How NOT to be a Public Land Knucklehead

get you what you want when you want it. Whether it's a truck battery, whether it's uh special battery for like a range finder or trail camera batteries, any type of battery, these guys are able to get it for you. So stop into a Interstate Battery retail location, talk with a specialist. Or if you want to learn about the culture the company of Interstate Batteries, visit Interstate Batteries dot com. Interstate Batteries outrageously dependable. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm

the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of the North American wilderness. Prepare we'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet, chasing bare Probably in all of our not so distant past, we have been

public land knuckle heads. And on this podcast I'm joined by James Brandenburg, the back country hunters and anglers, Brent Reeves of the back country Arkansas, just greedy, good old boys. Colby moorehead Texas am m graduate, moved to Arkansas and became gritty, tough and smart and myself and we're talking about how not to be a public land knucklehead. We hope this podcast has some real practical information for someone

who's maybe not grown up with hunting. In this uh quarantine era that we're in right now, Turkey hunting licenses have been on the rise, and many many states a lot of new guys are on public land. Public lands are a lot more crowded. This is a positive thing. But we discussed the ins and outs, the dudes and dunts, and a bunch of other fun stuff on this podcast.

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hunt of the South. So if you don't understand that terminology, go back and listen to our podcast sheep Hunted the South, but super cool t shirt and check out all our new merch at bear hyphen hunting dot com. You're gonna enjoy this podcast. Man, it's been raining all day long at the Global Headquarters. Um, it's been rained all day long. And uh look who showed up when it started to rain.

James Brandenberg once again. The last podcast that James was on, we were fighting the pitter patter of rain drops on a you know, uh, I call it canopy canopy Yeah, for some reason, I couldn't think of that word, and awning at Turkey Camp. But the Global Headquarters roof is a little bit better, even though I will have you both know. And if you'll look up to the right up there in the very peak corner, you will see what appears to be just like a little bit of

fibery glass insulation. Did you see that? That is a squirrel that has chewed through the sheet rock and is trying to break into this place. It doesn't seem like a very smart squirrel. Does he know what goes on around here? Exactly sixteen feet to the east of that squirrel hole is a little squirrel dog named Tess that would just erupt. So anyway, we're at the Global Headquarters and it's raining, and we got squirrel problems, and James

Brandenberg is here. James Brandenburg, Um back country hunters and anglers. Yep, still yep, still still kicking it. Yep. All right. We got Colby moorehead. Colby, like me, is needing a quarantine haircut. James, your hair looks pretty good one last weekend. You've always needed a haircut every day. Brent has a head of hair like a nineteen forties football helmet. You can't shoot a baby gun. Uh No, So Colby borehead. Yeah looking good, flame, Yeah good, you look good man. It makes me look

faster when I'm on my bike or something like yeah. Uh. And then to my right. I don't know if you can hear the thunder, but it is thundering. I have Brent Reeves, So Brent hey, from Brent, Hey, from Brent, good to see it. Hey, what we're gonna talk about today? This is uh. Usually when James is here, we're having some like topic driven podcast. So you know, there's a lot of different kind of podcasts in the world. You have the short, punchy, topic driven just like where people

like they just basically pretend like they're not friends. It's just like, I don't care about your family, your life, or who you are. We're gonna talk about the facts. This is not that podcast. But sometimes we shift gears to where we're a little bit more topic driven, so we're we're like trying to accomplish a very specific goal,

and that would be this kind of podcast today. Yeah, and so what we're gonna talk about is uh, and James is gonna give us a little a little backstory info of why, but basically how not to be a knuckle head when hunting public land. That's right, because what what I've realized, what James is realized, what Brents realized, COVID, we've all realized that we all know it, but we're all at different levels of experienced hunting public land. Um, is that there's a very long list of un and

rules that are very important. And let me begin by saying before I asked James to say talk about kind of the quarantine and kind of just the idea that of and I'll let him say that. But there's zero rules. I mean, like if you're a hunter, if you're a new hunter, you buy a hunting license and you're not a convicted felon, and you can carry a firearm, and it's hunting season, you go into the woods in public land, it would probably be in your best interests to kill game.

To follow the best hunter that you know literally to his standard, run him off. I think that's a hunting strategy that some guys has. Run him off, offend him so much that he's perturbed, and go somewhere else and then hunt in his stand. He would have broken zero laws, zero zero laws. But in fact, that is exactly the opposite of what you need to do if you desire to be a functional, normal human in modern times. Do you want to be invited back in a quotes or

if you want to live? No. But it's kind of interesting when you think about it, because there there there's no I mean, like the Forest Service, the Arkansas Game of Fish Commission, the commission of your state does not have a list of laws that you know ethical law, you know social ethical parameters for how people that own the same amount of in no matter how long you've been hunting down at by Meat and Brent, I've never duck hunted there one time in my life, and we

show up there on the same day. We have equal rights to every square inch it, but we don't do it, I mean because we don't at all. And so that's all we're gonna talk about there. There are parcels of

land in there that belong to individual people, Yeah, exact. Well, so we're gonna try to get to some like real practical stuff just like uh, you know, give some examples, like a park in your truck, how far you can hunt from someone else, what to do if you see a hunter, what to do if you see a tree stand? Can you set up a camp three days before you plan to hunt to save a spot? You know, kind of some of these like kind of unwritten rules, like what do you do if you hear another guy calling

a turkey? What do you do if you walk in the woods and you find a gut pile where somebody killed a deer there yesterday? I mean, like yeah, just random stuff. But James, so what's the what's the you think more people are hunting now that there's a quarantine. Yeah. I mean, all you gotta do is a quick Google search and you can get that pulled up pretty quick.

There's plenty of hard data from some of the states who have have already put out there, you know, double digit increases in license sales for you know, most recentcies be in turkeys. Um, you know, states with increases in license sales, some states seeing thirty and increases in turkey harvest year over year. States where Georgia, for example, you know, um,

is it like Chamberlain was about to say the same thing. Yea, he had turkey doc He had put out that in Georgia the number of people who had taken two turkeys had increased, like I want to say, like I may have these numbers backwards somewhere in the thirties percent or maybe it's somewhere in the forties percent. And then the ones that had taken three turkeys was the other one, you know, increase, significant increase. So all of that, that's

all hard data. Now all you have to do is go out and drive drive through the National Forest and and know that if you've been there before, you can see that there are more people there than what have been there. You know, I went out and did a did a loop um a few weekends ago, and you know, we were still in you know, for lack of a

better term, quarantine. UM. So all the wreck areas are closed, but any of the normal spots where you're gonna see people under the bridges along creeks, you know, the wreck areas people there were dozens and dozens of cars out there and people all over the place. Um, so what does that mean? Well? Number one, what are these people new or are they reactivated? You know, the hunters, are they reactivated hunters? Are they new hunters? Um? Maybe they haven't been out there for a while, but I'll bet

you there's a lot of new people out there. And we've talked before. You know, I still kind of count myself on the newer side of the scale. And UM got us to thinking, and we were kind of having a discuss us amongst our Southeast Chapter board and Jeff Jones, who's on the national board now, he had joined us for that discussion and and he said, you know, it would be great for somebody to to just talk about some of the etiquette of being out on public land and do it in a format where we can share

that with people and help them to get educated. But you know, the other thing is just remind some people who have been at it all their lives that we're not born with this innate knowledge of the underwritten rules. You show some grace to people and and help them understand that, you know, hey, instead of chewing them out, you know, maybe just help explain to him that if you want to park here to hunt, maybe don't park your truck in the middle of the road or whatever.

