilton's,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a wildlife biologist and the founder of the Quality Deer
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Management Association, and we're gonna be chatting with him about conservation,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the q dum A, hunting in the South, and much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much more. All Right, welcome to another episode of the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And today here in a little bit we're gonna be
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: joined by Joe Hamilton's. And Joe is the founder of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the Quality Dear Management Association. So he has just a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: wealth of information. He has a lot of interesting insight
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: into kind of the evolution of the hunting world. Um,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: so there's gonna be a lot of interesting things to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: talk about when it comes to that. I want to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: talk to him a little bit about, you know, hunting
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and what we've got going on this month here in December.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: And he's gonna have an interesting perspective there too, because
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: he's down in South Carolina. We don't talk to as
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: many people as we probably should about hunting down the South,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: so I want to cover that. But then maybe maybe
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: just as important as all of that is the fact
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that Joe is just a great storyteller. UM. I went
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: down to UM get my dear Steward certification down in
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Missouri maybe six or seven years ago. It's this course
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that the Qualitier Management Association puts on, the two day event,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and Joe was down there for that, and I just
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: remember sitting there and just being like captivated whenever he talked.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: He just has that voice and that prey is in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: UM that just kind of sucks you in and you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: just want to listen to the guy. So I'm excited
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: just just to listen to the guy today. UM. And
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: he actually has a has a new book out with
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: many of his stories that I think is gonna be
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: pretty cool too. So we'll talk about all those things, UM.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But before we do that, before we get to the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: good storyteller, we need to take a few minutes for
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: some bad storytellers. Me and Me and Dan um with
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: our our weekly preamble, do you have any bad stories
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Dan that we should cover? To that dude, I was
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a hardcore drinker for like ten years. Of course I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: got bad stories. Maybe not those stories. Okay, okay, all right,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. You know, we often talk a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: little bit about social media greed and their greed and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Facebook envy, all the Facebook envy. Man,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I got it, you diddy. It's like you got a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: field tag. I got a field tag. What do you get?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But guess what the guy who shares the farm with me.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I saw a picture of the buck that he shot.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And do you remember the buck that I showed you
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the year, the big eight with
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the split G two. Is that the one that you missed? No,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that's the bigger one of the eights? So but still
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a giant eight pointer, giant eight part pointer. He ended
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: up shooting it during shotgun season, and and I just
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: was like I had this mix of emotion of awesome, dude,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: he shot it, glad you know it was a mature buck.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: You know you want to shoot mature bucks. Whatever. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: at the same time, like I got this struggle on
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the inside going I wish that was me, not necessarily
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: hating on him, but just like, man, I what do
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I need to do to to hunt more or to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: you know, expand my opportunities or or whatever, you know,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: by land, get a second tag, start shotgun hunting, you
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: know whatever, go to another state. I just like, I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: didn't regret what I did, but I was just like,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I want to do more. Oh yeah, that's that's totally understandable.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It's man, I know, um, right, when someone else kills
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a buck, of course we want to be happy for him.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: We are happy for them, celebrate that. But it is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: still human to have a little bit of that. Dang.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I wish that was me, and it wouldn't have had
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Like if I don't know, let's say it's a guy
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you share the proper property with, or your neighbor ends
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: up killing holy Field. Yeah you know this, this isn't
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: my property, This isn't um you know, I don't own it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I had permission to hunt on it just like he does. Um.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: But it was a buck that I had been following
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: all year. Um, it was a buck that I followed
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: from the previous year as well, and I just was
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it's almost like I was envisioning myself killing
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: this year, whether it was this year or next year,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and then someone else when and did it, um, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it just was like, oh man, I wish that was me.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I sent the dude an
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: email and I was like, hey, man, congratulations on a
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: stub buck. You know, just that's awesome. And I just
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: asked him, you know, where where did you kill him?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Because I wanted to find out more information of how
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: how he was traveling or the deer patterns. And he
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: hasn't gotten back to me yet because I think he's
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: at work, but or he's like or he's like, yeah,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of course Dan wants now where it killed him. I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: not giving him mindtel Oh man, man, I know how
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it goes. It happens. It definitely happens. But so I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was thinking about another part of what you said there though,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: about how you wish you could get out more. How
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: many days did you actually get to hunt this season?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Because you tagged out on like day four of your
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: rut vacation. Is that right? Um? Let me pull up
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: a calendar real quick. I can actually tell you I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: started my rut vacation on what my first night in
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the tree, Dan officially was Friday the third, and I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: killed my dear on Wednesday, the eight so two, three,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: four five, so like five full days of hunting. And
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: then you go back into October and I think I
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: hunted four days so and I was thinking about that too.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: You know, you bring up a good point like man,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: three hundred sixty five days in a tree stand and well,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I got to go hunt or three sixty five days
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: in a year and my hobby. Yes, there's there's other
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: days like doing mineral trimming out tree stands that may
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: take up four days, checking trail camerons. Let's add two
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: more days, so now you're at five and then that
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's like seventeen total days throughout the entire season. Yeah,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that's that's kind of like, yes, like of the whole year,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you just got ten days actually doing the thing that
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you think about all year, dream about all year, land
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: for all year. Um. I mean, so, how my question
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: do you is, how do we in what I mean we,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I mean guys like us who have more more guys
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: like me than guys like to say, I'm a little
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: bit of an outlier, right, but let's say the average Joe,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the working guy, the family guy. You know, how how
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: do we then take and show those facts and statistics
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to our wives or significant others and say, listen, there's
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: three sixty five days in a year, my passion, I
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: got fifteen days to do it. Why are you complaining
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: on fifteen days? You know what I mean? How do
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: we have that conversation? Man? I don't know. I mean
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's it's it's that, it's you
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: just have to somehow have a conversation. I don't know
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the right way to do it. I have struggles with
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: it sometimes too. Um. Now, I I have a kind
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of a get out of jail free card because I
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: can say it's my career, so I get a lot more.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I get a lot more leeway and I than most people.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And I understand that. Um, but still it can be
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a challenge to so for me and Kylie, at least,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the best thing has just been like trying to over
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: communicate about things like I need to I need to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: playing things way out ahead of time. I need to,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: like I try to consult her on Okay, if I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: was going to be gone for a week, would it
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: be better this week for you or that week? Or
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: you know, would it be better this year? If I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: do like three day trips, like three three day trips
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: instead of one ten day trip or different things like that,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: just trying to find little ways to compromise. Um. But
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know if they had to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: answer this, UM, I know I'm gonna have it. It's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: gonna be a new challenge starting next year with having
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a baby. I know that you've experienced the added pressures
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of all that. So I think it's I don't know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: challenge that we all need to kind of navigate in
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: our own unique way. Oh man, I just like I'm
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: sitting here and people are still out there hunting, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna be able to get a crack
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: at um some late season hunting, but you know, it's
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: never as good. You just want to experience the good
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: parts of the years as long as humely possible. And
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I made the I made the decision to shoot a deer,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: right and and uh that when that happens, that pretty
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: much puts an end to you know, hunting in Iowa,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: especially if you know for me and and bow hunting. Yes,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: there's other opportunities, but it's just not the same. Like
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I could do gun hunting, but I'm not as passionate
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: about gun hunting as I am archery. So I don't know.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Have you thought about getting a tag in like Illinois
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: or hunting northern Missouri or western Illinois or something that's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: not too far away from you, then you can have
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that added both season time, right right? Yeah, And I've
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: put a lot of thought into it, like going to Nebraska.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, even a longer trip is okay with me.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: It's just that like I think Missouri and I think
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Nebraska go on thet the uh their firearms steagent season starts,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: so I don't I don't know if you can bow
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: hunt at the same time as that, but it probably
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be as good. I thought about going over to Illinois,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: but from what I hear about Illinois, it's similar to Iowa,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: where there is public ground, but there's not a lot
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of it. And not to sound arrogant, I've had a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: lot of people also invite me onto their properties and say, hey, Dan,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: come hunt, come hunt my property. You can kill whatever
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you want. I don't want to be that guy, you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna you know, I don't want to run
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: into a situation where it's, well, I let you on
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: my property, now you have to let me on your
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: property or I don't want to use whatever status they
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: think I have to go and and kill a big deer. Yeah.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I've always felt uncomfortable that too. I just like to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: just would rather do things on my own. And yeah, absolutely,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But when I get what you're saying, um man, I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: don't know. I Um, there's something to me to have
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a blood transfusion with guy, a guy like Andy May. Yeah,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I get some of his DNA my system and I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: just walk into the woods and kill big deer. Man.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: He is a great example, though, of somebody who can,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: even with a family, even with a job that does
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: not give him like almost any vacation time, he still
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: has been able to find a way to fit in
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: short out of state trips and get it done. Um.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: He's a He's a great example, that's for sure. So
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I had a short out of state trip that I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: kind of want to talk about real quick here before
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: we get Joe on. Are you are you interested here
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: about that? Uh? Yeah, because you sent me a picture
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: of a really good looking buck on trail camera going
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: after him tonight and then I didn't hear anything about it.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: So what's the deal, all right? So, um, you know
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you've followed my hunting season all season with me as
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: we've talked about things the hunt for holy Field and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: how it was always like I would hunt one spot.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: In the next day, I'd be somewhere different, but he'd
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: be there, or he'd be one spot, I'd go there
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the next day and he was somewhere else. That kind
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: of thing, you know, over and over and over again.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Um well, my Ohio season now has taken that turn
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: as well. So get this. I've got four days to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: spend in Ohio. I was in Seattle for two days
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: last week when we talked last. I got home late
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Wednesday night, early Thursday morning, I load up the truck
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: drive to Ohio. My goal was to get to Ohio
