Black Duck Revival with Jonathan Wilkins

of North American wilderness. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation, but will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet chasing Battery. I usually begin the podcast when I introduced someone, I say, this is my friend whoever it is, Well, I want to say that about this guest and I and I really mean it, but I have not known this guy for very long, but as soon as I met him, I was like, this is a good guy and he's gonna be my friend.

And so on this podcast with my friend Jonathan Wilkins, you're gonna hear a very interesting conversation. Jonathan was raised in an urban area and became a hunter later in life when he moved to Arkansas. He had a non traditional entry into the hunting space. We have a very candid conversation about all his early experiences hunting, about race, about a bunch of great stuff, and you're going to

enjoy this podcast, my friend Jonathan Wilkins of Black Duck Revival. Secondly, it's not too late to check out Northwood's Fair Pride US. There's still quite a bit of bear baiting going on and north Woods Bear Products has a full line of products. You guys, hear me preach about it about every other podcast. But we have been going through the gold rush like crazy. As I record the intro to this podcast, we just

got done bear hunting. I mean I've still my skinning knives are still stained with the evidence of a bear kill from yesterday that was taken because of north Woods Bear Products. Since So check out our friends on Instagram, Facebook, and their website north Woods Bear Products. These guys just aren't making bear products, but these guys are bear hunters that are doing good things for the sport of bear hunting. Check them out. So I am here in Northwest Arkansas

with my new buddy, Jonathan Wilkins. Jonathan and I are tired. We're tired, aren't we, Jonathan, I'm a little warm. Damn you. We've been at the World Championship Squirrel cook Off all day long and you were you were a contestant. You you were you were cooking for the for the gold medal. I was cooking. I did not get a gold medal, but yeah, I gave it a shot. Gave it a shot. Well, we're doing a whole other podcast about the World Championship Squirrel cook Off, but so tell us what tell me

what you cooked? So I did a kind of a riff on a a plastic kind of British bar food called chips and curry. So normally that's just like a very simple curry sauce on top of you know, French fries. What is curry sauce? Actually, I mean I know what it is. I eat it and like it, but I honestly don't know what it is. It's like, okay, curry, I think I think curry Actually train inslates to sauce, and there's a million different varieties of it and it's

regional specialties. But just to simplify it, it's, uh, it's a sauce that can incorporate any number of things. Primarily people think of it as that like that yellow color which is tumeric based. But you know, coming out of Southeast Asia, out of India and Pakistan, and you know tradition, I mean, you could pair it with meat, depending on the person's uh you know, what religion they practice or whatever. They might pair it with goat, they might pair it

with lentils and do a vegetarian thing. There's a million, there's a million different iterations of it. So I didn't mean to interrupt you there. So so I did a curry over. I did a squirrel curry. It had like cardamon water, um, you know, cilantro, fresh ginger, onions, garlic, a bunch of gray squirrel in it. Uh, you know, just like a curry that I like. Some raisins. You put some raisins in your career, yeah, man, Uh, you know, especially like in the Middle East, Uh, you know, up

to like you know, Morocco and stuff like that. They do a lot of pairing of sweet and savor. You Like in Morocco there's a very classic pigeons stuffed with raisin and dates dish. Uh. It compliments well, especially when you get that dried fruit that kind of intensified rich uh, molasses c kind of flavor. It can go well and strong. You save me any I would be able to comment now and talk about how good it was. Man, it

went quick. But like I said, man, if we can get you down to duck hunt, man, I'll make you some more. So. The World Championship Squirrel cook Off is in Bentonville, Arkansas. And so you you cooked like six plates for judges, is that right? Yeah? So six servings of that and you've got to give that the judges and and arrest. You don't have to, but pretty much it's like the thing to do is you serve that to the general public that comes to this big event. And so you had now chips when you say chips,

French fries, Yeah, that's just fren fried. I fried. You poured this like it kind of looked like chilly to me. I mean, I was like, it's just kind of it's like dark reddish, you know, like sauce. You put that over the French fries. Yeah, Fried, I did the French fries and rendered duck fat, rendered like a pent rendered duck fat. No way, and then uh, and then I

steeped squirrel in duck fat. And then I strained it and then I used that to make a vintegrette, and then I just dressed like a cucumber and tomato salad because that curry was pretty spicy. You get that cucumber kind of cools it down a little bit, and I served that on the sude right on. Well it's it smelled awesome. I appreciate it. It smelled good, But so little introduction of who you are. And and I've i've i've we kind of I've known about you for a

little while, but but you have, well, you you introduce yourself. So. Uh, I've been in Arkansas for half my life. I moved down here to go to college. I'm originally from St. Louis, UM. Just through half instance and whatnot. I ended up meeting a guy who taught me how to bow hunt. That kind of transformed my life about ten years ago. I came to it later in life as an adult, and uh,

you know, there's a million things that have happened. But now I've got a a small business running uh a little a little duck lodge in the Arkansas, a delta and you know, just trying to find my feet in Uh. I guess the outdoor industry. I guess what you would call. It's just kind of trying to find my way and find my little niche and how I can do the stuff that brings me a lot of joy and satisfaction and still take care of my family. So you started

hunting about ten years ago, Yeah, I think I killed. I. I was real lucky, and I had a lot of success from the beginning. I was living on my at the time, my girlfriend's family property. We're just living in a little trailer on fifteen acres. And I bought a bow, just a compound, and uh, you know, a compound is not a difficult thing to use. I feel like just

basic proficient proficiency is fairly easy to attain. And I killed I killed a pretty good book two weeks later, really after getting your bow, just right after you getting man. I mean that, And that's what I'm saying. I'm not a I'm not an awesome bowshot. Uh. I couldn't. I probably couldn't hit a pie plate at forty yards, but inside of twenty yards or yards, like, I could hit a door nine all day long. I think a lot of people could. And I was doing that within the

first couple of hours. I practiced for a week. My buddy was like, I think we can take you hunting. Did you okay? You just you just stepped over a very good line, did you know? Runella gave me a hard time about saying that, Uh, somebody couldn't shoot a bow within a couple of hours. You may not. It's on the Meteor podcast when I was on there, I said somebody, I said, somebody can learn to shoot a bow in like three hours and be pretty proficient. And they they He was like, they were like, no, no,

they couldn't know. They couldn't. I've had so many people say, Clay, we agree with you. So do you agree with me that you can get pretty proficient with the bow within a couple of hours? Yeah? I think. I think it probably has a lot to do with where you're hunting. I think Ranella does that Western hunting when he's got longer shots. But I mean we live in Arkansas. I hunt that Eastern Deciti yard shots most of the time. Yeah, I didn't. The first year I killed he was about

twelve yards. Then later that season I killed one at about nine yards. I killed another one with the bow the next year at five yards. It was three years before I ever shot my bow further than fifteen yards in a hunting scenario. I would say that's real congruent with my experience bow hunting. I mean, not a lot

of deer I've killed over thirty yards. I mean some I have, but it's but you know, that's twenty five years of bow hunting and hunt bow hunting a lot, but typically twenty yards inside of twenty yards for Arkansas, for our Arkansas stuff. What let me ask you a question. What what drew you to hunting? So? I mean you were raised in an urban environmentally urban very much. Told