There were things not done with malice. Yeah, but sometimes it's automatically perceived as malice. Oh, I would think that would be the first thought. Yeah, some jerk has done this. But that's where the new guy comes in. He's probably not gonna think that. He's probably gonna think anything about it until you know that norm is established with him.

There's there's room for interpretation. Yeah. Yeah, well, now that's that's really interesting that uh, there's so many new people in the woods and so let's just let's just jump into some examples or um, you know, to me, here's what here's the way. Here's the way we'll do this, James, is that I'll do one and we'll have a discussion

and then you do one. Okay, Like I'll read one of my statements that I made that I felt like, what's kind of a good question to be answered, and then we'll just have a general discussion about it, and I think from that people can draw some conclusions and then you can jump to one of yours. Here we gotta we got about list of about probably fifteen, I don't know, twelve things here, but okay, So so here's this is a like very simple entry point level stuff.

How far from a truck should you hunt when you're on public land? Because that's the way I mean, people are presumably driving vehicles to public land to hunt, unless they're ridding the mule, which uh if you know, if you see a parked mule, uh, maybe a little different story. So you see a truck parked on the side of the road and he's in the spot you wanted to go,

and so you go, dang, he's in the spot. Many many options here do you pull up or right behind him and park your truck right beside his and go hunt your spot? The answer to that is an't emphatic no. I mean that is a good way to get a

flat tire, to get a black eye. Unfortunately, to offend someone deeply, deeply, Okay, Um, So then the then the question is um, And I mean I've been tempted to do this before, and probably if I'm being honest, I've done this, known that a guy was hunting somewhere and then go way around and basically come into that same area. I've done that young days. I mean, like be like,

I think I would do that today. But but knowing that that guy was probably two yards off the road and I was trying to get back in there a mile you see what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean in that So that whole scenario is a real gray area to me. Think about the place that we turkey hunted this year, okay, and where we parked, and how we

did that. You know, imagine if if we had Imagine if we had stopped the truck a half mile sooner, but otherwise followed the same trail in I mean, there were hundreds of acres on either side of where we were where somebody could have come in right behind us but gone a completely different way. And so how do

you I think it matters what you're hunting. If your turkey hunting, you need to leave big space in between you because you can hear a turkey gobble for half a mile, so you know, even if you're and that's where you can cut somebody off. And people get mad because if you park your truck on the road and then you go out of sight and park your truck and you're essentially hunting the same turkeys, and you're like, well,

I didn't park by him. You're hunting the same turkeys, and and and the the question that I would ask myself is that if I hear his turkey gobble, and am I gonna go the opposite direction? I mean, and that's a hardy like so, but if you're deer hunting, that's a little bit different because if you're deer hunting, I mean, you know, you don't you don't you certainly don't want to barge in on somebody, but it's not vocal. You know, you're not gonna you know, you're you're, you're

you're hunting these deer. It's it's a little bit different. Well, you hear a lot of stories in turkey hunting to about close calls because you're not wearing orange. You're it's a safety issue. You know, you're trying to really be hidden you're putting decoys out a lot of times, So I mean that makes a lot of sense to operate it. Try to operate that far exactly exactly. And and and I think weapon makes a difference to if it's both season and you know what I mean, like you know

that this is you can shoot forty yards. I mean, I'm not saying go in on somebody, but these are things I would think about. And I mean the answer to the question is go somewhere way away, nowhere close to that guy. I mean, the whole key to public land hunting is having multiple options. Is everybody having a space, yeah,

because I mean I don't want to. I mean, part of the reason that I don't do a ton of Arkansas turkey hunting once the adult season starts, we do a lot of youth turkey hunting is because I just despise going to my spot. In my heart fluttering a little bit when I see a car park there. It's just like I'll just do something else, Like I just don't I don't want to share the woods with a stranger.

It's not because I don't like that guy. It's just, you know, I have found that with age that is more and more of the case too, Yeah, because it's just and it's not I still have the same desire to smash a turkey in the face as I did when I was sixteen, you know, however many hundred years ago that was. But I don't want to deal with yeah, exactly, but you know, I don't want to deal with everything else that goes with it. And it's it's not as important to me, being fifty four years old to kill

in the turkey. I've killed a hundred and fifteen in my life total, and it's not as important to me as the experiences, I think. But you can't narrow it all down to this young folks being disrespectful, I mean, or not so much disrespectful as being encroachful, if that's a word. But you know, you get just what I mean.

And it's not just you know, the college age kids, the young folks, the new hunters or whatever that are that are crossing that line of of being respectful or showing you know, etiquette or what however you want to describe it. It's not just them that's doing that. So I think you know that the driver or whatever, though,

we'll play a large part in that as well. Yeah, well, I know that there's some public land we hunting down in southern Arkansas that uh, there's just common access points that you park on the road, you know, but you walking into multiple So it's so it's normal there for

multiple vehicles to be parking. And I was about to say yeah, and walking into something that like a normal like travel we'll call the travel corridors, and I'm like, but like they go in and they maintain certain areas, and so you'll have a lot of guys that like you're walking the same bootprints as somebody that morning, but you've never seen because it's like it's like you go down a certain amount and then everybody just kind of fans out into their their own area. So I think, yeah,

I think context has a lot to play. So if you're like going down some road down some national forests and and you come up to a truck, this's like there's nothing that is common in that area. It's like your youngest but and it's like if you see flags there, it's like I'm not gonna follow any of these flags. I'm going the opposite way. You know, somebody's marking their trail or or something. But yeah, now that's a great point because what I learned this year turkey hunting over

here close to the house. Just two mornings, well maybe just one morning we went out over here. Man, if if you had followed the Gary nucom Code of Conduct for public land turkey hunting, we would not have had a place to turkey up. I mean, because he well, yeah, and so do I I mean, like, if you see a truck, just forget go to another place, like a long ways away. And I mean there were trucks parked every half mile. And it was like, okay, well, if we're gonna play this game, we're gonna just have to

pretty much be close to people. And so we did that that morning, and we walked up on three people while we were in the woods, which was yeah, and one guy I mean, I say we walked up on. They came up on us. One guy was at the truck when we got back. There was a truck parked by my truck when we got back, and he was waiting first to come out so he could go in. And one guy drove a four wheeler right past us. We I mean, he didn't know we were there. He

was just puts around on a four wheeler. He stopped and he told me I killed a turkey right over there. I mean, he told me everything, and he real nice guy. I mean, you know, you do have this immage like when I heard that four wheeler coming, I was with my daughter, and it's like everything in me pictured this guy as just like a dirt ball. I know exactly what you're talking about. Every other hunter in the woods

is a dirt ball. The other team on when your kids are playing baseball, the other team, those kids are dirt balls, you know. Yeah, Oh, they're all terrible people. And and and when I when I realized the guy was it was a little little just little pig trail road. And so he's coming down the road and I want him to know we're there as a you know, turkey outing is one of those things where it's best to just let people know you're there. So I didn't want

to jump off the road. If we'd have been bow hunting deer, I would have been like jumping the ditch. Let's just let him go past us. We're turkey hunt and I wan't him know where we're at. So we just stand there. And in my mind, I'm envisioning like I'm gonna have to de fend my daughter when this rolls up and I'm like, whatever happens River just you know, it's this old guy and he's just like, hey man,

I just out hooted on the hill. I didn't hear anything, but I killed a gobbler right off there last year, and I killed seventeen dobblers over here. I mean, this nice guy in the world. Yea, yeah, it kind of changes your perspective. These are people just like me, just trying to have a good time, most of them. Yeah, I think that changes with like squirrel hunting or something. It's like I'll park a lot closer if somebody squirrel hunting. You know, it just depends on the season. Yeah. Yeah.