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and time to get out to hunt that first night.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So I get there and I'm getting all my stuff ready.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Um no, we talked about this all right here, right,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: we did talk about this. Um So that first night,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: right I wanted to head out, but the landowner locked
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: his keys in the van. We talked about that, yes, okay,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So that was night number one, So I basically didn't
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: get to hunt at all. I just walked to the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: edge of the field and watched for the last like
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: forty minutes of the night. Night number one, bad luck
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of keys getting locked in the landowners truck caused me
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to miss on that hunt. All right, So night number
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: two I get there, I head in, get too much
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: stand um long story shirt and that night is that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: towards like the last half hour forty five minutes of daylight.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I spot a really nice buck walking um away from
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: me on the other side of this finger of timber. Imagine, um,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: all of the stories I'm gonna tell you these next
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: three days all involved this one little spot. Hold up
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: your hand and make a peace sign, but facing you,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: facing you, so you've got the peace sign up you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: at that v um. Imagine the palm of your hand
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and the two fingers sticking up that is a corn field.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: And then the fingers are fingers of that corn sticking up. Okay,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and then the space in between the peace sign, that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: gap there is a finger of timber. All right, can
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: you vision I'm looking at it? Okay. So on night
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: number two, the first night I'm actually able to hunt,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the western finger of corn um, on
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the western edge of that timber finger that's sticking down.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: All right, Okay, quick quick question is the corn picked
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: corners picked? Okay, okay, continue. So I'm sitting there and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: like I said, like half hour before dark, big Buck
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: shows up. But he had come from the eastern finger
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of corn heading south and walked straight down into the palm,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: into the palm of my hand, and then onto the neighbors.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: All that time period either behind the trees so I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't get a shot or out of range. So night
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: number three, I said, all right, I'm gonna try to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: hunt in that area where he came out, and let
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: me take a step back. After that hunt, I pulled
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: trail cameras and one of the camera cards had him
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on camera passing by a tree stand I have right
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: there um where he came out, so I had him
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: on camera and then I saw him like ten minutes
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: later when he was out in the field and had
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: a tree stand right there. So night number three, Now
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and I'm going to relocate and hunt.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Now again, we're looking at our peace sign right where
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the two corn fingers come together at the end of
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: that timbered point. I was gonna sit in ground right
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: there so that if he came out the same place
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: he did last night, I would have a shot at him.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I would shoot into that inside corner, or if he
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: came out on the western finger, like other deer have
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: done the past, I could shoot there too, and the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: wind was good for that. So I'm getting I left
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: hotel room, I'm driving to my property, and about five
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: minutes before I get to the property, I all of
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a sudden had this horrible sinking feeling in my gut
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: when I realized I left my scent crusher bag with
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: all of my hunting clothes in it in the hotel
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: room thirty thirty five to four de minutes away. So
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I have to go back. I have no
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: hunting clothing at all. And that the reason why I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: take it out of my truck was because to to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to run this thing, you need to be plugged in,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and you can plug it into your car and um
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: use like a cigarette adapter, and so I tried to
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: do that. So I had it in the front seat
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: of my truck. I turned it on and was running
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: when I was driving home the night before. But like
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I've heard, it's not a good I did have that
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: ozone in a closed space. Um, and I was like,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't like running this thing while I'm
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: in here. Um, so I'm not gonna do this, So
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I'll just take it into the hotel room tonight, plug
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: into the wall, run it real quick there, and then
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: use it next day. But long story short, I, you know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: taking a step back, I say long story short way
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: too much, and then I keep talking. I don't I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: don't end up making it a short story. I've caught
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: myself doing it. It's like my other that being said,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that's right, So that being said, long story short. Um,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I realized I don't have any of my hunting clothing,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: so I have to turn around, drive all the way back,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: minutes back to hotel room get my gear. I finally
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: get back to the property an hour and fifteen minutes
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: or something like that later. It's now very late, but
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. So I'm sneaking into the property. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of course, when I get to within sight of that
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: spot that I want to sit, there's already doze out
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: feeding there, so I can't. I can't get there, so
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I hunker down. I crawl on the edge of the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: oppositie of the field up to the spot where these
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: deer had came across the night before. So I thought, well,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: if these deer come out where they did last year,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: if they continue traveling, they'd eventually crossed the field and
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: come by me. Well, of course that didn't happen. Um,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: but a big buck stepped out right where the buck
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: did the night before, and I would have been able
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to get a shot at him if I was sitting
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: where I wanted to be, but of course I couldn't,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: so I had to watch him stay right there. He
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: didn't travel across the field to where I was at.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: He stayed right there, and I just had to sit there,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: kicking myself for forgetting my clothing and not being able
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: to be set up where I wanted to be set up.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And then and then not only that that was bad enough,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: but then it's like it's after dark and the bucks
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: still at their feeding and some does come out. So
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna stay here, be quiet,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and let them move off so I don't spook them,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and then maybe tomorrow night I can get a shot.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there, and I keep
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: on hearing a noise behind me, getting closer and closer,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and then I turned I'm thinking, okay, there's some kind
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of critter coming up closer, and I finally see, like
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: five yards away from me is a possum, a really
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: big possum. And I'm sitting on the ground, like not
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in a blind or on a chair. I'm just on
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the ground, and this possum keeps getting closer and closer
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and closer. Finally he's like three yards or four yards away,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, all right, this thing's gonna walk right
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: over top of me. I need to scare him away.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So I start like shaking some leaves and making like
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: just making some like noises at him to try to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: scare him away, like make him realize that there's a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: big thing here he doesn't want to come towards. Instead
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of that scaring him away, he starts hissing and he
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: charges me. I'm charged by a possum. I'm laying on
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the ground basically, and this thing is coming right at
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: my face, so I'm like forced to jump up and
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: like try to kick at him so I'm not attacked
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: by a rabid possum. Did you kick him? I didn't
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: kick him. He stopped before. But I mean right there,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it was like just about to have to kick a
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: possum in the face. Oh man, I've done that. Did
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you really I've kicked a possum. Well, it didn't quite
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: come to that, but but it was. It was almost
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: end of blows. But of course, because I had to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: jump up to fight off this possum, it's spooked. It's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: booked to those doughs on the other side of the field,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and they took off um, and so it kind of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: alerted that buck. He stayed there but just staring in
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: my direction for a long time. So I kind of
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: spooked those deer, which is upsetting to me. So not
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: only did I not get a shot at him, but
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: then because of a possum attack, I spooked these deers.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: So that was night number three. Night number four, I'm like,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: all right, there's no way I'm not going to get
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: into this spot I've wanted to hunt. I'm gonna get
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: there really early. I'm not gonna forget my clothes, I'm
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: gonna avoid possums. I'm gonna get to the finger of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this timber. I'm gonna get set up there and I'll
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: be able to shoot to this inside corner where this
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: buck has come out. The last two nights I get there,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I'm all set up. I'm thinking this is looking good,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that the evenings coming along very well. And then an
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: hour before dark, I spotted movement out in the field
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: right where I was sitting the night before. And there's
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: this stupid big eight pointer comes running out from right
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: where I was at the night before, and then comes
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: running across the field the opposite direction where I can't
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: shoot him either. So it's just in that kind of season, man, man,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you have literally been in the wrong place every every time.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I cannot catch a break. And it's just
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: maybe it just reaffirms what all of our listeners have
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: been thinking for years now, that I'm just one of
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the world's worst deer hunters. Uh. Yeah, So that was disappointing,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: but it was nice to see a good buck um
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: three nights in a row. You know, I'm not entirely
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: sure if it was the same deer all three nights.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think it was a different deer um at least
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: two of the nights um, but it was always was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: a nice eight point like somewhere in that like probably
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: four year old, maybe like one thirty ish, maybe a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: little bigger eight pointer type deer. This say, muzzle loader hunt.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: This was yep, it was the season, so they were
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: still when they came out, they were still too far
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: for you to shoot. Yeah, Like that first night, by
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the time he cleared the trees, he was probably to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: fifty or something like, they're three with my muzzleloader. I'm
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not shooting past one. Um. And then the second night
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: he was, yeah, probably about the same distance, but I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: was looking at from the opposite direction. And then um,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the final night he maybe was like one seventy, maybe
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: somewhere around that range, but he was running by the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: time I saw him, kind of running across the field
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and then disappeared into the timber on the other way.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So no shots. Well, I don't know, I don't even
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: know what to tell you, man, Just like, maybe you
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: should just go back to basics. And when I mean basics,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I mean no knowledge of hunting at all, and just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: go to the same tree stand the exact same time,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the exact same tree stand for like five days in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a row. That's that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you know what, screw all this like keeping the deer
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: on their feet, I'm gonna trick them by never changing.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit the same spot the whole rest
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of the season. I'm gonna pick one spot and hunting
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: like twenty days in a row, just do the complete
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: opposite of what any half decent deer hunter would do.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And that was what we talk about. Yeah, they've maybe
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: these deer figure us out. They know our our new
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: tactics and uh, their head evolution, right, I mean deer
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: have to evolve to survive, whether that's you know, becoming
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, exactly. I mean maybe maybe holy Field
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: has a is a subscriber to the Wired to Hunt podcast.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: That would explain a lot this year. Oh man, you
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: see him the next time you see him, you actually
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: put put him in the buy notes. You're like earbuds
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in his ears. He's got the new AirPods. Oh man. Yeah, so,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: um so that's my story. That's Ohio. I'm gonna start
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: hunting Michigan now again tomorrow though we got a cold
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: front that just came through today. I'm gonna get after
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and um I have one piece of good news to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: share with you today. Twins your wife you havn't twins? No, no, twins?
