Ep. 499: Mules, Mountains, and My Arkansas Hunting Adventure with Clay Newcomb

my pretty wild season of traveling hunts. As I've discussed, I've been on a journey of sorts this year, going across the country to different regions of white tailed country to learn about how people hunt in that unique place, meeting with a regional expert to dig into what types of tactics they use, where they hunt, how they find word of hunt, how the deer act in their area, and what the hunting culture is there too. So that's

what I did. I spent a day in Arkansas with Clay Newcomb and James Lawrence learning about the old ways of hunting, the mountains down south still hunting and hunting terrain features, and finding public land deer and big woods country really interesting stuff. So I got to spend a morning with Clay and afternoon talking to James, and then we actually went in on mule back deep into this public land section and spent the next three and a half days myself on my own trying to kill buck

up there. So that's the story we're gonna share. It's a good one, it's a fun one. It was a

heck of a hunt. It gave me a really interesting glimpse into deer hunting in the South, into some of the influences that Clay has had that come from a time long ago, and why there's there's a certain appeal and certain value to doing things as a hunter that maybe we don't need to do anymore, but have value in being less efficient and harkening back to a bygone era, talking about getting a little taste of what it was like back in the day for somebody like Daniel Boone

going in on horse or mule and staying out there for a week or two hunting deer, hunting bears, whatever it might be. I got just the tiniest little glimpse of what that life might have been like. I'll tell you what. It's pretty cool. So that's the plan for today. We do also, in addition to Clay, have my buddy

Tyler Emmett. He was one of the cameraman on this trip and I wanted to have him on the show to help give some color and some perspective on the hunts because he was there with me, right next to me during the hunts on my own, but he was in the airport hopping on a plane and timing ended up getting goofy. So he's in here. He shares a couple of quick thoughts, but then has to bail because of the flight, so I didn't really work out. But he's here. You'll hear a bit from him, but just

understand that's why he sounds a little distant. That's why he wasn't in much of the show. But regardless, I thank you here to like this one. Me and Clay get into some interesting debates around scent control too that you're not gonna want to miss. So well that said, let's get into it. Thank you for listening all right

with me? Now, I've got Clay newcome and Tyler Emmett and the both of you guys were with me on this heck of a heck of an adventure in Arkansas, and so I appreciate you taking time to come here and help me recapit a little bit rather than doing the you know how you're doing, what's new, YadA, YadA, YadA. I just want to get right in the story because we've got a lot to cover, uh and Clay. This trip began mostly, I think it began when we got

to James Lawrence's place. He's a mentor of yours, and he was gonna help kind of set our sights on what we should be doing, what we should be thinking about, what I should be targeting. There's a lot of things like that that we're hoping to chat with him about at his place before we headed to the mountain. Can you can you start us out, Clay, just jumping right into who James is and how he was an influence

on you. Sure. Yeah, So James Lawrence. People that have listened to some of my stuff in the past may have met James Lawrence. He's been on some podcasts with me and stuff. But James is in his I believe James is seventy three years old, and he's just one of these guys that has lived his entire life in the same spot and has been a hunter since he was a kid and has really dedicated himself two being the best that he can be with the resources he has in the place he lives, you know. I mean,

he's never traveled to hunt other than with me. In in the last five years, he's he with me to Canada white tailed deer hunting. Other than that, he's probably not hunted out of the county he lives in, you know. And I always I love those kind of guys. I really do that their their world is not propped up by you know, kind of I want to say exotic travel.

You know, that's probably not a good descriptor. But he's just he's just dedicated himself to what what he's got, and so he's we're down in the Washington Mountains and James, it's from the area that I grew up in, so my hometown, which I don't live in anymore, and that's in the mountains of western Arkansas, and it's a difficult place to whitetail hunt, and it is getting increasingly better.

I believe we have probably better deer populations right now than we've had and even since when I was a kid, but just difficult hunting conditions you know, run good terrain and just vast stretches of continuous hardwoods, pines and just closed canopy timber like you would find in a lot of places in the East. But the mountains make it harder because you've got a lot of topographic differences and changes and and and so James as he's developed a style of hunting that really he kind of came up

with on his own. And his story is pretty unique because his family, they as in the tradition of where we come from, with a ran hounds on deer and still due to the state people down there, it's legal and it's great. I absolutely love running deer with dogs. So James grew up with that, but from an early age he he didn't like it. Not for some ethical reason, he just you know, he just did. He just wanted to go out in the woods and hunt them. And his uncle taught him how to track deer in the leaves,

which is difficult. James learned how to still hunt, which is, you know, just moving through the timber very slow and going to good areas where he thinks deer are and just spending time on the ground moving. Number two, he he hunted out of tree stands some but just learning.

He learned how to use topographic features where these how these mountains funnel these deer into certain predictable areas year after year, And he learned how to hunt these saddles and pinch points and heads of hollows and flats, and uh, he's a big scrape hunter. He always liked hunting scrapes, and so yeah, that's what we talked to James about when you came down, Mark. Yeah, and I was so glad that you were willing to introduce me to him and let's spend some time there, because it was it

was eye opening in a lot of ways. First and foremost just seeing the success he's had down there. I mean, it's kind of shocking when I was imagining the type of terrain he was hunting and how difficult it likely was, and you told me about it, and then seeing you know, and hearing about what he does and how he's actually I mean, he's really filled the walls up with a whole lot of great stories and deer and uh, that

was great. But then just hearing from like just getting a chat with him, I mean, as you said to us prior to meeting him, he was as nice as you could get, as welcoming as you could ever imagine someone like this could be. Um, I mean, just incredibly kind and generous with his time and his insight, and

he gave us, you know, me in particular. I know you've learned a lot from him over the years, but me in particular gave me a really quick rundown on some really helpful ideas for what I should be thinking about and planning for when I head into to hunt this kind of way. But I guess I probably should rewind just a little bit and set the stage more, because you know, we we headed to James because he

had hunted in the way that we're gonna hunt. But to start Clay when I when we approached you, we we were talking last year, I think, and I said, Hey, we've got this new show, and I think it'd be pretty cool to come down hunt with you and and get like a genuine Arkansas experience. Why why was the hunt that we ended up having that genuine Arkansas experience

that you thought I should have. We because we were gonna take a mule heading into the heading to the mountains of public land, camp out there and and hunt these hard to find big woods, big mountain deer in Arkansas. Why was that the experience you thought that I should have, well Mark, because I like you so much. I wanted to share the gold of Arkansas that number one. Uh No, There's a ton of different places we could have gone that would have been better, you know. I mean what

we did. What did was really probably the hardest way to kill a deer here. We we have a broad range of habitat and types of hunting in Arkansas. You know, you get over into the Arkansas Delta near the Mississippi River, and you've got as good at white tail hunting there is probably anywhere in the country in certain stretches. I mean,

really it's like hunting the Midwest. And and then you get into so where I live in the Ozark Mountains up here on private land and the Ozarks kind of some of these cattle pasture um or you know, cattle farm type private land hunting. We've got quite a few deer. You know, we could have gone hunting and I would have anticipated seeing seven to twelve deer a day, you know.

And in but this what I call interior mountain hunting is the most traditional style of hunting because that is what basicly the first white Europeans that came here were doing. They were using equal animals and doing long hunts. And that is really what James did when he was younger. And he didn't do it because it was cool there. He didn't do it because he was trying to replicate something.

He did it just because that's that was a good way in the in one of the most successful ways he knew how to kill dear was to use an equal animal, get back in as far as he could with as much supplies as he could carry, and stay back there and hunt and a lot of times solo. And uh so that's what he did. And I was always very intrigued by his stories and that kind of hunting, and so that's what I started doing five or six years ago under James. I've never what's kind of sad

is I've never actually hunted with James like that. You know, he's, uh, he's in great shape for his age, but he's he's not he's not like he was when he was forty or fifty, you know, And so we've not been able to do it together. But but I've got mules. He used horses, and he told me how he hunted and what he did, and you know he basically he would pack.

He would use his horse to and put panniers over it with your big pouches that drape over a riding saddle, which is key, and you'd carry all your supplies and walk the horse in. And we're not hunting. This is not like the West. We do not have the big, vast country that the West has. So you know, you might be walking in two to five miles and carry all your stuff with you, and then when you get there,

you make your camp. And then once you get to camp and you have all your stuff unloaded, you've got a riding saddle on your animal, and you can use that animal to ride, or you can just leave your animal at camp and use it to haul everything out, including aim, which is exactly what we did. I mean we not to give away the not to give away too much here, Mark, but I mean we we kind of pulled it off just the way we hoped we would, and it it's fantastic and it's a it's a fun

I'm not gonna say it's the most efficient way. I'm not gonna say it's the best way, but you know, with the way that we hunt. We absolutely every one of us there gets to choose the way we want to do something, and that is valuable. And to me, this kind of hunting is valuable partly because of how much I love James, but but also because this is the most This is the way that guys would have been doing it back in the early eight hundreds when

they were market hunting, digger and bear, you know. So yeah, yeah, I want to dig into that more, but maybe a little later, since we only have Tyler for little bit, I want to I want to kind of pick your brain. Tyler. We you know, we got to bring you in on this and you got to meet James and you get

to see and hear his stories. And then you were following along with us, capturing the experience as me and Clay did what he just described, which was we threw our gear on the mule on day one and we hiked into this big stretch of public land, hiked all the way in, set up camp. What what was your impression of this as we got kicked off? Um, well, it was great to go meet James, you know, and from the beginning kind of got just seeing his uh,

his garage full of you know, antlers and deer. Got fired up thinking it was going to be low to a deer, but as we got kicked off, it was a little slow. Um, and maybe I was a little bit sorry about you know it, Um, I was a little bit uh because you didn't see much much sign of deer. So I was maybe a little bit um over zealous by seeing his garage and all the success he had. Granted that was over fifty sixty years of

hunting or more. I can't remember how old he was or when he started hunting, but it was it was cool to do it in this you know, as you're saying, it's kind of it's not Western style but kind of long hunting style to go out in camp and check out the landscape. But it was definitely Uh. After a couple of days of scouting and hiking around, I was a little bit nervous that we were in a success. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, James, his wall, he said,

is a lifetime resume there. It definitely did give me even more hope than I was expecting because I thought, going into this man, this is going to be really hard. We're not going to see deer or very many at least and uh, you know, if if somehow this happens, it's gonna be a miracle. And then we go to James's place, take a look at his his wall there, and he starts telling some stories, and all of a sudden I started thinking, Man, maybe it's better down here

than I realized. Um, but we we we get up the next morning, we load up, go to a trail head and then you know, throw the panniers on the mule, load all of our stuff on there. We've got camping gear, we've got hunting gear. I'll tell you. One thing I was surprised by, Clay was the fact that you run your climbing sticks unattached, just randomly thrown all over the place and not back. Come on, Mark, come on, I

should have known this was gonna come up. I gotta give you a little gotta give you a little crap for that one. Well, I wouldn't say that that's entirely that's not my always m O. But sometimes you gotta stick them where you can stick them. When you got a you know, paniers and you're trying to just cram stuff and little little nooks and crannies. We caught it.

