FFOD333 : Not a Single Critter

Sometimes I think we take ourselves (and our hunting and fishing) a little too seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had the passion and been completely consumed by it. But if I had to rank my most precious outdoor memories.. I don’t think a single critter would make the top 50 list.

I’ll admit, at my age my memory bank is pretty loaded, so I may have an unfair advantage. Most of those memories happened around a hunting or fishing trip, camp, or gathering, which speaks volumes all by itself. This week I’m taking a trip back through some of those memories, sharing the stories behind them and why they’ve stayed with me all these years. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Fistful of Dirt, the official podcast of Monte Oak Properties. Whether you own a small farm, leased land, or just love hanging in your backyard. We're all about the outdoor lifestyle and how to get the most from your time in God's great outdoors. Now here's your host, Ronnie Cud Strickland.

SPEAKER_07 0:24

Am I live from the Camo Cave? To my live in the middle of a heat dome.

SPEAKER_06 0:28

Mmm, heat dome.

SPEAKER_07 0:29

Yeah, they're saying triple digits.

SPEAKER_06 0:31

Okay, am I crazy or do it feel kind of nice here lately? Like I don't know if it's just because even though it's a heat dome, the humidity's low. I'm not I'm not bothered by it.

SPEAKER_07 0:40

Look, I was so glad for it to quit raining.

SPEAKER_06 0:43

Who cares if it's hot?

SPEAKER_07 0:46

Yeah. I got some issues, but living in Mississippi and not liking the heat ain't one of them. It's just part of the deal.

SPEAKER_06 0:53

I think you acclimate. Like you just get used to it.

SPEAKER_07 0:56

Yeah. The 4th of July, behind us now, we had a great podcast with Uncle Ted Nugent. I said I wasn't gonna call him Uncle. I'm almost old as he is.

SPEAKER_06 1:06

That's my favorite episode we've done with him, and we've done a bunch.

SPEAKER_07 1:10

Truth, logic, and common sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 1:13

And buddy, he is full of it. I'm telling you, I think he's sharper now than he was.

SPEAKER_06 1:19

Just a soundbite a second.

SPEAKER_07 1:21

And man, he don't forget anything. I called him to talk about going into the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame, and he just kind of blew right by that and got fired up, and we just let him talk.

SPEAKER_06 1:31

He wanted to talk about other stuff.

SPEAKER_07 1:33

Yeah, the only podcast we do that uh we don't send questions.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

No script, no nothing.

SPEAKER_07 1:40

I might have three or four words written down there, but it's like he inspires me. And anytime you post a picture of Ted, you're gonna get somebody say something about, you know, he did this. And he I'm like, dude, if you don't think he is the ultimate warrior for conservation and wildlife and what we do, you're just wrong.

SPEAKER_06 2:01

You're just wrong.

SPEAKER_07 2:02

He's the best. And I'm I'm hoping they let me introduce him at the Legends of the Outdoors. I brought it up and he said, You need to make that happen. But I'm gonna certainly be there to sing his praises and shake his hand. So yeah, he's uh and he did you uh right at the end of that, he said, We have got to share camp again. So I'm gonna I'm gonna work on that.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

That would be so fun.

SPEAKER_07 2:25

And the reason I say that, Fourth of July kind of flips the switch for me.

SPEAKER_06 2:29

Oh yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_07 2:31

You know, even though because you you're between, you know, turkey season's been over for a while, you're mowing grass and doing all that kind of stuff, not planting food pots, although I did get my corn in and it's looking great. I've been making some posts about that. But it's like, okay, now it's time to start thinking about it.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:48

Start thinking about I took a quiver full of airs and hung them on the door by the shop. That's where I hang them when I'm shooting. They're not outside, they're kind of inside, but you can't go in the shop without seeing them. And I hung them there the other day and I reached for my bow and I was like, nah, it ain't quite time.

SPEAKER_06 3:07

Oh, it's too soon.

SPEAKER_07 3:08

But I'm walking by, I'm looking at them, and I took a picture of them, like, yep, I'm thinking about it.

SPEAKER_06 3:13

It's getting close. The next holiday on the calendar technically is Halloween.

SPEAKER_07 3:17

Yeah, the night after I looked at those arrows, I went in and I was going through social media because me and Pammy are empty nesting, except when you guys come up or whatever. And uh, you know, I love to get on Facebook and all that stuff. But if you if you stay on there long enough, you're gonna see an altercation between hunters for some reason. It's kind of slow right now because there's no seasons open.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Right.