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Um better news than that. Well, I don't mean that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: would be great, I guess, but it also be very scary. Um.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: The baby is doing very well though, by the way,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: good good, yeah, coming along very well. We're down to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the final like ten weeks or something like that. Um.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But the good news is that as of last Friday,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: which was the day after Michigan's gun season, yea, I
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: had visual confirmation nice that holy Field had made it nice.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So the big guy as a Friday was still alive. Um.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Now muzzle otter season opened that next day, so of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: course there's still some people out there, but much fewer, much,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: much less of a chance of him being killed. So right,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: So that whole sanctuary theory that you've that we've discussed here,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you're that you're going to stay off of it. Uh,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you've stayed off of it, and hopefully he's found sanctuary
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: on your on your farm. Yeah. I mean that's that's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: why I think I think that I think that probably
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: had a big, big part and why he was able
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: to survive because he has that place he can hunker
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: down in. And not only did he survive, but then
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: also the three year old that I've been praying would survive,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the buck I'm calling survivor. Um, he made it too.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So the two best bucks ahead of my property this year,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: both of them made it through firearms season. So that's
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: really encouraging, and UM gives me something to be excited
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: about for this late season with holy Field, and gives
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: me something to be excited about for next year with
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a survivor. UM. So I'm gonna get out there tomorrow
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: night with his cold front, assume the wind stays good
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: for me, and UM hunt him the next couple of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: days with these really cold temperatures and hopefully finally we'll
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: have a happy story to share. Yeah. Absolutely, man. I
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: don't know how many guys out there are pulling for
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you still, but I'm pulling for you. And uh, you know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: if you get any more mature bucks on your property,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you're probably gonna have to open an outfitting business. I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: don't know about that. I don't know if if one
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: mature buck would draw that many people, but it's enough
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: for me, that's right, So I guess On that note,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: we should probably wrap this up. We've had a pretty
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: long intro here, UM, so let's take a break for
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: our sickest story and then we'll get Joe on the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: line and then UM, hopefully next week, we'll have a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: story share. For this week's Sikest story, we're joined by
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Jordan Miller of Runda Gun, who's gonna be telling us
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: about an elk hunt that ended at ten steps. One
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of my favorite sitcom moments was this year down in
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: New Mexico through a really good archery unit, and we
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: had six days hunt. We used all six. We were
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: down there. On the last day, hiked into one of
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: my buddy Justin's favorite spots, hiking about mile and a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: half on this long ridge, and finally got this bull
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to google we had. We had a man. We pulled
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: them all the way into about four and fifty yards.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: He just hung up in some brush. We called his
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: cows all the way past us, and he just busted out.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: We had one last chance to get up on him,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and we broke down the mountain, cut up this next
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: ridge and we heard another bowl bugling. We got up
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: right in between them. Justin made one little cow call
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and that bowl we were after he came just tarned
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: down the side of the mountain to get up to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that other bowl, and a little did we know it
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that he was gonna work about ten steps from us.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Quartered right in took a shot. Had been practicing my
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: bowl all this summer long at about a hundred yards
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: just to get ready for fifty yards, and we drilled
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the six by seven public Land bowl at ten steps.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: One of my absolute favorite sick of moments on Jordan's hunt.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: He was wearing sickst Mountain pants and Mountain vest. If
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you'd like to create a sick Oft story of your own,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: or to learn more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: sitkin gear dot com. Alright with me, now is Joe
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Hamilton's Welcome to the show. Joe. Thanks Mark, I'm very
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: happy to be here. Yeah, and I'm excited to have
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you on here as well. And I mentioned before we
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: started recording, actually as I did the introduction to the podcast,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: that when I went through the Q dam made Dear
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Steward course maybe five or six years ago. Now, I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: was um, and you were there. We were down in
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: northern Missouri, and I just became captivated by your stories.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Every time you were were talking to the group or
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: sharing a story or experience. UM, I just kind of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: found myself just fully engaged in, so interested in what
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you had to say. So so because of that I've
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: been particularly excited to make this episode happen because I
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: know our our listeners are going to enjoy the same thing.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So so that that being said, I guess before we
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: dive into the many different topics I was hoping we
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: could cover, could you just could you just kind of
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: us up to speed on how you got to this point, um,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe especially what you did before the k d
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: M A, and then we could dive a little bit
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: more deeply into that story. But but what was Joe
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Hamilton's doing in the years that led up to that moment? Well,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: in the very early years, starting at age nine, became
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a hunter and that led me to the University of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Georgia to get a degree in forestry and then to
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: follow that up with a master's degree in wildlife biology,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and I specialized in black bear project from my master's thesis.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And then I came to work in South Carolina as
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a deer of research biologists in nineteen seventy nine and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: spent seven years living in a deer pin and conducting
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a variety of research projects. Most notably was the production
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of the scale for aging fetuses was the biggest part
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of that long time project. And then I moved then
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: from the northeastern part of the coastal area down to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the southeastern corner the deer rich low country and became
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: a regional biologist, And in that capacity, I was working
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: not just with deer but all species of wildlife, but
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: focusing on deer because I had nearly eight hundred properties
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: that I dealt with directly on what we called at
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that time the ant earlst Deer quote program, uh better
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: known is the dough quote program and a little a
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: little different there for our state. In most states, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that we issued ant reless tags or dough tags two properties,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and I had to stay up with those properties each
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: year and decide how many ant reless tags they were
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to get in all the while I was helping them
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: out with changing their perspective on buck harvests. H two
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: take more bucks to the older age classes before they
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: were harvested. And I think the things that it's really
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: important here is that in the eastern part of South
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Carolina then and even now, we have a four and
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a half month season up until this year with no
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: buck limit whatsoever, and we do have for the first
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: time around a buck limit this year, and it's going
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: quite well limited five, which is still quite liberal, but
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that's what that's what I got involved with professionally in
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: those early years, and and then uh from the mid eighties.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: For the next few years, I had more and more
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: requests from hunters who had tired of shooting a lot
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: of young bucks, and they were scerned that answered development
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: was down and and the body weights were down. It
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: was because nearly of their annual harvest was made up
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: by year and a half old bucks. So they said,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: what can we do to make a difference, to crawl
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: out of this hole we've dug for ourselves. But it's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: very timely that in one I had met Al Brothers,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: who is the co author of the very famous book
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Producing Quality White Tales, which came out in nineteen I
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: met Al in Texas, spent a few days with him,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and then the next year I was one of the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: co hosts for the Southeast Dear Study Group meeting. That's
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: a group that had just started four years before that,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: consisting of professionals from about sixteen or seventeen Southeastern states.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: While we were having this meeting in Charleston, South Carolina,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and it was my duty to come up with a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: keynote speaker. So, with the new interests in turning tradition
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: around in the low country and now my connection to Al,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I invited him to come to that meeting, our fifth
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: annual Southeast Deer Study Group meeting, and deliver the keynote address. Well,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: he's quite a deal maker, he thought for a minute.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: He said, Jose, I will be there. I'll even come
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: a few days early and I'll stay a few days
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: after the main meeting as long as you can assure
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that I'll have a group to talk with every night.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And the other part of that deal is you normally
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: have a hundred and fifty professional people at that meeting.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: If you'll promise me you'll have a hundred and fifty
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: deer hunters to match those numbers, I'll be there. And
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you gotta You've got to know that our brothers is
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: a man of commitment. He is these rock solid biologically.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: He had a misfortune in doing a deer survey from
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: a helicopter a few years before that broke his back
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and his legs were paralyzed. Didn't slow him down, though.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: What I wanted to point out was he drove a
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: pickup truck using hand controls all the way from Lolaredo,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Texas to Charleston, South Carolina, just to give that keynote
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: address and to meet with select groups of hunters. So
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: when any kind of a leader shows that kind of
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: conviction to a cause, it's easy to fall in line
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: and follow that person. So that was sort of the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: beginning of the idea of quality deer management. UH infused
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: into the thought processes of our deer hunters here in
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the southeastern part of South Carolina, and UH fortunately there
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: were enough people with large enough acreages to start UH
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: on equality deer management approach and then made a difference
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly, and the doubting Thomas's that were near them
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the fell in line pretty quickly said, M seems to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: be working for you, maybe we can try it as well.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: The bottom line is several years after that, we then
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: had nearly three million acres in the eastern part of
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: South Carolina or quality deer management guidelines, and that was
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: done voluntarily, just despite the long season and the liberal
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: buck limits. So that's that's my history with with my
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: profession and with quality deer management. We've got enough people
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: involved in those early years that we needed to organize them.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: So in nineteen eight, we started to South Carolina Quality
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Deer Management Association. Interest went beyond our state borders very quickly,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: so we decided to drop the South Carolina from our name,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and we ultimately became the Quality of Deer Management Association,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: which we are now with members in all fifty states,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: half a dozen parts in countries and most of the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Canadian provinces, nearly sixty thousand members and going strong. Here
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: we are, here you are. That's it's pretty incredible to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: hear how you know, some some personal relationships and some
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: different things that that can lead to something that has
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: has grown to such a such a powerful and positive
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: force within the hunting community today. What were those what
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: were those early years like when you guys first founded
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the Quality Deer Management Association. What were you guys trying
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: to achieve at that point? And you know, how did
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: it grow from there to such a you know, substantial
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: organization now. But we had some obstacles to overcome. As
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, nearly nine of our buck harvest was comprised
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: of year and a half old bucks. The other problem
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: was there was a reluctance among most of these deer
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: hunters to take any female deer that went very much
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: against tradition. And even when I moved to this county
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that I live in now, there were petitions circulating for