me you had dreadlocks when you came to Arkansas. Not that that makes someone urban, but no, I had you you you said that to me to like be like, yeah I was. I was in a different I was in a different sphere. Yeah I had. I had little dreadlocks when I moved to Arkansas. Uh, And I grew him for a long time and with like some big, gnarly rasta looking ones. But I'll tell you what. I'll

tell you what I think it really came came down to. Uh. When I grew up my dad, my dad raised me reading Louis Lamore books and watching Westerns and you know, Jeremiah Johnson and all that kind of stuff. Uh. There was a book I loved when I was a kid called My Side of the Mountain about this kid from New York who ends up in the Smoky Mountain and hollows out of tree and trains of hawk and all this stuff. Uh that sounds like it's a great book,

and it was. They even made it into a movie in the seventies and we watched it like on Friday movie night with my family. But there was I feel like when I was introduced to hunting and I had access to it, it it just made sense. It was something that I was missing. And the reason I referenced those like Westerns and the Louis La Moore books and stuff is because there was something that I was responding to in those, but I didn't know how it was going to manifest. And I think that what I'm I

think that what I really respond to with it. I mean, it's very multifaceted, but I kind of boil it down to it's very much, uh representative of the American dream to me because it's the way that I approach it. It's about self sufficiency. Uh, you know, when you go and hunt what I would quantify as fair chase, and you go and you, you know, match wits with an animal, and you treat it with respect, and you you're respected enough to learn a whole bunch about it so that

you can try and put yourself in a scenario. And then if you are able to be successful with that, that's you. You earned it. It's it's like picking up a heavy weight. You can either do it or you can't do it. Uh. And I respond a lot to that. I feel a real sense of accomplishment with it. It Also, I feel like when I'm in when I when I was in the National Force a couple of weeks ago, and it was a chunk of woods I've never been in before, but it felt very familiar and appropriate for

me to be there. I don't think i'd feel that way in a desert. I don't feel that way on the ocean, but I don't even really feel that way on big lakes. But by us swampy stuff, you know,

the mountains we have here in Arkansas. That's those are places that feel like I have some kind of connection that to it that's bigger then I can I can quantify what what were the challenges of coming into hunting without a lot of Now, it sounds like you had some you had some place in your in your upbringing, in the input that you had a parental input, even even your dad have an interest in like now lu La Moore, that's not necessarily hunting stuff, but it's it's West.

I don't know that much about it, but Western stuff like connection to the land, kind of like this, uh well Western cowboys stuff. But then like Jeremiah Johnson would have been like pioneer stuff hunting. So I mean, like, so I guess you did have a place inside of your mind where it was like this could fit. But so what were the what were the challenges of coming

being a new hunter? I mean, i'd say just a reference which you just spoke to, Like I was raised to be capable, Like I was raised like my dad was fourty years old when I was born. I was first kid. And I say that because my dad's older and he just has a different mindset. So I was raised to fix things first if you could, Like you don't call somebody in to fix your washing machine if you can fix it, like you work on your own car. When I was nine years old. My dad had me

up on the roof helping him shingle it. You know. So I'm just saying there, I think that helped play into it. Because did that play into like the like the food aspect of it, Like like I want to go get food for myself, just like you know, you

fix your car for yourself. I think yes, partly, But I think I think I'd speak more to the fact that it gave me enough confidence in myself that I felt like I could do things that were physically difficult if I tried, you know, uh, that there wasn't something I couldn't do if I didn't keep working at it kind of deal. Uh, And then I did have Actually I lost the point. So what were you asking me

challenges to hunting? Challenges to be like, so you're like mid thirties now, so you started hunting ten years ago, so you're in your mid twenties. So he didn't grow up doing it, but kind of had this space in your you know, you had this pocket of interest and curiosity and desire that was that found traction. When something you met somebody here in Arkansas that taught you had a bow hunt, did you well I'm jumping ahead of myself, but maybe this is maybe this is jumping backwards. Did

you pursue that guy or did he pursue you a mentor? No, he's a I mean, he's one of my best friends. Uh. We were actually we're working together. We had a little business building decks and running fence and just odd jobs. And when he we were building the deck out at my mother in law trailer, and he was just looking at the woods around there. He was like, man, I've never seen this many huge white oaks. It's just nothing.

And that fifteen acres backed up to a thousand acres of just beautiful hardwood force and he was just losing his mind about it. And so it was really a thing where I was just kind of tagging along because he wanted to go see if he could what's up with this draw over here? Man, look at all this greenbrier that's been off here. Uh. And he started checking out these woods like from a hunter's perspective. He was he was noticing stuff that a hunter would notice that.

But I had no I mean, and you gotta understand, like I I had probably seen too deer from a distance in my life at this point like I just I didn't have any association with him, uh, but he was passionate about it, and you know, it piqued my interest. And I remember I remember us walking around this little five acre hunk and he was explaining me, like what a deer bed looked like, and so I was just every depression I find, like you think there's a deer

living here, You think there's a deer living here. And I remember him being like, dude, you're looking at this too small, because to me at the time, five acres was an enormous chunk of property and I thought there was maybe three or four deer that lived on that five acres like all the time, I had no idea, uh. But so yeah, but I went. I just ended up going down the rabbit hole with it, and I went hard. Uh And yeah, so he probably we probably went squirrel

hunting in September that first year. And then November seven of two thousand ten, I I killed my first deer though, and I killed it with a boat two weeks after getting a bow, like I said, And and I understand how lucky I was, but I do take a little bit of pride because I caught on fairly quickly and where I killed that deer. You know, my buddy had showed hit shown me, excuse me, he showed me, like what a d I didn't know what a draw was.

I didn't know what the saddle was. And so I just walked around until I found this spot where there's three draws running together. And if you found the spot on your own, I found on my own. And I grunted that deer in and he came in and it was like TV. He put on a show. He beat up a tree, he peeed all down the back of his legs and stomped around and then I just thumped him at a twelve yards And then I called my buddy from the deer stand, shaking and said I just

killed a deer. I just called it killed a TV deer. I come on this deer on TV. Uh So, man, that's cool. That's a that's a good first experience. It's an awesome one. Yeah, it was. If I had if it had taken me six years to kill a deer, I'm sure that at some point I would have said this is it's not working out. But because I kind of saw what it could be very early, it just fueled my desire to go further and further into it, and and I'm I'm definitely definitely not I'm not hunting

for antlers. I really, I don't have that much interest in killing running bucks anymore because they can get a little funky tasting. And I'm looking, I'm looking to put four or five deer in the freezer. But uh, it just it opened me to be able, or it gave me the opportunity to be able to open myself to

all the other stuff that comes with hunting. So it sounds to me like you're you found a good you found a good mentor but your passion really helped you overcome a lot of the obstacles of knowledge and stuff, just because it sounds like you just started sucking up information, sucking up knowledge, and just we're able to just kind of a self starter in a sense, even though you had somebody, I mean, we all had somebody helping us do sure, you know, But I mean I was I

was actively reading every book I could find, even old ones I'd find in antique stores. Uh, I was looking for stuff on the internet. I was. I mean, this was before you kind of had that YouTube, the YouTube Hunting Resurgence or not resurgence, but just what's happening now. It wasn't what it is today. Yeah, I mean I would go I would go to Walmart three times a week, starting in September, waiting for there was a there's a

White Tailed Hunting DVDs to come out. Yeah, you know, because I was like, just anything, I can know what I actually missed that I did the same years. For years. I bought DVDs and they would come out around first week of September, second week of September at Walmart, and oh man, I would go buy one of those, and I would be like giddy, and I would go home and I would put it in the I mean in the dv we don't even own a DVD player anymore.

