Speaker 1: Yeah. My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production
Speaker 1: of the bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render,
Speaker 1: where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the
Speaker 1: scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f
Speaker 1: HF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear
Speaker 1: that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore.
Speaker 1: The only rules on this podcast, or there are no rules.
Speaker 1: There's a few rules. You'll find them out as we go.
Speaker 1: Number one, do not interrupt Misty. I like how you
Speaker 1: waited till she was done speak. You know, in your
Speaker 1: last episode you did talk about people who respect their wives,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense you brought that up so quickly, Misty.
Speaker 1: Would you like me to speak to that, to give
Speaker 1: a count of that. I'm just kidding. I like, I've
Speaker 1: got my flannel. Do you get cold, Misty? Very yes,
Speaker 1: very much so. That negative temperature last week was not
Speaker 1: good on your garden or you It wasn't. But they
Speaker 1: built me a fire. This is not a joke. We
Speaker 1: have a wood burning stove and I get so close
Speaker 1: to it that I have marks on my back. You're kidding,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm good, I feel fine. And the
Speaker 1: girls are like, could you step away? Nor make's night,
Speaker 1: gown's night. I don't get that there's fireproof. No, there
Speaker 1: you go, No, Max, excuse my friend. He's from Raydale. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's here's what we're gonna do. I want you to
Speaker 1: introduce the person to your left. One of these people
Speaker 1: doesn't even know the person to their left, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to introduce them just with what you know
Speaker 1: about him. So um, we have a very very exciting
Speaker 1: group of people here today, everyone to follow up on
Speaker 1: our Duck Stories podcast. To my left is Brent Reeves,
Speaker 1: wearing a fine pair of round house overalls, looking good today, Brent.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a guy the other day, an
Speaker 1: old man from Clarendon, Arkansas. And when I got off
Speaker 1: the phone with him, he said, he said, oh, you
Speaker 1: sound great. I hope you have a great holiday. And
Speaker 1: it was like old school like I was. It made
Speaker 1: me feel so good. I was like, you sound I
Speaker 1: sound great? He told me I sounded great, Brent, you
Speaker 1: sound great, buddy. Thank you. Man. Who's who's to your
Speaker 1: left immediate left is Austin Booth. I don't know what numbers.
Speaker 1: I don't know what number he is on your program,
Speaker 1: but he ought to be number one in your heart.
Speaker 1: You gotta give us a little more functional introduction than
Speaker 1: Austin happens to be the director of the Arkansas Game
Speaker 1: and Fish Commission. He is a you don't say X,
Speaker 1: I know you say for farmer marine officer. He's running.
Speaker 1: He's paddling the boat over there at the Game of Fishes.
Speaker 1: Are distinguished guests, distinguished guests Director of the Game of Fish.
Speaker 1: He's got on a pair of Newish How about we
Speaker 1: describe what everyone's wearing, Newish danners. Some I got him
Speaker 1: a year ago, some khaki you were new. They were
Speaker 1: new on the first rinder that you come up here on.
Speaker 1: I remember I supposed to be your church boots looked at.
Speaker 1: Don't look like they've been beat around too much. I
Speaker 1: just take a really good camel marine care try you
Speaker 1: take care of your feet and will take care of you.
Speaker 1: A brown T shirt with Duck calls on it. It
Speaker 1: says call call a Pelooza, assuming at call plus m
Speaker 1: from the Call A plus event and wearing a vintage
Speaker 1: duckson limen camp. Great. Great, have you director Booth? Always
Speaker 1: good to be here? Yes, how about your introduced person
Speaker 1: to your left on my left is it guests far
Speaker 1: more distinguished than me, one of our commissioners on the
Speaker 1: Arkansas Game Fish Commission, and Marie de Ramos, lilng outdoorsman,
Speaker 1: avid water fowler, avid bass angler, gad wall killer wall Wall.
Speaker 1: Yea love it amateur duck hunter. She is wearing a
Speaker 1: really striking uh set of footwear. It's vintage Camo Christmas
Speaker 1: crocks currently in two wheel drive mode. Yes, yes, and uh.
Speaker 1: The vintage Camo pattern of the crocs are somewhat similar
Speaker 1: but not identical to the Vantage Camo flannel shirt she's wearing.
Speaker 1: Very It's great to have you here. Glad to be here,
Speaker 1: Clay and Misty, thanks for having us. So you were
Speaker 1: on the render last year about this time, Yeah, about
Speaker 1: a year ago. I was after I introduced you to
Speaker 1: the great migratory bird that is a cad wall. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. And I was greeted by your trusty squirrel dog,
Speaker 1: Tim the squirrel dog. He was down there with us
Speaker 1: last year. So we hunted with and Marie and her
Speaker 1: bunch for a week, five days, five days last year.
Speaker 1: It was it was my largest exposure to duck hunting
Speaker 1: like continued exposure and you've got to meet my friend
Speaker 1: named Possum. Yes, it's a big deal. Mistery, you missed out.
Speaker 1: I feel like I did. You were invited f y,
Speaker 1: I WHOA did I? What did I know? I was
Speaker 1: remember about wife appreciation, Clay, and great to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being introduced us to another very distinguished
Speaker 1: guest to your left. Definitely, uh, in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: most distinguished guests. Because she is an Olympian and her
Speaker 1: name is Kayleie Browning went in competed on behalf of
Speaker 1: the United States of America in the Olympics and won
Speaker 1: a silver medal in trap shooting. And besides being an
Speaker 1: excellent shot, she's an excellent all around duck hunter. I
Speaker 1: could say I've been out duck hunting with her, and
Speaker 1: well it was more of a goose hunt that ended
Speaker 1: up turning into duck hunt. Uh. The geese weren't really
Speaker 1: cooperating that morning. But yeah, we have Kayleie here and
Speaker 1: she is a shooting coach and my shooting coach, and
Speaker 1: she has helped me so so much. Yes, I thought
Speaker 1: that I could handle a shotgun. Then I went to
Speaker 1: see her and her dad, and I quickly realized, Wow,
Speaker 1: I wish I had done this years ago. She helped
Speaker 1: me a ton man. That's a good that's a good intro.
Speaker 1: She's half in me up. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. There's a thousand questions I
Speaker 1: want to ask you. We'll do that after you introduce
Speaker 1: Who's to your left? I get to scrap what she's wearing? Right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't interrupt them? Yeah what are you thinking? One? Jeez?
Speaker 1: All right? So old school Nike tennis shoes which I love,
Speaker 1: Camo vest with a green shirt, lick and fly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking of fly. She's also a pilot, really, yes,
Speaker 1: very true. So Shamy couldn't fly up here today the
Speaker 1: weather sicking kind of iffy. Yeah, it didn't work out,
Speaker 1: but we will next time. Yes, thank you, Amory. So
Speaker 1: to my left is Misty Um, which I think where's
Speaker 1: you know? Is the leader here? From what I'm gathering
Speaker 1: in my short amount of time that i've I've met her,
Speaker 1: probably twenty minutes now, I've gathered she is a chicken former,
Speaker 1: which we have in common. A she has a green thumb,
Speaker 1: has a pretty mean garden. I hear um and you
Speaker 1: can cook a mean biscuit, all right. Yeah. Um. She
Speaker 1: is wearing her chicken boots with a with a striped
Speaker 1: shirt and a cozy flannel for today. Excellent, very good intro.