SPEAKER_07 3:43

But I found a guy's f fussing about, you know, fastbowls and 3D archery and all that kind of stuff, and I was like, I just went right by it. Then I found another one. This guy was complaining about this. Somebody was selling something on TikTok, and this guy was busting him because it was a cheap thing or it wasn't made in the USA. And I'm like, good gosh, people, relax.

SPEAKER_06 4:07

Just anger.

SPEAKER_07 4:08

So anyway, I got off there and I went to my photos and I started finding some. I was like, I'm gonna go way back, and I got a lot of photos in my phone. And I was like, and I just started clicking some certain ones, and I made a video, made a post. And uh if you don't follow social media, I'll I'll read it to you. But it it generates a few, not a bunch, but it generated some good ones. And the coolest thing about him was the first picture was that picture you sent me of Cranky digging in his butt on the fish.

SPEAKER_06 4:40

He had a wedgie.

SPEAKER_07 4:41

He had a bad wedgie.

SPEAKER_06 4:43

I think it's a little bitty thing to anyway.

SPEAKER_07 4:46

I put this little video together and I threw it up there and it says, sometimes I think we take ourselves and our hunting and fishing a little too serious. Oh, I've had the passion and become consumed by it. If I had to put them in order, my most precious memories, I don't think a single critter would make the top 50. I'll admit at my age, my memory bank is pretty loaded, so I may have an unfair advantage. Through most of the events happened around a hunting or fishing trip or gathering, which speaks volumes. I'm going to dive deep into some of these from the past and what made them stand out on an upcoming Fist Full of Fistful of Dirt podcast, but I'd like to hear yours, blah, blah, blah. And I got some cool comments. And, you know, I I started writing a f a few things down and the the subject or the topic of this, and I'm gonna relive some of those those hunts. And I th I I jotted some down that had nothing to do with big deer or long beard turkeys or anything else. I mean zero.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Right.

SPEAKER_07 5:50

Nothing to do with them. And most of them had everything to do with a campfire.

SPEAKER_05 5:56

Oh.

SPEAKER_07 5:58

I got and people come up to me all the time. What's it give me a tip, give me a tip, give me one pointer, and all this kind of stuff. And my new one is if somebody says, What can I do to make it more fun? All that's like Build a fire. Learn how to build a campfire.

SPEAKER_05 6:13

I love that.

SPEAKER_07 6:14

I got so many pictures of sitting around a campfire now. It it's not all around a campfire, but it's all around that hunting environment. And uh and it's not again, I'm not stuck back in the day, and I'm not saying back then was better, but today is different, and it's easier to get lost in what's really important. This is just my opinion. I started thinking back to I'm gonna probably start more present and work my work my way back, but three of three of the best hunts we ever aired on TV, and I'm not I don't remember where they all went because we had a bunch of TV shows, a bunch of videos going.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 6:56

One of the best ones we ever aired wasn't even on our show. I used to help uh ESPN produce a show called Zuzuki's Great Outdoors.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Oh, I remember that.

SPEAKER_07 7:06

You know, it had uh they had different hosts. Burt Jones, uh I think Larry Zonka did some of them. I could do a whole podcast on him. But I took Charlie O one time, Charlie O'Brien, he was still catching for the Braves or somebody to Illinois to go trophy deer, you know, that's where you want to go to kill a big buck. Pike County. Yeah, Pike County, Illinois. And that's what they wanted. And we hunted. And we hunted and we hunted. We didn't see anything. I don't know, and we were late, it was probably post-rut, and this place had been hunted hard. You could tell anytime they they drop you out and there's a path going to your deer stand, you can pretty well surmise that you aren't the first one in there. Anyway, it was tough and it was cold, we weren't seeing any deer. And I fine and I was filming right along. There was a bunch of stuff happened on that show. Some of the best stuff they didn't air. Because they were just about a trophy deer. But anyway, we uh we finally saw a buck and it wasn't very big. And I got some good video of this thing. We were down in this hollow between two cut cornfields or something, and I f I saw this thing way up on the other side of the cornfield and found it easing its way down through there, acting real ruddy. And it was thick, thick, thick. And I pulled my glasses up, it was a little six-point or something, it wasn't that big. Charlie couldn't see it good. He was in front of me and below me.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 8:32

I had hung my lock on behind him and around the side of the tree. He couldn't see it as good. And I was like, just focus on that down tree down there. That's where he's headed. There was a treetop down there. And he was looking and looking, and I was filming it, and I kind of kept it in frame the whole time when it got down there. And he said, he said, I can see its body. I said, shoot it. It was 41 yards or something like that. Is it a is it a good one? I went, oh yeah. And it was the best, one of the best shots you've ever seen. And when we got down there, I think it was a four or six-point, something like that. And it was, and he did the best job of trying to be excited about that.