Put in the DVD player and watch it. It's like the way it's those the way records used to be. Those days are gone. Yeah, it's it's all very immediate. And I and even though I've only been doing it for ten years, I do feel like I got in it early enough to understand references from people who have been doing it for thirty or forty years. You know, well that's that's cool. So okay, so we we've got you into hunting now, and um, now I know that you're you're a big duck hunter. Is that? Let's see you?

You went to college at Hendricks, which is a college here in central central Arkansas. And when did you start duck hunting? The year after I started deer hunting after that? Yeah, the way that went down is so like, I don't look like the prototypical Arkansas hunter, you know, like I'm a person of color. I got a bunch of weird tattoos on me, and those are pretty good looking tattoo. I'm looking at the let me see that looking at a a mallard duck. Yeah, I got mallards. I got

my mollard in the hen. You gotta picture of mom I got at caravan. I got a Pekinese with a you're gonna tell me the story of the ny Caravan tattoo. Man, I played music for a long time and that was my old tour van. So we used to say, man, you gotta get in the van and ride or die. So I put it on my arm with ride or Die underneath it. You're gonna get a squirrel like World Championship Squirrel Contestant cook Off tattoo. No, you know, I hold off on that. What about if you ever bring

home the w you do that, no more tattoos. No, I'll probably get more tattoos. I'm probably not going to memorialize one of the guys competition, not to not to sidetrack too far, but pretty far. One of the guys today that I talked to it at the Squirrel cook Off. He asked him what he's gonna do if he won, and he said, get a new tattoo. He was gonna put a world champion. And he got third place. Okay, he was the guy that got third place, So I don't know if he's gonna get a new tattoo or

not at the top. Uh. But no, I mean we're talking about com but no. So So the way that duck hunting thing started, and the reason I bring up the fact that I don't look like a prototypical hunter is because sometimes that's a disadvantage, but sometimes it's been an advantage in the fact that it piques people's interest. And so there was this guy that I used to come and watch my band play and he was just fascinated with the fact that I was in the bow hunting man. You want to come out here and try

duck hunting. And so he took me out and we just hunted like a little weed field down by look and shot shovelers. I mean, and I was on it. I mean the first time it happened, I was on it, ate up with it, not good at it, but just I just it was just an amazing thing to watch. It was whistling wings, convincing those ducks from way up in the air to come down and land right in

front of you. I was just on it. And then it's just been and then he doesn't even live here anymore, and so then it was a lot of just me struggling, finding very marginal places to walk into and just using Yeah, it took a long time to learn how to blow a call, because that's another thing. I didn't have anyone to show me that stuff. Uh So it was just constant trial and air and I was very bad for several more than several years. And for a long time, most of the ducks I killed didn't get called to.

I just have some decoys out there and try and hide, and sometimes they'd come in a lot of times just that first thirty minutes, uh, which they say everyone's a duck killer the first thirty minutes because the light's bad they can't see that good. Uh, but just slowly learning more. Asking I asked people, how do you feel like you as a as a caller today? I mean, just honestly, are you a good caller? Proficient? Call are not average

or really good? I think that I think honestly, in the last six months I probably moved a little past proficiency in the pretty decent Like I blow a I blow an old fifties cut down old which anyone who blows a duck call, that's that's about as hard a call to blow as you can get. It takes a tremendous amount of air and pressure, and like when I first started blowing that, it would make me lightheaded and I'd see stars like it. It's just a lot of

it's physical exertion. And then once you figure it out, it's like anything else. You know, you can have a little more finesse on it and be a little more dexterous. But but that was that was an example there of I just kept trying something that was really hard to do and just kept being bad at it until one day I wasn't and I was running around. I told my wife, can you I just uh, I just uh, I just did a rolling feet on this thing? Can

you believe it? She doesn't care, you know, but she knew that it was important to me because I probably had I bet you I had three hours blowing that thing in my truck until I could the old call? Is it a better? Is there an advantage to be able to blow that call if it's harder? I know, in most animal calling usually if there's a harder method, a lot of times it's better in some ways. I mean, like a turkey diaphragm call, Like, yeah, you could use a box caller, you could use a little push call.

But if you can call with a diaphragm, which is much harder, you you're you're better caller. I mean, make make better noises with it. You know it's okay. So an old cut, cut down call is it's a it's a call that's been modified. The tone board has been usually filed with like a bastard file or a like sandpaper basically, and it's something that developed very much here in Arkansas. And the reason is because Arkansas is known for hunting timber. California, Virginia a lot of places they

hunt these open marsh lands, sound travels much better. I'm trying to hunt in flooded timber. There's tree tops early season, there's leaves, an old, an old cut down old will get incredibly loud and it will cut through that. That's the advantage of it, and especially on public land when you're competing with a bunch of other people calling if you can call louder I mean, because you gotta think about this, a duck if you drive down the road at six and you stick your head out the window,

that's what a duck hears all the time. So you're just trying to get them to hear a little bit of it a lot of times, just a cluck or a little bit of that quack, to turn their head to pay attention to your decoys, and then try and start convincing them to work down in there. So that's that's the advantage of the loudness of it. It's the loudness also the rasp Uh, A cutdown call is it's just like people's voices. Uh. It's a really raspy kind of ratily call. It has a lot of bottom ends.

You'll hear people talk about that they're talking about kind of the low tone of it, the base, and that deep bass sound travels through the air much better than a high sound. So like in a perfect example of that is elephants. You know, elephants will do this very low, very low kind of sub sonic rumbling and it can be heard for miles and miles for by other elephants. And it's because that low tone will just cut through

the air better. That's interesting. So tell me about tell me about your your duck club or your your your Yeah, So that started with I was driving around. You know, it was an hour and a half drive from my house, and I was driving it sometimes seven days in a row, and then turning around and driving back, getting up at two in the morning. The Arkansas Delta is a very economically depressed place. Industry has gone farming his change. You know, uh two acre farm that used to take twelve guys

to work takes one guy in a combine now. So it's very economically depressed. And that means that just real estate prices aren't what they would be otherwise. So I was trying to find just a little rats nest that I could get for cheap, that I could stay in and not have to travel so much. And what I ended up buying was an old church, and I thought I was just gonna do excuse me, I thought I was gonna do like a superficial revamp on it. But that was because I didn't know what I was doing.