Speaker 1: Do I introduce you there, you're you're an Olympian, tell us,
Speaker 1: give us a give us a there's you could probably
Speaker 1: talk for an hour, a quick version of like your
Speaker 1: career in shooting, and just kind of yeah, just tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your story. So I am
Speaker 1: Daddy's little girl. He says that I'm the son he
Speaker 1: never had. UM. So I grew up fishing and hunting
Speaker 1: with him and shooting shotguns, and he was a competitive
Speaker 1: shotgun shooter. So that's how I got into it. Um.
Speaker 1: When I was eight years old, I competed in my
Speaker 1: first competition in sporting clays, which is like a hunted
Speaker 1: simulated game, and went to went to a shoot, fell
Speaker 1: in love with it, and from there, when I was
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, actually fourteen years old, I found out
Speaker 1: that shooting was in the Olympics. So I told my dad.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, shootings in Olympics, Like
Speaker 1: we have to try because I've just been obsessed with
Speaker 1: the Olympics since I was tiny, UM, and he was like,
Speaker 1: all right, well let's let's give it a go. So
Speaker 1: maybe my first team UM at fifteen traveled to Munich, Germany.
Speaker 1: It was just a whole culture shock. I remember, you qualify.
Speaker 1: I mean, qualifying for the Olympics is a big deal
Speaker 1: though it is. Yeah, yeah, So in between the Olympics
Speaker 1: we have I don't know, yeah, it's it's it's yeah,
Speaker 1: small thing. UM. In between the Olympics we have World Cups.
Speaker 1: UM in the in the quad before. So that's the
Speaker 1: first team that I made was a World Cup team.
Speaker 1: So I went to Munich, Germany, and I remember going
Speaker 1: to this restaurant and I asked for sweet tea because
Speaker 1: that's what I grew up. I thought every to drink
Speaker 1: sweet tea. And the lady there's you know, the communication
Speaker 1: barrier there that wasn't translating well, and she she brought
Speaker 1: back some sugarcubes and hot black tea and she was
Speaker 1: like here you go. And I was like, well, I guess,
Speaker 1: and you can have a cup of eyes like yeah.
Speaker 1: So made that team when I was fifteen, UM, and
Speaker 1: since then I've set national records, world records. UM. I
Speaker 1: just became the most decorated woman for trap in u
Speaker 1: S history and then and then went to Tokyo competed
Speaker 1: at Olympics and won silver metal. So sweet, Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: And so you're from. Tell us where you're from. I
Speaker 1: am from a small town UM called Wooster, Arkansas, which
Speaker 1: is like forty five minutes north of lit Rock. Do
Speaker 1: in Arkansas? Where to go? So? Now I heard an
Speaker 1: interesting story about how your dad got into well competive
Speaker 1: competitive shooting. Will you tell me that story? Do you
Speaker 1: know what story? I'm talking about? The very very first,
Speaker 1: the very first time he shot competitively. So I've heard
Speaker 1: a story of him. Some guy invited him to go
Speaker 1: to a shoot and Austin stories better. I'm sure it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is um Wooster folklore, Okay. But the story that
Speaker 1: I was told was that Kaylee's dad was on a
Speaker 1: job out of state and uh, I think it was
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma and was just running down the highway somewhere
Speaker 1: and saw all these signs for the shooting event and
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about it, had a shotgun in
Speaker 1: his truck. He dropped in said, hey, what's the shooting
Speaker 1: event that you all have? And they said, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is uh, um a trap competition we have this weekend.
Speaker 1: Uh it's a national qualifier, but it's also open to
Speaker 1: the public. So uh. The story that I was told
Speaker 1: was that he paid the fee to compete, just somebody
Speaker 1: off the street, and that he ended up coming in
Speaker 1: second place his first event ever. Yeah yeah, so he
Speaker 1: well yeah, so he actually a couple of years before that,
Speaker 1: got invited to go to a sporting clay shoot and
Speaker 1: was had no idea what it was, and he's, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. So he kind of like
Speaker 1: blew it off in and went to that shoot. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it was in Oklahoma. They weren't. He's he's
Speaker 1: a welder. He ends a fabrication shop. So they used
Speaker 1: to travel all the time and go to different job sites.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so he's he's the best shot. I think
Speaker 1: Amory can attest to this too, Tommy. So the story
Speaker 1: was is that he just had his like hunting shotgun
Speaker 1: and went and competed in all these like pro shooters
Speaker 1: pretty much yeah and all. And I think it was
Speaker 1: a trap shoot too. And you know, older trap guys
Speaker 1: tend to have a stereotype about him. They kind of
Speaker 1: like turned their nose up to you if you're not
Speaker 1: somebody in there, and he was probably in Camo cross
Speaker 1: sucks in shooting old eight seventy years something. The nicest man.
Speaker 1: You can shoot better than your dad. Though, since he's
Speaker 1: not here, I'm gonna say yes. Second, Okay, I figured
Speaker 1: he could. I figured you could. Now he I cannot
Speaker 1: shoot him in in my game just because I do
Speaker 1: it so much, But he can still humble me anytime
Speaker 1: he wants to. Okay, how does um, how does trap
Speaker 1: shooting or what you do translate in the field shooting ducks?
Speaker 1: So what I shoot comparatively? Um, it's called the International
Speaker 1: Trap And just the short explanation of what that is.
Speaker 1: It's an underground bunker that has fifteen trap machines in it,
Speaker 1: and they are coming. They can go anywhere from forty
Speaker 1: five degrees left to forty five degrees right and up
Speaker 1: to three meters high, so they're just a widespread of
Speaker 1: targets coming out. Um. The tricky part about him is
Speaker 1: you don't know the direction that's going, and it's going
Speaker 1: about seventy five. So if you've got a bird like
Speaker 1: let's say, quell hunting alone, no quell quiet going say
Speaker 1: about my is an hour, but you flush a covey
Speaker 1: of quell and they get up and they're going any directions.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to be on them pretty quick.
Speaker 1: So it translates really well into like pigeon shooting or
Speaker 1: upland hunting or anything like that. Yeah, so Amory, how
Speaker 1: does she do in the Doug Blond pretty? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: speaking of I got my first double last yeah, last Friday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin it because I know we're
Speaker 1: going to get around telling stories, but just speaking at that,
Speaker 1: it was a perfect opportunity. But yeah, she knocks him down.
Speaker 1: And on that note about the bunker trap that you do. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was out at her place and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to see how this thing works. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm feeling good enough. I've been hitting some clay targets.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll get up there and shoot. She goes, all right,
Speaker 1: here we go, and I go, did you press the button?