SPEAKER_06 9:12

Bless his heart.

SPEAKER_07 9:13

And uh they aired it, and man, I got a bunch of uh conversation back and forth with them about how good that show did and all that.

SPEAKER_06 9:22

Relatable.

SPEAKER_07 9:23

Yeah, it was relatable. And and here and here's the deal: the next year, and boy Charlie never let me forgive him for that. He said, I ain't doing nothing. I'm picking.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 9:35

From now on when we go hunting, I'm picking.

SPEAKER_06 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 9:38

And I made a deal with him. I said, All right, you get the first two and a half days, which would be five hunts, and I get the last. If we ain't got anything, then I'm gonna make the shot. And he didn't really agree, but he didn't say no.

SPEAKER_06 9:51

He thought he'd get it done on his house.

SPEAKER_07 9:53

Next year we went to Wooler Point to film a bow hunt. We had Travis Ryman, and who's the shortstop guy? Alex? Alex Gonzalez. When you had a crush on it, he was so good looking. He was very handsome. Travis Ryman and him and Charlie. And the first afternoon we went to a bean field and we were sitting facing the bean field. Well, Charlie was facing the bean field, and it was just tore up. And they said, there's a 130-inch eight-point and all this. They had all these deer coming out there. And I'm facing the woods back behind me. Well, it was hot. It was early in October, middle October. So I'm facing the woods. It's real shady down in there. And I see some movement, and I zoom that big old beta cam out, and there's another six-point, and he's chasing the doe. And I filmed this deer for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_06 10:41

Good TV foot.

SPEAKER_07 10:42

I'm talking about good TV. And finally the dog turns and runs toward us, and it's going to come out into the bean field. And I said, Charlie, there's a buck coming, get ready. How big is it? And I said, and I just, the closer the deer got, I said, get ready. We're not passing this deer up. And it eased around that corner and he drew, he got the full draw. There was a big limb. And when that deer walked around, that full draw, he turned around and looked at me in his eyes were wide open. I said, shoot it, shoot it, shoot it. And he looked great video, great thing. And I'm telling you, people can relate to that kind of thing. We took uh had another hunt and we had Will Clark at Bent Creek. And I don't know who else, Travis Ryan was there. Charlie, there were several people down there. I think I was filming Will Clark, and it was uh one of them hot spells. It's just not good hunting when it's hot in December at Bent Creek. You know, the the deer have on their solid coat and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, he ended up shooting a spike. And I bet you that spike was six years old. It was the ugliest deer you ever saw. It looked like it had bananas on top of his head that were rotten. It was not a typical, it wasn't like a button buck, right? One year it was a you know old gnarly. Old gnarly spike.

SPEAKER_06 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 12:01

And he shot it with a slug gun. We were hunting, he wanted to hunt with a slug gun, and he shot that thing, and when he did, it just it looked like a de like you'd shot a decoy. You know, when you see a fire get knocked out and they get stiff, this thing fell up. And it was one of the greatest hunts ever. And I was thinking, now those were three great hunts that did great on TV, and none of them had anything to do with big deer.

SPEAKER_06 12:24

Trophies or yeah, these are like I'm just telling you, there's just something to be said for authenticity and relatability, and that's what all those hunts had in common.

SPEAKER_07 12:36

It was uh it was priceless.