And it was a complete gut job, like I had to take every floor joy style, like basically the only things original and the exterior walls, and that I was having to justify the expenditure because I got to a point where I was like, I've either got a just lose this money and move on, or I've got to try and make this something. And I just to trying to make it something. And so I built it into something that I would want to go to, a place that would be really utilitarian but comfortable and you know,

hopefully attractive. You had a place to put your boat, you could have your dogs there, They had kennels, had mudrooms, just everything you would want. And if no one's there, I hunt out of it. But then I rented out to other d I y hunters who want to come. It's a really great place for like four or five or six buddies to get there, and you don't have to stay in a little hotel room. But you also don't have to pay five dollars a night to stay at a really fancy duck ludge. You can, uh, you

can come there. You can bring your wives, your kids. I got a lot of people to do that. They hunt for the weekend or for the week There's White River, Cash River, tons of w M A s by you to view row By you stuck guards forty thirty five minutes away. It's in the heart of the the premier

green timber duck hunting on the planet. And so yeah, I just kind of developed into that, and uh, then I ended up buying the house next to it was an old fur trapper and fur buyer's house, and I ended up buying that, and I just finished the revamp on that and I started renting it out for this season, and so I kind of ended up with this corner in the middle of town, in the middle of brink. Yeah, some of the best coming in the world right on, Man, what tell me the name of it? I know that

I want you to say. That's what we called Black Duck Revival, Black Duck Revival. And yesterday I tried to guess why you call it black duck, and I struck out on the first guess. So this name has some significance. So tell me about black duck revival. So obviously this was like this was an old country delta church, very traditional. Uh goes along with that, that idea of having revivals.

So there's a reference to that. The black duck is a reference in the Mississippi flyway that a black duck is a very prized uh duck would be like killing a black duck would be like killing a white tail. See. And that's where I was confused, because I thought a black duck was a trash duck. Duck, Yeah, you were. You were thinking about a black duck actually being black colored, which is not the case. A black duck looks like a slightly darker him. But did they not call them

black ducks? I mean, I've duck kind of a little and I remember seeing ducks flying over big kind of long neck ducks, kind of thick. They didn't flap their wings quite as fast, and I you know, you know, i'd be like, there's some ducks and maybe like those are black ducks. I mean, those could be it was like coots or something. Yeah, I mean coots merganser's scops, but they weren't interested in them. But you're telling me

that that black duck is like something special. Oh yeah, in the Mississippi flyaway, absolutely, that's an Atlantic flyway bird. It'd be like it'd be like, so they're just not supposed to be here. They will be here now. They will interbreed with mallards and sometimes they'll get they'll just be one that's loss and he's with mallard. But it almost be like, uh, if you were hunting up in the Ozarks and you saw a prong horner or something,

is that right? Like I know guys that have duck hunting for forty years and they would never killed a black duck. Well, I like the I like the branding and imagery of that revival because of this refurbished church. Tell me a little bit of the history about that church.

You told me yesterday something that was kind of cool. Well, you just you just said you said that this church just hung on, And it kind of to me when you told that, it was reflective of of what I've seen and what I know and what you just said about the Delta. I mean, the Delta is one of the most probably economically depressed places in the country. Am I am? I right? And so there's Arkansas Delta and it would probably be in the Mississippi Delta and stuff.

I mean, these are some of the most I mean, to be honest, the poorest places in America that are there's people, there's people in the Delta areas of arc it'saw in Mississippi that legitimately might not have uh might not have floors in their house. I mean, it's incredible. And I'm not saying that's everybody, but it's just there's no industry, there's no jobs there. I mean, you might have a fast food restaurant and an agg store and a dollar store, but there's just nothing left. I think

Brinkley graduates like kids a year. Now, see this was all this is all like so people hear me talking about the mountains of Arkansas. Obviously, so Arkansas. If if Arkansas were a square, which is not really a square, and if and if there was a line drawn from the northeast corner of that square to the southwest corner of that square, the northwest half, you know, the upper left half of that triangle would be kind of the mountainous regions of Arkansas, the wash Tols and Ozarks. We

didn't have any agriculture to speak of them. It's all just forested rough ground land sat the the other triangle, half of that square would have been Mississippi Delta swamp land. Stuff that was cleared, Timber was cleared, and they made agg fields out of it. So I mean, like massively agricultural area changed, completely changed the landscape over a hundred and fifty years. I mean this was these were like the big woods is what they called the stuff around Brinkley.

And these are enormous cypress swamps, Tupelo swamps. You know, there's hardwood bottoms in there. Uh. And part of the reason it's great for agricultures because you had this system of thousands and thousands of years of decayed vegetative matter building up this really rich soil. You also had a substrate under that that was largely clay, so it held water, which is so the thing that made it a great swamp once it was cleared is a thing that turned it into a great place to uh grow rice. So

I know I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean it's the same thing. You know, you're putting that water on the fields and it's holding it. Yeah, because rice has that they have to flood these fields. Yeah. You know, in in college, I learned about the Grand Grand Prairie aquifer. So the Grand Prairie aquifer if you look at these underground water maps hydraulic maps, so they have them everywhere,

I assume, but the ones in Arkansas. One of the largest underwater aquifers I'm just gonna say in the southern United States, and it could have even been in North America was a Grand Prairie aquifer which is right in the delta of Arkansas. And so for a hundred and fifty years they farmers were able to flood rice fields by just drilling down, put a well end drilled down a hundred feet and they have unlimited water pumping out

at a hundred gallons a minute or something. In anyway, you know, fifteen years ago when I was in college, there was they were talking about the depletion of the Grand parreographer, which I assume, which I assume is still happening even more because I was fifteen years ago. But and they they've they've had to mitigate. Anyway, it's it's caused some issues because they got to drill down way deeper than they used to to get this water. Anyway, that's a whole another story. But you just taught me

something about the swamps. Yeah, I mean that's why, that's why it works. And you know, and that leads to stuck guard getting planted in Rice in nineteen o one when it started, and that that goes to migration patterns for ducks changing, and then this whole culture, of this whole culture of hunting ducks in flooded Rice in Arkansas had hold that exact thought about the flyaway patterns, and I want to go back. I jumped ahead of it, and I do this all the time. Black Duck Revival.

So the revival I got with the church black duck. Why the black duck, Well, like I said, because it's it's just like it's just something special. Yeah, it's the special unique kind of like the holy grail of duck hunting. And then and then also it's tongue in cheek, you know, like I'm a black guy, and uh, I wanted to focus on part of part of my business model is trying to expose non traditional hunters two hunting, because there's a lot you asked me earlier what were some of

the difficulties in it. And honestly, the biggest difficulty in it for me learning was that it was something that society did not show that it did not There wasn't a lot of documentation of people who looked like me doing it, and it it makes you feel like it's

not a place for you. Uh. You know, people lead they they lead lives that are oftentimes based on the examples of others, um and that are doing that, Yeah, that are doing or that they can identify with on some level, you know, And I think that, I mean that could you could say that about you know, African Americans and hunt and you can say about women and hunting,

I mean anything. Uh, but but like what kind of what we talked about yesterday's you know, African Americans until the great migrations that occurred, like you know, at the turn of the century, when droves of black people went from the rule parts of the South to places like St. Louis and Indianapolis and Chicago and up to you know, Boston and Baltimore and stuff like that, because it was just a it was a crippling, hostile environment, so they

moved places where they weren't under thread of as much physical danger in places where it was easier to make a life, and what happened when when that happened. One of the results was that you took a population of people that was almost entirely rule and you made them

almost entirely urban. And then four or five generations later, you have this narrative that black people don't hunt, you know, like maybe something black people fish, but black people don't really hunt, And that's not the that's not the case. It's actually much more complicated than that. Uh. I've looked into some of the the numbers of like how many licenses in Arkansas they they track the race of people buying hunting and fishing licenses. Is that information that's successiful?