Turkey hunt is the most touchy one because you're you're you're hunting vocal and duck probably duck hut. It's how what is hard enough turkey? And it is hard enough by itself. If you get competition, you know, it's twice as hardy, so that that would tend to make it

more of a sensitive issue. Yeah, so now what about duck hunting, because that's I mean, I don't know, if I don't know, if we have time to go into all of that, I'll hit the high points, um, and I think a public land hunting forever, it's been what we call the public shooting grounds. It's uh buy me the wildlife refuge uh in centered around Stuck Guard, Arkansas, thirty six thousand nacred green Tree Reservoir with the largest green tree reservoir state owned in in the world and

managed for waterfowl. And you got thirty six thousand, man, that's huge. We'll back you know. When we first started, it used to be legal to uh guide duck hunters on on public land. My brother and I we had a guide service and we did and I can remember in the eighties and and early in the nineties. Um, in the middle of the week, you could go out there and there was a place close to where our camp was called Buckingham Flats, which was a four acre tip cornered piece of biot. Well it was it's uh

it wasn't around by a fields or something. Yeah, it was, and in one corner of it touched by a meta itself, so it was body of water. Yeah, that's that's the public the public shooting grounds on by meta is a boot that runs through there. But that area that Wildlife Management area is called Bio Meta Wildlife Management Area. So this four acres were kind of set off by itself, but it was attached at a corner to the rest of the public land, but had two access areas to it.

And we could go there during the middle of the week with paying clients or by ourselves just on a pleasure hunt. And there may be two other vehicles in the park. A lot of that may not be anybody in there. And over the years, the popularity of water Fountain from TV shows and the Internet and all that stuff, they made duck hunting a fad. The population are the

number of hunters has grown significantly. Yeah, you add a caveat in there of the duck numbers going down substantially from what they were, the flyaway somewhat changing, duck shortstopping and not coming as far south as they did. And you limit your limiting the number of ducks coming down while you're increasing the amount of duck hunters going in there. So and I mean it's a a very passion driven sport.

It is a in that part of the world. I mean, you've got people coming from all over the world to that area to just a duck hunt and to the economy, they're around stuck, are they? The Chamber of Commerce down there says that on the average, it's a during a sixty day duck season, it's a million dollars a day of revenue coming into that area. So you know, it's a high priority for those businesses to promote it, to

keep it going, to get that income coming in. So you got all those folks down there, and you've got limited space to do it. They cut out all the guiding down there, thinking that would so you can't you can't, can't got on public for waterfowl, you can't for anything else. But so they cut all that out. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was just the number of people

in the limited space to put it in. And so what's the one are the rules like, certainly there's only limited access point if you're talking about putting in boat, so you're you're gonna see a bunch of people at the boat rount. Yeah, And they the problem was that people would go in early. They used to call call them hole runners and and folks guides, people that wanted to hunt, pleasure hunters, whatever. They would lay claim to

a certain area down there. You know, and like out of that whole right there off of the main creek channel or whatever to the left. You know, I grew up hunting that with my dad and my grandpa, and we always hunted that area. And we're gonna hunt that area every day during duck season, and we're gonna get in there early in claiming, and it would be to the point where folks would be spending the night in boats down there were lanterns and saving no spots, which

was perfectly legal. He got to the point to where a few years ago they had to instigate a rule of where no boats or nobody could venture into the w may until a certain time. I think it's like four or thirty. I don't hunt public land anymore for just for that very reason. It's too much of a headache. But they limited the number of at the time that you could go in. That increased the congestion of boat

motors of boat traffic at the same time. At the same time, it put everybody leaving at a one point. And they it's it's like a Kentucky derby down there. It's just they were boat ricks and boat crashes and fist fights and you name it. That developed from that in the game fishes. I mean, you know, I hate I would hate to have that problem because I don't know what the answer to that is, and and they there it's a struggle for them to figure it out, you know. But you know a lot of that goes

to it. If people respected the next guy enough, they they've even That's my answer to it. It's just people are out in this day and age more. Not everybody, but a lot of folks are. They're worried about They're going to get in there and get their spot regardless of you know, what happens, and try to be changed specific question to ask him about that. I mean, it's I mean, there's a couple of different things. One of

them is going to be all around. You know. Obviously, if there's a boat in a hole that you're trying to get into, that's pretty easy. Um. But if you you pull up to a parking area to a spot that you're gonna walk into, um, I mean, because I'm thinking of a place that I hunted this year specifically, we were always only the ever we were saying that the right way, we were only we were the only truck there. It's the only one that we ever saw.

But I know from walking around in that area it could have supported easily three or four groups of hunters like us if they'd all spread out. So it wouldn't seem fair to me if I was the second truck there to turn around and go somewhere else. But I don't know where those people went, So how do I deal with that? What? How it used to be? This?

You know, and I'm I can only talk and how it was it's been in my experience, but even as late as in the nineties, when you got there and you and in a lot of places we didn't use a boat going to we would walk into there in Buckingham Flats, especially because you couldn't really go a lot of places unless the water was flooded out. Everywhere you

would walk. You'd leave the parking lot walking and after half a mile or so you start hitting the water, the flood water, and then you'd walk into wherever the need deep place was you wanted. And how it worked back then as you got to a spot, when you got there, you threw your decoys out, you said on a log, and you drink coffee till it come time to duck hunt. If you saw another light coming, you shot them, you shine your light at them. Those folks may shine it back that main holler and say hey

we're going left, we're going right, we're gonna come. We're gonna walk right by you and and go on pasture. Is anybody gone through? No man, come on? Or or if there was, we said hey, come hunt with us. You know we've done that before. But there was always that unwritten rule if you didn't go up next, get too close to somebody. And another thing that was that was just an absolute no no. I mean it was a bad thing. If you had to set up close to somebody, you would get within a hundred fifty two

hundred yards of them. If they're working ducks over there in that area, and ducks I'm talking about, they're calling to them, and ducks are responding to them to that area, and they when they flew over the top of where they were, they wouldn't shoot at them, they wouldn't call at them. Those were your ducks. And when that happened, when they started working ducks, you would honor that as well. And man that worked like that for a hundred years and then all of a sudden it didn't It didn't

work anymore. And they would they would shoot your ducks, and you're you know in quotation, they would shoot the ducks that flew over, and it just got to be a a test of who could get them shot out first. And and you know, get back to the truck and people they didn't there. I don't think he'll ever be the way it used to be. Uh sees that squirrel is trying to eat anything, you know, and that very

well may have started. See that system works great as long as it's saturated the culture, you know, because the first time that the group over there started shooting your ducks, your groups started saying, dang, well, I guess we're just gonna have to be every man for himself. And maybe it was those guys over there that just didn't know any better. Sure, I mean, maybe they were jerks, but

probably they just didn't know any better. Probably they were coin toss but let's let's just say they were new guys, and we're just like, there's ducks. I'm gonna call those ducks and shoot them. And then and then they messed up a whole system of honor that was inside the high any world. And and honestly that we could sum up everything that we're going to talk about today with having a code of honor of treat others like you

would want to be treated. If I if my truck is parked on the side of the road over here, I don't want you anywhere near me. I want you to go find your own turkeys. Uh. If if I'm bo hunting whitetails, I mean I don't want you anywhere near me. So I mean I've got to have enough character that I you gotta do the same thing. You gotta do the same you gotta you gotta go somewhere else. And then but then you also learned the culture, like

what Kobe's talking about. I've hunted in some of those places down south, in these state management areas where there may be only five places to park your truck on the whole thing, So you can't just go home if there's a truck park, it's okay. But you you know if that that you know, that's the golden rule of it is to treat somebody like and and the way you know how you would want to be treated is