We cat also carrying them. Sorry, go aheady. We also were caring on a lot of camera gear on your mule was caring a lot of camera gear too, So you're just probably trying to We're trying to just stuff anything we could in that mule. Oh yeah, thank your mule for that. Yeah, meal was super handy for all the heavy equipment we were bringing in there. And Uh, I just thought it was really neat to get to I've never done that. I've never been with any kind

of stock animal, horse or mule going into hunt. I don't Yeah, I don't think I've ever done that. So just having the the added benefit of that was neat. And then there's just a certain I mean kind of how you talked about Clay, how this whole style of hunting is a throwback and it's it's much more for the experience than just the efficiency. Um. I just felt a certain lure to hiking into the mountains with with a critter like that, just felt like I was tapping

into something different, something old, or something richer. Uh that. I just remember walking in that morning and you know, we hid. We headed in at first light, so the sun was still rising. It was a beautiful orange sunrise on the horizon. I remember the color of the sky was was really notable. And We're hiking along and I'm hearing the click click click click click cluck kind of slowly working behind me, and it was just I just

remember smiling. I have a distinct memory of just smiling and and thinking in my head, man, this is this is it? Like this is pretty cool? And and it was. We hiked in there, got to a spot where you thought would be a decent place to set up a spike camp, and we threw up tents and put your mule on the line. And then the idea was to try to get a late morning scouting slash hunting session

in before before actually having an evening hunt. And the idea was to spend this part of the day with you, Clay, see what you do, see what your perspective would be on the landscape. UM, you would kind of share with me everything you think I should be thinking about, the ideas, the strategies, the tactics that might work here. UM, show me around. And then after that I was going to head out on my own. So you and myself and then our two Cameramon Tyler and another guy, Joe took

off for hike. Um, do you want to walk me through you know, what was on your mind? Like, what was it that you wanted to show me? What were the most important ideas or tips or concepts that you in your mind were thinking, Man, you've got to get this across the mark for him to have success. What were those key things as we were walking out there.

You know, first of all, when you're hunting like this or any kind of backcountry hunting, where you're camping and hunting, is you want to pick a campsite that is far enough away from where you feel like the game is that you're not going to spook them, but also not so are away that you wear yourself out coming back and forth the camp. And Uh, I'd say we got close to right. We probably I like to be about a half a mile from where I think I'm gonna hunt.

Because what you found out because you guys ended up going in further than we anticipated, mark, is that you guys were hiking like a mile and a quarter or something to get to where you were hunting, or actually

to the farthest place eventually. Yeah, and and that's a little bit too far just to utilize to just be efficient, but you kind of gotta it'd be better to be conservative than not, because when you bring in an equine animal, you're bringing in a little more disturbance than they're used to and you have a camp and you know you might have a fire. So that was number one. And we were on a big, big, long ridge top and essentially why I brought you there was we were gonna

hunt saddles. And these saddles are essentially low spots, low swags, like the seat of a saddle in between two high points on a ridge. So if you have a if you have a long ridge, that ridge is not gonna be just flat all the way across the top. It's gonna kind of go up and down and up and down, and those low spots, deer that are traveling from let's say the north side to the south side of the

mountain are gonna travel through those saddles. And any given ridge might have multiple saddles on it, and that's what we were trying to capitalize on that. And I said this before to mark there in any given set of mountains, there are probably ten things that deer do every single day that is predictable. So this is just one of the things that they do, and you're trying to calculate the amount of time you have to hunt, and a I bet a deer is gonna do this one thing

during the time I'm hunting. And what we were doing was hunting saddles. And the reason I like the saddles high on these ridges is that the wind that's consistent. Typically, if you get off down on the side of the mountain automatically, your wind is much less predictable, and there are ways to predict what will do and you can hunt the sides of mountains effectively, for sure. But that

was the main thing. And what I was hoping to find was signed in some of these saddles, and the deer aren't gonna make a ton of sign right in the middle of a saddle necessarily, you know, there might, but but we were looking forward. We were hoping to find some rubs. I was hoping to find a big scrape. And one of the saddles we came through, which we really didn't, but we walked three quarters of a mile or so and found just a little bit of bucks on a few acorns. And I had seen some year

in that area the weekend before. I've done a little bit of scouting before, and so we felt like there were some deer in the area, but certainly it's not the kind of place with your typical standards for assessing deer sign You wouldn't go there and go, Holy cow, this place is smoking hot. I mean at all? Would

you agree, Mark? And I think one of that that was one of the biggest takeaways for me from our our morning spent together, was that you kept reiterating to me, you know, don't expect Michigan sign or Iowa sign or whatever. You know. One I think I think we decided we need to make a chart or something where we would say, one Arkansas rub equals ten Michigan rubs, one Arkansas scrape equals fifteen Michigan scrapes, or something like that, because it's

just so different. And I think that if you hadn't told me that, I would have been much less confident in these areas. I would have been thinking, man, we gotta keep looking because there's there's nothing here. You know, one scrape means nothing to me at home, um, But to me or to you, you're saying, hey, one scrape here equals a lot back home. So that was very eye opening and helpful for me. And you know, I want to reiterate to that this was what I would

call interior mountain hunting. Like you could go down into other areas in that county closer to disturbance, you know, whether it be clear cuts where the cattle pastures, whether there was you know, human disturbance and creating edge and different stuff, and you would find just number one, more deer and so they would leave more sign. So this was interior mountain honey, which is where there's the least

amount of deer. But that's just where we were, so we kind of knew what to expect, you know, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, but I'd say that that was the main thing we were working on here, and you know, just hunting these mountains, there's other there's other things that you can look for, you know, benches, the heads of these big holl us, so there's big, big long finger big long ridges, and they have fingers that fall off

these ridges, the heads of hollows. A lot of times there's game trails and these fingers that fall off ridges are typically you'll find there might be a mile a mile long ridge and there might be five fingers that fall off of that ridge, and you might scout those fingers and and find one finger that has some buck sign and some acorns, and you know, deer move up and down that mountain on that finger. That would be a good strategy. But there's a lot of things you

could do. But we were hunting high saddles. Can you can you elaborate a little bit on how you like to hunt the saddles, because that was one of the things like as we started walking along and you were talking about the importans in these saddles, which is something that James had reiterated as well. Um, you know the thing I was wondering the most of I was like, Okay, there's a few saddles out here, I'm gonna scout them. I'm likely going to spend some time in them. But

what's the smartest way to actually set up on one? Um, That's where my head very quickly jumped up to what were your thoughts on that when you're sitting one of these what's the right way to think about how you position yourself, how you think about wind, how you expect

dear to move through them, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so you just have to predict the wind, based upon the prevailing wind direction and the forecast, you know, and if the winds out of the north, you're gonna want to sit set up on the on the southern edge of the saddle. So you know, I mean, if you if you envision the saddle just as like a square, you know, I mean, it's got there's there's for four

directions that you could go. You know, you would you would set up on the the down wind side of the saddle, hug that side, and then your access point, whatever side of the saddle you're coming into it from. You're gonna try not to walk through that saddle because ground sit in the mountains is is critical because these deer don't they're not smelling humans very often. And you know, you can try to cover your ground scent. You can, there's stuff you can do, but still you you hope

to not have to cross through. So the ideal situation is that you would slip into a saddle and you would go to the favor hug the favorable side so that you know, eighty percent of the places that deer travels if he comes through that saddle, You're gonna be good on wind and you just gotta be able to see. You just that's the main thing. You just you just gotta be able to see as much as possible in

that saddle. And if you hunt these saddles year after year a lot, you you'll learn, Okay, the deer typically hug that side over there, and maybe there would be nothing that would indicate that that's just a inside of this micro environment. That's typically what they do. And the saddles that you were hunting were pretty big, bigger than most, you know, I think you could have probably shot a hundred hundred plus yards and lots of places you were hunting,

which isn't entirely normal. Usually you're hunting a saddle that maybe it's forty fifty yards across, you know, you can almost you could bow hunted almost. So those are the main things mark just visibility to be able to see all the way across it, and then just getting where the wind is most favorable. Yeah, okay, so here's another thing.

Then when it comes to these setups, I recall another one of these questions I had was when do you set up and post up in a spot like this and hunt a saddle versus doing what James had done a lot in the past. And which you know, we were talking about a lot with him, and you and I were talking about which was still hunting through these places, so actually creeping, creeping through the mountains on foot hoping

to see one. And you had told me, well, you know, you know, that's what James does, and sometimes you do that, but you also like to get up actually in a climbing saddle, you know, up at a tree and hunt a saddle to which is what we just described. Um, can you elaborate on that, you know, why you choose to sit up in a tree more often than still hunt and why James maybe still hunted a lot, uh and less so posted up. What's your take on that? You know, I think a lot of that is just

personal preference. You know, you just have so much time to hunt, and and James spent a lot of his time still hunting on the ground, moving and a lot of that was just personal preference. But I think I would do that more, and do that more at the beginning of a hunt when I'm trying to scout, because that the great thing about being mobile on the ground is and still hunting is that you are hunting, so you're in the game, you know. But you're also scouting.

And what I would do is I might still hunt for a morning and all of a sudden find what I'm looking for, you know, find that saddle that's got some sign in it, and I go, Okay, if I sit here for two days, I'm gonna kill a deer and and then get up in a tree and hunt. Um so, and I think to James back, James was most actively still hunting in the sixties, seventies and eighties,

and they're just weren't a lot of deer. So I think he learned that, man, I could I can sit on the side of this mountain or in a tree for a long time and not see a deer, I gotta go find one. I think now that we have more deer, it's probably not as critical to move, and it's a little it's just more conservative to just setting a tree and wait for him. I think that's probably the the real story, you know what I mean? Now?

That said, though, I know that you have done some of it, and James talked to you a lot about it, so you know, if one were to want to steal on which was one of the things I did want to do a little bit. Um what's here like one of the best practices when try to do that, or at least you know, what's the things that have worked for you or that you think are important when doing that kind of thing. Because that was that was one of the deals I was hadn't spent any time doing

in the past. I was particularly interested in seeing like, Okay, could this kind of thing work out here? So James was almost exclusively still hunting using a firearm, whether it was a muzzleloader or during the rifle season. And number one, you got to get the wind in your favor, so you pick where you're gonna go based upon the wind direction.

Number Two, you're moving, you're moving slow through You're moving very slow through areas where you feel like there could be dear So maybe you you know, you get out of your truck and you walk to hundred yards regular speed, you know, and you get back there and you start seeing a little bit of sign, you slow down. James has said many times to me that because the biggest question you have when you're doing this, well, these deer can hear me walking and dry leaves? Why am I

not spooking every animal around here? And uh? And he just said, you know, deer walk and make noise. But what deer do is they take a series of steps and then they stop. They take a series of steps and then they stop. And he said, you can about walk right up to a deer if you do that, And it makes sense. I mean, we've all watched deer and deer's out there feeding and it hears something, what does it do? It picks up its head and it watches and after some time it puts its head back down.

And you know, you obviously you're not trying to get right up on the deer. You're just trying to get within sight of the deer. And he's had a lot of success doing that. And I can't say that I have. I'm not. I've just not spent a ton of time still hunting like that. Nine percent of the time I'm I'm stand hunting the mountains or hunting on the ground. Just and uh. But then number what I've asked him several times is how do you know when to walk fast,

when to walk slow? How much time to spend? And he just kind of laughs and he says, you know, you just go with your gut, you know, And he said, I might I might spend a day inside of a quarter mile stretch, but always moving just a little bit, you know. Um, but he also might might walk much further than that. And there are times when when he's moving fast, times when he's moving slow, you know, using rises.