Yeah you couldn't. I mean, if you, uh, you might have to foy it. But yeah, it's totally available. I don't know them off the top of my head. I do know. I mean, I haven't looked at it in a couple of years. It's a lot more people than you would think. And what I found out just this is anecdotal, but what I found out is that there's lots of black folks. I'm talking specifically about African Americans. But there's lots of black folks in Arkansas that hunt.

But there is still Frankly, there's a fear amongst a lot of African Americans about being in the woods, you know, with with folks they might feel are you know, ellen tended or hostile towards them. So I think a lot of black folks hunt still, like even here in Arkansas. Like like ah, now I can see some like an urban somebody in an urban place that wasn't familiar with arc with with anywhere, like having that. I've actually encountered

one of my friends that was from Chicago. He lives in Arkansas for a while, he was terrified to drive after dark to my house. I mean that was bizarre to me. I was very afraid when I moved down here. I was, I was very afraid. Was that taught to you? Uh? I mean when? And when I say taught, I mean like, like, is that like something in the culture. I think it's I think it's partly gonna be just something that's like out there in the zeitgeist, like you know, seeing stuff

on TV or TV or whatever. But I mean it does it come from experiences like and I'll give you a very I'll give you a very pointed one. I'd say that the vast, vast, vast majority of my outdoor experiences have been very positive. But I can tell you that the the few times that i've after the initial after the initial time or two of me going out duck hunting, the few times that I've taken in the taking up someone on an invitation to go duck hunting,

I've heard like a vitriolic racial slur while duck hunting. Oh, I mean, yeah, they dropped the inn word on you. And I remember one time, you know, because I'm not like like guys that are like like really being where obviously if they're saying that they're being ugly, yeah, or did they think it's like playful or something. I think I remember specifically one time there were guys already in the whole. Me and a dude, a buddy of mine.

We got there late and someone came and picked us up in the boat of the ramp and we went out there. It was like twenty degrees. It was freezing, So I had a face mask on and I'm not incredibly dark complexed, it was still dark, and uh yeah, old fella just he didn't know I was a black guy, so he just started throwing it around, just talking, you know.

Or I'm sitting in a blind with a guy and he starts dropping it and what it What I realized was that I don't think they were I don't think they were like I want to hurt or offend this guy. I think that they just say it so much it didn't even occur to them that that it would be offensive to somebody. But I don't want to I mean, I don't want to harp on that too much. But I mean, truthfully, there is but there there's truth to what you're saying, is that there's there's reason for that. Yeah,

there's a reason to be unnerved. Maybe, And and you gotta think too. In Arkansas. Uh, Like, I'm the only one at boat ramps I've never seen I've never seen anyone darker than cat get a boat ram ever, you know. Uh, I've the only time I've even seen black people hunting is black guys in the Delta running dogs. Because there's a very strong history of houndsmanship among African Americans, and that's traced all the way back to slavery. Uh yeah, I mean duck hunting. There's it's few and far between.

There's a lot of black deer hunters. There's a lot of black fishermen, there's a lot of black small game hunters. But the point that I was making is that I think it's a it's a comfort thing with a lot of folks, and so they're hunting, but they're hunting kind of in a cloistered way, you know. Like I've met dudes that have like in a like just like the hunt on family land, or they got a deer camp down you know, Uh, you know the timber companies down south.

But it's just all like them and their cousin and their uncle and guy to go to church with, you know what I mean. Uh, it's it's it's a reality that Uh it's unfortunate, but it's it's something I feel like I can have. I can have some positive impact on by just you know, maybe maybe this guy he just needs to be introduced to it and I can say, look here, dude, like you and me are coming from similar positions. I'm telling you it's out there for us to get to I'm out there doing it. Uh. And

that goes back to my idea about like the American dream. Uh. I pay my taxes. You know, I'm I deserve to be able to access anything that is publicly accessible. Uh So I'm not gonna do anything fool hardy because I I've got a wife and children I've gotta go back to. But I'm not gonna tell someone. I'm not gonna allow someone to tell me that I can't go and hunt a piece of public ground just because they feel like someone like that looks like me shouldn't be able to

do it, you know. Now, But now, I've never had anyone say that to me. I'm just saying like or or here's a perfect example, you know, Like the first one of the first things I ever heard when I moved to Arkansas was there was a music festival up in Newton County when I was at college, and these folks look, dude, you can't go up there. They're like the grand dragon of the kut Lux Klan lives up there,

which is what's the case. I don't think I think he formerly held that position, but but you know, a lot of people are gonna hear that, and they're not gonna go into that chunk of Arkansas, you know what I mean. So there's just like this, Yeah, it's almost like a well, yeah, like, yeah, I see the barriers there. Dude. I told a dude one time, I said, let me ask you this. Imagine a very rule kind of monolithic town in Arkans So there's a million and five people

or something like that. I said, Uh, this was a Caucasian guy. I was like, you want to go duck hunting, but you had to you had a roll into Compton at four o'clock in the morning by yourself, Like, you would probably feel uncomfortable because you would very it would be very easy to tell that you weren't from there. Being an outsider is uncomfortable to human beings, you know, So I like, it's uh, And I'm not saying that just because you went to Compton you would be in

danger or something like that. I'm just saying that it's people want to be comfortable and and I think that's the biggest barrier to getting non traditional hunters into it, is they've they've gotta you know, regardless of race or color or anything. Being an outsider being uncomfortable. Yeah, that's

that's a massive social challenge for anybody. Just coming from a very urban environment is enough of a challenge when you start putting other stuff on it, So then you put being a woman on it, then put being a woman of color. There's all these things, and it's not that people cannot overcome those things. It's just that human beings are really good at wallowing out a small comfortable spot for themselves and then not wanting to to expand past that. Man, just knowing you just for a few well,

not knowing you real well, that was something. I mean, You're you're really good at pushing outside of your comfort zone. I mean, just even coming up here to the Squirrel Squirrel cook Off, I mean, just hey, we're gonna go compete and the scull cook Off. We brought your whole family up here. I mean anybody would I mean that that would be intimidating to anybody really probably just you're not afraid to do new stuff. I mean, I'll tell you what I think. I'm probably the only one who

did it solo. Everyone else had teams. I did the only thing solo, you know. But it's because and an older guy that I'm friends with told me that. He's told me. He said very pointally, he said, there's never been anything I couldn't do. It might take me a long time and we were talking about hunting in the national force. He's like, there's never been anything. He's like, if you killed a five pound black bearer back there,

you could get it out. You might be dead, dug tired, and it might be four in the morning before you back at your truck. He's like, but you can get it out if you just you have to have that mindset if you want, if you want to live anything other than an ordinary life, if you want an easy, ordinary life, you're gonna do easy ordinary things and you're gonna have easy ordinary experiences. If you want more out of it, then you have to put more into it.