SPEAKER_06 12:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 12:39

And you know, you can't just because your deer wasn't that big, and I don't mean to go down that road, I I hate to get in that in that patch of weeds, but it just some people just put too much emphasis on that. And I get it, I really do. We manage deer on our place. I don't want nobody shooting at a little forehorn and all that. But when you're just learning and you're, you know, being around people and all that, I I have to drift back to when I was a kid. If you saw a deer, any kind of deer whatsoever, and I know what that passion was like for me. Now, am I that fired up about it now? No, I'm not. I'm I'm I'm fired up about getting the habitat ready and taking them boys which are just about grown. But I can remember one time I grew up hunting in the Homachetta National Forest, Sandy Creek. You've heard me talk about Sandy Creek, wildlife refuge. But I had a buddy named Gerald Vault, and he was in school. He kicked for Mississippi State, ended up going punting for the LA Rams. One un unbelievable athlete. I used to catch him in Little League Baseball, and I had to put foam in my catcher's mouth. Oh, he could just burn it. He was good. Anyway, his dad worked for some big or chevron or Ashland or somebody, and they had some land they had permission to hunt on down way down the levee, and it was way back up in there. And we went and looked at it one time, and his dad said, he Ronnie back then, they wouldn't call him because he said, You can go in there anytime you want. And I saw some deer tracks and all. And I left to go down there, and if I ain't mistaken, I was in a white Woods auto truck, two-wheel drive, and it was a Saturday, and I got off at lunch or whatever. And when I got down there, it had been raining for a week, and I almost got stuck at the gate.

SPEAKER_05 14:28

Oh man.

SPEAKER_07 14:28

And I said, I'm not missing this hunt. I just felt like that was gonna be the best place I'd ever been.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 14:34

So I got my 3030, parked the truck over to the side once I got out and walked and walked and walked. And later figured out how far it was. We drove in there later 6.3 miles.

SPEAKER_05 14:48

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_07 14:49

And just as I'm getting to where I want to hunt, they got an old shack over there. I don't know if it was an old hunting club or not, but there was it was a hunting building there, wooden shack and all that. And I s I got there and I was gonna rest a minute, and I leaned my 3030 up against a post and something knocked it off, and when it fell, it fell in a mud hole.

SPEAKER_06 15:09

Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 15:10

And I'm trying to cover it up. So I went in there and I remember I got cooking oil and cleaned that thing off and lubed it and unloaded and all that kind of stuff. Went and hunted till dark, didn't see anything, and had to walk that 6.3 miles. And I was like, You have to be crazy. So I I know what that feels like. But it's like what a memory that was. I didn't see a deer or anything else.

SPEAKER_06 15:35

But you remember so much about it.

SPEAKER_07 15:37

Yeah, I mean it's like focus on that kind of stuff. It was like yeah, you were probably stupid and crazy for doing that. I had a buddy named Dallas Cook and when we was working at Woods Auto down in Natchez. And we still had the van from the Elations, and we've never talked about that.

SPEAKER_06 15:57

The van. We've talked a little bit about the Elatians, but not much.

SPEAKER_07 16:01

No, we still had the I still had it. Me and Dallas Cook I got I think I got him into hunting. He worked up here at Woods with me as a little small guy, and but he was pretty passionate about it. And I was kind of taking him and doing stuff. And we went out in the Homotuder National Forest in that van, which was a white just a conline 100 with a six-cylinder, three speed, uh, three on the tree kind of deal.

SPEAKER_06 16:24

Had the elations painted on the side with music notes.

SPEAKER_07 16:27

And the front. I got a picture of that, I got a picture of the front of the van somewhere. And we spent the night out there and we were going camp. And you didn't have phones and all that kind of stuff. And we took a sleeping bag, took some canned pork and beans and all that stuff. And that night it got so cold. And you didn't know it was coming.

SPEAKER_05 16:49

Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 16:50

We were and I had a two-liter Coke, I remember this. And he, you know, we'd eat and lay down, and I took a wound-up alarm clock. And uh it got so cold at sometime and we were sleeping on that muddle floor in a just a single sleeping bag, no sleeping pad or nothing like that. And when I woke up when that and I didn't sleep much, I was so cold, they put all my hunting stuff on. The two-liter, one of the first two-liter bottles, that's when they first came out, had frozen and exploded. And that stuff went everywhere, got in my hair, and my hair was frozen to the side of the van.

SPEAKER_06 17:29

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_07 17:30

And I had to I had to just sit there and work on it, work on it with my hand to try to get off. But I was like, you have got to be crazy. But uh anyway, that I don't know how long we kept the band, uh, the van. We had a my brother, there were several people went through the the band, and it was just what I call a radio band. We, you know, we would play popular music. We had a really good singer, yeah. Sammy Ingela, red-headed, a chick magnet. Really?

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Yeah, old man. Lead singer energy.

SPEAKER_07 18:05

Yeah, but and we had some great musicians. We had uh a guy named Billy Dale Freeman who could play anything, Jimi Hendrix, all that. It was just we had the most fun with that thing. Before we get back on the hunting, I can remember my dad was kind of the manager, and he put all these gigs together. And uh the the one I remember most, we went to play at a frat party at the University of Southern Mississippi.