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: people to sign to make it illegal to shoot those
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: in this county. UM that was that was a hurdle.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Got around that through education. UM. I decided that I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: would start a radio program that I did once a week.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I wrote prolifically for magazines and local newspapers. The biologists
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that I talked with, and I decided we'd have a
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: contest see if we could average giving a talk a week.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: And we did that, and in the course of a
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years, we contacted thousands of people, and we
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: we had those pioneers that that contacted us initially that
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: wanted to make some change. Today, n only started passing
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: up young bucks. They started taking a number of ant
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: with the steer, and their neighbors saw very quickly things
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: seemed to be working for you pretty well. Your body weights,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you're getting better, your answer development is sticking up because
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: you're shooting older bucks. That's that's kind of how it started.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: And it took years to get people to harvest enough
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: antler list here to keep their dear heart in balance
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: with the habitat conditions. But all the while bucks were
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: getting older, the hunters were going from one level of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: management to the next. All we were trying to do
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: initially was take a significant portion of the year and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a half old bucks to two and a half before
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: they were harvested. And then when when hunters got involved
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: in that approach, they decided, well, we'll just start taking
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: more to the three and a half year old category,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, the rest is history. There are people
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: now that are taking deer, and not on the basis
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: of the kind of answers they have, but the shape
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of their bodies. They're they're shooting four and a half
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and five and a half year old bucks regardless of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: their ant development, and the hunters are happy that they
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: are healthy and things are working pretty well. The other
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: factor that started to come into play in those early
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: days was the idea that maybe we can do something
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: with habitat and can create food plots and and they'll
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: work more with our foresters and and try to integrate
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: forestry and widlife management and and even work on falla
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: fields and try to make them productive. Craig Harper at
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the University of Tennessee, of course, is a great proponent
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of that, trying to manage old fields for natural vegetation,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: which they have been making a living on for forever.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And so it's all come together. And I think the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: thing to really boast about now is it's not so
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: much the size of our organization. We're sixty thousand strong,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: but the impact of our educational efforts has been nationwide. Uh.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: It's uh to the point that in nineteen there were
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: more ant erless deer harvested that year than antwerd. That
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: came only through education and persistence and and just driving
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: that message home that that's what the deer herd needed
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: fairly even sex ratio numbers in balance with the habitat conditions.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And and then a few years after that, Uh, we've
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: been we've been tracking the percent of year and a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: half old bucks in the harvest since about eighty nine,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and at that time when we started, it was approaching
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: nation and wide. UM. A couple of years ago, Uh,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: that number bottomed out at around thirty of the bucks
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: killed that year, and and then a little bit higher
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: percent of three and a half year old bucks were harvested.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: And that happened for two years in a row, and
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I would assume this this past year, it'll it'll probably
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: hold truth that we're harvesting more three and a half
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and the older bucks than year and a half old bucks.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I don't see that changing uh backwards, that it would
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: more than likely just get better and better. But but
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: the the impact of our educational efforts UH is really
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: something to boast about. We've we're very proud that our
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: education has had gone to that point and so the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: deer herd has benefitted from there, and certainly deer hunters
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: have as well. Absolutely, So what do you think about then,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: where where the QT may where the Quality Deer Management
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Association is today, given some of these goals being accomplished
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: that you just mentioned, how do you feel about where
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the organization and you know, the impacts of the organization
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: are today, and then what do you think about the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: future where things going? What kind of impact can the
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: QT you may have in the years to come. Uh.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you mentioned that mark because we are at
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: a turning point. We have have proven that with our
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: our educational capacity and are the variety of programs that
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: we have that we can UH meet the challenges of
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the present and and we've done that we've we've helped
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: uh take more bucks of the older age classes. We've
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: helped balance sex right shows, helped balance deer numbers with
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: habitat conditions. What we're looking at now, AH, would be
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: a relatively long list of changes that that some are
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: even accelerating. For example, we just kind of survey the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: results of survey recently that the US Fishing Rally Service
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: conducts every five years, and in the last five years
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: we have lost over two million deer hunters. UM. So
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: we were at a hive a few years ago, maybe
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: fourteen and a half or so million, and we're down
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I think it's two point one million deer hunters. Uh.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: There are several reasons for that number. One. Uh people
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: are the baby boomers are aging out of being very
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: actively involved in hunting. Number two things go on our
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: own is we have a problem with recruitment of young
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: hunters into deer hunting because there's so many diversions sports,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: especially or keeping kids busy these days, and and so
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: we have lower recruitment and lower retention. So we're gonna
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: have to face those problems. We have predator problems that
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: are seems to be uh that they're getting worse by
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: the year. And it's not just coyotes, it's black bears
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: are on the increase, and in some cases bobcats are
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: as well. But the coyote is the one animal that
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: sort of changed my life as a biologist in the Southeast.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: When I first encountered them in the late seventies, I
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: told the people around me, I said, well, mother nature
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: will solve that problem, because if if you have a
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: A nine in this part of the world, it's not
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: on heartworm tablets, They're not gonna last long. And then
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: there's parvo virus, there's rabies, distemper uh on down the
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: line nine. There are a lot of things that will
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: keep these codes from being very effective as predators. Boy
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: was I wrong on that. Uh That we still don't
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: have many cootes dying of old age, but they can
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: do enough damage in their first few years to change
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: our lives as deer managers, and they have. In those
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: early years, we were complacent realizing that the deer herd,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the females are having more, averaging more than one fond
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: per dough. Now in some areas and even in my neighborhood. Uh,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: it takes three or four doughs to bring one fond
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: into the faull population. And that's that's the deafennition of recruitment.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: It's the number of farns, not that are just born
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: in the summer, but those that are actually recruited into
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the fall population. So we've had to change our entire
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: way of thinking about prescribing deer harvest on an annual basis.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: We've had to pull the range back a little bit
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: on being so aggressive at harvesting does. Um We've had
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: to focus on the time of the year those does
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: are taken. I've been a proponent of now taking adult
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: does late in the season to lengthen that that parental
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: bond between the dough and the fond, to give the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: fond that much more of a jump start for future survival.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: So we've had a lot of changes to make in
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the face of this new predator. There are places Pennsylvania,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: for example, where the bare population is still in increasing
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and the study had done a few years ago indicated
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that black bears actually killed more funds than did the coyotes.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Not many more. I mean it was like fifteen funds
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: killed by bears and fourteen killed by code. He is
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: just in one area, but UH still bears are on
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the increase in numbers and in their occupied range. North
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Carolina is a good example of bears extending their range,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: especially in the eastern part of the state from those
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: coastal counties, moving more and more inland, and bears have
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: been proven to be very effective predators of funds. So
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: those are some of the changes we've had to deal
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: with and and we are as an organization going to
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: be really pushing more and more research to find out
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: more about the effect of these predators on dear popular lations.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: We've got to do all we can to work with
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: mentoring programs to bring more kids on board to hang
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: onto those that we have. And so we've got new
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: challenges to face. We've got disease problems that are tied
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: maybe indirectly to the captive deer industry. Chronic wasting disease,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: it's the main disease that we're concerned about. That's a
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: disease it's always fatal. Once the deer gets it, UH
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: does not live through it, and all the violets alive.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: It sheds preons UH into the soil that can affect
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: other deer. And we're having to watch that very closely.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: It also seems that that a disease we've been living
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: with here for forever was e H D or episodic
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: hemorrhagic disease. That's a viral disease that's transmitted by the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: little no sea of gnats. That disease is spreading northward
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and westward north northwestward into areas that here tooford had
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: no experience for that disease. And when it does move
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: into a new area, those deer have no background, no
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: anybody's built up, and it really hits them hard. So
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: they're experiencing, especially in the northeast in the last few years.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I think two thousand and twelve is a particularly bad year.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: And then maybe another couple of years ago of fifty
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: sev of some local deer populations were lost to that disease.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: But we don't see near that degree of mortality in
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the southeast because our dear have history with the disease.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: There are some new problems though that uh. There are
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a variety of the stereotypes of disease, and we keep
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: seeing new Seraho types pop up, and and these even
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: in the Southeast, are causing higher mortality because the deer
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: have no history with that stereotype of the virus. So yeah,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: our future is is UH clouded with obstacles. But again,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: there's no better organization around than the QT M A
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: or to identify and to face those those obstacles through
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: research and through education, and we're poised to do that.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: We We've got a tremendous UH force of biologists on hand,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: not a large number, but educationally we're about as deep
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: as anybody can be around here. And Mark as you
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: will know, if these dear Steward courses that we have,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: we're educating hundreds of people every year and that's what's
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: gonna take to to UH to be able to keep
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: your ear to the ground and know what's going on
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: with the local deer herds and and to report problems
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: back to the proper officials. We need to know about
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: these problems so we can identify them and then come
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: up with ways to ameliorate some of those problems. So
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: every you know, the future changes for everybody, But I
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: think we're we're capable of meeting those challenges. Agree with you,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: and as you mentioned, you know through this UH these
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: different challenges challenges you mentioned, I think that they impact
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: a wide array of deer hunters, not just you know,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: private landowners who have a ton of ground that manage
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: dear but these things impact all of us. And based
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: on that, based on the fact that you're saying that
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: the Quality Deer and Management Association is gonna be focusing
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: on these types of challenges, and given some of the
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: other things I've heard about the goals and how things
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: might be shifting a little bit in the future with
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the q DUM, is it fair to say that that