you wouldn't want somebody to jeopardize your hunt. You've taken time off work, you spent your scouting time, your gas, your whatever, and like if if that other person does something that's gonna screw up your hunt, then you're gonna be like, dang, So just don't do that for someone else. Yeah, you know, I think there might even be exceptions in

different places, just culturally. I know a place we've hunted, there's a there's a natural gas pipeline that runs down through the area, and it's not uncommon for it's like you're walking down the pipeline and somebody flashes a light, but they like, you know, the emotion need to keep on going, and you just walk several hundred yards and just keep going until you find a spot where no one is. Like, but the deer they've traveled like across

the pipeline. They don't go like up and down in but that's just kind of like they're hunting different deer than them. Yeah, and you know a lot of the guys that are there, like you've seen them around the different like access Yeah, following them in the height, you were following them around marking all their truck marking. Okay, that's something on the list here. Well, um, okay, that's that was all great stuff. Um, James, you're give me, give me one of yours, and let's discuss. Let's um,

let's talk about social media etiquette. Okay, okay, so up to modern technology, yep, yep. So we're all out there hunting. We're we're it's been a great season. We're having success. Right. I got out there early. I found a spot, and I man, I killed a big old bear. I get on social media and I and I'm just like, look at this bear I killed at blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and uh and I was doing this

and doing that. Wait a minute, this is your spot though, Well, I mean that's where I killed it, so it must be my spot. You wouldn't tell where you killed it? Well maybe I don't know any better. Okay, let's just so let's let's talk about that. So first of all,

let's talk about blowing spots up on social media, you know. Accidentally, let's also talk about I'm a new hunter and I'm trying to find somewhere to go, and then you get on social media and you're like, hey, can somebody tell me something about you know now that you say that I have seen people go I killed this Turkey on such and such w A this morning, and I know all the people that hunt that w A or going

dotgone it, man, don't. Yeah, there's well, there were some stories shared whenever I was gathering information for this, talking about some places that just got flattened. Turkeys got flattened this year because people got on social media and we're bragging about what they had done, and it just it just took fire. So um, so it happens. I mean, either people don't know or they're too dense to not

do it. Yeah, what's your well? I mean, so first of all, if I think you need, you need to understand that you're not the only person who hunts that place. And number one, you've got to some responsibility to your fellow hunters to protect it, to protect the the nature of what's there. Um, you also have some responsibility to

protect the wildlife that's there. I mean if you if you go in someplace and and shoot a trophy deer and then you drop a pen and basically say this is where I killed it, everybody's gonna think, well, man, I'm gonna go in there. It's just like it's just like the misery trout parks. You go up to Roaring River up here. He just did it. You can't put it. You can't put anybody else in. You can't put more

people in there. It's already full. But you go in there and you watch, and when somebody pulls a big trout out, it's he's like a magnet. Everybody just comes and stands next to him and starts casting over him. Yeah, and so you've got to realize that that that's gonna happen for you. If if to the animals, it's gonna happen to your your other hunters that are in there, that spend all summer and all, you know, all season long scouting and working for whatever the animals are that

are in there. So be responsible when you put things on social media. Well, I think here's here's a good rule of thumbs. You know, people want to be I mean, part of the story is always connected to a place, like like if you're if you're posting stup on social media, it's because you have this inn a human desire to share a story. That story inside of hunting is always connected to place. Place gives even value to that. So that's why people want to A man I killed this

at the such a set. But you just have to be general, and you have to make a decision of how general is general enough, Like you could say a lot of times of late, i've just been naming the state in the corner, maybe Northwest Arkansas, deer, northwest Arkansas, this or that. You know, if you draw a map around the five thousand square miles that encompassed northwest Arkansas and you can find I mean, yeah, that's pretty big area.

Um So, I mean you just have to be general. Now, some people like I think it depends on how big it is. If you're talking about a w m A that's ten thousand acres, just don't name the w m A. Yes, just don't. If you're talking about a national forest that's two point two million acres, perhaps you could say, I mean I wouldn't suggest it, but I've done I've done that before those art national forest I take than that, you know, and it's like it's pretty big place. You're

probably not gonna draw a lot of attention. And then if you throw in something really negative about the place, it'll drop off the riff raff. So say I killed this buck, I'm hunting there for a week, and it's the only one boy, stuff like that climb through five miles of BlackBerry brambles to get there too. And the thing about it is, you know you can have some some detrimental effects by giving the spot away accidentally, are on purpose, but you still hadn't broken law. No, no,

it's all. You haven't done anything exactly wrong. But on the other and you have I have. Let me. This is funny because both of you guys have hunted with me on public land. So I'm not talking about you, but I could be. If you mess up, you could be this guy. You know. What I've found is, uh, you know, you gotta be careful who you take into your spots. You absolutely do. You have to trust him that they they have the same code and ethic as you do. What I find is people on accident do

stuff like like they'll not me. Okay, I'll give you an example that it's not either one of you guys. I took a guy into a pretty good spot of mine and uh, he's never going back in there. I know he's not. I mean, like, I'm not worried about that. Well, he told a family member of his about it, just in conversation, and then and then he He told me that he told his family member just as if it was nothing. And and his family member had been in

there before and knew the spots. And I was just like, dude, need that guy knowing exactly where I took you. I don't care if he's been in there or not. I don't want him to know that I was in there. And he had no malice whatsoever. It was actually a veteran hunter. Just in his world. It just wentn't a big deal, like you know, just public land. I told my brother in law where we went, and I was just like, don't tell your brother in law where we went. I mean, you know, um, so usually people do it

on accident. Uh. And people there's people are secretive to a degree, but then there's people inside their circle that they'll tell anything to. For instance, you could take somebody hunting and you cannot make them not tell their dad or their own I mean, do you know what I'm saying, Like, you can't take Clay nwcom anywhere that I'm not probably gonna tell my dad where we were at. You could you could be you could say, Clay swear to secrecy. You will never utter these words again in your life.

All I will cut your throat and I'll be like, yeah, I'm good, and then I'll be like, Dad, we went in back in there too. I mean, you know, you do it almost unconsciously with like people that you're super tight because my dad's not going in there. But my dad didn't swear to anybody over and then so Dad's like, oh yeah, Clay, and they went over to and my Dad's never done that. I'm not throwing my dad. My dad,

Gary Nucom has never done it. That has been done to me by friends that I've taken and I can't And honestly, I evaluate that when I and all my friends that are listening to this, I'm not talking about you, it's like four people right now that are going is he talking about No, I'm not talking about you. That person has already been dealt with. Yeah, that person is no longer alive. No. But so I'm just saying, you

just gotta be careful. Yeah, if and not that the whole objective of a hunter is to keep his spot secret. I mean it's like we inside of modern time, tis the way we will persist in our culture will persist if more people get involved in hunting. So I mean that seems kind of hypocritical in a sense if you were from another planet and you were peering down and

we're having these conversations like we need new hunters. Public Land is awesome, it belongs to us all, and then we're like, man, So you know, there's a part of you know, but there are things that you just kind of you gotta kind of keep close and you just gotta be careful who you take in there. And it's a good thing to share stuff with people. I mean, a human sharing a hunting spot, honestly is one of the most ancient and honest and real hat tips that

a human can give to another human. I was actually just thinking about that. How I mean, that is such a core part of the human hunting experience. Is this, you know, the share activity. You know, I'm gonna help you, You're gonna help me. Um, So it's weird to talk about not sharing that, but I think it speaks to the bigger picture of how we form those hunting relationships.