Speaker 1: She goes, yeah, to have come out. She said, Oh,
Speaker 1: is that the target is so fast? Yeah, they're they're
Speaker 1: super fast. Oh my goodness, it's insane. But yeah, she's
Speaker 1: she's a good shot. So I will attest to that
Speaker 1: the stuff still stand a chance. Are there any Is
Speaker 1: there any shooting competition that would simulate something coming towards
Speaker 1: you and down? Yeah, for sure. That's sporting plays coming
Speaker 1: towards you. Yeah. Yeah, sporting plays has what I'm thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has no limitation of what the target can do
Speaker 1: and how it presents itself. So they can come at you,
Speaker 1: then go over your head, they can cross, they can
Speaker 1: roll on the ground, they can I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: limit at all. It's what they can do. Mm hmm. Austin,
Speaker 1: how many ducks have you missed this year? A lot?
Speaker 1: Have you? Really? Yeah? So I had some issues with
Speaker 1: my gun. Um bent barrel, not a bent barrel, but
Speaker 1: um I had I had some work done on the
Speaker 1: forcing cone, uh, on the really technical answer on the shotgun,
Speaker 1: and then put a third party choke tube in there.
Speaker 1: And I was chasing, and I suspect that there was
Speaker 1: something wrong with it, but was also being as self
Speaker 1: critical as one should and hesitant to instantly blame it
Speaker 1: on the weapon. Uh. But I had not been hit anything.
Speaker 1: And then I was chasing a cripple down and it
Speaker 1: was it was that one of the it was three
Speaker 1: three degrees yeah. It was too way too cold to
Speaker 1: have a dog out there. So we were chasing down
Speaker 1: the cripple and I was about twenty five yards away
Speaker 1: from from the duck. Very carefully put my weapon up. Uh,
Speaker 1: sensitive to the fact that I've been missing a lot.
Speaker 1: I pulled the trigger and the gun patterned about halfway
Speaker 1: between me and the duck. Um. So call the folks
Speaker 1: that worked on it. They said, we'll send you a choke.
Speaker 1: SENDMI brand new choke, and I'm back on the board. Really,
Speaker 1: so it was the joke messed up from the factory. No,
Speaker 1: it just didn't interact well with aftermarket modifications to the
Speaker 1: forcing kind and it was a really tight choke. Be honest,
Speaker 1: is this the choke that I bought you when you
Speaker 1: were like, Hey, while you're at SO and so, you
Speaker 1: pick me up. You're smiling. It is the one. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is. Did you bend it? I don't know, don't
Speaker 1: ask me. Interesting So I wasn't trying to brib salt
Speaker 1: in the wound. I'm just going to leave right now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well it's just the weirdest thing because every gun is different,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can take a hundred guns with
Speaker 1: a hundred identical chokes and you may get fifty different
Speaker 1: results out of it. Wow. So for the ones that
Speaker 1: you're missing, you have to tell your daughter is picking
Speaker 1: them up. Yes, yeah, she went on her first stuckcutt
Speaker 1: killed her first stuck. Yeah. Hey. I learned something about
Speaker 1: squirrel hunting two days ago when we had a real
Speaker 1: good squirrel hunt, is that the further they are away
Speaker 1: with a shotgun, the better chance you haven't hitting them.
Speaker 1: And they're close and they're tough. We were, we were
Speaker 1: knocking down some squirrels we were hunting in those arcs.
Speaker 1: And so there was one time when three of us
Speaker 1: were shooting at the same squirrel timbering out across a
Speaker 1: ravine and we'd we'd ridden up on the mules and
Speaker 1: the dogs were treated right across the ravine directly from us.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't have a range rider, but I
Speaker 1: really believe it was fifty yards. And when the dogs
Speaker 1: are treated, we ride up, we're on deep ravine. You
Speaker 1: couldn't just get over there real quick like. It would
Speaker 1: probably been three or four minutes before we could have
Speaker 1: got over there. When you get there, the squirrel breaks,
Speaker 1: and when they break and start timbering, they're heading for
Speaker 1: a hole, and so this is pretty much like the
Speaker 1: moment that we have and there's three of us on
Speaker 1: mules and we all three just like come off the
Speaker 1: saddle boom, boom, boom, and we killed that squirrel probably
Speaker 1: fifty yards. There's no way we would have hit it
Speaker 1: if it had been like closer spread out. So what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, awesome, is that if you'd sky
Speaker 1: bust these ducks or you probably had a better chance
Speaker 1: of killing something. Well you're using lead though, weren't you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: truth comes out. Yeah, yeah, Hey, I think you need
Speaker 1: to talk about your squirrel hunt. I will at sometimes
Speaker 1: I've got really interesting people. Okay, okay, squirrels. You and
Speaker 1: I went squirrel hunting last year after we went duck hunting.
Speaker 1: That was that was an experience. That was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. It's squirrel hunting a thing that you had
Speaker 1: done before, you know, not, No, it isn't, especially with dogs.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting here thinking I've ever been on a
Speaker 1: legitimate squirrel hunt. No, no, I haven't. So that was
Speaker 1: the first time. It's it's a lot of fun. It's
Speaker 1: good when it's when it's good hunting and it was
Speaker 1: the other day we had a we had a great
Speaker 1: hunt on public land in Arkansas, state owned public land.
Speaker 1: Um amazing, Austin, Look, we have a conflict. I want
Speaker 1: more people to get out twelve miles and I mean
Speaker 1: part of squirrel On success is just it's just, uh,
Speaker 1: if you if you stay out there all day long,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna kill stuff as opposed to on a
Speaker 1: small little hunt. Hey, I mentioned a state owned w
Speaker 1: A in this episode. Were you happy about that? I
Speaker 1: was very happy, Were you really? I was also nic surprised. Hey,
Speaker 1: I had another story you'll know that they cut out
Speaker 1: because it was too it told too many details where
Speaker 1: people get uh, people get upset with me about that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. That's the reason I'll put that disclaimer
Speaker 1: in the podcast. All right, well you can bleep it out.
Speaker 1: And I saw a few on that what's that about?
Speaker 1: Where I was hunting that story that I told, I
Speaker 1: saw a few, Yeah, people got upset. He saw a
Speaker 1: few coming. Yeah, And I tried to discourage See, I
Speaker 1: was trying to keep Austin in mind by promoting the
Speaker 1: w A. But then I was like, don't come here.
Speaker 1: Do you want to explore go somewhere else. We confirmed
Speaker 1: we killed every squirrel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. So do
Speaker 1: you have any questions for Kayleie ms Nucombe? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: just do you plan on competing again? So I yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I'm going to try for again. Okay. And
Speaker 1: is there a point in your sport where people age
Speaker 1: out of it? Question? That is a really good question.
Speaker 1: So shooting is as good as your eyes are. There's
Speaker 1: not really a It's not a super athletic sport. Um.