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: your your organization is wanting to to make a very
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: clear statement that the q d m A is for
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: all deer hunters and not just maybe the stereotypical or
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: the stereotype which was I think there's this miss um,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: this misunderstanding with a lot of people that they thought
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: q d M was just for rich guys with a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: bunch of property who wanted to grow really big angler deer.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: That was kind of the negative stereotype of what quality
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Deer management meant to some people. Um, I think anyone
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: who really understands the organization and the tenets of it
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: understands that's not the case. But it seems like now
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: from the things I'm hearing the organization itself is trying
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: to make it very clear that that's not the case
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and that you are focused on things that impact all
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: deer hunters, and especially with your new goals I saw
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: come out this year that really seems to be UM.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: It's strongly assertain, very clear, and I am I right
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: in in seeing that in that interpretation, Yeah, you are.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: And I can understand how we got stereotyped in those
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: early years because the people that came to us were
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: those that controlled a large enough at tract of land
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: to manage effectively as a an individual unit without regard
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to what their neighbors were doing. These were not just landowners,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: but these were organized hunting clubs at least in many
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: cases thousands of acres. And we have since day one
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: been an organization for all deer hunters, and we've we've
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: begged their involvement from an educational point of view, everybody
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: needs to know what's going on with with deer and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and those people that have relatively small areas to hunt
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: on have been brought together with a fairly recent approach
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: for q d M cooperatives. UM Michigan, for example, has
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: several hundred q d M co ops going. We've also
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: hired two people in Missouri UH that work with co
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: ops on a full time basis. That has been the approach.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to pull out, though, was
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: that what many hunters are not aware of is that
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the q d m A is very active with advocacy issues. UH.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: These are issues at the local, state, and federal level.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: We average being involved in about a hundred issues a year.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: In these range anywhere from access to hunting, to Sunday hunting,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: to changing the minimum age for for young hunters to
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: it uh a younger age to get them into the
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: fold of hunting sooner. UM. Now, I think there are
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: some states where you've got to be twelve years old
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: or older before you can actually carry a gun hunting. UM.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: That's certainly not the case here in South Carolina. We
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: have no minimum age, and and there are some very
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: uh precocial youngsters that that are killing their first deer
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: at age five or six. Might be too young uh
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: in the opinion of some people, but these kids grew
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: up with hunting and by the time they're six, they're
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: ready to get involved with it. UM. But I think
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: that the general uh, the population of deer hunters need
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: to know that we go to bat for them almost
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis with regard to rules and regulations
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: concerning deer management, season links, bag limits, uh, poaching finds.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: We've been involved in all of that, and if we
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: hadn't been, they would have lost access to properties, they
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: would have uh lost in a number of ways, maybe
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: even in the eyes of the non hunting public. I
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: think what we've done through our organization, we've we've brought
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: the hunter to the forefront and people's opinions to see
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that we are good stewards of the land and the
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: resource and we police our own ranks and we couldn't
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: afford not to do that. But our organization, I think
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: has has gone to great links to protect the rights
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and the access of hunters across the board. So yeah,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: it is for everybody, um, even somebody hunting on a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: relatively small piece of property that that they just have
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: permission to hunt on, they need to know that we're
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: standing behind them, uh legislatively, especially make sure they can
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: still have access to those properties. Yeah. Well, I certainly
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: fall into that camp, um, not having not owning any
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: land myself and just hunting small parcels and I certainly
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: know that there benefits to being involved with the Quality
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: or Management Association, and I certainly appreciate the work you
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: guys are doing. But real quick now, before we move
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: on to anything new, I want to take a quick
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: second to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties. This week,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: with White Tail Properties, we are joined by Tony Hansen,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: aid Land Specialists out of Michigan, and Tony is gonna
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: be telling us about what factors matter most on a
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: property in high pressure areas well. To me, it's it's
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: a variety. So even though I mean I own and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: kind of hunt a lot of small properties, you got
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: to look forward a mix of things you need. You
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: need food for sure, but you need cover probably even
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: more so. You know, I need to have all of
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the pieces that the deer needs because I don't want
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: them traveling very far, and I don't want them to
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: feel like they have to travel very far because you know,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: especially during our gun season, when there's you know, nearly
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: a million guys out there, if a deer moves, it's
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: it's got a real pigance of getting shot. So I
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: try to find properties that have everything you need right there.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: And yes, neighborhood matters, but it doesn't matter quite as
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: much as what you can, you know, do right there
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: on your own property. So you want to make sure
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: that you have food and cover and um, you know,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: betting areas, security places and actuaries. They are a big
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: thing with me too. So I looked for a lot
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of variety and that's in the property. If you'd like
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: to learn more and to see the properties that Tony
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: com backslash Hanson. That's h A N S E N UM.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: I want to kind of shift gears a little bit here,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: um because obviously, base what we've just heard, you've had
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: a long and kind of storied history when it comes
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: to your involvement with deer hunting and deer management and conservation,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: all these different types of things, and you recently have
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: kind of compiled um oh, I guess a collection of
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: some of those thoughts and stories and experiences of that history,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: UM in a book, that book being Fire Pot Stories,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: which which came out earlier this year, And I want
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: to hear a little bit about that book, UM. But
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: something I want to ask you first, because I think
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: within the pages of this book, I haven't read the
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: entire book yet, I've read portions of it um but
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: from what I've seen so far, I think you answer
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: the question I'm about to ask. I think you answer
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: within the pages of this book, spread out over the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: entire book. But I'm curious if you can synthesize this
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: in one answer, which is this, Joe, why do you hunt?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: That's my question. I was introduced to hunting at a
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: very early age. My dad was a hunter. His dad
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: was a hunter, so it just seemed to be the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: thing to do. And then once I got became involved
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: in it, I fell in love with just being out
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: of doors and the challenges of learning all the critters
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: that I was sharing the out of doors with, not
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: just by sight but by sound. And I very quickly
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: learned that the more that I knew about these critters,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: the more at home that I felt when I was
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: out of doors. Uh, those of us that that started
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: going into the woods before daylight as youngsters were afraid
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: of everything, and education taught me that I just am
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: now a part of all these different goings on in
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: the out of doors. The other thing that comes out
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: of that is what you learned more about all these
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: critters that you're spending time with UH, and you're in
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: their habitat, you become more of a steward of them
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: and their habitat. And that's what got me involved, that's
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: what keeps me involved. And I'm still I'm seventy years
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: old now, I'm a very active hunter. In fact, I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: spent the whole morning at our skin and shed processing
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: a deer that's been hanging for about two weeks. And
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: UH we eat venison several times a week year round,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and I process all of my own meat. So I'm
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: still very much involved in hunting. I've got two grandsons now,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: and the oldest is six. He I think it's a
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: little bit too young to have a gun, but he
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: has been with us a number of times this year.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: UM went out rattling one morning about just a few
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, and and rattled in about it was the
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: first deer you've ever seen in the woods. So what
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: story does he have to tell the rest of his
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: life that the first deer he saw his grandfather rattled
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: in Um? And then a deal was shot in the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: neighborhood recently and the hunter couldn't find it, and I
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: took my tracking dog out that night with not just
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: my two grandsons but two of their cousins, and everybody
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: had a flashlight. We had the dog on the lead,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and we we trailed on and on and on and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: found the deer and everybody was asked to bow their
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: head and have a moment of silence to pay tribute
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: to the animal. And and then we dragged it out
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and took it to the skin and shed and feel
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: dressed it, hung it in the cooper to age for
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: a few weeks. So they were getting them involved in
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: hunting activities without even guns being involved on their part.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: So that's how I came on board, and I think
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: that's the way to get these youngsters involved. They need
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: to understand the entire process uh of hunting and processing
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the meat and sharing it with family and friends and
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So that's a long way to
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: answer your question. Why did I hunt? I think genetically
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: it was instilled within me that I had to and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: once I got a taste of it, h yeah, I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: just stayed with it. Yeah. So so then so that's
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: why you hunt? Why did you write this book? Why
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: put this book together? And what what is it? Kind
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: of comprised of what's found in those pages. Uh, I've
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: been a great disciple of Alder Leopold, who was the
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: father of my profession. H He passed away when I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: was only a year old, but he was the first
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: professor of wildlife biology and ever at the University of Wisconsin,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: and he wrote a book entitled a Sand County Almanac,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: and his teachings were that those of us that were
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: in the profession, and this was pre television, needed to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: meet with our constituents on a regular basis, and those
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: were the hunters we worked with and for and educate
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: them anyway possible, either through public speaking or writing articles
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: for local newspapers or even doing radio shows. And then
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: when I got to the University of Georgia, the professors
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: that I had there were uh, certainly disciples of Leopold
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: as well, and and they all talked about the importance
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: of writing. So my writing days go back to my
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: days at the University of Georgia. And the earliest entry
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: in my book it was a newspaper article I wrote
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: in seventy two, So only a few years ago that
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: I realized that I been amassing a pretty good variety
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: of stories about hunting and fishing, and some very biologically
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: oriented stories or articles. And I thought, well, if I
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: corral these things together, I might have enough to make
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: a book. So I put my outline together and started
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: filling in the gaps, and and I wrote some stories
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: in the last few years to fill in those gaps.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: But I now have a book comprised of ten chapters
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: with seventies six stories, and as you know already Mark
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: and having read a sampling of though some of are
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: very uh scientifically oriented, management oriented, others are just funny
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: stories that have occurred over the years of hunting and fishing.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: And when I was talking with Jeff Foxworthy about a