I mean, I got all kinds of friends who I would never take hunting, you know, and for all my friends who happened to be listening to this I may be talking about. But but you know, for various reasons, but I think it speaks to what we what you form as a hunter, and that's probably a subject for a different podcast. But end of the day, what we share on social media, we have to realize it's just like what mom and dad's moms and dads tell their kids.

Be careful what you put on the internet, because once you put it out there, you can never take it back. And and we would do well until look in the mirror and repeat that to ourselves before we put some of these things on social media in in a lot of different ways. But with regard to where I killed that big buck or whatever, did you kill that, I

did not kill it anything. Hey, you know what I think I think inside of if we're talking about taking people hunting, like, I think there's a dual part responsibility. And this is the reason I've taken both of you to places that I that are, you know, spots that I know, is because I know that you will pay you the respect. I think there's a responsibility of the taker to be very clear about his expectations when I when I took in with you and in Zach, it's

it explicitly said, man, y'all come back in here. Do you remember me saying that, I said, man, come back down here. Totally fine. There's places that I would not say that to you. You know what I'm saying, hurt, No, they can't be. They can't be. And if I took you in there, I mean it would be my responsibility to have the character and the boldness of just knowing my value system to be like, dude, don't bring anybody in here. Don't don't come back in here. Do you

know what I'm saying? And then I think that's fair. I think it's fair. Do you think that's fair? I think it's I think it's fair. It's not, it's not. I think it's fair to ask because I've done that with people that I've guided and in public on public ground, you know, like or it's some folks that I've taken hunting, maybe not guiding, just a pleasure hunt, and that has bit me in the behind more than once. Tell me like they you took him in there, and they asked

if they could come back. I took him in and say, hey, you know, we found this spot. I've been hunting here on the Arkansas River for twenty years and we found this spot here and I'm gonna take you to it, and I you know, I appreciate if you can let me know if you want to come back, I'd be glad to take you. Okay, that's a good way to say it. It's essentially saying, don't come back in here without me sure, and then show up over there. My brother and I go back and here this guy is

with three other people that I don't even know. But what he's done, he's broken no laws. Well, he's broken a trust, but he I mean, when you get down, when you get down to the to the brass tax, he hadn't done anything illegal, but but he but for what we're talking about a public land etiquette, he's bad.

My dad, my dad, uh at the expense. And this is where if you're talking about building friendships with people, my dad used to not hunt with certain people because he knew that they were going to take him to a spot that probably he was eventually going to find on his own. Do you hear what I'm saying? And if that guy took him in there, Dad, I mean, my dad would just like never go anywhere within five miles there for the rest of his life. Like that's

the kind of code. Basically, I grew up with the most conservative possible way of thinking about public land etiquette. And so Dad got invited him, how are you let's go back in there Turkey ounting Gary, and Dad was like, he turned him down because Dad wanted to go in that area. The guy's not the one who turned Dad onto that area, you understand what I'm saying. And so Dad knew eventually he was gonna get back in there

and find stuff, and so he didn't want to do that. Um. And I get that because if if it's a spot, like if I took you or you to a spot that you are never gonna find on your own, then I think I've got the right to be like, hey, don't come back in here and not be a jerk about it, just like hey, we're just too humans. I hope that you have a spot that you like that much that you could just be like, man, yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, well you can. I think it is. Um,

I think it's mostly fair. I think part of that that we have a responsibility as hunters if we, you know, to pass that culture down, is to explain why we're saying that to people because we're a jerk, not because we're greedy, not because we're hoarding, right, but but also to explain why what attracted you to that spot, so that if I'm a new hunter, I could go and I can do my own work. And that's part of

part of what um to me. You know, the benefit of going with other people is learning from those people, and so we as hunters need to keep that in mind as well. Like if I'm if I'm the more senior hunter or fisherman, I try to explain to other people, like why did I pick this spot? I might be right, I might be wrong, but I want that same thing in return, especially if it's going to be that situation where like I'll take you. I'm gonna take you to the spot, but this is just for this is just

for us today. And you know, I appreciate if you not come back here unless unless I'm with you or you let me know if you're coming back in here, and you know you, you would hope that would be nuanced enough that you wouldn't have to be that direct. Yeah, but some of us are dumb. I mean, I'm just gonna say it. Some of us are just socially dumb about that kind of stuff and wouldn't know. I just wouldn't. Yeah, you're just like, well, yeah, I'm thinking of an example

of a new hunter recently that I just thought public. Yeah, a different story. I think there's a context of that too, because it's like, that's your spot. It's not saying don't come back to like this w M A or this set of mountain range, like there's a there's a nuance of just like you know, it encompasses. And the other way that that's fair to say is because I know that there's fifteen other spots just like my spot that you can go find. But I like what you're saying though, James,

about trying to understand what that spots like. And and that to me is where as mentor hunters that we share information and I freely try to Yeah. I mean like, like, I'm not trying to keep you from finding the best spot in the world for killing a big buck in the national forest over here. I want you to find that. You know that that helps, That helps the season hunter right there helping somebody else, because then he's going to

get away from him. He's gonna find his own spot. Yeah, you don't, you know, Teach a man to give him man of fish feeding for a day, teach a man to fish feeding for life, exactly. And it's the same.

It's the it's the same basic principle. It's simple. It all comes to respect, and it all comes to see and looking at this thing out beyond killing an animal or taking an animal home with you, you know, it goes, it goes way beyond that to get the full experience, the true experience of what it is, and you know, sharing,

taking people hunting. I would rather hunt with somebody and I had by myself any day, especially the older I get, I would rather take somebody with me as a kid, or somebody that are an adult that doesn't hunt much, you know, and didn't let them experience what I spent a lifetime looking at and watching those folks see it, because that's you know, you get to see it for the first time all over again, and watching somebody to me,

watching somebody. We've taken kids. We had a kid to work for us, that guided for us, and I put that in air quotes. He just hung around the camp and he hunted with us, and he'd learned he learned to hunt ducks, and he learned to call and he got it was the best thing in the world. Watching that kid go from zero to a hundred and he didn't eat us. You know, two or three years he was ready to go on his own. Honey, still hunting

with us. But watching somebody grow and develop and do their own thing and being able to go out and find their own spots and and do that is is to me, it's very rewarding as well. Yeah, I think it's the motivation too of the mentee. Like, if you're just trying to find a just to sap off a good spot from somebody, then I got no interest in taking you hunting. If you really are interested in learning, I mean, I'll probably open the treasure fold to you know.

I mean like you perceived that about people of like what's their intention? You know? I think that means a lot too. But I think the rule of thumb is is take nothing for granted and be explicit in your communication. So if somebody's taking you hunting, just straight up ask them, or or just assume that you can never go back there and then maybe they slip in. Uh, if you want to come back in here next week and try to kill that turkey, go for it. I can promise

you that that happens more times than not. When you don't ask, yeah, can I come clack and I come back in here? You always tell me no. But it's kind of But when but when someone when I see somebody enjoying themselves and you've got no inclination at all that they're going to come back tomorrow with the brother in law, he's like, man, come on back in here, you know, or or whatever, you know, whatever it is, and it's just the respect thing I think is we'll

go along ways. And that's a cool part of friendship too. I mean, really, I keep hammering this down, I wrote in the editorial the May June issue Barney Magazine, But man, what gives value to our hunting is our relationships it really. I mean, like we think Clay Nucom thinks that he's after big bucks and big bears, and that's like the goal of what I'm trying to do. That is not entirely true. You take human relationships out of the picture,

and that has way less value. And I mean, like, I want to go kill a bear so that I can come home and tell you guys the story that that that's what has value. And and even to a very more much more primitive, functional human understanding. Hunting has always been about provision for other people. I mean, like a hunter goes out, he leaves his family and brings

back provisions that allows them to live to share. So I mean like this whole hunting thing, I mean like we you know, there's all these different representations of hunting that we see on social media to you and and we do like to nerd out about the tactics and about how tough somebody is if they're a hard hunter, good they are. But really a lot of it is about the kinship that we have with people. And I say that to say I enjoy sharing a spot with

a good friend. Well, and I think and I think that probably is what motivates a lot of us to do that sharing that we do that sometimes brings us great rewards but also carries great harm. Sometimes it's like a double edged sword. You know, we want to share that with other people two to build those connections with them.