Speaker 1: So as long as you can see the target, you're
Speaker 1: you're pretty competitive. I compete against girls who are in
Speaker 1: their fifties for sure, So it's the younger ones definitely
Speaker 1: have a little advantage there, but there's not really a
Speaker 1: cap out age like geno pastics or something like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. What about hearing? Shooting as much as
Speaker 1: you do, even with your protection, do you think you're
Speaker 1: hearing is compromised anyway? I'm sure over the years, because
Speaker 1: I've shot for twenty one years now, so just in
Speaker 1: almost every day, and if it's not competing I'm hunting
Speaker 1: or whatever, I'm sure it's taking a toll on that.
Speaker 1: But we there's technology is so awesome now I have
Speaker 1: digital ear plugs that like cancel out the shot and
Speaker 1: just I mean, I mean, so I wish I would
Speaker 1: have started on that because they'd probably be a lot
Speaker 1: better than what they are now. But it's it's as
Speaker 1: little as it can be. Yeah, Man, hearing is a
Speaker 1: bummer for me. I the other day we shot a
Speaker 1: lot squirrel hunting, and I was wearing just like at
Speaker 1: the first half of the day, I was wearing just
Speaker 1: standard a little squishy ear plugs, you know. And man,
Speaker 1: by the second half the day, I was wearing full
Speaker 1: ear muffs like you know, which is a handful to
Speaker 1: keep up with when you're shooting quick and not knowing
Speaker 1: where your shoot. But man, I came home that night
Speaker 1: and I was I couldn't hardly sleep. He's got I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, when you asked her if her hearing
Speaker 1: was impacted, we should probably ask her spouse, because I
Speaker 1: know for me, you have to I have to sit
Speaker 1: at a certain spot in a room. So like if
Speaker 1: we're gonna whisper, if we're going to a meeting and
Speaker 1: we know we're gonna whisper, Yeah, I do have a
Speaker 1: like a for real bad here. That's that's my dad,
Speaker 1: because I mean he grew up in the in the
Speaker 1: generation where you would just go out and hunt. There
Speaker 1: was no ear protection. So I joke all the time.
Speaker 1: He'll say what or hunt, and I'm like, a great,
Speaker 1: I can't hear a thing. Yeah, I got a question?
Speaker 1: What what? I got two questions? What's your favorite thing
Speaker 1: to hunt? My favorite thing to hunt is ducks? And
Speaker 1: I used to it used to be just purely on
Speaker 1: on killing the ducks, but now it's more of the
Speaker 1: environment and who I'm with and watching my dog's Wait. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's that's the age that comes along with it. So
Speaker 1: let me ask you this. Would you rather shoot a
Speaker 1: perfect score on the trap range or get a limited ducks?
Speaker 1: Which would be your favorite? That's hard they're bringing the
Speaker 1: today is the range at the Olympics? This in context?
Speaker 1: Is this like an important every day I think that
Speaker 1: I think the Olympics would probably trump everything. But just
Speaker 1: in a regular competition, I'm gonna go ducks. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ducks. Yes, ducks good in Arkansas. In Arkansas
Speaker 1: for sure, that hunting in Arkansas. Hey. As So last
Speaker 1: year we did a big we did a I think
Speaker 1: a three part Burgary series on the g t R
Speaker 1: the Green Timber Reservoir situation. Can you give us an
Speaker 1: update on that, Austin and and fill in people who
Speaker 1: wouldn't even know what that means or kind of just
Speaker 1: a short version of it. Yeah. So one of the
Speaker 1: many things that made Arkansas duck hunting what it is
Speaker 1: and nationally famous is our green tree reservoirs, which are
Speaker 1: um household names around the state like by me to
Speaker 1: Wildlife Management Area, Hurricane Lake Wildlife Managion Area, Dave Donaldson,
Speaker 1: Black River Wildlife Manasaion Area, by a to view um.
Speaker 1: And they're they're natural low points, they're they're all river bottoms.
Speaker 1: Um that there's naturally retain water, and we have put
Speaker 1: artificial infrastructure up since the nineteen fifties to hold that
Speaker 1: water there to not only provide um lots and lots
Speaker 1: of waterfowl habitat, but also public duck hunting opportunity. So
Speaker 1: you so you can go in some of these g trs.
Speaker 1: I might be going to one tomorrow, uh, and you
Speaker 1: can hunt public land in the timber well. UM. We
Speaker 1: did not know near as much as we know now
Speaker 1: about what red oak dormancy looks like. Uh, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out we were artificially flooding uh these red
Speaker 1: oak dominant uh G t rs for decades and we
Speaker 1: were doing it too early. UM. And so you take
Speaker 1: that combined with the fact that our infrastructure is all
Speaker 1: sixty to seventy years old, and the fact that we're
Speaker 1: just seeing larger and more frequent major rain events, and
Speaker 1: we ever have we have a a really really serious
Speaker 1: problem in those green Shoe reservoirs with the forest health.
Speaker 1: I mean oaks are dying, Yes, oaks are falling over.
Speaker 1: And it's not something like a food plot where all right,
Speaker 1: if we lose a food plot this year, we'll just
Speaker 1: replay it next year, right, I mean these are these
Speaker 1: are eighty year old red oaks that will take eight
Speaker 1: eighty years to get back. So last year, UH, we
Speaker 1: took a big, a big first step forward UH and
Speaker 1: being more proactive with how we manage water levels. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know exactly what to do on the natural resources side,
Speaker 1: but conservation always involves natural resources and people. And so
Speaker 1: we decided, uh to be more proactive with how we're
Speaker 1: managing water levels on these green tree reservoirs. And we
Speaker 1: also kicked off some major renovations at Hurricane Lake Wildlife
Speaker 1: Management Area and Biodebut UM Hurricane Lake, we finished the
Speaker 1: first phase on budget and ahead of schedule last year.
Speaker 1: So in calendar year twenty two, we we were able
Speaker 1: to more We were able to pass more water out
Speaker 1: of Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management Area than we ever have
Speaker 1: and off of the roots of these trees. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: what happens is we can get the water off of them,
Speaker 1: but then once the spring rains hit, it often won't
Speaker 1: let up until Junior July. And now it's summertime. These
Speaker 1: trees have come out of dormancy and they got standing
Speaker 1: water on them. Uh. And that's what's the tree killer
Speaker 1: right there. So so our goal as we renovate these
Speaker 1: g trs is to drain water as quickly as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we we we completed the first phase at Hurricane
Speaker 1: and saw a really good results from it this year.