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: request asked for him to put a quote on the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: back cover of my book, I told him that for
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: a person that I know has walked into a covey
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: of wild quail and flushed them and watched them fly,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: that many directions on And now can you appreciate many
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: directions my stories have flown. So that's that's just the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: way to sum it up. I mean, it's a very
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: unique book in that, Uh. First of all, I wrote
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: some of the stories long enough ago, and I learned
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: that I was not altogether right on some topics. I
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: was a little too light with my approach to the
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: importance of coyotes, for example, And I went back to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: at least six stories and and did sort of a
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Paul Harvey approach, which he had a radio program, and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: he called his the rest of the story. I called
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: mine the follow up. And in some cases my follow
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: up was longer than my original story. But I was
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: able to revisit those original stories written twenty or twenty
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: five years ago and bring them up to date and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: and correct the things that I was wrong about, and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: even boast a little bit about the predictions I made
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: that came true that. Uh. So, I've got about six
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: stories that that have a follow up to them. I
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: think the most unique part of the book is that
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: it has chapter one at both ends. And how did
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: that happen? Well? Uh, When I got to the end
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: of my journey and I realized I had my book,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: I needed a way to close it. I didn't want
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: to say goodbye, this is the end. And I spent
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: a long while on some property that I grew up
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: hunting on in North Carolina, and I realized that that
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: was chapter one in my life. And I've been fortunate
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: now having lived long enough that I've hunted with and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I have friends in four different generations that have hunted
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: on that very property, and so that property was chapter
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: one in their lives as well. So that's how that
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: last chapter got its name, and the way that I
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: closed it. I was on a youth turkey hunt that
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: particular morning, and after the hunt was over, I sat
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: on the porch of the cabin all the rest of
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the day trying to decide how to end this book.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: And it only happened after I've got in my truck
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: very late in the afternoon and made the four mile
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: drive out to the highway at a very slow pace
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: with my windows down so I could listen to nature,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and I was was hearing a variety of birds. I
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: was hearing a variety of uh frogs like spring peepers
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and and narrow mouth toads, and on and on, and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: realizing that all these little tiny critters that were about
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: an inch along, these little frogs were very site specific
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: and where they lived, and I knew that, and and
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I was able to ride along, could have even ridden
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: with my eyes closed with a mental map of where
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I was riding along, because this particular frog stays in
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: the stream. This particular frog stays in a little pool
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: that might drop, and then they move on and on.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: But I got to the highway and I thought, this
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: is this is an exercise in education, and there will
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: never ever be a final exam. So there's the challenge.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Keep learning and keep appreciating nature. The more you know,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: the more you'll appreciate it. The more you know, the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: stronger you'll work as a steward to protect it. And
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: that's how I ended the book, was with a challenge,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: rather than saying goodbye, this is the end. This is
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: actually the beginning. UM. So there's everything in between. There
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: are some stories that will make you laugh, there are
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: some that will make you cry. There will be some
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: that will teach you some things you didn't know before,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and that's always a good thing. So there's something in
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: that book for everybody, but there's not everything for everybody,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: as it should be. Yeah. Yeah, there's a there's a
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: chapter within the book UM that I read, and it
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: spoke about the path of a hunter and kind of
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: this UM, this evolution towards you developing the hunter's spirit. UM.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Could you talk a little bit about that, what that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: means about that path of the hunter, the hunter's spirit,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: and kind of your thoughts on that and this journey
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: that many of us hunters go through. Why that's so important. Well,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: they're about five major stages that you go through, and
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna list off five of those, but I'll
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: start with the first one, and it's one that out
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: of Leopold referred to as the trigger itch stage, where
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: people want to go out and get their limits. They
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: want to kill as many as they can legally, and
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: and numbers are important. Shooting is important. You learn through
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: time and hopefully through the experiences and with the influence
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: from our elders, that that's maybe not necessarily the approach
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: to take. You become more custodial or you become a
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: better steward as you're going through these different stages, and
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: in the final stage you get to is is one
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of of ultimate stewardship, where you start looking more toward
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: photography or artwork to to stay in touch with with hunting.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: You take on more responsibility to act as a mentor
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: to bring youngsters on board. And and that's where I
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: am now. I'm much more excited about taking youngsters and
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: introducing them to hunting and just being out of doors
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: than than ever before. And then there are all those
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: different steps in between. There is not a a recipe
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: on how long you would stay on each plateau. It
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: might take you several years to progress from that first
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: uh the shooters stage, or that one with trigger itch,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to the next one and then to level for in
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: the level four and then finally at the level five.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: The speed at which you go through that is not
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: as important as the the path and the direction if
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: you if you have an unwavering path going through those
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: different plateaus, you're becoming a better steward along the way
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: and a better representative of the hunting fraternity. So I
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: mentioned that in a couple of different stories in the book.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: But that is the hunter's path. It's just sort of
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: a natural progression to just get better and better and
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: better at what you do. But there's an old saying,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: you live and learn. Some people only live and don't learn,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: And some hunters get involved in hunting and never change.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: They stay in that trigger it stage right on through
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: the whole process, and that's that's unfortunate for them. It's
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: unfortunate for hunting that there are people like that. But
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: it's incumbent upon us that that recognized the educational process
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: to bring them into the fold and to help lead
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: the way by example and by through education to get
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: them to appreciate what they have access to. So that's
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that's the hunter's path, and it's it's mentioned twice in
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: different stories in the book. Yeah, and I think you do.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: I think you do a nice job of illustrating that
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: journey throughout as you said, throughout the book. It's it's
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: kind of woven through many of your stories in different ways. UM.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: And then I think another example of of a way
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: to educate ourselves about some of those elements of the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: hunter's path and that stewardship is another book that you
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, that being a Sand County Almanac by all
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: the Leopold. I think many of those um core tenants
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: of becoming a steward and of taking those steps as
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: the hunter, I think those are discussed and shown throughout
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: all those stories as well. I think a perfect example
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: that being UM one of Leopold's lessons learned, you know,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: in in his essay Thinking Like a Mountain, where he
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: spoke about UM, a topic you mentioned earlier, that being
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: predators and how he had you know, as a young kid,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: had always thought I'll just shoot every wolf for coyote
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: would be a good thing. You know, he thought it
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: was fun to kill him. And you know, every fewer
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: wolves there be more, dear. Um. And then he kind
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: of had this ah ha moment as he started to
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: understand how all of these things are are more interconnected
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: than that and that, um, you know, there was a
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: place for all of these different pieces and parts of
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the ecosystem, wolves and deer and humans and all of
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: those things, um as as one part of a whole. Um.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: Why does the Sand County Almanac resonate with you so much?
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Because I know you've mentioned it quite a few times,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: both in this book and um in past times i've
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: heard you speak, why is that something that you think
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: hunters should should look to? Is another source of of
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: knowledge and direction? Well, I mentioned the importance a minute
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: ago of mentoring, and if you had to read any
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: one book that was available, uh as a book that
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: would mentor you through the different steps of hunting, it
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: would be a San County Almanac because it it talks
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: about your role as as a hunter and a manager,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: uh and not a despoiler. Of wildlife, and and it
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: it reinforces that necessity to be a good steward of
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: our natural resources. Um. And just one example after another
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: in that in that book, and it just teaches you
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: how to be aware of your surroundings. My book, by comparison,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: has all these stand alone stories. Leopold's book, like most
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: other books, is a progression of thought. You just you
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: flow from one to the next, to the next and next.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: My book has stand alone stories with one exception. I
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: have one story that has a sequel to it, and
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: then I have one chapter that's a trilogy, and it's
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: all about one person that I grew up hunting with,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: a fellow that was part Cherokee Indian from the Appalachian
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: region of North Carolina, and he was the ultimate storyteller
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: for one thing, and that I've probably got some of
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: my storytelling from being around him so much in my
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: early years. But aside from that trilogy and then that
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: one story that has a sequel to it, all the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: other stories or stand alone. So if the stories were published,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: I put at the end of that story when and where,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: whether it was a magazine or a newspaper article or whatever.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: But there are a number of stories in there, and
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: some transcripts from talks that I had given h here
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: in the States and in Australia, and I put that
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: transcript in as a story. Uh So therein lies the
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: variety of in this book. I mean, it goes in
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: every direction. But Leopold was was a person that I
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: wish I had known. I got to know him through
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: his writings, and I can only hope that I will
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: be remembered that same way many years from now, because
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: I just felt it important to take all that I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: knew about hunting and put between two cu ORSA and
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: I think I've done that for this book. And I
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: think it's important that you ah can enjoy any experience
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: that's outdoors related, and even down to reading about hunting.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: It can be funny, and it can and should be
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: fun It should be enjoyable. The more you understand about it,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: the more you're gonna do it correctly and enjoy it
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: more fully. So that that's leopolst influence on me, and
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: I hope my influence that comes through to the readers
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: of my book as well. So so speaking of that
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: book then and of the power of story, because in
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: many cases the things you've talked about here there these
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: you know, lessons learned, these important things to to think
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: about as far as becoming stewards. All these things, many
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: times are conveyed through a story. And uh man, I'm
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: a glutton for stories. I remember as a little kid
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: going up to our family deer camp. Um there was
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: there was a guy who went up to our camp
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: with us. His name was Terry, and he was probably
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: twenty five or thirty maybe, and I was like eight
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: years old at the time, and I would just follow
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: him around all day at camp. I'd sit next to