Probably the final thing that I hear him talk about is using these rises and changes in topography to just creep over just you know, if you get a little flat and you kind of come up to that flat, you know, just creep your eyes over and just go real slow while your body is being shielded by the train. Just kind of probably standard standard stuff that Western spot and stock guys would understand. So so we did a

little bit of both of those things. I'll uh foreshadow here a little bit and and say that we did some of the stand hunting up in the saddle up in a tree, and then we also tried some of this creeping along still hunting stuff. And before we lose Tyler, he's on a plane and about to leave. I do want to get Tyler you're quick perspective on what you thought about the two different styles of hunting without giving

away what actually happened. Um, what did you think about getting up into his saddle for the first time in hunting in a tree. That was something we had to teach you like that week. What do you think about that versus when we were doing the creep along still hunting. What was your experience of those two things? Um, well, yeah, it was. It was fun to get up in the

tree and learn that process. But you know, as I've done a lot more filming on hunts in you know, the West where you're hiking around and and so I after, you know, I have a little bit of a do after a few hours in the tree and we weren't really seeing much. I was like thwilling my thumbs a little bit. But the spotting stocks was fun. Um, you know, definitely that like you were talking about, you know, like like James said, moving like a deer. Um, take a

few staffs stop, take a few steps stop. We had that program going where I was what twenty yards behind you bark and then I was just I was just trying to film you from afar and like and just kind of walking you off and do the uh you know, just be the deer, and just I kind of enjoyed that.

It was nice, you know, walking a beautiful part of the country, even though we weren't really seeing much of the time, but both were you know, had their I mean we weren't seeing much deer and either either scenarios. But you know, there was when you're stuck up in the tree, you uh, I feel like You're like, hey, maybe there's something over there, and maybe I have that like scatter brain mentality where I'm like, you know what,

we should go check something else out. But once you're in the tree, you're kind of you're there, right if you guys know better than anybody. But so yeah, we uh I kind of say I would hear the spot and stock to send the cameraan because you're moving around all the more. But but it was they were not you know, both not really say we weren't seeing there. So either way we were doing it, we were not seeing dear so you could walk around and look for deer or stand tree on my saddle and results. Yeah.

Well that was kind of a nice thing about it, was that it was actually, um, you know, we had those options. So in some hunts where you're just stuck doing one thing, you're you're just stuck with it and that's the way to do it, and you have a certain level of I don't know if it's stress, but just um discontent. Knowing that well, there's no other change you can make in this case, at least, you know, I was able to said, well, let's change it up, and then you get this new boost of enthusiasm, a

little bit more excitement and optimism again. And you know, and that's that's actually what we did, because we hunted that first night in the saddle. I was able to sneak in down this ridge, got to one of these saddles. It had been a spot where we were when we were scouting that first morning. We found one little, tiny little rub that was the only sign we found. Um,

So I thought, well, there's this little rub. There were a bunch of acorns in the ridge back behind us, and then now here's this saddle, so let's let's watch it. So you and me and Joe all climbed up into trees sat up there that night and at you know, the last half hour of daylight. So we did have one dough move across the saddle way off in the distance, and uh, you know, I thought that was that was encouraging to at least see a deer um. But the next morning we sat the same spot and saw nothing.

And so this is where having these other options was pretty appealing, because after seeing one deer over the course of a lot of hours sitting in that tree, you know, it was pretty easy for me to say, all right, well, we've got another card we can pull here, let's get on the ground, let's still hunt, let's scout, and let's try to find something. You know, that's that's a little bit more um oh, that's a little bit more promising. So we had that option, which which definitely helped helped

a lot. That's a good point about having those I didn't really think about it like that, but like getting that new enthusiasm from having to get a couple of options. I mean in the moment, I didn't really think about that, but that it's to the good point. But it also can make the itch to switch mode is a little bit too. You know, you're like, okay, this is working. You know, you can get a little bit that way. But we saw a fox that morning. I forgot about that.

That was cool to see that. That was that was a cool encounter. So so yeah, like you know, like me and Tyre were saying, it's it's nice to have these options and these things to work with. UM. And after that that first morning, on the second day, I decided to get out of the tree and kind of poke around a little bit more. UM. You know, one thing, Clay that we haven't talked about but but did actually

feature into our scouting was looking for acorns. UM, can you elaborate a little bit on how important acorns are and this part of the country and this specific scenario, because you know, I remember thinking two things. There are two things that really well, three things that stood up to me if there was like the big three that was in my mind the entire time I was hunting on my own after spending time with you and James. It was one, trust your terrain feature that being the settle.

Number two was remember sign here is different, so don't get you know, too concerned by the lack of it. And number three was acorns. Why is that so important? What are you looking for when it comes to that? I remember when we were walking around, you spent a lot of time looking at the ground and looking at acorns and analyzing the acorns you found. Um, what was your take on that? So you're always looking for trends

with acorns? I mean that any anybody around here. If you were just to walk up to a deer hunter in the store, their high probability you would say, you got any acorns over there, or you know, acorns falling yet, because that is just a key food source for when we're hunting and talking with talking with some of these biologists that I know this part of the country really well. It's interesting because acorns in the broad scheme of a white tail's diet are not as critical as we feel

like they would be. But the time we're hunting them, it is. You know, it's there. It's their primary food source or what they're their preferred food source. And so during October November, that's what we're looking for his acrons

and man acron mast. Predicting acren mast, even with our best science, is very, very difficult, and so I love hearing guys talk about acrons because all all through the summer, you know, it would be like, man, we had a frost and April and you know, my rooster crowed three times that morning, and I think the acorns are gonna make up high, you know, and we have all this anecdotal evidence for why the acrons are gonna make in certain places and that's important because what happens in these

mountains is that, well, actually I believe i've I've heard that two out of five years you will have a very good crop of acrons in this part of the world. So in a good crop of acrons isn't always good, because a good crop of acorns might mean that there's acrons in all portions of the elevation changes in the mountains. You know, there's acrons the pie, there's acrens in the middle, there's acorns down low. What you're the best case scenario

is that there's acorns in in pockets. There's there's sections of the mountain that have a lot of acrons and other sections that don't. And so that's what I was looking for. But then there's these other obscure years, which I would call this you're kind of obscure, is that it's really hard to predict where they were gonna be.

There were there were there were acrens up high where we were hunting, but not a lot, not really enough to just draw the deer in and just be like, this is where the deer gonna be because there's acrens um there were some acrons down low. There were some akrons of pie. It was hard to predict. So really what we're hoping is on any given year that you could say with certainty, man, the acorn is made up high and so that's where all the game is gonna be.

So yeah, that's kind of a descripture of what we're the way we're thinking and talking down there. You know, now, I remember you grabbing acorns like you. You spend a good amount of time when we did find acorns looking at them, grabbing them, scratching them with your knife, um, examining the husks, all that kind of stuff that the nut Ah and you were talking about. Well, I think this means that they're fresh, or they're not fresh, or you think this means the deer was eating them versus

a squirrel or something. There's probably a lot of folks that have never taken the time to examine an acorn and really read what the story is there. Can you can you tell me what you were looking for and what you know, what details helped you determine what actually was happening or how recently it happened. Yeah, So I was looking for fresh acorns that fell this year, and I think what can happen is well, first of all, there's there's to two types of oak trees that we're

dealing with. We're dealing with red oaks and white oaks. White oaks fall and they sprout basic rely immediately and so they'll send out a root shoot down and they'll and then in the spring they'll send the shoot up. But what that means is that a white oak acre and begins to break down really quickly as soon as it hits the ground. That's important. Number two, the red oaks. The red oaks lay on the ground through the whole

winter and don't start to sprout until the spring. And so what that means is that there's a there's a shorter window of time that a white oak acre and is laying on the ground. And a white oak acre and will not last through the winter. It will rot or or you know when it when it sprouts, it essentially becomes not as edible to an animal. Okay, a red oak acre and falls on the ground and it'll lay there and in March it'll look and in the meat will be just as good as it was when

it fell. And October and so what can happen mark is when you have a bumper crop of red oak acorns. They will persist. They just they just last longer on the ground. And you might be looking at a red oak acre and from two years ago that the hole still looks good, but it's actually rotten on the inside, just because it it didn't sprout for whatever reason, the acren didn't turn into a tree and it wasn't eaten.

And you'll be walking through the woods and see a whole acren laying on the ground and it is of no value to wildlife. So I you know, you pick up an acre and you try to determine if it's from if it's this year and it's good food for wildlife, or it's last year's haul that's empty. And so the way you can tell is just the weight of it.

You know, old acre is gonna be phil hollow, and then you crack it open and you know it's just mush on the inside and and uh, you crack open a good acren and you have this white acorn nutty me inside of it. And I think a lot of guys, if they're not really paying attention, might go into an area and think, man, I saw a lot of acorns, Well, they saw last year's acrens. You know that that's that's the long version of what I was doing. And then you're also trying to look into in the trees as well,

especially the time of year we were there. We were there in mid October, so there were still acorns in the trees, and an acorn in the tree is actually as valuable as an acorn on the ground, because that means that tomorrow that stand is gonna be as good as it is today or maybe better because sometimes and and there's so many variables and acron production, different trees produced different amounts. So you still have two white oaks

that look the exact same there are twenty yards apart. Genetically, one of those might be better than the other and just produce more acrens there. You know, there's some unfavorable advantage to that one being there and that one being there. And there's a lot of oh that I did a podcast with with Craig um Harpologists Craig Harper, Yeah, Craig Harper, University of Tennessee. We did a whole nerd out session on acorns and oak trees and it's just fascinating the production,

how they produced and whatnot. But you know. So, so we're walking through the woods and you know, if you've got bunoculars, you can look up in some of these trees if you can get side of the canopy. But you know, you're looking up hoping to see a bunch of acorns in a tree, you know. Um, so that's yeah, that's the acorn story. You said that one acorn in the tree is as valuable as and acorn on the ground. I feel like there's some kind of like saying there. You know how they say, like a bird in the

hand is better than two in the bush or whatever. Well, there's there's gotta be some way we can relate to an acorn in the trees a valuables and acorn on the ground. There's something there about life we could figure out some day. Ye yep. But yeah, so we're looking for a corns. Found some, but not a lot. Uh acorns? Sorry, uh and uh. He did the saddle the first evening, saw the one dough hunted there again in the morning,

saw nothing. And so I thought to myself, well, I only have two two days or two and a half days left, and I was I was worried about sitting anyone place for a whole lot of time, given how little I had to work with. UM, So I thought, all right, well, let's let's try to poke around a little bit more here, explore and and try the still hunting thing. And so that's what I did that afternoon. Meanwhile,

you had left and you were hunting a totally different area. Um. Was there anything of note that you saw or that you did when you were hunting on your own? Um, that might be, you know that were there any things that you were doing that were different than what I was doing that it might be useful to understand about different ways of hunting this train. You know, Mark, what I primarily did the whole time you were hunting was I was. I was scouting. For the most part. I

did very little sitting. I think I hunted one afternoon where I stayed in the same spot for you know, four hours and didn't move. The entire rest of the time I was, I was on my mule and I was just covering a bunch of ground, just trying to find I went into some new areas. Um. So I was. And the reason I wasn't hunting with you is I didn't want to get in the way or use up

some potential spots that you would use. So you know, I was at camp with you at least one night there, but I had gone off and I didn't really find anything encouraging during the three days that I was stomping around. And honestly, I don't even think I saw I do not believe that I even saw it deer. And I mean I went miles and miles on that mule. And if you're on the back of a mule, if you see a deer, you're just gonna spook it most of

the time. But if you see deer, that's a day to point, a very good day to point of Okay, there was a deer there at nine fifteen this morning, So why is he there? And you know, will it be there tomorrow or would there be more deer through here today? You know, so just scouting, speaking of that, speaking of you, Scotty on your mule, I remember I was worried. One of the things I was worried about out there was how do these deer react to human presence?