And there's never been growth of any human being that didn't involve discomfort. It's it's a necessary it's a necessary thing to grow. Yeah, it's like lifting weights. You have to be uncomfortable to push yourself past that level. But then you keep referencing what was before and you see how how far you've come, and that give you a little bit of fuel to try and go to that next step. All right, man, that's awesome. I really like what you're doing in terms of and again, and it's

it's not even just about African Americans. It's about it's about anybody that's not in this space easily, yeah, coming into it, just overcoming the whatever difficulty it would be because you're You're absolutely right. I mean, it's like, man, it really is our right to be hunters in in this country any way. I mean, it's it's you know, the public land, the wildlife resource that's owned by the people, the history of this country in terms of providing wild

game for our families and sustainable ways. I mean, it's just such a beautiful, awesome thing. Uh. To deprive people of that because of these like what we've been talking about is bizarre and and crazy. Yeah, and I think it also. I mean this is stuff I love to wax poetic about because I'm real big into like ethos and pedagogy. So I don't know that second word. I learned it. I've been using it recently because I learned

it from my wife about a month ago. But it's it's it just kind of it's a more specific way to say ethos or your underlying ideals behind something. But I'm big on being part of a human continuum. And like I was telling you yesterday about when I was scouting for bears, and I was up on that limestone ridge and I climbed up on that ridge because there was just something in me and I would have felt that way if I was five years old that said get up on top of that thing. That's the high thing.

Climb up on top of that. And then I was looking out over all this national forest and I thought about the fact a thousand years ago, some guy wearing buckskin did the same thing. I don't know who he was, I don't know when he did it, but I know somebody did it, you know, and someone did it a hundred years ago. It's the same thing with uh, you know, running trot lines or bow hunting deer or running a

coon dog. You're you're immersing yourself in a human experience that's richer and bigger than you are, and you'll you'll contribute to it, and then people after you that you don't know. You know, some guy two hundred years ago that came over here from England and then was on the lamb in New York and ended up in Arkansas that was out in the woods would have no frame of reference for some weirdo like me that I'd be doing the same thing to your years later, but like

we're connected now, We're connected on a very human level. Absolutely, and uh yeah it's I'm I'm looking. I'm real big on doing for yourself and self reliance. But everybody needs help. I mean everybody needs help. You know, your dad showed you how to hunt. You know. I'm sure you have bad days where you just you know, tell your wife, oh man, I'm having a horrible day, you know, and you can get recharged and helped along because of your wife or your family or whatever. No one's in this alone.

So if I can, if I can help contribute to that continuum by even if just by an example of someone saying, hey, I've got something in common with that guy, maybe I could try that. Uh, or let me holler at this guy and see if you would, if you would take me, let me tag along with him. Uh.

That can do a lot. And you know, on an other on a bigger, more noble note too, what you start doing is you start building relationships with people that are uh, that are different than you uh, and you start you start focusing more on similarities between people and differences. You know, like I can have different political beliefs from people. I can have different, uh, goals in my life as

far as professional. I can have different ideas about how I want to raise my children, but I can connect with a person, Like if I see a guy that's real loving to his children, I feel like I've got a connection with him, you know, if I see, like I told you yesterday, I heard you say something real complimentary about your wife on a on a podcast one time, and I felt a connection with you because I respected it so much, because it seems like a lot of

guys feel like it's cool to to speak derisively about their wives, you know, Like, and the way I think about my wife this is this is a human being that I value above all others. And I stood up in front of every I know and told her that. Uh. And so you start, you start drawing connections with people like you scored me some big bonus points by saying that. To my wife, I'm glad man for real. She said, we got the car. She said, when did you say that? I was brilliant? And I said, oh, I say that

all the time. That's but you know what people need to People do need to hear that, Like people that are important to you need to hear not just you saying, oh, I love you. But I mean if you speak, if you're taking the time to speak highly about someone that you care about to other people, you really mean it. Man. There's a good old boy culture and it's it's very alive in the South. Maybe it's alive everywhere, but where people that they you know, all the old ball and

chain to stay stuff like that. I never say stupid stuff like that. I mean, you know what I'm saying. Yea, yeah, I appreciated that you recognize that. Yesterday when you said that that, my wife actually said he's a good guy, and I said, yeah, I said, I mean you can tell a lot about him and by the way he treats us wife, by the way he talks about her,

by the way thinks about her. Because just what you said, I mean, if this person is the person that you have committed your life before God and family and that you have chosen to you know, I mean, you better talk good about her and and treat her that way. And and you know this this all does to me, It wraps itself up kind of in a tidy package, because like you met my daughters today, like I have

two little girls. Really, the way they're gonna learn how they should be, how how they should expect to be treated by a partner is what they see from the way that me and their mother interact. And so I've got to having those having my children really put my head that I want them to have the best example possible so they can make good choices later in life. And the requirement for that is for me to be

better than I am currently, you know. So I'm really focused on trying, like with trying to build this business and trying to build this burn and it's difficult, it's very unsure a lot of the times. Uh, I am optimistic, and I feel like I'll be able to, you know, make a life for myself and my family. But even if I fail at it and I've got to go dig ditches, my girls are gonna they're gonna get something out of scene that they have a father who's willing to try and willing to fail and then get back

up and keep going and not give up. And that that works for business, that works for a relationship, that works for hunting. If you can take that kind of mindset into all these things, then a lot of these this other these distractions that we were talking about race, gender, political affiliation, all that stuff. Those things are important and

they're they're identifiers for humans. But I have found very few people that on an individual basis, I can't find something in common with and we can't develop some sort

of rapport. It's always the problems always occur when you get into bigger groups and people start consciously or unconsciously worried about how they're perceived by others, you know, which I mean, it's not like I'm immune to that, but uh, and you know, like with duck hunting has been a big thing, Like I was very cognizant in the fact that I stuck out. I was like this weird looking black guy that wasn't good at duck hunting, you know. I mean, that's the truth. I couldn't blow a duck call.

I couldn't identify birds when they were flying for a long time. Uh. And I got better at it because I kept trying and I kept immersing myself in it. And I'd hazard to say that I'm better at it than got some guys who have been doing it for twenty years now, not everybody, but I've put a lot

into it too. Uh. But I mean, yeah, i'd say that probably aside from my children being born in the last couple of years, that getting to the point where I could blow a duck call uh competently, I felt like that was a real achieved it because there was nothing in any of my experience that said I should be able to get to that point, and so I just picked the hardest way to do it. And it took me a real long time, but I finally did it. And it was mostly just driving. Really, it was driving

back and forth to Brinkley. It's an hour and fifteen minutes each way, just blowing that old all day long until finally I trained. I trained your tongue as a muscle. I had to train that muscle to do some stuff and I've never done before. Mhm, man, that's good stuff. That's good stuff, very good stuff. Wow. Well, So Black Duck Revival people could come and rent your place down to Brinkley. Yeah, I'll point you. I'll try and point

you in the right direction as far as public land. Like, I'm not gonna necessarily give you all my holes, but I'll I won't be stingy with it. If you want to talk about it, we sit down in front. I've got the hallway when you walk in a lacked up you walk in and there's like a long hallway and then it opens up to a big great room. The kitchen and the living room were all together, but though that hallway is lined with big Google Earth maps of

all the public ground around there. And so I'll if i'm working up there, I'm hunting or something, and I meet the guys when they come in. We'll sit there for thirty minutes and I'll say, look, you can put it in this boat ramp and check the water gauge. If the water gauges at this, you can get back past here and then look around back there, and you gotta be able to find something. How long have you had Black Duck or the lodge? I opened it. I think I was down on the wire, So I think