SPEAKER_06 18:49

Hattiesburg.

SPEAKER_07 18:50

Hatticeburg. And it was at a it seemed like it was at a country club or something like that. I was little, I was 13, 14. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

15.

SPEAKER_07 18:58

Yeah. That's crazy. Anyway, we got there, and the guy showed us where we were gonna play and all that kind of stuff. It was kind of semi-outside, semi-screened in, big yard, and all that stuff. We got all the gear set up, and we were just sitting there, sitting there, sitting there, and behind us was where they were gonna eat. Somebody was cooking ribeye steaks, and we sat and we sat. Um my dad was there, he finally came in and and he said, I guess this gig's a no-show. And he said, What do you mean? He said, The guy hadn't heard from anybody, nobody showed up. He said, I'm assuming it was some kind of miscommunication. And they were bringing steaks out. And uh, I went to a guy in the kitchen, I said, What y'all gonna do to them steaks? And he grabbed me a big thing of tin four. We started wrapping up steaks. I I don't know how many rabe steaks I took home. I ate three or four of them in that van going home, but I'm like, how much that's just craziness.

SPEAKER_06 19:53

But uh, that's wow.

SPEAKER_07 19:54

Yeah, and we used to camp in that thing down the levee, it was so much fun, and uh certainly not you know wine and cheese things, but the uh the election, we actually cut a record. And it wasn't like going to Capitol Records or something. We did it over in Del High, Louisiana, 45, and it's around here somewhere. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 20:15

We have it because we played it on a record player up here.

SPEAKER_07 20:53

Playing at the Moose Lodge and stuff like that. And playing at the Moose Lodge was crazy. The one in Natchez, and I'm assuming they did this everywhere, they they kept they they had us do this thing called, they called it the John Paul Jones. I don't know if I've ever talked about that. But the men would get in a circle and the women would get in a circle in the middle. And you would play Wildwood Flower. They like country music.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Right.

SPEAKER_07 21:18

And when you started playing, one circle would go up one way, and the girls in the middle would go the other way. And when you stop, whoever you were standing by, that's who you slow dance with. Yeah. And I saw might be the best fight I've ever seen in my life. It wasn't, and then dudes had to be 65 years old. That's my wife, blah, blah, blah. But it was uh it was oh, it was so much fun. But anyway, when you get the reputation, I can play this and I can play that. We did a couple of, I don't say shady places, Charlie's over and I took your mom one night, and it's not a really good environment because there's drinking going on. I was just doing it for the money.

SPEAKER_05 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 21:56

And she sat there and didn't say anything. And anyway, on the way home, she Says, we ain't doing this no more. We yeah, we ain't doing that no more, and we didn't. But uh it just it's just it's just like some of those memories are just way more vivid when you're young.

SPEAKER_05 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:12

You know, there's nothing I love more than teaching my grandkids how to be better woodsmen. The Onex app helps me do that in a way that makes sense to them. They're all about apps and that phone. Using Onex to set optimal wind on stands that should or shouldn't be hunted on certain winds makes it easy for them to understand that, hey, a north wind blows from the north, not to the north. Using that little slope angle layer when teaching them how to read topographical maps, but the color coded shading makes it a lot easier to explain to them what tightly stacked tobo lines mean. Bottom line, Onex Hunt makes learning fun for those young ones and still helps me find success in the field. It's an easy-to-use platform. Hey, even I can do it. I suggest it for any age outdoorsman. From the bunkhouse XL to the lodge package, Basecamp Home Series delivers modular, high-quality homes designed for outdoor enthusiasts. Large kitchens, multiple bathrooms, gear storage, plus scenic outdoor living sections. All customizable to your lifestyle. It's comfort without boundaries. Visit Basecamp Homesteries.com for more information. Old timer is more than just a knife. It's a timeless tool meant to be passed down. The USA made generational series of knives are crafted to last generations, so they become memories made, lessons learned, and values taught. Yeah, I just remember how much it meant for me to go out in Sandy Creek and the Wildlife Refuge, didn't see many deer and all that, and taking care of that 30-30 and all that kind of stuff. And you kind of lose that when you go to work in the industry like I did. I went to work for Primos and went to work for Toxic, and then it's business.