Speaker 1: So you got some water off. Yeah, We're we're underway
Speaker 1: with the second phase. UM Earl bus By Deview Wildlife
Speaker 1: Engineer is going really well too. So Fingers Crossed by
Speaker 1: the end of of calendar year twenty three will have
Speaker 1: two completed green tree reservoirs and UH one more major
Speaker 1: one launched and so where And that might not seem
Speaker 1: like a problem for somebody she didn't understand the system
Speaker 1: of how this works. But people you might be like, well, sure,
Speaker 1: drain the water off the timber, no big deal. What
Speaker 1: that means is that it's taken away at times of
Speaker 1: the year duck hunting opportunity because you gotta have flooded
Speaker 1: timber ducks. And so that's where the conflict people comes in,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, there's people that have hunted
Speaker 1: these places and had predictable water access on November fift
Speaker 1: every single year, unnaturally so induced by humans. And now
Speaker 1: we're saying, hey, we didn't realize that trees are what's
Speaker 1: what's the term you used when when something flew Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I was thinking was a like a
Speaker 1: like a long term response to something. Um, you use
Speaker 1: a great term last year. Um. Basically, you can start
Speaker 1: doing something to a tree today and you may not
Speaker 1: know it's effect until fifty years from Oh yeah. That
Speaker 1: essentially they're lagging consequences. Yeah right, I mean we're not
Speaker 1: going to see the consequence of what we did in
Speaker 1: two thousand until two. That's why it makes it such
Speaker 1: a complicated and interesting human thing because there's all these
Speaker 1: guys that hunted their whole life. They just thought this
Speaker 1: was normal, and then all of a sudden there's no
Speaker 1: water in their duck hole and opening day and they
Speaker 1: get mad at you know, the powers. Yeah and so
Speaker 1: and that's but that's my education and us just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what we gotta do to save this, even
Speaker 1: for future generation. He asked a question as someone like
Speaker 1: that would be in that boat. Does it do anything
Speaker 1: for the I mean, if I did last year I did? Um?
Speaker 1: Does it do anything for the Is it harmful for
Speaker 1: the ducks like to because they're predictably coming in? No. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering like if what we're doing now the
Speaker 1: management does do they just love? Do they just go
Speaker 1: somewhere else? Um? So there is a piece of that
Speaker 1: that that we know that just looking Arkansas wide, we
Speaker 1: are already at a shortage of winning waterfowl habitat um.
Speaker 1: So are we making it? You know? Are we compounding
Speaker 1: that um by artificially holding water later and later? I
Speaker 1: think we are to a degree today, yes, But you know, um,
Speaker 1: by me, there's just one wildlife managine area and it's
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand acres, So we have to take kind
Speaker 1: of the longer term approach of if we lose that
Speaker 1: thirty three acre resource, I mean, that's what we call
Speaker 1: anchor habitat. That is going to have a dramatic effect
Speaker 1: on everybody else around it too. So it is it's
Speaker 1: very much not just from the perspective of the duck
Speaker 1: hunters or the red oaks or the ducks, all the
Speaker 1: way around. It is a short term sacrifice for a
Speaker 1: long term reward. If BioMed is not good, it it
Speaker 1: affects us really. So in uh, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to this whole big picture thing, the state of Arkansas
Speaker 1: privately owned. So I know, in all this process, I've
Speaker 1: heard from a lot of private landowners saying, wow, we've
Speaker 1: been putting our boards in October. You know, we're starting
Speaker 1: to see some die back in our red oak trees too.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is something that we need to go
Speaker 1: back and reevaluate. And the message is starting to catch
Speaker 1: on and get a bigger picture. We can't just focus
Speaker 1: on just our wildlife management areas, but these other ones. Uh,
Speaker 1: but these private lands as well. Yeah, And one of
Speaker 1: the things that you said last year Clay in that
Speaker 1: podcast series that that I've talked a lot about since
Speaker 1: is if you go anywhere in the United States and
Speaker 1: you find a critter that is treasured, it will thrive
Speaker 1: and because people, because people do something for it. And
Speaker 1: from that perspective, I think if you look at the
Speaker 1: progress that the agency has had the past year, the
Speaker 1: public meetings we had, I think our Kansas deserve a
Speaker 1: whole lot of credit because, uh, we ran four public
Speaker 1: meetings on it um and we really haven't stopped talking
Speaker 1: about at the past eighteen months or so, and the
Speaker 1: feedback from the public's been tremendous um and a lot
Speaker 1: of participations, a lot of participation, a lot of very
Speaker 1: interested people that don't like it, but they get it.
Speaker 1: And I think our Kansas deserve a whole uh a
Speaker 1: whole lot of credit for for understanding the short term
Speaker 1: sacrifice that we're gonna have to make to keep water foul.
Speaker 1: What it is as a body of commissioner is too.
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, this is your first year as directors
Speaker 1: when we put this through and then as a body
Speaker 1: of commissioners went okay, one of our main revenue streams
Speaker 1: as license sales right now we're trying to get more
Speaker 1: people into the sport of hunting, but we have this
Speaker 1: and you know, we we're not gonna have water at sometimes,
Speaker 1: but then we are. But we have to look at
Speaker 1: the big picture and down the road and know that
Speaker 1: our ang goal is to make these areas better for
Speaker 1: our future so that we can retain hunters, have quality
Speaker 1: waterfol hunts in the state of Arkansas. So it all
Speaker 1: goes to the future. I read when I was in
Speaker 1: college there was a I remember in one of my classes,
Speaker 1: one of my government classes, we talked about the role
Speaker 1: of government is really to think fifty years ahead at least.
Speaker 1: And that's the part that it gets really tough, because
Speaker 1: if you're doing if government is doing this job, it's
Speaker 1: it's thinking about not just the current and the things
Speaker 1: they're having right now, but thinking fifty years ahead, like
Speaker 1: how will will we have these animals for our grandkids
Speaker 1: and are our great grandkids? But people have to sacrifice
Speaker 1: now for that to happen, and they have to be
Speaker 1: willing to pay some costs right now for benefits that
Speaker 1: they'll never they'll never receive, And yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is societal challenge. But it sounds like Arkansas. And that's
Speaker 1: the way that I ended all of our public meetings
Speaker 1: last year. Where do we want to tell our grandkids
Speaker 1: what by me to was like? Or do we want
Speaker 1: to hear them tell us what it was like? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. Could always listen to the Burgarase podcast here
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves tell what it used to be like. Ba
Speaker 1: uh no, that's good. That's a good up. That that
Speaker 1: was a that That series for me educated me from
Speaker 1: like zero to you know, understanding what was going on
Speaker 1: over there because it's man. The problem with all this
Speaker 1: stuff is it's so there's so many complexities, from biological
Speaker 1: stuff to human stuff, to social stuff two just communication stuff,
Speaker 1: like they all a lot of the problems that not
Speaker 1: just water, not just wildlife managers are facing, but very
Speaker 1: complex issues and we want something like easy and quick
Speaker 1: and yeah, I just doesn't work like that, Amory. Have
Speaker 1: you had a good waterfowl season so far? I have
Speaker 1: had a good waterfowl season. It's been good. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: killed killed a good deer too this year. Was really
Speaker 1: happy about that. Yeah, how big is a good deer? Uh?
Speaker 1: Well it was a nine point I didn't score because
Speaker 1: you weren't there. But scored pretty good. Amory's husband's here
Speaker 1: studio audience. That's a good deer, it is, I was.