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: him in the truck when we were driving up to camp,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I would sit next to him in the cabin, and
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: in every second there wasn't talking happening, I would just say, Hey,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: can you tell me a deer hunting story? Can you
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: tell me your story? Can tell me the story of
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: your first buck? Can you tell me a story of
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: how you killed your you know this buck? And maybe
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm doing what I'm doing today. I'm asking
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: people to u to tell their own stories still now,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: many many years later. But I guess the point of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: me saying all that, Joe is out of your book,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: and these many different experiences and stories you shared. Um,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: is there a favorite story or or a hunting story
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: in your life that stands out the most, Um, that
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: you could share with us. Any story that stands out
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: to you would be would be pretty interesting to me.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. There they're all favorites for that matter. UM.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: One one was very humorous and it's entitled The Upside
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Down Goat. I was probably fourteen years older so at
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the time, fifteen maybe, and we had killed it deer
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: on this property near my hometown in southeastern North Carolina.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: And I didn't know anything about skinning or gutting or anything.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: And in those days, when the club killed a deer,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: they processed it that day, immediately after the hunt. So
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I was standing around in this little shelter on a
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: on an old abandoned farm and and watching the process.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: The first of all skinned the deer and they gutted it,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: and I was standing there with my hands in my pockets,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, something hit me from behind,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: and I landed on my back and looked up and
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: I was staring at the chin of a big, wild
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: horned billy goat, and everybody around laughed at what had happened.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: I was, while I was just embarrassed to the degree.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: And I hunted on that property for a number of years,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: and that goat was always there, and he was always
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: hiding behind something and waiting until you got out into
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: the open before he attacked you. So I had invited
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: a cousin of mine down from Fatteville, which is near
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: Fort Bragg. Uh he wasn't a hunter at all, but
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I said, come on down and spend the weekend with me,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: and I'll take your deer hunting. And back in those
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: days it was dog hunting only in eastern North Carolina.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Nobody still hunted, uh um. And so I said, you'd
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: come with me, and I'll put you on the stand
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and we'll stay there until lunchtime, and then we'll come
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: out and have sardines and crackers and cheese for lunch,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: and then we'll hut that wag in the afternoon. Well,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: we went through the old barnyard where there were a
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: few hogs running around, and didn't see the billy goat
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: I had mentioned him. And we hunted for a few
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: hours and came back through the barnyard and had gotten
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: to the very little of the opening, and my cousin said,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: there he is. Here he comes. And there was an
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: old abandoned car there in the in the farmyard. We
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: got up on top of that, and this goat was
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: going around and around and around. We thought that was
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, but we were held captive by this marauding goat.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, the goat jump to
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: the hood of the car and then to the top
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: and was standing between us. Uh. Not enough room for
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: a big, wide, horned billy goat and two youngsters. We
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: peeled off the car and made a mad dash for
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the gate, which was a fight a hundred yards away.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: And Uh. It got almost to the gate, the goat
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: was closing the distance, and I grabbed the low hanging
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: limb and swung up into the tree. My cousin missed
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: the limb, so he and the goat were going around
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and around this tree. All the while. He kept extending
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: his hand said, pull me up, pull me up. Well,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fool. It's gonna be much easier for
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: him to pull me down than for me to pull
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: him up. And I said, you just got to do
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: it yourself. Do it like I did. Just climbed the tree.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: So we finally got together up in the tree, and
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: then the other hunters started gathering the gate, only to
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: see the two of us in this tree with the
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: goat going around and around us. Very humiliating. But I
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: put a picture in that article of a goat and
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: I turned him upside down to go along with the title.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: So there's some stories like that that, and I will
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: say all of these stories are true. They all happened
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: the way I portrayed them. Some of the stories I
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: put in there were told to me, and there may
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: be some element of doubt as to how truthful they
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: were from start to finish. But like an old timer
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: told me one time, well I just had to tell
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: it like I heard it, and I wrote it like
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I heard it in some cases. But yeah, there are
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of stories like that. There's some
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: there's a turkey hunting story in there that uh, there's
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: rather comical towards the end, and there's some good fishing stories. So,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: as I said a while ago, there's there's a little
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: bit of something in there for everybody, and I just
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: I just hope the readers enjoyed the twisted journey through
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: all my personal stories. All right, before we move on,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our partners at
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: Matthews Archery for their support of this podcast, and as
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: you might have seen on social media over the past
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: few weeks, Matthews has just launched their new flagship bow
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: for two thousand eighteen, the Matthews try Acts, and here
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: with us to talk a little bit more about what
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: the tracks has to offer is Matthews design engineer Mark Hayes.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: The try X is the result of an extremely focused
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: goal that we had this year for two thousand and eighteen,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and that was to make the stealthiest bow of all time.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: And UH, with that focus goal, there's two things that
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: we're looking at. We're looking at the most efficient bow
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: that we could past they make, and what that does
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: is the lost energy in a bow is usually sounding vibration.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: So if you can make a bow as efficient as possible,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: you're gonna lower the amount of energy that you have
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: to actually deal with. Once we lowered that with our
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: e h s and the new position, which we're called
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: three D dampening, that bow is the quietest and most
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: vibration free bow that we've ever made, and we're seeing
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: it now once the bows are hitting the shops now
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and people are experiencing it that the Halon was a great,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: great platform. But and it's hard to believe that the
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: vibration could get better, but it is noticeably better and
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: it's fun to see people's reactions on that. It's it
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: was built for close quarters. Um, you know, Eastern guys
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: were in Midwest, We're used to blinds and tree stands,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, the geometry of the bow is uh
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: good for that. Obviously, it is a short bow um
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: axle to axle. Now a few was like a bigger
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: bow with our our short lambs and our big cams
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and everything. But it is amazing how easy that is
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: to carry around and how maneuverable it is. And that
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: was kind of a byproduct of our first goal was
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: to just to make the stealthiest killing machine of all time. Really,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: so the newest thing what people will definitely see that
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: three D dampening. We move that damper out in front
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: um of the bow and if you could imagine a
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: twisting motion, our dampers were normally, you know, underneath the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: hand and you don't get the full rotation and that
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: twisting for that damper to work. So by moving it
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: out we're using all three directions. That's where three D
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: comes from to really dampen that energy, and that's why
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: the user cannot feel it when they actually shoot. It's
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: really incredible. If you'd like to learn more about the
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: Matthews tracks, you can visit www. Dot Matthews Inc dot com.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: You mentioned how back in those days it was just
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: hunting with dogs most of what you guys did, um,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: and that's something that that's very unique to the South. Um.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Being a Michigander up here in the northern part of
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: the country, I'm I'm far removed from the culture of
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: hunting in the South. UM, and sometimes I I what's
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: the word I'm looking for here? I don't give our
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: southern members of our audience enough attention as far as
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: things that are that are happening for them and the
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: the culture of hunting that they're a part of down there.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Can you speak a little bit about that, what it's
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: what it's been like as a hunter down south, how
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: that might be different than some of the things we've
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: experienced in my neck of the woods up here. UM,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: and maybe in particularly be curious to hear about um
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: dog hunting and how that's a part of the culture
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: down there, and and some different things on those lines. Well,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: I think we're probably uh inherited that style of hunting
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: from our European ancestors, UM. But the dog hunting has
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: has been a part of our tradition for as long
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: as we've been settled in in this part of the world.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: When I grew up, as I mentioned, it was, it
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: was dog hunting only in eastern North Carolina. I've been
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: around long enough to see that change to the point
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: now that there are not many people still dog hunting
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: for a long list of reasons. Number one, uh, they
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: don't like to be able to keep a big pack
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: of dogs, and and the other is their their hunting
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: properties have gotten smaller and smaller, and all the while
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: the problems with neighbors having increased over time. By comparison,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: when when I hunted the loose knit club that I
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: hunted with, UM hunted about a seven or eight hundred
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: acre tract bordering the Cape Fair River, and nobody to
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: our left or right or south of us hunted at all.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: So if our dogs left our property uh in pursuit
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: of a deer, UH, they were usually back within a
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: few hours. For one thing, the deal would make a
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: big loop and come back, but it didn't bother anybody.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: If the dogs ran the deer to the river and
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: crossed the river, then there was a club over there
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: as well who did the same thing. We had their
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: dogs running deer across the river to our side of
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: the river, so that was not a problem. But that
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: has changed over time to the point that every single
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: property that's hunted has a neighboring hunter on it. And
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: what's changed is that there are more and more people
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: that still hunt who don't appreciate having dogs run through
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: their property. So that's it's been the biggest change that's
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: happened with with dog hunting. UM I will pat the
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: dog hunters on the on the back and congratulate them.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: In Georgia, a few years ago, they realized that they
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: were on thin ice and a faction of their leadership
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: met with legislators and that came up with a set
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: of guidelines a I think a minimum acreage in different
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: ways that they were to police themselves, and they essentially
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: saved dog hunting in the eastern part of Georgia by
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: having those guidelines. UM. Still hunting is very strong these
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: days in that part of the world, but dog hunting
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: is too. I see the dog hunting is changing in
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: all these other states as well, um when it is
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: probably going by the wayside quicker than those that are
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: participating in it would like to see. But it's because
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: they're not sticking to a set of guidelines like the
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: Georgia deer hunters set up for themselves. Dog hunting is
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: still popular in eastern Virginia, eastern North Carolina, eastern South Carolina, Florida,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: and then some of the Gulf Coast states all the
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: way around through Louisiana. A number of years ago, they
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: they stopped dog hunting in East Texas, um because of
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: the conflicts with with other hunters and other landowners, neighboring landowners.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: So it's a it's sort of a dying art, a
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: dying tradition, and it'll last in certain pockets because of
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: large enough acreage to participate in that. But I see