SPEAKER_06 24:24

Yeah. Some of the doors open, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_07 24:27

You're taking care of business, business. And I kind of forgot about that.

SPEAKER_06 24:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 24:31

Kind of glad it wasn't social media back then, because I wouldn't have been so sense sentimental, I guess. But I can tell you when when it rocked back to me is with uh when I went up there with Joel Slater.

SPEAKER_06 24:43

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 24:44

J you know, it's like uh Joel Slater was my rep or one of our reps, he was with uh Chrysler, but he was the Ram truck guy. Yeah. Because it's public land don't mean the deer don't act like deer.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

So going out on that public land is an adventure. You've never been there, you gotta plan where you're gonna go, you gotta scout, you gotta try to figure it out, and you get new places to hunt and see new deer, and it's a challenge. What do you think, cuz? You ready? I'm ready for it to quit raining. Exactly. Welcome to the Northwoods. Someone anxiety issue with public hunting. Drive out and you think the whole time, I hope there's nobody in my spine. I hope there's nobody in my spine.

SPEAKER_07 25:24

What happened? I don't know. Good chance here's anywhere else. This is the roots of what you used to do, and I love it. And Moy, me and him would sit down and talk, and he taught he lived up in Wisconsin and hunted on public land and all that, and he just wore me out. You gotta come up here and go hunt. And it's something I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_05 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 25:46

Because you go up here, you gotta put that tag on your back and all that kind of stuff. And I said, Okay, I'll do it. And the first time I went up there, it was uh it was tough.

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Right.

SPEAKER_07 25:58

They hunt them giant evergreen forests where you can't see anything. There's not any food plots, and it was brutal. Brutal cold, getting wet, going underneath stuff. They had wolves up there coming in. Could you hear them? Yeah, heck yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:16

Do they sound like coyotes? What do they sound like?

SPEAKER_07 26:18

Oh, they sound like wolves, like you hear on TV, like the werewolves. Yeah, and and if you're an out-of-state non-resident, you can't carry any kind of sidearm. And I remember I went, or I might have ordered, I got me the biggest knife you've ever seen. It was like a 13-inch blade with a and I put that down in my boot, and they were laughing at me, man. You think you're gonna fight off a pack of wolves with that thing? I went, well, if it gets too bad, I can just fall on it, you know. At least I'll have something. Made me feel better. But anyway, stayed up there three or four days, never saw a deer. And when it was over with, I was like, that was so much fun.

SPEAKER_05 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 26:58

They were cooking and it was the worst food ever. And I so I cooked one night and and I made all kinds, and I fried the deer meat different and tenderized it and all that kind of stuff. And all those Yankee buddies were showing up, and I was like, that's that's what hunting camp's supposed to be. Nobody said anything or had any, you know, oh let's go kill us a big buck and all that kind of stuff. It it kind of it kind of shook me. And uh, you know, went went up there three or four times and I've probably told that story of the last time I went up there with him, I finally got on some deer and I was in a like a convenience store that about I don't know, midway through the hunt, and this guy recognized me because hunting the country's been airing and all that stuff. He said, What are you doing up here? I said, Man, we just hunting public land. Yeah, and he said, You ain't killed and I said, I ain't seen a deer in three years up here. He said, Follow me, and he took us to a place and walked us down this ridge and it was a good crossing and all that down there.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

And pretty much come out along that thick, thicker edge and and I would say probably say because this it's a kind of a flat area and then it kind of goes up and then it turns into hardwoods. Yeah. Stay on stay on both stay on this side and you know, it should be, you know, I don't know. For trees, if you want to be in a pine tree or a uh hardwood, you know, some cover. Right, because you stick all we can sort of filming these things.

SPEAKER_07 28:27

The watch then brought us to a honey hole. I I think we've driven by this. I really do. We probably have, no telling how many times. And when you get down in here, it's like so much deer sign, it's crazy. That's what's you know, so helpful about having local knowledge instead of just stomping around on a half a million acres by yourself. It gets to be a little overwhelming. I don't care how good you think you are. You can get humbled doing that. Me and uh I think is that who it was?

SPEAKER_06 28:57

It was either was it him or Hunter McCoy?

SPEAKER_07 28:59

It was one of them two.

SPEAKER_06 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:01

Might have been Hunter, I don't remember. It was one of those two.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

It was one of them.