Because you know, there's some places where deer are super kg about, you know, walking around there, and if if you walk through an ara once that might you know, shut them down. There's other places where they're so used to people being around that it's not as big as a deal. Um. I remember thinking, man, we're hiking, you know, to get to that first settle. As a mile and

a half to get to that first settle, I hunted something. Man, I just hiked a mile and a half across this ridge and I just laying down a ground trail that will eliminate all this area behind me the whole time. And then later after that two days of hunting or the two sets of hunting and seeing nothing, and then I decided, okay, I want to do some still hunting and explore more. I want to scout more to figure

this out. In the back of my mind, I was also constantly asking myself, well, how far can you push it without spook and stuff too much? I was always trying to I just didn't have the context or history to know, like how sensitive our deer in a big woods area like this on public land to to me being here or me having been there yesterday. What's your

take on that? What's your experience been? Are they forgiving or you know, once you walk through an area hunting area once or twice, it's it's going to be shot. You know, I would say these deer probably somewhere in the middle of that pendulum. You know, there's certainly not forgiving. But at the same time, I think this is not true wilderness in this in the very by definition it's not.

And so these deer experienced humans coming through there. And you know, you're always trying to minimize the amount of scent that you're leaving. And I've I've had a lot of different responses from deer with ground scent, you know, I mean, I've had and I know you have to mark. I mean, sometimes you walk into a stand and you know, an hour later a deer just walks right over your ground scent and doesn't even show any sign of nervousness.

And at other times you walk in and you know you've done whatever you're gonna do for sent control, whether it's you know a lot of times I just stomped my feet into the dirt and try to get dirt up on my boots. Sometimes I like using cover sense to cover ground scent, whether that's doe, estris or something not an attractant. Well, not estra stough. I think you can use estra stough, but a doe dough, urine, synthetic dough you're in just something that's not gonna spook them.

Or if you're hunting in areas with livestock walking through you know, whatever you got there, cattle, cattle, uh, cattle droppings, whatever, you know, get that on your scent on your boots and cover that ground center because you are leaving ground scent wherever you're going. But boy, it's just unpredictable. But I wasn't too worried about us walking through those saddles and and dear and if you did it every day

for a week. Yeah, I was more concerned about just our scent, especially with Camberman and whatnot, just blowing off down the side of the mountain and settling down into where those deer were bedding and then going like, hey, there's like five guys up on top of the mountain. So so this this is the perfect place then to dive into the thorny controversial topic of scent control. Clay,

I feel like I've been targeted. Yeah, well we've talked about in the past a little bit, but I feel like, you know, since we spent some time together in Arkansas and then you know, we're doing a whole one week in November show where uh you dove into this topic a little bit, uh, accusing accusing me of being like a bag of pooh and thinking that, yeah, the bag sent for you, but the pooh inside the bag isn't. I think you made some kind of analogy like that,

So I may have. I wasn't directly targeting you, though, Mark. So here's here's what I want to get your perspective on. You and me were talking about this a little bit with your dad too, and um when we we actually stayed at your parents house one night in between trips, and uh, you you told me that your position on scent control has actually evolved a little bit and that you understand my perspective maybe a little more than you

did even months ago or a year or something. Can you can you give me a the what your stance on scent control has been over the last you know, five to ten years or whatever, and then be what is your slightly evolved perspective as of right now if

that's still true? May it's not true? Yeah? Now, basically, my dad grew up inside of the he came of of fruition in his hunting world right at the time that commercial scent control products began to come out in the early to mid nineties, so he used them extensively.

So I grew up with a I mean you you Mark, he could go up to Michigan with you right now and hunt and you and him would I really feel like beyond like the exact same page with every just the very detail oriented sent control you know, not dressing, not using your hunting clothes in the truck, not you know, pulling your rubber boots out of a scent contained box with baking soda. I mean like he, he did it to the fullest extent. So I grew up hunting that

way for years, years and years and years. And when I went to Call and kind of left the Gary Newcomb deer camp, it was it was more an issue of just practicality, Like I had limited amount of time to hunt, limited money to buy sent control products, and I started hunting different though than he did because of terrain. I started hunting uh private land where we were hunting the same stands over and over based on terrain features

in these lands. And I pretty much just was like the wind's blowing out of the south if I'm setting in that tree. It doesn't matter what I smell like. And so I started not using sent control practices and and I really poke fun. And if your people are listening to this and they've heard me, I love to poke fun at people because I think it's fun. I think it's fun to argue about this stuff because it is so insignificant in the sense of this is really

if this is our biggest problem in life. If your biggest problem is deciding whether you should use syn control or not, that you've got a fantastic life, you know. So that's why this is a fun topic. But it's highly divisive. So but my comments are not lightly spewed out there just from you know, two seasons of anecdotal evidence. Basically, I started not using scent control and just hunting the wind, and I killed deer, you know, I mean it just

it just didn't matter. If the wind is predictable, you know where the deer are gonna be, you know, seventy percent of the time, it doesn't matter what you smell like. That's just the bottom line. So that's the way I hunted real hard for lots of years. And then I was like, I recognized the amount of energy effort, time, money that people were putting into scent control, and I was kind of like, hey, you don't have to do that, just use the use the in Okay. That So that

that's section one. Section two is this idea which you have, and and I agree with this. There there are things you can do. There's science behind some sent control products that probably reduce your human odor, that do reduce your human od that's science. What Clay Nucom says is that in his experience, I have not found that amount that it does reduce your scent to be a functional value in the field. And that's kind of where I stand.

That being said, Um, I mean, I just think because I'll tell you two years ago, I started kind of getting back into hunting a specific deer is what it was. I had a big deer that was on some really small properties, and so I thought, man, I'm gonna dial the scent control back up. Let's just try it, let's

just go all in. So two years ago, uh, I started washing my clothes, all the all the clothes, and set free bags, baking soda in the in the bags, pine and cedar chips in there, using the spray, using ozone products. And now this might be anecdotal. The first time that I put all my energy back into sent control, I went out and had dear smell me at daylight. And I'm not kidding Mark and I I almost took it as a sign just like you're wasting your time. Uh really it just had deer just blow at me

that just hardly got down wind. And I was just like, I think it's because he go in the woods with a gallon of tuna fish with you every day I do. This is gonna be used against me. No, No, see at the at at the sick Control, I wouldn't have done that. You know, I wouldn't have done it. Um No, so can't Can you reduced human odor with these products? Yes? I do. I believe you can. Um do the ozone products work. I have a hundred percent believe the science of ozone. I mean it works. What I have yet

to find is to work real consistently in the field. Um. I am swayed when people tell me that it works, like I had. I've had two guys in the last week and they didn't know kind of my banter about this, and they were like, yeah, man, I started using ozonics when I was in a in a in a deer blind and I stopped getting smelled. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I sorry to argue with that. Also, there's a ton of guys that I know that have had the same thing,

the same scenario, and it not work. I guess my my philosophy is that there's only so much energy, effort, time and money that we can put into hunting. And I'm always looking for limiting factors inside of hunting. What is the real the real problem, What is the real thing that keeps you from being successful? And I have found for me that it is not that sent control products are not in the sphere of things that make

my success rate go way up. That that's all um, that and and and and then I guess the other core component of what I'm saying is that, yes, sent control products can reduce your scent, but I do not think that as significant in the field. Because if clay Nukem is it a odor with no scent control, wind is blowing forty yards away a deer, a doe walks through,

my scent blows smells me like crazy. Scenario to Clay Nukem using full throttle scent control using ozone products deer walks forty yards down from his scent into his into his wind. I find that, dear still spooks, you know, I mean it just it just still spooks. Now, was there less out or yeah? Did the deer? How did that dear interpret that? I don't know, but I've not seen that, dear. Just go, well, he's probably not there. He's probably he was probably here two hours ago, and

then just walk through it. So anyway, no, So Mark, aside from me, like, I'm not trying to incite argument, like what what do you think about that? Do you think? What would you say? Yea? So, so first I will acknowledge that you're you're onto like something that makes a lot of sense and that I grew with in in a lot of ways, which is sevent the time when the winds predictable, you don't need to worry about sent

at all, and it's it's not a big deal. And you know, it depends on how much energy you want to put into it, and if the return on that energy is not worth it, especially if scent of the time, you know, the end is just the way you want it, and you can play the wind and deer will never be down wind of you, then you're great and you're

gravy and your gold and then it's fine. And I also understand that there's certain situations where you simply can't pull off a strong scent control regimen because of the limiting factors of the hunt. Like the hunt that we did in Arkansass that we're talking about, there's no way I could have really practice cent control because we're camping up there for a week. You know, you're sleeping in the same stuff and the tent you're having, Like, even

if we wanted to, it would be nearly impossible. And if we did want to try to practice scent control on that hunt, it would be miserable. Um, you know, can't have a fire, can't you know? You have to have all sorts of different clothes and try to bring extra storage to keep stuff clean, and try to bring all this extracent control stuff. It's just not realistic in a situation like that. So in that scenario, I get it,

like it's just not gonna work. Um. But and and to the point you made in the One Week in November episode, You're like, hey, you can do everything you want to the bag, but if there's a bunch of crap in the bag. The deer is still gonna smell you, right, And you were saying the bag is like all your clothing and try and keep that scent free. Doesn't change the fact that there's a stinky human in that bag.

All of that is true. All that is true and accurate, and all that I think makes it really hard for cent. It makes it really really hard, nearly impossible to keep deer from smelling you. That's said, Yes, seventy percent of the time there's consistent winds or seventy percent of the time, you know where deer are gonna be, and you know you can just make sure your wind is safe. What I'm worried about is that other thirty percent of the time.

And you mentioned how right right for you? You're limiting factor isn't the wind. There's all these other bigger problems

you need to deal with to kill a deer. Well, what if I've already checked the boxes and all of the other things, and what if I'm hunting in the place where Man, it's that you just don't know where the deer are gonna because there's so many deer here and it's unpredictable how they move or there's shifting winds um or or guess what these are wild animals And and yes, seventy percent of the time that buck is going to go out in front of me through the

pinch point. But what about that one time on November seven when he does something crazy and he comes behind me in the place I've never seen the buck go before. What do you do in that situation when you are only counting on the wind being in your favor and you didn't do anything else. I'm worried about these little things, those little moments. Where can I stop you right there because I've got a question that that's a fantastic example.