And you don't, in in that rush to feel to feel the happiness of sharing with others, you forget about the possible harm that can come on the back side of that um from being too free with your information or from uh saying you know, I mean you can take that a lot of different ways, pictures that we share on social media and stuff like that. But man, it's it's hard to be a human sometimes, you know.

I find that there's different gradients of hunters. Like the other day on our Turkey public land Turkey Hunt River, and I came out and there was a truck parked by my truck, and it upset me. For I was like, oh God, this guy, because I thought he'd parked his money a party. He even had a white pickup. It was like me, uh, and I thought he had parked beside me and just walked right in on us. Well, when I got out there, sure enough, it's the same situation. It was not a bad guy. It was an old

man sitting on the tailgate of his truck. He was waiting for us to come out. And man, he told me everything he knew about turkeys in that part of the world. I mean, he told me about turkeys, he'd heard Goblin that day. He told me where they were going to cross the road, he told me. I mean, he just nothing was nothing was off limits. And um, you know there's some people and you kind of like that guy, and I didn't use any information that he gave me to do anything, and you know, I just

went home. But but then there's the other guy that is just so tight lipped. You know, well that that brings up a great point that another kind of line in the in the topics that we that I kind of gathered, and and that's the idea of two guys cross paths. How much information are you going to give

that guy if y'all are walking in opposite directions. I mean, there was there was some pretty colorful stories shared about Oh yeah, I'll i'll, I'll tell him I was hunting back over on this side over here, and I was actually over there and I heard a bunch of gobbles back over there, blah blah blah blah blah, or I'll I'll tell him I was hunting in a completely different county or whatever. You know. I mean, I don't have to enumerate all the stories. People know. People can think

in their heads what it was. But point being is that I think what I took away from that was going into the situation, I should know what am I How am I going to interact with somebody? How much am I going to interact with somebody. If I'm when I'm bear hunting this fall and I crossed paths with somebody. If if I've got a piece of information that's valuable to me, how much of that information am I going to share? I don't think you're bound by any code.

I don't think that you're bound to don't tell a lie because you'll go to hell. But moral code, you anything that would be a safety factor to somebody, like hey, when you go back, when you're crossing those falls over there, you step on that big rock out in the middle, you're you're going swimming, or I saw a big rattlesnake or whatever. You you you tell somebody something that could anything that would be a potential harm to him. But you don't have to tell him that you heard three

turkeys in there. There's no there's nothing wrong with that, you know, And I've had what if he asks you if you saw I got a good I got a recent example, but go ahead, brand Yeah, if he asked you that, and you know what, you know, I've heard him in here before. Good at this game, way better than me. That's a former law enforcement officer. H Yeah, they play nuanced really Brant's really good at it. Yeah. Now, if my modus operanda in the woods is I will

not lie to someone. I mean, I won't lie to anybody any other day, So I don't know why I would lie to him on the day I'm hunting. I mean, so guy says, do you hear any turkeys? If I heard a turkey and you asked Clay nucom in the woods. If you directly ask me did you hear a turkey? And I say I did not, then I truly did not. Now I may not answer you. I mean, I'm it's possible I could evade, but I'm not gonna lie to you.

Do you understand? But the other thing is is, uh, you don't have to tell a whole story like that. We were in Montana a couple of weeks ago and walk walk out to the truck and uh, a full wheel drive vehicle pulls up. It's clear it's a hunter. He's wondering what we're doing. And uh, I'm not the best at this game. And uh, the guys I was hunting with were very surprised at how much information I gave out to these guys. Now it was my spot, so I could do whatever I wanted. They were with

my My guys were with me. So but this guy just said, what are y'all doing? Man, we're bear hunting? You see any bears? Yeah? We did way the heck back in there. I was like, I mean it was like six miles from where we were standings where we saw a bear. So I was like, man, at the very back of that place. I mean, really, if that guy wanted to go in there after that bear, more power. Uh. And then but I did not tell him a thing about the turkeys that we had just worked for two

hours and that, you know. And so the guys were like, man, you have that got a lot of information. I said. I didn't tell him about our turkeys. He didn't ask about turkeys. But I think anyway, yeah, that's a tough one. Most of the time, it's best to just keep your mouth shut unless but I've been in the woods too where I've met a guy that it's like, I'm going home and i ain't coming back here for the rest of the year. I'll tell him everything. I know. Yeah,

I've been in that same situation. You know, you just help a guy out, you know, he's just like you. He just wants to kill. But yeah, if you're in the heat of the hunt, you know you're not all but you're gonna be pretty close lift and you're not. I mean, let him do his own scouting. There's nothing wrong with that, dude, to do the legwork. You'll find something. Yeah, you know, there's nothing wrong with saying. You know, I've been all over this this country back here, I've been

all over that country over there. There's just as many turkeys over there that is here. You just gotta get out and find them. Well, Hey, the other side of the coin is being the guy that's getting information. That's right. I was recently hunting with a gentleman up in Montana

that was very good at getting information from people. He when he when we came up on people in the woods, which we came upon a quite a few, he was constantly the first one to ask questions like he he got them on the kind of defensive and most people just spilled the beans. Hurting turkeys out here. And now that's because they follow the Clay Nucom Code of not

telling lives. Yeah, well, you would be surprised. It's been my experience in the law enforcement game of the last twenty nine years that people like to talk and if you will ask a question and shut up and listen, they will answer it, and lots of times they'll volunteer it more than you asked. That's me. Yeah, I would be a terrible criminal. We cannot. I'm driving from now on anytime we cross them. Had to give me a tutorial and how to cross the Canadian border every time?

Better at it? All? Right? How what what's our time? Okay, let's do uh, let's do James, Why don't you pick one others we have done like two of our twelve here man. Okay, let's talk about some real operational stuff you had talked about, like how to park on the road and things like that. So let's let's try to cover some of those things that are people need to try to be sure we won't go down rabbit trails. Yeah, yeah, so to me one of the you coach coach me

through this with more questions. But let me answer that question, James, find another one. But like like parking on a road, a lot of times you're on a secondary road, like a two track pick trail road that is only open for one vehicle to drive down, and a lot of times your I mean, your truck is your signal to the world that you're hunting in there, but you still do not own that road, and you have to park off that road such that someone could get around you,

even though you don't want him to. Yeah, and even though you shouldn't. Like if you're on a tiny little road that goes back in there a half mile and dead ends, and a quarter mile into that road, you see a truck park and you know that that guy is down at that culvisac al hooton, you turn around and go back. But at the same time, you cannot block that road because what if I've dropped my son off down there and I've gone somewhere else and I

gotta come back and pick him up. Or what if there's a side road beyond where you're at and there's somebody parked in there that you don't know that at nine o'clock in the morning is going to come back out and not be able to get around your true I mean just stuff like that. So you've always got to pull away off the road. You can leave your leave your you know, the back corner out just a little good if for nothing else, do it for the