SPEAKER_07 29:04

We hung a stand there, and uh we the next afternoon I had a little six-point come in and just walked right under me, and I drew that bow back and I let it back down. Let it pass. I let it go. I told you, I'm on a mission. It ain't got to be a big one. You know, we all have a special place or a special time of the year when we're holding out, waiting on that buck we've seen, whether on trail cam pictures or with our own eyes. For me, this place and this time was certainly no time to hold out. All I wanted was a deer, any deer in Bowrange. You know, for four years I tried to air a deer, any deer on public land in Wisconsin, hunting with my good friend Joel Slater. Neither of us intended to make a four-year quest out of this initial invite, but for me it was priceless. I rekindled my passion for hunting public ground and became a part of a totally different hunting culture.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

This is a good place for bushwhack.

SPEAKER_07 30:22

No doubt. On my last hunt, when I finally had a young buck in my sights at 10 yards, a chip shot, I thought about all the people I'd met, how a stranger had helped me find the spot, how much all my new friends wanted me to kill a deer, and still I didn't shoot. I realized I was trying to prove to myself I could do it. I had already proved to my new friends I was worthy of their friendship and their time, and there was no need to kill a little buck just to prove that. I don't know if I'll come back to Wisconsin. I may come back and hunt with Joel, his bird, and let the public ground rest a little bit. It's uh it's as tough as it used to be. It's uh it's as tough as I remembered it was, even in Wisconsin. But it was fun. Was it worth all the time, money, and effort that went into that four-year quest in Wisconsin? Well you bet it was shot that deer, I would have done it because I was trying to prove to myself I could kill a deer on the public land up here in Wisconsin. And they were having so much trouble with wolves and the population was down. I said, That was that they would have just been greedy.

SPEAKER_06 31:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 31:57

But looking back, that Wisconsin deal, it was just awesome.

SPEAKER_06 32:02

And everything that was awesome, but like 90% of it wasn't even in the woods.

SPEAKER_07 32:08

No, heck no. You know, meeting the guy in the store and cooking and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_06 32:12

And uh Was that the same trip with the yurts?

SPEAKER_07 32:16

That was the last time I went up there. We went to another place, it was full of deer. And I killed a doe. And me and uh Joel hung that thing on a fallen tree and skinned it and packed it out because it was such a steep drive coming out of there. It was just priceless. I was I wouldn't have took nothing for that. But uh it it it just reminds me don't get too hung up in it.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Right.

SPEAKER_07 32:46

And uh somebody asked me the other day, I was talking to Dwight or somebody, one of my buddies about this, and I was talking about don't get hung up on the big deer, and he looked me square in the eye and he said, Is is the big deer you killed in eighty one the biggest deer you you ever saw? And I shocked him. I went, No. No, it was not the biggest deer I ever saw.

SPEAKER_06 33:07

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_07 33:09

We used to have his hunting club. I don't know if it was a club. Me and Mac McCartle. Remember him? Max air conditioning out in Dolorasso. I don't Bubba Robertson, I mean we had a they had a place out there, it's mostly public land. I don't forgot what kind of public land it was, Georgia Pacific or something. But Max Daddy and him owned a little piece of property out there in a pasture and all that, and we had the worst shack you have ever seen in your life or a hunt clan. And when I say you could see the daylight through the cracks, I mean they were like they weren't like cracks in the boards, they were like rotten boards that it fell out and it did have a wood burning stove in it and a dirt floor, but that's kind of where we, you know, that was our digs for when we were out there.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 33:55

And we used to make some drives. I don't even know if it was legal, I may be telling you. But the big deal I and it was so thick because they had timbered most of that. And it was a lot of power lines out there, and you would get on those power lines, three or four or five of us, and one guy would get on the other side and he'd walk through there. Routine you did, you got an empty milk jug and put rocks in it. Shake that jug, move them deer. And uh I was I trust me, I did my share of walking through there and getting my clothes ripped off of me and the briars and all that kind of stuff. But I was sitting out on that power line, there was a power line there, and it wasn't that wide. And there was a ridge right in the middle, and it was like somebody got on the point of the ridge, one guy got down on the other side, and I was on this side, like I'm facing south. There was two more guys south of me, one on the top of the hill, one behind him. I don't remember who it was. And I think Mac McCarsle was the jug, we call him the jug guy that day. And at this point I hadn't heard him. There's a cadence of that, just shaking that jug, going whoop you know, something so you you know, you go trying to move a deer out of that tickster. And I and I was sitting there, I had a Stevens double barrel 12 gauge. I had put my big deer rifle in the truck 'cause it was thick. Yeah and I had a double alt bug shot and that twelve gauge Stevens double barrel. And a deer came out of that tick stuff from below the hill. The guy on the center on the the high point, he was facing the other way because Mac had kind of fell down toward the bottom where they were. This deer came out closer to me and he stepped out in that clearing and that power line or whatever it was, which wasn't but about twenty yards wide, looking up because that's where the sound came from. And I'm telling you, all and he was eighty hundred yards from me, and I had a twelve gauge double barrel, and there was nothing I could do to stand there and stare at him. But he was clearly bigger than the two hundred and nine-inch deer I killed in nineteen eighty one.