Speaker 1: I was really pleased with it. Now I did attempt
Speaker 1: to do some bow hunting, have yet to harvest one
Speaker 1: with my bow, but working on that. But back to
Speaker 1: duck hunting, it's been great. Had some had some really
Speaker 1: great hunts where we got our limits, had some really
Speaker 1: great hunts where we didn't get our limits. It's all
Speaker 1: about the fellowship. We talked about that last week, the
Speaker 1: people that you get to make these memories with that.
Speaker 1: Has the migration in Arkansas been normal or you know,
Speaker 1: I'm amazed at the duck counts stuff? I got email
Speaker 1: from It was on an email chain, I think from
Speaker 1: one of the biologist waterfowl biologists and you're a real
Speaker 1: duck hunter. Yeah, oh I'm big and uh it was
Speaker 1: it was talking about duck numbers in the state, like,
Speaker 1: is that has it been pretty normal this year? Good?
Speaker 1: Right now? It's been. It's really good. Yeah, we're still
Speaker 1: we're below the long term average, UM, but I think
Speaker 1: we're up like double digits from two thousand and eighteen levels.
Speaker 1: It amazes me that you can count ducks with any
Speaker 1: kind of any sense of like it being accurate. I
Speaker 1: still don't understand it. They got it down to an
Speaker 1: art though. I'm gonna go on Thursday, you're gonna fly
Speaker 1: with them. So they missy, they they fly. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, I know he's change the email chain now.
Speaker 1: They basically fly grids over areas of like predictable duck habitat,
Speaker 1: and they get an estimation of numbers, just like humans
Speaker 1: and airplanes, like guessing how many ducks there are, And
Speaker 1: then they expound the area that they flew and they go, okay,
Speaker 1: well there's a hundred times more land than that with
Speaker 1: equivalent habitat in Arkansas. So they take what they actually
Speaker 1: saw and you know, multiply it out and get an
Speaker 1: estimation for how many ducks are here. Is That's that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. I'll report back checking. That's yeah, and so
Speaker 1: so is it weekly? No, we do one in December,
Speaker 1: one in January, and then I think one after the
Speaker 1: season closes, isn't there right? That is right? Yeah, they
Speaker 1: do the postseason fallout, which post season having that habitat
Speaker 1: for the ducks too is incredibly important when they're coming back, well,
Speaker 1: when they're you know, maybe not coming back, but just
Speaker 1: they're about to go back exactly. It's like a buck
Speaker 1: right after the rut, Like they gotta rest up. They
Speaker 1: gotta put some pounds on because they were flying, you know,
Speaker 1: with the giest stream coming down and there they're flying
Speaker 1: into going back up. That's a long way. That's why
Speaker 1: they need those acorns, man. Man. I I hunted in
Speaker 1: the Delta a couple of weeks ago for a week,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was keyed in on the the big acorns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of them, and then there was
Speaker 1: quite a few of the smaller red oaks like those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gathering them up and trying to hand feed
Speaker 1: him to all the mallards in the place that we could.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I wasn't the ones in your yard. Those
Speaker 1: are chickens, clay Man. I did see some ducks though,
Speaker 1: Oh man, did I see some ducks. I really did.
Speaker 1: It was pretty incredible. Actually, I two or three evenings
Speaker 1: of bow hunting. We were we were real close to
Speaker 1: some water, and uh it was incredible, man, I mean
Speaker 1: mallard ducks. We watched them all day. I mean we saw, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were no deer down there, not a single deer
Speaker 1: but before duck hunting, though, before you became a duck
Speaker 1: hunter last year, last year, would you thought anything that, really,
Speaker 1: there's some ducks over there or whatever. I just wouldn't
Speaker 1: have now I would have been keating enough on in
Speaker 1: the hunting space to value a duck. I mean just
Speaker 1: been like, this is probably pretty cool. But without a
Speaker 1: knowledge base, which I got last year, I really know
Speaker 1: the answers. No, I mean the ducks were uh yeah,
Speaker 1: making all kind of calls. I was thinking about calling.
Speaker 1: I was saying, I was watching how they were, like
Speaker 1: where they would be in the sky and then where
Speaker 1: they would land and how they would land, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the wind. And basically they didn't do
Speaker 1: anything y'all to mean they would but um yeah, duck hunters,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they know much about ducks. But
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I was supposed to get a big laugh.
Speaker 1: Um have you have you duck hunted a lot this year? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And um Aiden, we took him, you know, he's from California,
Speaker 1: take him on his first duck hint. And we went
Speaker 1: down to um Bull Sprig, which is like a really
Speaker 1: nice hunting club down in Stuck Guard and it's flooded, timber,
Speaker 1: and just like the when you think of Arkansas duck hunting,
Speaker 1: it's like that's the hunt. And I was trying the
Speaker 1: whole time. I was like trying to explain or put
Speaker 1: into context to him what this hunt was like. Like
Speaker 1: you you were starting off at the top, and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back home, and I'll humble, like, I'll
Speaker 1: humble you a little bit what real duck huntings like.
Speaker 1: But now we've been, we've been quite a few times.
Speaker 1: Am I really enjoy working my dogs. I've got a
Speaker 1: dog that's pretty much college education. I have a black Lab,
Speaker 1: have a yellow Lab, and I have a little English
Speaker 1: cocker that's pretty fun to duck huntly retriever. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's between the black and the yellow lab. Is the
Speaker 1: black one better? So she has more drive, I will say,
Speaker 1: But she tore her a c l two years ago,
Speaker 1: so she's just I am hesitant to take her on
Speaker 1: places I don't know, just because she's got to jump
Speaker 1: off and she's got climb. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: setting is for her. But the yellow lab, he's like said,
Speaker 1: he's got college education. He'll call the duck in go
Speaker 1: get it. He's a good dog. Yeah, the black one
Speaker 1: is really better. I don't think so. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's like an old till really that from what I've heard,
Speaker 1: that's like what labs started as. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the yellows came along, and the yellows have been here
Speaker 1: for so long now they're equivalent to the blacks. And
Speaker 1: then the chocolate is just good luck with him because
Speaker 1: they're still not good. Yeah, and then you've got silvers
Speaker 1: and they're just a whole another I don't consider that
Speaker 1: a real lab. Yeah, sorry, I just own't. It's pretty
Speaker 1: we're going that far pretty, but well, no, I mean
Speaker 1: black chocolate labs. That's that's the three. Hey, you gotta
Speaker 1: be passionate and have an opinion about stuff. I like this,
Speaker 1: like chocolate labs out. I would say chocolates have another
Speaker 1: fifty years before they and yellow you straight up fast?