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: those acreages changing to the to the negative side. They're
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: getting smaller and smaller over time. So it was the
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: way to hunt at one time, and it's that it's
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: now has been taken over by steel hunting, which has
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: become d way to hunt. I've seen archery and muzzle
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: loading hunting gain in tremendous popularity over the years. So
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: if you look at deer hunting in the last twenty
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: or fifty or seventy five years, it change has been
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: the bottom line to all of that. And we just
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: have to keep up with that change, with with the
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: demands of the future. And and we have to accept
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: that some of these traditions where thin and and maybe
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: it's time for them to go on the shelf. But
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: but that's just a natural progression. It's just the thing
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: that it's happening. Whether social problems are causing that or
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: biological problems or whatever. It's just we have always faced change.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: We've got to keep fasting it. Yeah, very true, very true.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: So for those still hunting right now. And two things.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: Number one, when you're referring to still hunting back there,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: when you're speaking about the difference, isn't hunting you were
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: You were speaking more about the hunting from a stand
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: or staying still right, not like the stalking type hunting.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: Or am I misinterpreting that there are there's some terminology
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: that's different north and south. Uh uh, your way still
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: hunting is stalking and down our way. Uh. Another way
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: to describe stalking. A good friend of mine calls it
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: slipping and tipping. I like that. Uh, it's moving. Uh.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: Most people move too quickly and see a lot of
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: white flashes, and don't kill me in a deer. With
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: that technique, you have to be able to move with stealth,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: very quietly, always stopping a shadow, always hunt into the
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: wind or on a cross wind, and never never, never
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: be in a hurry. Uh. There there's one exception to that,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: and I've got that in my book, Uh in a
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: story called stalk Look Listen, And I use a little
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: hand diagram of an old Tommy railroad crossing which used
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: to say stop, look listen. I called mine stalk look listen,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: and it was designed for uh, for the rut. So
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: the thing for you to do is to move rather
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: quickly through the woods and keep your ears wide open
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: for that tail tail sound of a h a courtship
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: in progress. If you hear a buck grunting, and if
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: the buck chases the dough through an opening beyond your range,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: wait until they're gone, and then move there quickly, because
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: realizing the doe small home range, she'll likely circle our
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: in and come right back through there, you'll be in
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: a better position to make a good assessment of the buck.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: Shoot it if it's mature enough and it's what you want,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: or you know for sure you're chasing an adult deer,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: so you can you can take the antist deer. But
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: that's the one time where you would stalk quickly. All
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: the other times you just need to slow it down
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: and stalk very slowly. But there's one difference north and south.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: When we talk about still hunting down here, we're referring
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: to sitting still um on a stand that's either free
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: standing or in a tree or now more recently in
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: a ground blind. That's our definition of steel hunting. We
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: sit there in wait for the deer to come to us. So,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: so speaking of of tactics and things along those lines,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: for those down in the southern half of the country
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: or down you know, even more regionally, maybe by you
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: whether they're hunting South Carolina or North Carolina anywhere around there. UM,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: for those guys that are still hunting in the late season,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: do you have any general advice for um for success
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: at this time of year, now that we're in the December,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: kind of on the downhill slide of the season well
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: down here. When we have a four and a half
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: month season. By this time of the year, many hunters
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: will look forward to that last day. They're pretty well
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: hunted out. Uh. I, on the other hand, am looking
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: forward to these remaining two weeks because I've done everything
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: I need to do for this year. I've pretty well
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: taken care of the freezer. I'm going to hunt every
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: opportunity I can because my trail cameras keep telling me
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: that there are bucks out there that know my Social
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: Security number, that not only have I not seen them, uh,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: my cameras have not seen them in the daytime. And
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: do these deer or denizens of darkness, they operate almost
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: totally on a nocturnal basis, and they have the whole
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: season even with very low hunting pressure. But but this
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: is this is the bottom line to quality deer management.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: You go into the wood now knowing that those deer
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: are there. In my early years, I went into the
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: woods wishing and hoping that a deer of that caliber
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: was there, and and didn't know that there was probably
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: not a deer in the county where I was hunting
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: that was a deer of my dreams. And if you're
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: looking into the very first page of my book. There's
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: a there's a painting that a friend of mine's mother
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: did years and years ago, and it's a decent eight
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: point buck chasing a dough. And the caption on that
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: artwork was the dreams I had as a beginning hunter
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: became reality only through management. And that's what we've done
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: for ourselves. We have created, through quality deer management, a
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: situation where going honey now has an element of promise,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes a thin promise, but an element of excitement as well,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: that those deer are there now. It's up to you
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: to show your prowess and to cross paths with that animal.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: And the season may close without you ever seeing that animal,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: but you see their tracks, you find their shared antlers.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: After the season, you know they're there. You know they're
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: going to be there next year, and even bigger next year.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: So for me, as a seventy year old, there's more
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: excitement in hunting now than ever before, and and I
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: think it's incumbent upon us to share that with every youngster.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: We can get them out there and let them know
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: what's there, let them know that none of this is
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: by accident. It's all by design and good management. And
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: it's here because we've been good stewards. Yeah, yeah, I
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: love that. I think that's that's so true. Kind of
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: along those lines, maybe as we wrapped things up here, UM,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to steal a question from
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: a guy named Tim Ferris that I follow, and he
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: likes to ask this question to the guests of his podcast.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: I want to spend this one out to you, Joe. UM.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a concluding thought here. If you we're
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: given a billboard on the side of the highway, let's say,
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: maybe it's side of the highway leading to a bass
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: Pro shops or Cabela's, and you knew there's gonna be
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer hunters passing by that billboard. What
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: phrase or words, what message would you put on that
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: billboard for deer hunters to see? Uh? I tell you
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: what a mental image would be A photograph or or
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: a painting of a hutter, an older hunter sitting on
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: a log next to a younger hunter, and that being
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: viewed from behind, so you could in the foreground you
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: can see the log and the two hunters sitting there,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: and you can see a view down through a valley
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: of what they were looking at, and the message would
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: be be a part of nature, become a good steward. Yeah,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: usually the shorter the message the stronger. But I think
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: the message I like to convey to other hunters and
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: even to non hunters, there's a heck of a lot
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: to get out of being in the outer doors, whether
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: you're sitting on a stone or sitting on a log.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: But the importance of sharing that not only with a
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: fellow hunter, but especially with a young hunter. Bring them
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: on board so they can enjoy the things that you
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: be long enjoyed and just enjoy being a part of
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: nature and take pride in being a good steward. And
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, Mark, this was probably a closing comment,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: but I needed to make a couple of comments about
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: the availability of my book. Was definitely gonna have to
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: ask you about that for sure, so please do tell
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: us um Well number one. It's available online through the
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: q d m A. Just go to our website cdum
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: A dot com, go to the store two books and
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: you can order it that way. You can call our
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: toll free number at our headquarters in Georgia, and that's
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: eight hundred two oh nine three three three seven. The
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: other way is to order it from Amazon. Just go
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: to Amazon dot com type in firefot Stories and you
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: can order it that way. The third way is to
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: get it directly from me, and if you choose to
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: take that route, I can personalize it. I can sign
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: it to you or to someone you want to gift
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: the book to. You just need to contact me through
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: my email, which is j Hamilton's at q d um
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: a dot com. I'll be glad to put it in
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: the mail to you, UH with it signed to you.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: I'll put my name on it and a date. So
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: those are the three ways. I really thank you for
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: this opportunity. It's it's always good to talk with with
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: fellow deer hunters, UH, locally and far away. I wish
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: I could maintain eye contact while we were talking, but
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: that'll that'll have to happen in the future. Yes, absolutely,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: it's always great to hear from you, Joe, and and
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: I'd like to to thank you as well. Definitely appreciate
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: your time sharing these stories and experiences with us. And
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: I think you know, if I think it's evidence simply
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: from this conversation, anyone hearing this that UM that what
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: you have to say and that what you've put on
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: on paper is worth worth taking a look at, hearing about,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: and reading. So definitely recommend everyone check out the book
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: and Joe, thank you and best of luck with the
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: rest of your season chasing those denizens of the darkness.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks Mark and just I just want all the listeners
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: to know that the quote to Der Management Association is
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: an organization that started uh almost thirty years ago. In fact,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen is our thirtieth anniversary. The bottom
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: line is we are an organization for all deer hunters.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: That that's your bottom line. We're looking out for you. Uh.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Your future is our future. So if you're not, remember
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: become one, and I think it will be a decision
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: that you'll be happy you made. Mark, thanks again for
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: your time and I look forward to seeing you soon.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: Enough sounds great, Joe, thank you, And that's going to
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: wrap it up for us here today. A couple usual reminders.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: If you haven't yet, we we certainly would appreciate it
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: if you'd leave a rating or review for this podcast
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: on iTunes. It just takes a minute or less. If
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: you could, you know, give us a star rating. Whatever
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: you think. We deserve give us some feedback. That's something
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: that we can use to try to make this podcast
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: better in the future, so we'd love to see what
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: you think. Um also, make sure that you're following Wired
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: to Hunt across all of our different platforms. You know,
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: this wire tone isn't just a podcast. I also run
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: a website. We've got a lot of things going on
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram and videos on YouTube, so make
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: sure you're following Wired to Hunt across all those different places.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: And then, I guess finally, we do want to thank
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: our partners who help make this podcast possible. So big
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: thank you to sit to gear Yeddie Cooler's, Matthews Archery,
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: may Haven Optics, the White Tailed Institute of North America,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: Trophy Ridge and hunt Terra Maps, and finally, most importantly,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: thank you to everyone out there listening. Appreciate your support.
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you being a part of this community. And
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: hopefully you are still hitting the woods hard trying to
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: fill some final tags of the season, and assuming you are,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: I wish you all the luck in the world and
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.