aspect of safety. If somebody gets hurt, first responders, you've got to get back in there, and you would want the same thing afforded you. And I have run into that in in in my life trying to get somewhere and to help somebody, and somebody part like that unintentional obviously, but the result is the same. You can't get back in there and help somebody, So do it for just for the sake of that. Uh, let's talk about camps

real quick. So that's part of the scouting that I was doing recently, was looking for places to set up camp, and obviously I found a bunch of places. So now the next thing in my head is how soon is too soon? And you know what, what do I need to do? Like two air quotes, I'm gonna use air quotes hold camp? You know, I don't think I don't personally feel like it'd be right to go in there three or four days before I intend to come set

up the camp and park something there. Um. So this is a single camp site, Yeah, yeah, I think this is. Here's my question to you. Does this camp size give you access to a place that you can't get access to it any other way? No? No, this So I'm I'm just gonna use my own examples. This will be a place where I could go set up camp of a certain size and comfort level, but my intention is to use that as my base of operations and I'm

gonna go hunt. Okay, So you're not really trying to hold a hunt holding a hunting spot, because there's a difference. I want, I want to spot to camp because you could. I mean, the other scenario would be dead end dead end road that goes into all this big country and that's the only access point and you're trying to lock down a hunting location. I think that would be different in my mind, James, if you want to do the extra work and have that much forethought, go in there

three days before and set up a tent. I personally wouldn't have a problem with that, especially if it wasn't blocking some major access point to all this country. Do you see what I'm saying? Like that, Like there's some places out here where you can find one of those spots, and then there's a two track that runs out the back of it. Yeah, and and and you're clearly just trying to save a Look, there was one place in the Ozarks that we hunt that it's a long finger

ridge that always has turkeys on it. And these people would come in like two weeks before turkey season and put a camper up right in that spot. And I mean they they weren't just looking for a place to camp. They were hunting that ridge. And that was kind of like, come on, man, Uh in halftime, they wouldn't be there. And so I just parked by their camper and walk in there when they weren't there. You know, I was like, if you're not gonna even be here, they were blocking

a hunting location. Yeah, so your deal. I wouldn't have a problem personal I wouldn't either. And we saw that in New Mexico. Remember we were hunting straight out there and they had the uh we were bear hunting, and they had the mule deer season coming up. People were bringing campers in Yeah, a couple of days beforehand just to get a billion acres. I mean, who cares, I didn't. Does that help you? Yeah? That helps me a lot, actually, because I mean set it up now it may I'm

gonna get the lawnmower down there. I mean, I think the key to any public land huntings to have at least three options. Yeah, Well, that's that's what I've been thinking.

You know, I identified several places where we could go and knowing what I want to try to get in there, you know, I can go to any one of those spots, and maybe what I'll do is send somebody ahead of me with a small car go drive this loop and tell me which one to go to so that I don't have to because I'm if I'm gonna take a camper and well, yeah, and your your your deal is a little bit harder because you've got to find a

spot with a camper. I would absolutely go in there a week before James, also, really because it's different, like if you if you're setting up a camper, you've got to have a really specific place. I think a lot of this goes back to motivation. I mean, like if I knew that about you, I would not be upset that you camped in that spot a week before. These people that put their camper there again that I was

upset with. They weren't there there, they were blocking a hunting location, different, different, they were probably lived local and just throw the camper in there too. Yeah, there's one place that we hunt close to where I took you this year where somebody left the camper and they left the camper like it's been there for like three years storage space. Eventually the forester is gonna have to haul

it off. Well normally, you know, especially on state ground, you're limited on the amount of time that you can stay in one sea. That's true. Ye, what's another one? Okay, there's a couple more good ones on this list. Um, what do you do if you see a tree stand in the woods? What do you do if you see another hunter in the woods. We kind of talked about that with turkeys. You know, every species I think is gonna be a little bit different depending on is it

firearms season, is at bow season? Maybe things like that. But I mean, these are things that maybe some of the new hunters really need to hear and understand how to deal with. So the legality I believe of hanging a tree stand in Arkansas on our state land. Don't quote me, but I want to say you you're supposed to be able to leave a stand up for like two weeks or something something like that. At one point one time it was fort days. I don't know if

it's okay. So let's say let's just pretend like that's the law. The law is that a stand can be hung up for fourteen days. Now, people leave stands all the time, year round. That happens constantly. It's rarely enforced scene in most places. But so if I walk into a stand, walk into a place and there's a tree stand there, it would be a pretty massive etiquette violation to go forty yards away and hanging to the tree stand, right unless you yeah, that stand is covered in leaves. Yes,

that's what I was about to say. Yeah, I mean if it's a new tree stand, and you can tell this dude hung this a week ago, Yeah, get the heck out of there. You go somewhere else. Now, you find the stand that's been left in there for three years, and you look at the steps and the straps, and you're like, this guy hadn't been here a long time. Many times I've seen that. Well, you can tell that when if the straps are grown into the tree a little bit, they're covered in moss, you know, stuff like that.

So hanger standing hunt there. I mean, and you're using other context clues as well. I mean, are their boot tracks in the road where this guy has been in here? Are there? You know? Is there a truck park, there is he in it? Is he in this? Yeah? No? I mean so in general, you're always wanting to get away from people. But just because there's a stand hung there doesn't mean that that guy's claimed that spot for eternity.

And it all goes back to context. If you're hunting a place that has a ton of hunters, like there's a w may around here that is just notorious for having a ton of hunters. You can't walk three yards in the woods without finding a tree stand or evidence of people hunting down in some of the other places I hunt. Jeez, if I found a tree stand out somewhere, I would just be like, I'm getting miles away from here. Just guys in spot? Is that that's yeah? Yeah? I

think so. Um talk about real quick, let's talk about just you're out hunting, um and you run across you happen to see somebody else, or you're you're in a spot and you're actively still and somebody else is coming up on you. You know, talk about the safe ways to handle that, talk about the ethical ways to handle that, real quick. I think that's something important to touch on. You know, they talk about that somewhat in Hunter's ed. But you know how many of us remember that? Well.

I think first of all, you don't want to start waving your hand or moving a lot. I mean, like somebody's walking towards you, they've got a firearm in their hand. You don't want to be like hey, because I mean they could think that movie. Yeah, they could automatically think that movement was an animal. Thereafter, the first thing to do is the verbally or with a whistle. Yeah, whistle

is the best thing. I'm constantly listening. I'll hear a bird whistle when I'm in the woods and I'll stop and look in the trees, thinking that somebody's whistling at me. And you know, I mean what you should do if you see somebody in a tree stand or they whistle at you, is to make eye contact with them, perceive what's happening with them. I mean, and they might flag you over to them. I mean, I've done that before with people. Wave at them, just be like, hey, come over,

you know, and maybe you can talk to them. Get over here inside. I mean, somebody in a tree stand probably wouldn't do that, but like if you're on the ground, you know, they might wave you over and you might go greet them or just talk. You know, where are you going, I'm going to go over here? Or eighty percent of the time what you need to do is turn your old butt around back the exact way you

came and do something else. I mean, that's that's here's something they're running into somebody that we talk walked about. Everybody's in their bow hunting together, and you don't want but on some public land you can bow hunt and you can squirrel hunt all at the same time. I've been sitting in public land, Uh, far more live bow

hunting and here two and like, who's shooting two? Then you see the guy coming through still hunting, and he got just as much right to be there as Yeah, that's a tough one, you know, and you just let him know where you're at. Hey, I'm not a squirrel sitting up here. And usually they just happened my buddies that I squirrel hunting with over here. Uh they said last year their dog went in and tread their road hunting.