Speaker 1: Favorite dog? Like, what what's your favorite dog? I want
Speaker 1: to hear about your favorite squirrel dog? Careful? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's the other one into this. This is
Speaker 1: too treacherous a territory. I like a fight. There's lots
Speaker 1: of dogs a tree squirrel. There's there's a ton of
Speaker 1: different kind of dogs tree squirrel. Um. I like the
Speaker 1: little fist just because they're a little in fun and
Speaker 1: they're very smart, use their ears, eyes and nose. I
Speaker 1: think everyone needs a fist in their life. That's that's
Speaker 1: like my life philosophy. Now, Britt, would you said a
Speaker 1: black lab was the way to go? That's all? All
Speaker 1: of mine were always black? Yeah, I had one chocolate
Speaker 1: for a month. A month didn't work out? I did you?
Speaker 1: How old is it? Seven months? Seven months? When's he? Is?
Speaker 1: He at the trainer? Now? She she? Uh? So she
Speaker 1: This is a long story. She's a great dog. Uh.
Speaker 1: She might be at risk for an a C L
Speaker 1: tear yea, So how can you tell? Uh? I can't tell,
Speaker 1: but the vets cam uh. And so that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of what we're waiting to see. We might we might
Speaker 1: let her get a little bit older and before you
Speaker 1: invest a lot in Yeah really yeah, but she she's
Speaker 1: a great dog. Now y'all have a older dog, Baron? Yeah,
Speaker 1: black lab. I've always had black lass black ones. Uh.
Speaker 1: Baron is six about to be seven? Is Baron named
Speaker 1: after a Barren airplane? Yes, that's awesome. I got my
Speaker 1: pilot's license back in. I guess it's two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm going to I'm not current anymore,
Speaker 1: sitting here, Yeah, yeah, I'm sitting here Stable day Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A studio audience today too, do Yeah. Joe Dramas is here,
Speaker 1: Joe Hight and then Aiden with you hating what's your
Speaker 1: last name? Conn Aid Colin? Yeah, live studio audience pretty
Speaker 1: pretty special, which they would encourage us a little more
Speaker 1: because you'll give up plause. Yeah, we've not laughed at
Speaker 1: a couple of show. So if you could feel the
Speaker 1: I think I would help me out. Joke he's wearing
Speaker 1: all his bear grease skin. He's got an acorn shirt on.
Speaker 1: I like that he gets it. It's a vibe. Hey,
Speaker 1: is there a difference between boy and girl dogs? Because
Speaker 1: we got a lot difference in terms of quality of hunters.
Speaker 1: Because Clay's best, best dog, best sound. It has been
Speaker 1: a girl. You've got a girl. I've always had boy dogs. Okay,
Speaker 1: so there's no distinction in terms there is. Okay, every
Speaker 1: big game hunter or squirrel dog man that I've ever
Speaker 1: met didn't want a male dog. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: in general, females are females because your squirrel dog, the
Speaker 1: girl in your opinion, would be better. We can call it.
Speaker 1: There's lots of different names we could call them other
Speaker 1: than girl dogs. I prefer female or JIP. I'll just
Speaker 1: be honest. JIP does not sound like enough crazy, just
Speaker 1: not telling something i'd want to be my experience, every
Speaker 1: female dog got that's just been so sweet and that
Speaker 1: ain't broke picks it. Um, well let's talk. Let's talk
Speaker 1: some duck hunting, duck hunting, duck hunting stories. What was
Speaker 1: your what was your Austin, what was your favorite story
Speaker 1: that you heard on the podcast? So we're well now
Speaker 1: transition into duck hunting stories, and then I want to
Speaker 1: hear you three your favorite your favorite story but from
Speaker 1: the podcast, like or did anything stand out to you?
Speaker 1: Did you hear something that was like yeah, identify with
Speaker 1: that or that was cool or yeah? I would say
Speaker 1: two of the stories were noteworthy. Um in my mind.
Speaker 1: The first was is it your your friend Scott from Jacksonville? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Scott Harness. Yeah. So he mentioned having that super interested
Speaker 1: friend that wanted to try to duck hunt and he
Speaker 1: was very pessimistic about their likelihood for a successful hunt.
Speaker 1: Always happened, and I've that that's kind of the season
Speaker 1: of duck hunting that I'm in right now, where I
Speaker 1: care less about going to shoot four mallards as I
Speaker 1: do getting out there with new people, uh, showing them
Speaker 1: what duck hunts all about. And one of the best hunts,
Speaker 1: memory wise, that I ever had was one of those
Speaker 1: where I had somebody that said they really wanted to go,
Speaker 1: and they had been asking me for months about it,
Speaker 1: and I said, yes, we're gonna go, and in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind, I knew we weren't gonna kill
Speaker 1: a thing, uh, and we did. And then the other
Speaker 1: story that I thought was just uh fantastic was Brent's
Speaker 1: uh talking about Buckingham Flats, um and right. And I
Speaker 1: was talking to somebody the other day that had never
Speaker 1: duck hunted what it's like when a big group of
Speaker 1: mallards comes in And this is before the podcast came out,
Speaker 1: and you said it was like rolling out of carpet. Brent.
Speaker 1: The analogy that I used was it's like you're standing
Speaker 1: at the bottom of a staircase and someone rolls out
Speaker 1: of carpet and it just keeps coming and keeps coming
Speaker 1: and keeps coming and the duckster just right wave after
Speaker 1: a way of getting down. Yeah, chill bumps on my
Speaker 1: arm right now just thinking about it. And I never
Speaker 1: think about that story that it doesn't happen. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely it was a not a life changing event.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't like seeing my children born or anything,
Speaker 1: but it was like the least favorite kid was like
Speaker 1: seeing the least favorite it. So you've seen that a
Speaker 1: couple of times. Just had like like like you think
Speaker 1: five hundred ducks, thousand ducks, two hundred ducks, I'd probay
Speaker 1: say between three fifty. It's just um between the sheer
Speaker 1: volume of ducks around you that you feel like you
Speaker 1: can't even turn your head and uh, just the awe
Speaker 1: of it. You almost want to put your gun down.
Speaker 1: I've done it and just like take it all in
Speaker 1: because you know that it's fleeting and and and it'll
Speaker 1: end mm hmm. Put you cool. It makes you feel
Speaker 1: like the first time I saw and heard and looked
Speaker 1: at an elk buglin in a place where and we
Speaker 1: didn't even kill this. It was a huge elk, but
Speaker 1: he's like, man, should I don't know if I'm worthy
Speaker 1: of being Yeah, in the presence of watching this take place,
Speaker 1: it'll make you feel like like that. It did me. Yeah, Amory,
Speaker 1: which of those stories stood at you? Do you like
Speaker 1: any of them? Well, ditto what Austin just said on
Speaker 1: both of those stories. But I'm going to tell you
Speaker 1: the one that I was just flabbergasted by. And really
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there counting my blessings, thinking, Wow, I've
Speaker 1: never had something that scary happened to me knock on wood.