But have you seen dear be dead down wind of you within yards that you honestly knew that they got your wind, but they went ahead and walked through it. And let me let me put a caveat on that too. I think there wind is so un scent and wind are so unobservable by human senses. We can't smell at that level. Number one, Number two, you can't see it

with your eyes. And number three like because I could tell you times when I've seen dear walk dead down mind wind to me and not smell me and it was because the thermals there is because it's something I couldn't see. It wasn't that they that I fooled him because I wouldn't use them sink control. Do you have some real examples of when a deer should have smelled you and didn't because of your sin control practice? Great question, and and so my answer to that is absolutely hundreds

of hundreds of examples of that. But I will preface that by saying that I have if I have hundreds of examples of and maybe maybe it's a dozens, but dozens or hundreds of examples were dear definitely were down wind of me, and I could tell you for a fact that I observed them analyzing the wind. If that's the case, I can also tell you that there are thousands where they got down wind of me and still did wind me. So all this is to say that if you do every if I were, if I do

everything right. So first I'm talking about there's a small percentage of situations where the wind, but we're playing the wind wouldn't help me. Okay, so we're talking about this thirty time, and then within that thirty percent time, if I do everything right, I'm still getting winded maybe on average seven times at ten. So now I'm talking about there's a thirty percent of the time you're hunting where this applies, and then all that only thirty percent of

those times do I actually pull it off. But that is worth it for me. So because if that one time, if I'm just getting five percent better chance of killing a deer or killing the deer I'm after, or whatever it is, that little bump is worth it to me because of the time and energy I invest into all this stuff, and I want that little extra bump. I would if if the one time that this actually works happens to be the time when it's a oh that walks through this down wind hole and she stops and

she sends you know when. The reason why, I can tell you without a doubt, like not anecdote, I can tell you I could point to dozens and dozens of deer that did this. I can tell you with confidence that they were within the cone of my wind and they were considering what's up there is because typically when you're using an ozone product um which helps this a lot, they'll stop, they'll hit your wind trail, and they're win that wind cone and they'll be like, oh, there's something

up there. I've had this happen with ozone. I think also using like a cover like nose jam or something helps with this um where they will hit your wind and they will stop and be like, oh, this is something and they'll stop, they'll lift their nose up, they'll kind of shift their head around, they'll lick their nose, they'll stare in your general direction. And then I've had this happen so many times, and it's like the moment

of truth. You see him hit the wind, and then you sit there and you're thinking, well, what's it gonna be today? Is am I gonna pull it off today? Or no? And you're sitting there on the edge of your seat and one of two things happens. Either they spook like normal and you're like, well, it didn't work today, or they analyze the situation. They sit there, they sniff, they sniff, they lick, they stare, and they say, hmm, there's something up there. I don't know what it is.

It's not enough to really spook, but I don't know. I don't like the situation. And O those turn and walk back the way they came or option number three is they'll do the thing, they'll sit, they'll think, they'll lick, and they'll say nothing, keep going. And I've had all three of those things happen. But I've had enough deer that moved right on through. They analyzed it and deemed

it safe. I've had that happen so many times, Clay that I even though even though seventy percent of the time they don't do that, the thirty percent of the time that they do that is like such a miracle and such a useful thing to me that I want to do all that work to get that of the third percent in time. Um Because if that's a dough with a buck behind her that I end up shooting,

that was worth it. If that's a if that's a if that's a single dough that if she did spook and started blowing, fifteen deer that we're behind her would blow up, or the fifteen deer that are in front of me would blow up in the whole night's screwed. I want to make sure that one deer doesn't spook because that might be the key to everything. Um So, so it's worth it to me, But I do know that it's it's not gonna work most of the time. Even when you do everything right, it's a pain in

the butt. And there's certain situations when it isn't even necessary. All those things are true. Yeah, now that's a I can get behind that mark um for real. You know, we joke a lot about or we we get we act. You know, I've intentionally gone on and on about SA control. I see what you're saying, and and I mean, if you say you've seen that then and you believe you,

then uh, that's great. I think. I think, I think what gets under by and for whatever reason, maybe I'm a jerk and so I key in on stuff like this. But like the guy that you know drove in his truck to his deer stand and gets out and like sprays down with scent shield and is is thinking that he's a hundred percent eliminating his odor. It's just the product just doesn't work that good, you know. But I know how you're doing it, and I know how my

dad does it. And if you if you can go to that level of legitimate scent control, then it could be worth it. But you gotta do a whole bunch of stuff, right, you know, you gotta be you gotta be highly detail oriented, which you're fantastic at. And uh, and so is my dad and and I can be a hund percent to and have been. And so that's a thing if if you're gonna do it is one of those things. If you're gonna do it, you gotta

do it a thousand percent. And then, like you said, to think that you could do that level of stint control and like a hunt we were doing, it's just really not it would I don't know anything is possible,

but it would have been ridiculous to even try. Yeah, Like, like the way I look at it is, Man, if there's any chance I can do this a little bit better, why wouldn't I. It's like, Okay, I know that, like most people, it's hard to guarantee that every single time you take a shot at an animal it's gonna be a perfect shot. Right. I can't tell you that every time it's gonna work perfectly. Right, Some days a deer's gonna do something crazy. Some days I might pull the trigger,

some days the wind might blow it. Like so, if if I were to say, well, since I'm never going to get it perfect, I might as well not practice and try, you know, that doesn't make sense to me, So the same thing goes a win like, well, I know I'm never gonna get my scent control perfect, and no, I'm never gonna get I'm never gonna not gonna get deer spooky me. So I'm not gonna try then like that.

To me, I'm like, no, if I can, if I can get a little better, if me practicing a little bit more this year might improve my odds for the next shot by one percent more, I'm gonna keep practicing more if I can do a little bit more with sent control, and maybe that helps me one percent more two percent more this year. Yeah, I'm gonna try to do that a little more. So that's that's the way I look at it. But I see all sides of it, um, and I definitely definitely agree like man, doing one or

two of these things is basically just a facade. If it makes you feel better, okay, great, it's not going to help you a lot. I think. I think, like you said, you gotta go, You gotta do it all to get some kind of benefit from it. Um. But anyone who tells you that they are one sent free and never ever get winded by deer uh. And never you know, anyone who claims there instable in this regard, I have a really hard time believe in them. Yeah. Now, hey,

here's here's one other this is this, here's one other thought. Mark, if we're talking about statistics, and we're talking about a real world not like on paper, but like real world functional stuff, that's gonna it's gonna make us better. And and we all have to evaluate, like what what do

we have the resources to invest in? Is? And and I guess I guess I'm thinking about what you're saying, is that we are talking about what you just described is a minuscule amount of favorability in your favor if you're really looking at it, because how many times the thirty percent of the thirty percent, how many times do you go hunting in a year and see a shooter

buck twice? And so you're talking about or tell me if I'm wrong, I'm talking about in a thirty year period of time, with those statistics, maybe sent control would help you killed maybe one dear, maybe two dear? Is that is that that right now? And then my my combat the thing that I'm I'm not trying to combat. I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm trying to.

I'm distilling down the way I think I would. I would say, if there's that much energy going into extent control for me to kill one more buck over the period of let's just say ten years, I could take that energy and put it into something else and maybe kill two more bucks. You see what I'm saying. Totally get what you're saying. And and the only uh thing I would offer differently is that I'm not worried just

about like that big mature buck winning me. I really care about every single dell that might win me, because every dough that wins you could be the dough that blows your whole hunt, especially, And that's that's what I'm saying too. It's like, how many times, though, is that gonna play out like that? Because usually a dose spooks or dough walks through your sent and she doesn't have a shooter buck behind her. You see what I'm saying.

I do. But but what I'm more referencing is, and this is because I hunt a lot in high deer density areas, and like, if a dose, even if there's not a buck on the dough, even in early season, next season, yeah, next week. Well, not even that. I'm talking like, if a dough blows out on hunt today, on December whatever, mid December, I'm not worried about they're being buck behind her. But if a doe starts blowing, that's my night. Like if I have one dough start blowing,

my entire night's done. If that happens every single one my hunts, I'll never ever see a mature buck um. And there's so many doughs where I hunt, there's always dough is gonna be done with you. It's nearly impossible in a lot of the places that hunt to ever get a place that's bulletproof from a wind perspective. There's I mean I hunted places where you can see forty night and you just know like eventually something's gonna get

down wind. I mean most of these places, and I you know, there's just a couple of places where you can hunt with a pond. But when you hunt flat country in agg land, where there's not water, there's not big valleys, there's nothing to act as like a blocker for wind where deer won't ever go, you just know,

well it's gonna happen. And so the question is will I have a night where a doe starts blowing and gets down winto me and alerts the entire two acres to my presence, Or can I get away with that dough passing through giving me the benefit of the doubt and then all the other deer that come through up wind to me? Just keep doing the thing that is almost in every single hunt occurrence for me, Clay, and I need those three days out of tend to work out to ever see a mature buck. Yeah, man, that

makes a ton of sense. And that what you just said to about about flat ground, Like almost every place I hunt over here has a significant topographic you know, elevation change, and if you're on the edge of something, you're sent I mean, there's just first of all, there's a high probability they aren't gonna come from that way. You can almost know that, and that your your sin is gonna be blowing off the side of a mountain kind of inconsequentially, you know. So now, and that's a

great point is that apples to apples. Were not comparing apples to apples when we're talking about our white tail hunting, really, you know what I mean? But no, Hey, everything you said is a percent reasonable, Mark, we have done it. We have come to terms here. No longer would it be this hostility between us. I am saying, great job, Mark, Kenyon. I believe you, and and I'm right back at the clay. I can see your perspective on it, and there's it's

it's warranted, and I can totally understand your argument. So the the nasty tension, the oozing disc comfort that we've experienced whenhere around each other, can now be gone. You can just put it to bed. So so okay, moving on from sank control that taking care of Day three or Hunt three or whatever this was. It was the second day of the hunt, but it was the third hunt, so that that's the second morning saw nothing. So I

decided to still hunt that afternoon. And I'm curious what you think about what I did here, Clay, because I decided to move on from that saddle after hunting it and evening in the morning, and I wanted to slowly still hunt my way down this ridge, looking for any new sign, looking for anything that might clue me into there having been a a bit more activity here, and then push on past where you and I had ever

been to before together. Because that that morning before we had gone past the first settle, and we got we got close to the second. There's another settle on the storge. We got to the edge of that and then turned around. In my head, I thought, all right, I'll still hunt my way through that. I'll get to the second saddle, I'll examine it again, and assuming there's nothing new, I'm gonna keep moving and I'm gonna head into new untouched

country and see what I find. Well, what happened is I get I come up out of the first saddle. I get to the side of this ridge, and I remember seeing a bunch of acorns and I was like, cash, I don't remember there being so many acorns here. So I stopped for a second. I was just kind of looking around and thinking. And then I look off to my left and I see a little knob come off of the main ridge that I hadn't noticed the previous morning.