SPEAKER_06 36:05

Holy cow.

SPEAKER_07 36:07

Absolutely. I no cameras, no video, no cell phone. I and I but I looked at him and he stood there for probably sixty seconds, which felt like ten minutes. He looked up the hill away from me, right outside, looked straight across, and looked back, I got a good look at all the antlers. Yeah. And he was probably a mainframe ten point, but I don't I don't know how wide he was. He was twenty or something inches wide and had stickers and all that. And I thought it was uh I I just mesmerized. But you know what?

SPEAKER_06 36:40

It would be like seeing a cryptid or something if you had only ever seen like small bucks and does and Mississippi on public land infrequent anyway, that seeing that you would have to be like, what is this ancient?

SPEAKER_07 36:54

But I can tell you my most vivid memories of hunting out there at Dollarasso were about that old shack.

SPEAKER_06 37:00

More about the shack.

SPEAKER_07 37:01

More about the shack. I mean, I didn't get the deer, didn't get nobody saw him, and they were you know, I'm sure they thought I was lying when I started trying to describe how big that thing was, but it's uh it was it was something to see.

SPEAKER_06 37:15

What a cool question. I I never thought to ask you that because I just assumed I never thought about it. I'd looked at it on our wall, and I'm like, that's as big as they get.

SPEAKER_07 37:26

Well, the one thing that most of those memories had, just like the shack at Dolaraso and when I was in Wisconsin, is that we uh we always had a good campfire.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 37:36

And that's when everything happens, the best stories happen around a campfire. So if you're gonna have uh one skill and you wanna get the people involved, you wanna dig down and make some good memories, learn how to build a campfire. How many campfires have your little boys and walking and being around at our house?

SPEAKER_06 37:53

Tons.

SPEAKER_07 37:54

I got tons of pictures.

SPEAKER_06 37:55

W during COVID, we would build fires and just like cook hot dogs and s'mores just because there's nothing else to do. And I'm like, that's some of my favorite memories now. I'm like, I'm so glad we did that.

SPEAKER_07 38:06

Deer season's fiction gets started and we got some podcasts that are gonna be relating to that, but I wanted to do one real quick after Fourth of July just to kind of I'm saying the worms turn and get your mind right. You don't have to have a $2,000 bowl or be stuck on you know, one trail cam picture of a 200-inch deer. Just to just dr enjoy it.

SPEAKER_06 38:29

Build a fire.

SPEAKER_07 38:30

Build a fire.

SPEAKER_06 38:30

That's a good mental reset. That's a good that's a good starting point for deer season.

SPEAKER_07 38:36

Yeah. Well, with that said, pretty soon it'll be food plot time and all that. I'm I'm struggling on the dilemma. Am I gonna try to fully drill them this year? Or am I gonna go back old school? I had such good luck with the corn. I'm gonna get somebody in here that really knows a little more about that than I do. We're gonna talk about drilling and and how much money that saves.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Really?

SPEAKER_07 38:57

How much fuel it saves and all that. Now there's some stuff you gotta do, and if you may not have a crimper, there's ways around that. I'm gonna really focus on some of that. But in the meantime, if you want to build a skill, learn how to make a good campfire.

SPEAKER_06 39:13

I love that so much.

SPEAKER_07 39:14

Hope you had a happy, happy Fourth of July that you ate too much, nobody got their eyes shot out with a firework.

SPEAKER_06 39:21

Put it in reverse.

SPEAKER_07 39:23

Put it in reverse. Put it in reverse, too. All right, so for me and Laurene up in the Camo Cave for Mossy Oak, Mossy Oak Properties, God bless you.

SPEAKER_06 39:32

We'll see you in seven days.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Find your favorite place. Visit Mossy Oak Properties.com.

unknown 45:31

How do we go on the road?