I opened it in October of last year. I've had one season and then I just opened up. How many place hunters could you hold in both camps? So in in the old church h you can do up to eight comfortably, and in the bungalow you can do five comfortably. Maybe we need to do and we sort of a little bit talked about this. Maybe we ought to do a like a youth duck hunt down there that we like, like like said, okay, there's ten spots. Me and my son come and say there's or how many spots would

there be between both places? Eight? And so say, okay, there's thirteen spots. And we talked about youth season just because youth season in Arkansas is pretty good usually, am I right? Well, you know it's it's just a lot less competition. Yeah, and especially there's a later youth season after duck seasons over. It's like the first week in

February and then you've had ducks. They're coming back after that, right, well, no, you're still gonna have ducks that are working their way south in the most can be pretty good though, Well what it is you got all the yahoo's out of the woods? Yeah, you know, And so I mean duck hunting public public duck hunting is has a lot to do with the pressure. There's a lot more pressure now than there used to be. Like in the eight duck hunting in Arkansas was completely different in two thousand nineteen

than it wasn't eight five. Like the tornadoes of ducks that some of those guys could work in the eighties, I'll never see anything like it in my life. There's I've seen videos and you know, from when I was four years old, then pulling five mallards through the three times, I've never experience. Oh look, I'm chasing the times that I've seen twenty five ducks do it. That's it's like you know, people, I'm not in the Gulf, but people say like one good round will keep you going back.

Like I'm chasing the time I worked twenty five ducks through the timber. And I'm telling you, you keep trying and trying and trying. You're bad at it. And then one day you convince twenty five mallards to come down through those tree tops and they're like hitting branches on the way down, and and you're watching them and they'll splash down right in the deeks, right in front of you. It doesn't matter if you shoot one. It's it's you

did something. Yeah, you know it's it's it's I'm telling you, man, it like wells you up with pride. I haven't cried doing it, but I could see it at some point. Just if I saw five hundred, I'd probably get a tear in mine. It's I mean, it really is. It's one of the most majestic things I've ever seen. I really do. I I get it, you know. I mean,

I'm not a duck hunter. I know people are surprised when they hear them from Arkansas and don't duck hunt, But I mean the mountains of Arkansas, we don't have any flyaway, you know. And over there, well, it's also completely it's a completely different culture. Like that guy Orally that you interviewed, like he grew up in a completely different culture. Now he might he might have grown up you know what we would consider poor. And some guy in the Delta grew up with very little, uh, very

little money as well. But the cultures are are very different. But you know, I think there's a lot of similarities in those things. Folks in the Delta, folks in the Mountain, they have made they've made a living, may you know, living like it takes up. I heard a guys say one time about you know where star City is. He said, man, it takes a big hammer to pound out a living in star City, you know, And it's that kind of idea. But that guy or Leave, he said, oh, we always

had plenty to eat. His expectations were different. His expectations about what work was was different. Uh there's I think there's a lot of similarity in that. And I even told you that I think in a lot of ways. You know, the mountains of the western Arkansas are kind of the inverse of the bottom land in the U in the east. It's ah, they're to me, they're both mesmerizing and like just a little bits just spooky enough to keep it interesting, you know. Yeah, well maybe, uh yeah,

I would. My boys wanted duck hunt, like for real, man, that dude, you guys on a couple of youth duck hunts the last couple of years and we haven't done it just you know, something just every time. But if we really had a reason to duck hunt, So maybe if maybe, if we could formulate something and and uh fill up your camp for a weekend, that'd be pretty good. Do we could do it? And I would, I would

say too. I'm I'm all about like early success for people trying you know, fishing, a kid fishing or someone hunting, so it keeps them into it. But with that duck hunting, I'd love to get those kids in the timber. It's it's a completely foreign environment, like you're you're standing on ground that the month before was totally dry land and squirrels and deer were running around it, and now it's become this weird conglomeration of places. You know, there's beavers.

It's it's like being on a different planet. To me, it is, i mean, put it on waiters and walking. I'm like, we're gonna walk out there. I mean that's like, you know, like we're looking at this. I'm like, in the mountains, we don't go in mud holes like that. Yeah, No, you go in and look. You have to. You have to pay attention. Stuff can go wrong. I mean, you can mitigate a lot of that, but you have to. You have to pay attention. You have to be safe. Uh. But then you know a lot of stuff that you're

into goes along with it. The dog culture, you know, the idea of having that partnership with an animal, something like my dog, Ammo. He's probably one of the greatest things ever happened to me, you know, the experiences I've had with him. And I've always said this, I'd rather go and kill two ducks and have Ammo pick him up, then I would rather do that by myself. I duck

come by myself most of the time, you know. Uh, it can be a really fun group activity, but it's to me, it's so special that a lot of times I want to kind of keep it as a a reverent moment. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's that special to me. And and it's that special to me whether or not I kill birds or not, yeah, because because and whenever I do have success with it, it's super special with me because like, no one did that for me. No one handed me those birds, you know, I did

that myself. And then my dog, who's just I think, is you know, the best thing on four ft. He goes and gets it for me, and we hang out and he falls asleep with his head on the head rest in the truck, you know, and go get a sauce biscuit. Man. It's it is. It's the most this stuff we're talking about, you know, hunting and fishing, the outdoors and family, those are the those are the times when I'm most content. I feel like I'm kind of a frenetic person, Like my mind goes a lot. I

get socially anxious a lot. Uh. My wife says that to me all the time, Like every time we go to like a dinner party or something, I come back. Hold on, I talk too much, I take that person off whatever. But you know, getting when I was scouting in the mountains the other day, Uh, I realized, I said, man I. I got back to the truck and said, man, I hadn't thought about anything other than where I was putting my feet and the trees and the land around me.

For five hours, I think about a single thing. And it went like the blink of an eye. And it's a like I said, I think that's a very human that's a very human thing. I think that immersing yourself in these activities it helps you realize your humanity, because I don't think that people did not evolve to spend all their time sitting in front of a computer and walking on paved grass. There's a feeling you get when you're a kid and you have like bare feet on

the grass, you know, running around, being sweaty, using your muscles. Uh, doing something that's hard and being successful at it, running, jumping, throwing. I think that you know an ad a laddle is the natural extension of a human being thrown, and then that bow and arrow is the extension of that. I

think that these are all very human experiences. And when I was up there on those limestone ridges, climbing around pulling myself up, I was engaging, you know, my quads and my arms and stuff that I wouldn't be doing if I was sitting in an office. It it makes me feel like I'm alive. It makes me feel like I'm part of the human continuum. Uh. And it and that's why I want to help people that need a little push to get into it to do that, because that's it's it's it's like it's the reason that people

have children. Tell other people you should have children, m you know, like it's something that I had no I could not fathom what being a father was like until I was a father, and I could not fathom not being a father. Now, you know, it would be if something happened to be the worst thing, if I was no longer a father, to be the worst thing to ever happen to me, you know, because it's becomes so

ingrained in who I am. It's changed my identity. And I think that I think that really that most people, if they gave hunting, uh, if they gave hunting an honest effort. I think that it would fundamentally change most human beings and make them feel more rooted mm hmm in being a person. Yeah, that's good. You know, there's an Edward Abbey quote. I don't like Edward Abbey, uh, but he did have some he had some good stuff.