And there's this knob, kind of like a spur point that came off the main ridge, and I noticed it was just thick. For whatever reason, there was not a mature canopy over this little knob, and it was really thick new growth. Some of the thickest stuff that I had seen so far, and I thought to myself, Man, if I were a buck, I would be betting off this little spur ridge that comes off. This's the thickest,

nastiest stuff I've seen yet. And I thought, you know what, let's just watch that, like, let's just edge this way. I had seen all these acorns here and this little spur ridge, and I thought, I'm just gonna kind of edge my way over there and take a look and see what's going on. So I started, I left the main ridge and started dropping off to the side and just really slowly edged my way along and as Tyler described, and Tyler had to leave now because it was flight.

But um, Tyler would be about yards behind me, and then my second cameraman, who we bring these two cameramen to have different angles in different coverage makes it very hard from hunting perspective. But I had him stay back like seventy eight yards and he was getting this far, far distant view. But I just didn't want three of us right together trying to walk through the woods and

making all this noise. Um, So I started just lipping real quietly around this knob because the ridge was heading up to the top of a basically a high point on the bridge, and then there's a little spur that came off there, and so I moved my way through there, and then here's a rub and then I see that, thinking all right, this is this is great. This is only the second rub I've seen. Yet I keep moving a little further another like forty yards, and here's another rub. Man,

this is good. And then I move another like fifty yards around this knob, circling and here's another one. So all of a sudden, I've found three rubs all around this spur point coming off the ridge, and I've been looking at my map and I'm looking at the sign. I'm thinking, okay, this is interesting. And this also happens to be just just at the head of that second saddle.

So I stood there and just glassed that little brushy knob for I don't know, half an hour, maybe watching it and just seeing like maybe could there be a buck bedded down there? And yes, no, I'm not sure, but I watched and watched it, and now we're down to the last hour of daylight maybe, and I thought to myself, well, this is interesting over here, but I

also know there's that saddle just around the corner. So I decided to move edge down just a little bit further so I could see into that saddle as well. And I thought, you know, i've got a gun. This is a muzzle loader hunt. Um I could if I can see down into this valley or this starry of the saddle and then also be tight up next to where this little spur is, maybe that's like the best of both worlds. If there's bucks cruising the side hill

of the ridge, I could take advantage of it. If there's a buck coming off this little point that I thought maybe something might bet on. Given the rubs and everything, I could see that or be within range of that, and then I could also be within sight of the saddle and see if anything was crossing there as I move over. I also remember that when you and I took that first walk through this area, we had found a little scrape right in the top of the ridge in the same zone. So now all of a sudden,

I've got acorns. I have a little scrape, and I have three rubs all right next to the saddle. And as you have described, like one rub equals ten in Michigan. Well, I've just found three plus a scrape that sounds like an amazing concentration assign. Now, Um, so I was encouraged by that, sat down next to a tree on the ground, kind of overlooking all this and figured, all right, I'm

gonna watch it and just see what happens. And sure enough, before dark here comes four does by far like the most dear we'd seen, and they come across that saddle, across the saddle, go to the other side. They're out of range. Um, and this brings up a point that we haven't covered yet, but we should, which is what I was going to target on this hunt. I've been asking you leading into the hunt. You know, what do you think is realistic that I could see? Um? What's

realistic when it comes to bucks? Should I should I try to take a dough? Should I hold out for a buck? Should I hold out for an older buck like I usually? Do? You know what's possible here? And you brought this up with James, or one of us brought us up James two, and he had some really helpful insight. Um, can you just recount what that was and and what your perspective was as far as you know, I had three and a half days or whatever it

was to hunt. What was your perspective? And James is as far as you know, how I should adjust my goals. You know, with three and a half days to hunt, My my advice to you was shoot any legal buck you see or legal deer. And James had the same advice right off, without hesitation, shoot any legal buck you see, you know. And um and boy, anywhere you go in the country, with three and a half days to hunt, you know, your your your odds, there are the odds

are already against you for taking a mature buck. I mean even in some great place, you know. So on this kind of hunt, we were looking for just a legal buck and we hoped, we hoped it would be a nice buck, and that would kind of just be a game of odds, you know. I mean, this is not a place we had cameras up. We didn't. We had no clue what kind of deer were in the area. But so, yeah, you were just looking for for a

legal deer. And you know, I think you would have shot a dough if you would have thought that it was lone and it wasn't gonna you know, it wasn't being followed by a buck, and um, so, yeah, we were just this was kind of a meat hunt, you know, definitely. And when I saw those four doughs, I I even tried to slip closer to them, just on the off chance that maybe they'd come back through, or maybe there'd

be another deer behind them. And and to your point, I had decided that, yeah, getting any deer on this hunt would be a heck of an accomplishment. So I was excited seeing four shooter doughs, um and and yeah that was how that night ended. Though they never came back through, no other deer came through. But I had all of a sudden a lot of confidence in this little area and figure it, Okay, I'm gonna be right

back here first thing in the morning. Maybe adjust my location a little bit closer into the saddle, a little further into the saddle, so if something comes through there like they did, I could get a shop and uh, you know, fast forward to that next morning. That's what I did. I slipped in there before darker, before daylight. I found a spot where I could kind of hunker up next to a tree and hide my cameraman behind

some down logs. And at first light, yeah, pretty soon after first light, here comes some doughs through that same saddle, but they were further back, almost almost out of the saddle. They were kind of side killing it um and still out of range now and kind of passing through some thicker stuff. So they came through, and after I saw that, I thought to myself, well, maybe I need to be deeper into this saddle, because you know, now both of the groups of doughs that I had seen had been

on that farther side of it. So after I don't know, an hour after daylight, now maybe I'm like, okay, let's make an adjustment again one more time. And this is where hunting on the ground I think, really appealed to me on this trip and on some subsequent hunts where I was using a firearm. You know, so often I'd like to be up high and in a tree, But when you've got a gun, you know a lot of you're you're not as um vulnerable to getting spotted by

deer as you are with a bow. When you need that deer to be forty yards away, and you know you have to have them that close to get a shot, that's hard. But if I can kill him at a hundred yards or kill him at seventy yards and see them at that distance. You know, I'm not worried about them seeing me next to a tree on the ground.

And so I had thought to myself at this point, man, the benefit of being able to easily adjust my location, you know, just on like, hey, I need to move and just walk thirty yards, that benefit outweighed the added stealth I would get from being in a tree, just because of how different it would be to move locations to you know, put sticks and stand up and then pull it down, move to another tree, put sticks and get up in there in the saddle again, especially with

cameraman too. So in this case, I mean, I'm very glad that I was on the ground because I just said, okay, well I saw what they did here. I'm just gonna get up. I'm gonna move forty yards now a little bit further. And I moved to a spot where I could see down into that sad a little bit more and shoot to the other side of it if deer dig crossed through there, sat down the ground again. And now this is what I can't remember what happened. First, Um,

we had a spike come in directly behind me. And it it walked right up on one of my cameramen and spooked. What I can't remember is if that happened before or after the next thing I'm gonna tell you about. I don't remember what happened first, um, but that's not too terribly important. We did see a spike. I did

not get a shot of the spike. But what happened either just before or just after the was that while I'm sitting on the ground with my back back against the tree, looking down at this saddle, I hear a twig snap to my right, kind of right back from where I'd come from. Just imagine, there's this ridge, and then the ridge dips down right into the saddle in front of me. But that ridge also there's a high point under ridge, and then it falls off on either side. Right.

I was just a little bit off to the left side of the ridge, so I'm just slightly below the highest point. I hear twig snap just to the right, just off of the high point, to the right side of the ridge, and I spin my head when I hear this snap, and as I looked to my right, I just see the tip top of times just beneath the rise of the hill walking parallel to me down into the saddle right away, I whispered to Tyler. Tyler

buck right next to us. I mean he was, it was forty yards away maybe, as it was slipping down the other side of the ridge, and I'd get up on my knees, pull the gun up, put the gun up against this tree I was that was sitting in front of me. And yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what happened, right, because I'm pretty sure I was sitting up against the tree. And then there was another tree in front of me.

So I got up on my knees and put my gun against that tree and spun, and as that deer came out all from behind that rise, he stepped into an opening and it had this all happened in like five seconds, four seconds. He was there, he was in front of me. Boom shot him. Hardly had time to even look at what this buck was, but I knew it was a buck, and it was you know, a

legal buck, and it took a crack shot him. He ran off like a hundred yards and then immediately went down like bedded down though, And so I knew it wasn't why I didn't know, but I appeared that it wasn't an instantly fatal shot. He didn't crash down. He ran off and stopped and went down, bedded down. And so I repositioned myself first shot for the follow up shot. I could see like times in the grass, but couldn't

see him. And to make a long story short, he ended up getting up, went back down, couldn't get a shot, got up, got back down, couldn't get a shot, and finally got up and stood still in one position long enough that I was able to get the follow up shot and dropped him in his tracks right there. And uh. And I had killed a buck on day three of the hunt. Walked up on him and he was like a really nice I mean not a big big buck, but a nice eight point buck. Um, it was incredible.

It was awesome. Yeah, man, thrilled. Well, I really feel like for a for a three and a half day hunt, you did really good, especially in that part of the world, you know, just to kill a nice racked buck, you know. Um, So I was thrilled. You. You messaged me. It was it was later in the morning, like in ten o'clock thirty out and you said shot at eight point and uh, I was. I was as the crow flies really not that far from you, I mean, you know, ten miles but it took me two and a half hours probably

to get to you. And by the time I got back around and yeah, man, I was thrilled for you. It works. You know. That's the thing about these this kind of hunting is you can't be validated by seeing deer. I mean, we deer hunt because we love deer. Oh it is. It's ridiculous how fun it is to watch deer, you know. I mean, like you see you see these videos of like cats like looking at a window at a bird, and you know, you can just tell how

pump they are to be watching this bird. Um, we're like that with dere We love to see just watch a deer that we're not even gonna kill. And that is part of the fun of hunting. So if you're gonna hunt for four hours, you know, to not see a single deer except the one that you shoot would not be as fun as if you had seen ten before you killed the one that you did kill. But but the result was the same, you know, And that's kind of what I thought would happen, is that if

you sit there long enough, it's gonna work out. And uh, and the plan worked. We stuck with the plan, you know, hunting these hot stackles and with just a little bit of sign, it just kind of worked like it was supposed to, you know. Yeah, And I'll tell you that was one of the biggest challenges though, was trusting in that plan. You know, I'm so used to you know, especially when you're hunting in high deer density areas and you know, what I do most of the time is

trying to target a mature buck. You know. It's it's so focused on finding the best of the best sign and high concentrations of it and getting right into the middle of it and making sure you're on the freshest, hottest, biggest sign, and you need all these different points of validation to confer them that yeah, you're actually in it,

and if you're not actually in it, you're wasting your time. Well, that's the exact opposite in this kind of scenario where it's man, you're not gonna have any of that, and you simply need to trust that this thing is good enough, this terrain feature is good enough, and wait and trust, like there's nothing to tell you. Oh yeah, I'm on the right track. Oh yeah, this is you know, here's a bunch of deer okay, yep, or here's a bunch of sign yep, you're on the right track. Nope, there's

none of that. And so I remember, you know, talking about that to the camera, just about how kind of unnerving that is, and how I just kept on trying to remind myself, like, trust the terrain. Just trust the terrain, to keep on trusting it, and you know, eventually, you know, there's the possibility could work out. And unfortunately it did. Um but you know, very different than what I'm used