So they're turning the dogs out and them run down the road and h they the dogs dove off the road and went in there and treat well, they come around the corner and there's a truck park there and their dogs are down their treat and they walked down to the I mean they gotta walk to the dogs, and literally the dog is treated like ten feet from a guy to tree stand and he said. They said the guy was real nice and he said he had the squirrel. It went a whole. They were real apologetic.

They said, hey, sorry man, we we didn't know you're in here and the dog. Anyway, they said the guy was real nice and they retrieved the dog and got out there. Anyways, Well that's what you do. Yeah, and then kudos to the guy in they're not getting man, Yes, exactly exactly. Hey, hey, talk real quick about something that you just said. Road hunting, So you know, there's a really effective way to hunt. There's all different manners of slight. Okay, people,

that was a joke. No, So, I mean there's different manners of roads. If we're talking about National Forest, you know which one's I mean, you're not gonna road hunt for deer with a gun in the truck, right yeah, um, but that's not necessarily the here's an example. Okay, So I went, So I went pronghorn hunting, in Wyoming and we rode around on private ground in the truck all over the place glassen. But you know, we weren't shooting from the truck, but we had the guns in the

truck with us. Chambers were empty, but they were otherwise loaded and ready for us if we needed to get out and make a quick whatever. Um. I mean, there's all these different kinds of scenarios, right. So you're in the National Forest. You've got varying levels of roads. You can walk the roads. Some people are gonna use four wheelers or UTVs on the roads. I mean, let's just talk about that real quick, and people may not really realize what really is a good idea or a bad

idea on that. Are you saying, like, can you squirrel hunt? I'm not question because well, let me just say, like we we road hunt our coon dogs sometimes and our squirrel dogs, which means and bird dogs. Absolutely. It means you run them in front of mules or your truck or your or your four wheeler and the dogs run down the road trying to scent game and they're not

usually pointing or tree and game on the road. Your squirrel dog smells a squirrel and dives off the road and goes down in there hundred yards and trees like that's kind of what happens, right, And so you go off and shoot the squirrel and trucks parked on the road like that's normal, right. But somebody who doesn't know might hear road hunting as a term and think, I drive down the road and if I see a squirrel, I can okay, okay, because I said that, didn't I

said we were road hunting. Yeah, okay, that that's what that means. Yeah, And they're they're legalities about you know, how close you can shoot to a paved road for sure? Yeah, any maintained road, State Federer County, maintained road, if somebody lives on it, if you can pretty well figure if a school bus drives down that road, you can't shoot from it. I think you've got to be like a hundred and fifty feet from the center line of the roads that run. Yeah, something like that. So it all

comes back to etiquette and being respectful. It all comes back to the individual, seasoned or rookie to know the law, to know what's expected of him legally and safely first before he ever steps out into the woods. And now it's not always the case, but it is their responsibility because the ignorance of the law is no excuse. Yeah, when he gets right down to it now, And that's a good point. I think that, you know, there's the legality of it, which we all need to know one

way or the other. And then there are these unwritten rules that we've been talking about that come from experience that sometimes they come from bad experience, and we just get out there and make mistakes. Um, you're gonna I make mistakes. We all do. I think have the wherewithal that if you get out and put yourself in a situation where you walk through somebody's hunt, or you do something that you can tell they're clearly upset with you about.

You know, it's the golden rule. It's just like apologize, try to make it right, try to get out of the way, whatever. And you know, I would hate for I would hate for new hunters or people who are just getting back out into it, especially right now. I mean,

people are so stressed out anyway. You could kind of look at a lot of negative interactions with people and blame it on the current situation, right, but I would hate for those things too, to turn people off from from hunting or from being out in the woods because they're, like we've talked about, there's so much to gain from being out there. It has this spring. Being out in the woods has helped me keep my sanity. I'm not

not making light of that at all. I mean it's it's been good to refresh and and I would hate for somebody to get a bad taste in their mouths and never go back. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully we've helped some people out with that. Yeah, if not, regardless, James, you and I know where we're going hunting together. When Clay is not going to be there, they're going back in there. No. Now, I think I think this has been a pretty well rounded discussion. Uh, you know, there's a thousands suffix that

we probably didn't cover. But in general, if your buddy takes you to a spot, assume you can't go back. If you see another hunter, go as far as possible away from him. Try to understand the cultural norms of the place that you're hunting. If it's a if it's an area that has very sparse hunting pressure, then if you see someone, you should go as far away as possible. If you're in an area that has super dense hunting pressure, then maybe it's acceptable for you to park in the

same parking lot as another car. Like just don't assume, don't assume anything, and don't assume that somebody's a bad guy because they don't take you to their don't take you to their spot or you know, again, we're we're talking about how we got to increase hunter number and access, and then we're talking about how to keep our spots secret. That's just the game. Don't don't hate the player, hate the game, and and it's and it's not the game's fault either. You know. Part of hunting is doing your

own work. Yeah, and but we all got to have a leg up. I mean I didn't. I've not become I mean, you know, everybody's got to stand on somebody's shoulders. People took me to their spots that I learned from, you know, so so there's no you know, it's not like you've got to be this. You know, nobody's an island. Nobody has done at all on their own nobody. But there is part of being a hunter is being disciplined and doing the work and doing the planning. And that's

the fun of it. So so you know that's where and I would say another big rule of thumb and just kind of summarizing what we're talking about is is perceive someone's motivation inside of like spot giving and different things. I mean, you know, there's no you don't have to do the same thing with two people because two people may have two totally different motivations. And you have the right to withhold or give information anybody you want, you know,

based upon what you think they're motivations are. And you know there's a uh, somebody told me the other day, Uh, Tennessee mountain bear hunter. Uh. He told me some things are just sacred. Yeah, and we get to call them sacred just because we chose to make them sacred. Sacred meaning set apart special. And he said, things that are sacred make life worth living. And sometimes hunting spots are kind of sacred. It's just like so you don't have to dish them out. But at the same time, sharing

something sacred is a valuable part of relationship. So just be wise and uh, and yeah, share, I think I think it's great to share information, you know, if you're a mentor, share information about how they can learn to fish quote unquote, not just give them a fish, because there is a lot of a lot of there's plenty of places to hunt, more so out west, Boy, out west, I mean, Gili, there's so much ground, so much public ground.

The culture is a little bit different out there with public land spots than it would be here, which we have quite a bit of public ground here in Arkansas, but still much less than say the state of Montana. That's like, I don't know what percentage of public land it is, but more public land than private land. Uh. You know a lot of those states out there like that. So anyway, just different cultures. Don't assume, keep your mouth shut most of the time. Be safe. Yep, it sounds good.

Closing thoughts. That was my summary. I like it. I like them. I like the idea of it. I love public land hunting. I like the the you last in the resource and doing it the right way. You know, it's fun. It's fun. It should be fun. It should be work. You should have to earn it because it it makes it so much better. The reward is so much better. Yeah, I gave my closing thought right. No,

I think that's a really good conversation to have. I think overall, it's just you know, just being mindful of others and just being you know, I'm not gonna do anything to try to cause anyone to stumble. And so I think if we understand that we're sharing the same space and then we all have ownership of it, but also like respecting the nuances of of the you know,

just things that are culturally accepted. Not just that, but just you know, not assuming things and just putting yourself any other person's shoes, and just you know, just being a person that takes in all things and not just make like a split section second decision, actually consider things before just doing it. You Yeah, um, I think that would solve a lot of a lot of the conflict. Yeah, inside these scenarios right on. Al Right, guys, thanks so much.

Thanks James, you bet, Thanks Thanks Colby. Keep the wild places wild so that we'll have a lot more ground where we can all spread out and go hunt. Just don't go dunk uh. Thankscellent