There was a quote that I've got it somewhere on my phone where it says for it says, for ten thousand years, humans were warriors and artists and poets and tamers of horses. That's what I liked. And he said, and then in just the last hundred and fifty years we became clerks and accountants and you know, had these jobs. And he said, basically the quote said, there's no way that you can extinguish that thing that we were in

this short time. And I think that's what fuels me in a significant way is just what you've said, is that the adventure that we experience as hunters on whatever scale, if it's going out in your backyard and hunting deer, there is a level of adventure there that can be absolutely world class, high level human experience. To go and you're stinking backyard and bo hunt deer. The the ability

to acquire a game. I mean, I'm preaching to the choire here, but your the ability to acquire the most healthy, the most rich rocket field, as Ted Nugent says, in the world for yourself, is this extremely human experience that does it kind of equalizes us in some way. I mean, in it, in it, and it does it makes us human. And it seems like the further we get into time, the urban, the further we've got away from being human.

I mean, I mean, really, when you think about it's not just technology, but it's culture and politics and all the like, the complexities of life that we've never had to deal with are pulling us more and more into something that's really kind of unhuman. And and there's something about and it's not And I I said this, I think even recently on a podcast, is that to me,

there for hunting to make us something different. To me, it has to be connected to something bigger like it had and and to me that bigger thing is is God. I mean, it's something bigger that you know, and and and I think that's a powerful component of it too. You know, you know, hunting just alone to me, you know, could just be something empty. But when it's connected to something bigger then then to me, that's when it makes sense. But this whole idea that that hunting is what makes

us human is uh. I think it's a powerful idea, and I think it's something that that the non hunting urban community, not just urban but just the non hunting community really wouldn't understand. But their misunderstanding of it is some is a product of a very short amount of time on in in the vast view of human history. I mean, just in the last fifty years have people started thinking that hunting was weird, you know what I'm saying,

And and then not that everybody hunted before that. But man, I think what we're what we're saying, what we're identifying with, and what we the reason we're here is because we recognize the incredible opportunity that we have access to. Ye. I mean, that's that's what we're talking about, is this incredible opportunity and access that we have at whatever level. I mean, I don't expect my kids to take hunting as serious as I do, even though I would like for them too. I doubt they'll be able to make

a living doing hunting related stuff like I have done. Uh, I don't even know if they'll take it. They may not need to take it as serious as I do. But if people, if people that really should and really could at least have some level of deep respect for wildlife, wild places and a humans ability to extract resource from that wild place in a sustainable way. If you, if they just respected it just a little bit, we'd be way further along and in trying to continue hunting as

we've known it. I mean, so praying a practical sense, Like if my son Bear grows up and it's just a squirrel hunter and has a couple of squirrel dogs his whole life and takes his kids squirrel hunting, I'll be happy if he grows up and he's like, Dad, I don't want to bear hunt like you do. You kind of took it, you know. I mean that's cool, um, because I don't want to paint the picture that everybody has to be is into. I mean, you've like given your life to this thing the last few years. And

I mean and I did the same thing. I mean, my whole a lot of my world revolve around hunting, and uh not everybody can do that or should do that, But no, I mean, look, I wouldn't want them to, you know, I mean, I don't want if everybody I knew was like me, then the places I go to would be crowded, you know, I mean, I mean practically, But I I thought of something when you were when you were just speaking before, And I bring my wife up again, because this really was a poignant moment in

my life. It was maybe two or three years into me hunting until I had reached a level of competency, you know, where I could go out find deer, signed kill a deer, skin of deer, butcher it. I've never taken a deer to a process or you know. Uh. And I came home. I'm a little four cylinder to Koma, and I just had a pretty decent dough in there and my I had killed it and got home before my wife had even woken up. And I went and woke up and say, hey, come outside and take a

look at this. And what she comes out and she looked at it, and I remember she said, oh baby, just like this kind of exclamation. And you know, my wife is a very intelligent woman. She's you know, a very progressive person. Absolutely would identify as a strong feminist. But there was something. It wasn't. It wasn't like she's she's totally capable of going out and procuring a deer for herself. I think she was reacting to something that

was very human. She just felt happy and pride, prideful that her partner had accomplished something that was very very base too, being a human like I had gone out and I had literally procured food for our family, and she was just kind of reacting to that right off the bat. And I'm telling you it's one It's one of my proudest moments. I still think about it, uh,

because it I felt. I think it made me and we never talked about it really, but it made me feel recognized and appreciated and validated, validated in a way that few things had because it was all it was all based around things that I I had done for myself. I've gotten that dear by myself. I convinced that woman that I was a good partner, you know myself. I had waxed and waned in both of those capable capability

levels with both those things. But it was a moment where it kind of all came together and and yeah, like that's a cool experience and what I saw inside of it was, you know, marriage and partnership with another human at the level of husband and wife is like the most powerful entity and relationship ever in in a functional way, even evolutionarily, you know, and I used that word, you know, just it it worked, and it worked that way,

you know, like complimenting things. Partnership. That's in essence what I saw inside it was just like partnership. That makes a lot of sense. And you know, you brought it back to a point that I'm in line with you about about that partnership. I absolutely think that my partnership with my wife is it's the strongest how how would

I say that? He's waving his hands and it's the place that I draw the most most strength from in my life, you know, is that that partnership we have uh that you know, we are building a life together, we are making a family, we are making a way in the world for ourselves, and we're figuring out what we think and how to impart those ideas to our children. I think that's incredibly pow. Hey tell us tell everybody

where they can find you Black Duck Revival dot com. Yeah, man, I'm most I'm probably most active on Instagram, So it's just Black Duck Revival on Instagram, and I try. I've been a little funky with it, but I try and do like a recipe and a substantive article every week or two. Uh, and then you'll find that on my website, which is just Black Duck Revival dot com. You can also if you go there, you can you can book

a stay. You can, you know, feel free to send me an email ask me about what opportunities might be around. I'll shoot you straight. Guys could come down there and go squirrel hunting. It's great, some of the best squirrel hunting ever. That's what I want, beautiful. There's water trails down there that are for canoes, coon hunts, a huge culture of coon hunting down there. And this year I'm gonna do a lot of I mean, I've never done it before. I'm gonna try my hand at beaver trapping

and try and kind of do double duty. When I'm out there on the water, you know, set a trap line on my way out, come back in the morning, hunt ducks and check my trap on the way out. There's tons of there's there's tons of opportunity to do all sources of stuff. Well, cool, man, that is really cool. Well check out Black Duck Revival and uh yeah, book a book, a couple of days duck hunting or that's

a cool part of the world down there. And just and just so you know too, it's also uh the state record white tail was killed about ten minutes away from Black Duck Revival, so it's got the Arkansas Delta has the biggest deer in Arkansas too because of the Aglian So if you're a big deer hunter, there's plenty of public land opportunities for it. Really is. There's some incredible white tail hunting down there, for sure, incredible white to hunt. Well, did we forget anything? Word? No, Man,

I appreciate the opportunity, man, I guess I told you yesterday. Man, I've been following your stuff for a heavily for a couple of months, and all the kind of stuff that we talked about today is why I've been so drawn to it, because I think you bring you bring that passion in that uh, that thoughtfulness to it, and I really appreciate it then identified with it. So thanks for

the opportunity, man, Well, my pleasure to have you on. Well, man, keep the wild places wild because that's where the ducks live, and the bears and everything else m