to in in so many places. And Mark, if we'd have had more time, like ideally you would do it hunt like that and have a week to hunt, you know, and if you'd come in and had a full week to hunt, we probably would have spent more time scouting. We we would have tried to find a little more sign, or you know, one of us would have hunted. If we'd have been just hunting together and we'd have found one spot that had a little bit of sign, it

was a good historic saddle. It might have been like, hey, you hunt here tonight, I'm gonna go over there and check that out and and still hunt a little bit. But scout and you know, about day three, just like all these hunts that happened, you know, we might have found something that was way better than what you were sitting on. But boy, I just calculated that. Man, if you just sit there, if you just stay in this area and do this, especially for the short amount of

time we had, then it'll work, you know. And there's a couple of different responses to to hunting, and a guy just kind of has to figure out what he wants to do and what is successful. I don't have a hard time hunkering down when times get hard and just sticking with something where like so for instance, like I could go sit in the saddle for you know, three or four hunts in a row and not see a deer and go into it on that fifth hunt, thinking today is the day I feel better than I've

ever felt. You know that it's gonna work out, just because statistically, you're like, deer is gonna come through here, and I've been here four times and he hadn't showed up today. There's gotta be a deer come through here, and and it works. At the same time, one of the best hunters I know down in western Arkansas. It's a good friend of my name is Scott Brown. He won't hunt a place more than once if he doesn't see a deer, and he's hunting the exact same type

train mark and Scott. Scott will tell you, boy, if you go in someplace and don't see a deer, then go somewhere else. But he also knows all that country really well. He lives there. He and that's his strategy. His strategy is, actually, I'm gonna kill a deer the first time I go in somewhere, So I am going to maximize the number of first times that I go somewhere. You see what I'm saying, And a lot a lot of times. And I like that. I like going too a totally new spot and setting up, but I also

like to kind of hunker down and just wait for one. Yeah. It just takes, like it does take some under some knowledge of that place, or some confidence in that place to do that, at least for me. Yes, you know, I'm fine sitting in place over and over again. If I know, like hey, I know that bucks use this area in this kind of way. I know that eventually he'll come through it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but it will happen. Like I love

a place like that. The hard thing for me this year was just I'm just you know, I just got hunches, or I've just got a suggestion, or I've just got a man, this is supposed to work like this, so I hope so um. That was the thing that kept my mind swimming day after day in these different punts, in these different locations like this, where you're just like, man,

this is how it's supposed to work. I just don't have the time and history here to tell you that I know for sure, And so you're just kind of you're hoping and wishing on a prayer. And and fortunately this case, you know it, it panned out the way it's supposed to and and it was a really cool experience.

And you came rolling in a few hours later on your mule, and uh, and I guess that's something worth talking about because you know, as you alluded at the beginning, you know, going in like we did and camping out in there and bringing the mule, it's not all about efficiency. It's really a lot about chasing a certain experience. But there is something awfully efficient about having that mule. I was we were four miles away from the truck at

this point. Um, that'd be a heck of a drag or a heck of a hike out with him on my back. But we were able to grab that deer and throw it on your mule, and uh, you know, make for a much easier exit strategy. What's uh, can you talk to about the best way to pack a deer out, how you did that on the mule and your thoughts on that side of things. Yeah, So that

that was really cool. And that is the probably the biggest the biggest cherry on top of hunting with a mule is that you're not worried about killing one way back in there. When I years ago, I remember I was bear hunting back in the mountains and my dad would be like, well, what are you gonna do when you kill one back there? And that was a legitimate

question for us back then before I had stock. Is like, holy cow, that's gonna be a major deal getting it out of there, and um, and and that's just not an issue if you've got a mule that'll carry a deer. And what was cool about this deal too, is we carried the mule carried all our stuff out and the deer so and in the same one trip. So if we'd have been back there without that, without the mule, we'd had to make a couple of trips back in and out of there to get the whole deer out

and everything. And and the deer wasn't a huge body deer, you know, so it wasn't wasn't a big deal for

the mule. But what this strategy that I used, or the technique that I used, was you got the deer and then you cut about a four or five inch slit in the ribs, kind of in the middle, the middle section of the ribs, and you it takes two guys and and it can be kind of hard to do, but you basically put that slit over the saddle horn on your saddle, and once that saddle horn goes in the slit of that rib, you don't even have to

tie the mute the deer down. It looks like it's just draped across the saddle, but it pretty much won't come off. And so that's what we did, and uh it uh. And then you can also still put your paniards on and pack all your camp and so we came out of there and the mule had all our camp in the deer and um, you know the other the way that when I bear hunt and how a bear out, as we'll go ahead and quarter the bear and just put the quarters in there. You could do

the same thing with the deer. You can quarter the deer and put the quarters you know, in your in your pants. And um, I've also seen guys tie them up like basically drape them over the saddle and then tie their feet and not do the slit the slip tactic. But yeah, I enjoy that stuff. That's it. It's pretty handy. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I was really glad, really glad we had iusy for that one. Uh. It was it was just it was helpful and then just cool again.

It was another one of those moments. Hiking in I had a moment like that and hiking out again, like looking back and seeing seeing my buck slung over the top of a mule. I mean, that's uh, that's a

site you don't get every day. And and so much of this this week was like that, uh, you know, in in the modern deer hunting experience or most of us you know, so much of hunting now is you know, at least maybe it's maybe it's just me, me and people I hang out with, but it's it's kind of like your I don't know, like a like a military persons. Sneaking in like assaulting a target is sometimes how we

talk about. Like you're on a mission. You've got your property, you get in there, you get your fancy scent control stuff, you get your you know, your thousand dollar bow and your saddle in your ultra light sticks, and you hike into this place or you ride an e bike into this place or whatever, and you check your trail cameras and you look at your phone and you see what's on the cameras, and you're doing all this stuff, and

it's very intense. It's very technology heavy these days, and in certain ways it's and oftentimes solo, it's often very very end goal oriented, like I'm trying to kill this one mature buck, and if any other deer comes through, I don't care. All I care about is that one deer.

And so there's these very high stakes and I sometimes catch myself like being surrounded by pressure and stress and technology and uh, you know, all these things and I'm out there and I'm like, I'm not even having fun right now, Like I'm just piste off, or I'm just stressed out, or I'm just like overworked, whatever it might be. And I'll catch myself sometimes thinking what are you doing?

And I'm not saying I don't love a lot of these things a lot of the time, but there are days or moments and I'm like, WHOA, this is not what I wanted to be all the time, and that's why I hunt. Like what we experienced together in Arkansas seemed like such a great reset where I wasn't worried about all these things. I wasn't stressed out about a big buck, I wasn't worried about trail cameras. I wasn't bringing any technology or send control stuff out there with me.

I wasn't a solo tactical assault man. I was there with a group of people. We're having fun together, We're having a shared commune experience. We were out there in nature camping hoping to see some deer, but if not, well,

you know what, that's hunting. And it was very much a throwback to how I imagine a lot of people experience these things and and I've noticed Clay with you that you seem to actively, um, you actively are seeking out those types of counter culture, counter mainstream culture experiences. Maybe like you've you've made a choice to get involved with mules. You've made a choice to go and do these kinds of you know, hunts in the big woods that are a lot harder than what you could be

doing in other parts of Arkansas. You've you've done and you've explored different arenas within the hunting culture like this. You've you've gone and you've tapped into things like you know, getting into coon hunting, bear hunting, all these different things that maybe you're different than the mains dream? Um is that? Is that purposeful? Is that mindful? Is that? Did that just happen because of how you were raised? Or have you?

Have you thought to yourself at some point in your life, Man, I think they had something right a hundred years ago or two years ago. I want to get a taste of that. I want to be more like that. What does any of that make sense? A resonant? You know, I think it's probably a combination of a of a lot of different things, you know, talking about this kind of romantic hunt in a sense that we did out there with mules and hunting this way with really not a lot of technology. Uh, that's not the way I

always hunt, you know. I mean that that is there's probably some media bias towards that because that's what people want to talk to me about, and that's what I enjoy talking about. But you know this, Mark, I mean, a whole lot of my white til hunting is not that dissimilar to yours, you know, I mean like hunting a single buck, you know, driving a truck to where I'm gonna hunt, and getting out and getting in a tree saddle, and you know, so a lot of my

hunting is just pretty standard. But I find that I'm pretty goal oriented over periods of time. And I spent about ten years in this part of Arkansas trying to kill a three and a half year old plus age buck with a bow. That was my goal every year. I want to kill a three and a half year old deer or above every year. And I mean, I really can't say how many years I did that, but after ten twelve years, I was like, Okay, I can do this, Like I could do this probably for the

rest of my hunting career. You know fairly successfully, you know, and and I just kind of proved myself that I could do that, and so I kind of I didn't forget that because I still do that, but I moved on to something else. And really it probably was six seven, eight, ten years ago that I really started hunting National forest in the interior National Forest like what we did. So that's not something I necessarily just always targeted. You know. When I was a kid, we were trying to get

away from that kind of hunting, you know. We we were trying to go hunt the private land. We were wanting to go to the Midwest, we were wanting to do something different because that was tough. And so when I became an adult and after I kind of did this kind of stuff, I went back to that. And I don't know, I don't know why I like that kind of stuff. I just, um, I do like to continue to challenge myself. I mean, like with traditional archery would probably be a good example of that kind of stuff.

You know. I've hunted with a compound since I was in the third grade and used to shoot. Gary Nucam hauled me around to every bow tournament within four hours of where we live and shot a lot of uh archery tournaments and stuff, and you know, when I got in became an adult, I was like, well, I'm done with that. Um and it just wasn't that interested in that. But it had built a skill set and shooting bows, and if I started, I kept bow hunting, and I just felt like I was carrying a rifle, you know.

And there was some strategic people in my life that were traditional archery hunting, and I just remember going and talking to those guys and going, holy cow, how that dude is bow hunting, you know. And and for me, I was challenged by these traditional archers and so I said, you know what, I don't know if I can do it or not. Let's see. And so for about seven years, I really heavily focused on traditional archery, and that was my go to weapon for everything. And Mark I missed

a couple of real nice bucks. I killed some deer, killed one nice buck, killed bunch of bears. That was my main target during that period was bears. And about two years ago I woke up and I was like, you know what, I've kind of done it for me, for my standards, you know, I was like, yep, I can kill stuff with a traditional bow with consistency. I love it. It's awesome, And I said, but I think I'm ready to go back to the compound. So for the last two years I've shot compound and love it,

just love it. I mean, when I go out with my compound bow right now, I feel really good about just killing a deer, and um, you know, the two years from now, that might wear off and I might go, you know what, I'm going back to the triad. Bo I just kind of like to keep things fresh. I

guess I get that. Get that you you talk about, Um, you talk about in in a number of your pieces of work, you know, like your podcast Burglaries, about some of the influences that you've had and and someone in particular who you would have liked to go back in time and shake their hand and look him in the face, like someone like Daniel Boone or one of these other

long hunters, mountain men, frontier types. Um, it's funny. I'll step out of my question and as in the side, I don't remember where, but somehow my son UM heard me talk about Daniel Boone or something, and then we were riding in the car together when I was listening to one of your podcasts about Daniel Boone and so he's like, oh, this is Daniel Boone and he started

listening and he's three mind you. Um. He then found the song from the Daniel Boone TV show, Like my mother in law someone must have like heard him talking about Daniel Boone. So's like, hey, listen to this song. So she heard that Daniel Boone as a man and he is. Now for the last two months since I've visited with you, he has been in full blown Daniel Boone obsession. Old like we we listened to that song every morning on repeat and the two of us will

sit there singing he was a big man. And he pretends to be Daniel Boone and he I mean, he's he's in it. He obsesses about these different hunters like he's he you know, he likes to pretend to be Steve or you or Janice or whoever. But right now, Daniel Boone is the top of the game for him. And I bring that up though to to just I'm curious how much these historical figures, you know, you mentioned we kind of romanticize these kind of throwback hunts a

little bit. How much to folks like that enter your mind when you go out and hunt in this kind of way or you go into a place like this. Um, I mean, there's there's some kind of appeal even like, like, even though I don't hunt this way a lot, I still I'm like, Wow, there's something very attractive about what that must have been like and not wanting to tap into it just a little bit. Yeah, that's a good question, Mark, And the answer is I think about it all the time.

I really do. I mean I really I think about Daniel Boone. I think about Frederick Gerstacker, who's as a guy that hunted in the early eight hundreds here in Arkansas that I've read a lot about. And I think about these guys all the time. And I think, what I'm kind of on the search for, among probably all of us, is personal identity. And we we unconsciously draw a lot of personal identity from sources that we don't

even recognize. And you know, the question I always bring up on Burglarys and I ask people constantly is why is it important what some dude did two hundred years ago? You know, for whatever my connection would be to him, whether it would be he lived in the same place I did, or he was interested in something I'm interested in, or maybe it's a family member, or maybe it's a

geographic geographic connection or whatever. And that answer, the answer to that question is not entirely tangible, but it is extremely clear that we draw an enormous amount of personal identity from a bunch of stuff that happened a long time ago. And there's that that can be positive and negative, big time mark. I mean, humans are just sponges for identity.

We're all trying to figure out who we are and what is the functional expression of who we are that's gonna make us be successful and have a good family and be good deer hunters and be able to make money and and and make whatever impact we feel like we need to make on planet Earth. And uh, you just can't do that absent from history. And I don't. I'm really not a history I can't say that I'm like a history buff. I don't just devour history books.

But I get into certain you know, there are certain things that that I do get into, Like Daniel Boone, that series like that was fascinating to me, and um and I learned a lot myself inside of all the research and talking to the all these guys about Daniel Boone, and I think there, I think it makes your outdoor

experience more robust. And that is something I'm very interested in, is in all areas of life, is to have a robust human experience and whatever you're doing, whether it's with your family or your career at you know, the I T place you work at, is like to be beyond, to have a beyond the surface level understanding of what's going on, who you're working with this life. And so if I can, if I can understand about the way these long hunters hunted and the history of North American

hunting and how they market hunted animals out. But then there was the reintroduction of animals to kind of in the in some places actual reintroduction. But if you know the broader picture of conservation, then it makes a ton of sense and adds a ton of value to that you know, average eight point that you killed on the side of a mountain in Arkansas that otherwise might not have that much value. So I think knowledge just almost

always brings a more robust experience to anything that you do. Yeah, you know, so true, So much of a hunting or any kind but so much of a hunt or hunting experience is experienced between your ears too, and having that knowledge, that context, even even being able to imagine all this greater greater and struggling to articular exactly what I mean here, but but but it adds this whole other level, this

whole this sense of depth to to everything. Um and and I can't help but find myself romanticizing these things too, and imagining these things and putting myself into different places in different times and thinking, man, what what have that been like? How much I would have loved to be there? Man? So often like man, I was born two years too late. Um So, if I gotta ask you, if if I could go back to any time and like plant myself in a spot and experience something I would have liked.

I've thought about this a lot, so it's easy for me to answer now. I would have liked to have been on the Lewis and Clark during That's where I want to go. I want to have got to go across the Great Plains and see be one of the first, you know, euro Americans to experience what that was like. The vastness of the wildlife populations and being able to go and see what the Rocky Mountains were actually like and going up into them, and you know, all all

along that trip you don't know. You don't know what you're going to come across. Your your surprised by everything. You've heard, rumors of things, you've gotten reports, some scouts on different things, but the whole way, it's man, I don't know. And then seeing the the amazing plenty of what the American West was actually like would have been amazing. That's that's what I would like to to see and do if I could go back in time. Ah, what

would your spot be? Would you go back and be one of Boone's buddies, cross into the government gap or what would you choose? Okay, I'm gonna give you a layered answer, mark because I am. I am thrilled to be alive in like, I'm confident that Daniel Boone or the Fulsome Hunters were doing a podcast series on Bear Grease right now about the the Fulsome site, which is a ten thousand plush year old site where they killed thirty two bison using this unique style of point and

it's just an unbelievable story. And those those guys if they if they inside of their life could peer into the life that we live, they would be more fascinated with us than we are with them looking back. You know, we we live we're trapped inside of time, which makes us think that our lives are normal and our lives

are not normal at all. In this last podcast, I did a section because I was kind of trying to quantify that statement right there, and they say that there they estimate that there's been about a hundred and seventeen billion humans that have lived on planet Earth. Ever, you know, Homo sapiens hundred and seventeen billion. Right now, there's seven

point eight billion people on planet Earth. Um, it's hard to analyze those numbers, but basically, the vast, vast majority of humans that have ever lived have lived radically different lives than us, with not the amount of technology that we have. So I say that to say, I'm I think we're we're pioneers in a major way. Like I think just like we look back at boone and go, how did he do it? How did he travel that all that way? And buckskins? And how did he handle

the cold? How did he can handle the hunger? How did he handle the thread of uh Indians? How did he kill all those animals? How did he do that? You know, they they'd be saying the same thing about us. How did how did they manage the all the stress and how do they manage that this and that? How to deal with trolls on Instagram? Exactly? Yeah, but I would. I would love to go back into Boone's time. I would. I'd love to be Dan Boone's buddy. I just have

a ton of respect for the guy. I just really, there's so much we know about Boone and these weird you know, and Rannella said it so well so many times on that series, But we know a ton about Boon obscure, an incredible amount of stuff we know about Boon, down to his personal emotions and opinions on really specific things, which is kind of unique. And I think I would like old Dan Boone and uh but and this is probably because I'm deep into the research and kind of

the heart of this podcast. I'm fulsome but I cannot get over trying to understand the human experience that applies to Seene Hunter would have had. I mean, I just like to be in their camp. I mean, were they happy or were they just miserable? Because of the life that they lived. Where there comedians in a group? You know, there's ten people in your camp. Was there one guy that was like super funny, cracking jokes about you know, applies to see Dad jokes um, And the the answer

is yes, you know he was there. There would have been. They were just like us. They just didn't have the the knowledge or the technology that we have, but they had a whole other set of knowledge. So so either applies to scene Hunter or Boone Boone, you know, being around when old Boone was around. But I guarantee you if we were there for a week, we'd want to come back. I mean, oh, just incredible. And and it's also incredible to think about the resilience of humanity too,

to become whatever we have to become to survive. So we look at some of the stuff that Boone went through and just went like, how was it even possible? Because you know, me and you go out and set four hours in a tree stand and get a little bit chilled, and we're like, man, I'm I'm ready to go home, you know, and uh, and these guys, you know, Daniel Boone once spent two years on a hunting trip by himself without you know, no rain gear, living off of wild game and what every foraged and just a

toughness that that would have taken. And to think, holy cal if me and you went and did that today, Mark, I mean, you know what, how would we respond to that? But if we were there and didn't know any different, I guarantee it would have not been that big a deal. So just interesting stuff to think about. Yeah, for sure,

it definitely is, and it's it was. It was really cool to have, you know, a short opportunity to immerse myself in something that at the at the just very very little surface level could give you a tiny little opportunity to to experience what that might have been like

just a little bit. I mean going in there, this whole this whole hunt for me was um, it was just a real treat, getting that taste, getting a feel that, getting to be out in the mountains, big woods, public land, camping out with the mule, hoping touh, hoping to still hunt my way into a buck, hoping something will come through, Hoping I'll bill sling a deer over top of a over top of a mule. I mean that that whole

thing was just it was a really great adventure. And I can't thank you enough, Clay for show me around, for for taking time to share with me how you think about these things and and how you go about it, and man, it was just a great time. So thank you. Yeah, well man, you're welcome. But really I I thank you for coming down. I mean for you, uh and and you're the white tail guru. For your to think enough of what we're doing down here to come down here

was honor to me. So I appreciate you coming man, because you you knew you were walking into something that wasn't an ideal. It's not the kind of place you travel to go hunt, you know. So yeah, I had a great time, and you know it. Man, you can come back anytime you want to. But me and you were kind of trapped in this media world where we

gotta produce content. So and there's always pressure and it's dumb to talk about it, but there is a you know, producing media does put a big time strain and an unusual difficulty on a hunt that is not typically seen. Even in this conversation we're not talking about that, but man, that that that makes a difference. So I sell that to say when me and you retire, Mark and we're no longer making outdoor media. Come down to Arkansas and

we'll go out and hunt for a week. Set up well, we'll set up a big camp and we'll we'll really do it right. But we can't be documented. I mean you can't. Nope, I'm on board, Sign me up. I'm I'm in for this one. This sounds good to me, Clay. I thoroughly enjoyed our time, and I want to give you one opportunity here real quick for folks that want to learn more about Boone or the fulsome Sight and all the other cool stuff that you've been exploring or

getting into. Can you just plug where they can find all the good work you're doing these days. Yeah, So check out Grease. So bear Grease is the Meat Eater production, just like Wired to Hunt is. So Mark and I are colleagues, and um yeah, Bear Grease podcast type it in.

Bear Grease is a documentary style podcast, typically under an hour long, and on any given podcast, we might have three to five different guests that talk about these issues and and uh we will will pick topics and um, you know, like we did a whole We did three part series on Daniel Boone. We had really the best guests you could have in North America. I think I feel like so we we we We're getting some good guys on and the Fulsome site would be a good example.

We're doing a actually a four part series on falsome. My dog's treating a squirrel out here, Mark, I don't know if you can hear that. I probably need to go shoot it out. Yeah yeah, and uh, she's looking at it too. And when she when test starts barking like that, she's looking at it. Um. The Falsome Sight

Uh series is just fascinating. We went to the world's expert on Fulsome and archaeologist named Dr David Meltzer and um so anyway, yep, fun stuff man, kind of kind of a deep dive but kind of different, different than most podcast I guess. Yeah. Well, I've told you in person and I'll say it again for everyone to hear it is. It's truly fantastic, Like you're really doing a great job. There's a lot of podcasts out there these days, and I don't like to listen to most of them,

but but Bear Grease is real deal. So well done, Clay, and uh, thank you for doing you and thanks for having me up there this year. Yeah, Mark, I really appreciate it. Man, Thank you all right, and that's it. Appreciate you being here. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday season. I hope you with friends and family. I hope you are enjoying a little time off, maybe some time outside. And uh, I just hope you wrap up this year in a really great way. Thanks for being with us

all these past twelve months. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Until next time, stay wired to h