Speaker 1: But the first off, the story about Jimbo out there,
Speaker 1: I mean in him talking about covering up his face
Speaker 1: and he's afraid to take his hands down because he's
Speaker 1: afraid about what what he's going to see. Um, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine being in that situation and knowing Jimbo when
Speaker 1: he said he just kept as cool. He said, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get in the boat head back to the truck,
Speaker 1: and you know, go um that. I couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: he held it together to do that, because I think
Speaker 1: I think I would have lost my mind. I think
Speaker 1: anyone I know would have lost their mind if some
Speaker 1: would have been shooting at them. So, uh, that really
Speaker 1: stood out to me, and oh, my gosh, the guy
Speaker 1: in the houseboat who fell fell off into Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've been you know, baptized in the in
Speaker 1: the duck water before like that, Oh my goodness, I know.
Speaker 1: And him talking about those two two boys that died,
Speaker 1: that was that was just nuts. Oh my goodness. So
Speaker 1: those those stood out to me because that was that
Speaker 1: was just insane. Yeah, Jim's story, I thought you did
Speaker 1: a good job of telling the story, like just saying,
Speaker 1: like I'm sitting there like looking at him, like did
Speaker 1: you get shot in the face? Yeah? And then he
Speaker 1: and then he said he put his hands down and
Speaker 1: and he wasn't shot. But man, you know, not being
Speaker 1: uh exposed a lot of duck hunting last year when
Speaker 1: I was hunting, man anything. And it's the same way
Speaker 1: with squirrel hunting with four or five people. Man, when
Speaker 1: you got that many people with guns with moving targets,
Speaker 1: like gun safety is a big deal, big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you you got to and you gotta make sure everybody
Speaker 1: around he does too, you know. Like so Bear and
Speaker 1: his buddies are starting to do some squirrel hunting and
Speaker 1: stuff on their own, and they even went duck hunting
Speaker 1: on their own the other day. And they I told
Speaker 1: Bear and one of the other leaders of the crew,
Speaker 1: I said, hey, you guys have got to absolutely like
Speaker 1: cram it down these other guy's throats about gun safety.
Speaker 1: And I have a little spill I do where I
Speaker 1: grab an empty shotgun and and give them every possible
Speaker 1: way that you could point that gun at your buddy
Speaker 1: and not realize you did. You know, like when you
Speaker 1: pull your gun down and drop it to your waist
Speaker 1: and then turn around and point at everyone in the
Speaker 1: in the in the hole, and and and then you know,
Speaker 1: talking about shooting up, how when you're shooting up at
Speaker 1: a squirrel or something, you often come down with a
Speaker 1: gun off safety and loaded, and then you know where's
Speaker 1: everybody else at But anyway, yeah, I think about that
Speaker 1: all the time. Well, I think the one that creeps
Speaker 1: up on people is when a dog is out there
Speaker 1: working you put your gun on the tree because the
Speaker 1: ducks come in. Everybody shoots, and then there's a cripple
Speaker 1: or and and people start shooting at the cripple and
Speaker 1: the duck dog takes off and then get back quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all animal lovers here when it comes to our pups.
Speaker 1: That's probably some of my greatest memories on the duck
Speaker 1: story part, uh, hunting with my dogs over the years.
Speaker 1: I know, Kayleie, you mentioned that when that comes to mind,
Speaker 1: I had a dog, his name was Boomer, another black
Speaker 1: lap and uh, he had throat cancer, and you know,
Speaker 1: we knew we only had a little bit of time
Speaker 1: left with them. And Joe and I were dating at
Speaker 1: the time, and Joe was really touched this dog too.
Speaker 1: I mean we we loved him to death. And we said, okay,
Speaker 1: we can't take him out in the morning. He didn't
Speaker 1: have the energy, but we want to take him on
Speaker 1: one more hunt. And we go out there in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: It warmed up a little bit, nothing flying. Joe and
Speaker 1: are just sitting there. I have a picture of Joe
Speaker 1: with his arm around him in the duck blind and
Speaker 1: they're just sitting there looking at the sky, just having
Speaker 1: a good time. I'm sitting there thinking this is a memory.
Speaker 1: You know, He's not going to get his last duck probably,
Speaker 1: but at least we got to go out here with him.
Speaker 1: But Joe ended up killing one mallard and Boomer went
Speaker 1: out and got it and brought it back last time,
Speaker 1: last time, last retree. It was pretty cool, pretty special cool. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I probably should have had you tell your favorite story
Speaker 1: while you were telling which story you liked. Usually, this
Speaker 1: is what we do, Kall. I asked people what part
Speaker 1: of the podcast they like. Did one of those stories
Speaker 1: stand out to you? I would say all of them
Speaker 1: that they mentioned, but the one that stood out to
Speaker 1: me most was um Jimbo. And it relates back to
Speaker 1: anybody that comes to our shooting lodger my shooting lodge.
Speaker 1: Gun safety is the first thing that we teach. And
Speaker 1: I have a ton of people that come to get
Speaker 1: better at duck hunting and I always tell them before
Speaker 1: they leave, like gun say, gun knowledge is gun safety, right,
Speaker 1: So knowing where your gun is pointed at, knowing how
Speaker 1: that gun operates, knowing where your safety is at, knowing
Speaker 1: your environment that you're in. Who's got the dog? Is
Speaker 1: the dog working? You know? Um? And it just brought
Speaker 1: back those I've never been in that situation, but it
Speaker 1: brought back those teaching moments that I've had for people,
Speaker 1: because you can never be too safe when you're hunting,
Speaker 1: especially with a bunch of people, or especially with somebody
Speaker 1: who's never been before. They don't they don't know any better.
Speaker 1: They could just be sitting here talking to you thinking
Speaker 1: everything safe, but it's pointed ride at Misty or you know.
Speaker 1: It's just that really stood out to me, and it's
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that I stress every single
Speaker 1: shooting lesson that I do. Yeah, um, hey be or
Speaker 1: we leave, you'll help me. Remember, we need Kaylee to
Speaker 1: tell us about her her lodge and what she's doing.
Speaker 1: But tell me your we'll go back this direction. Tell
Speaker 1: me your well, Brent, what was your favorite hold on Kaylee? Brent?
Speaker 1: Which one of those was your favorite one? Let me
Speaker 1: tell mine? Okay, great, thanks Brent. My favorite one was
Speaker 1: I like the duck retrieve story that Jim bow Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was Yeah. I just like the way he told
Speaker 1: it to I like, I just like hearing Jim ron
Speaker 1: Quest talk. Which one sit out to you? Brent? Oh,
Speaker 1: let's see. I like the p ro story because I
Speaker 1: have a p row and really about the only difference
Speaker 1: in a piro on the submarines the way you spell it,
Speaker 1: they're both gonna wind up on the bottom before it's over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they are handed when you can keep water out
Speaker 1: of Yeah, that was a good story. But the motor
Speaker 1: going around the circles, the direct draft thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sharing a motor in a pin come home, that's a
Speaker 1: rookie mistake. You got to toe a pocket full of
Speaker 1: a little Jim since he was nineteen years old, I know,
Speaker 1: but you gotta, you gotta. I could talk Jim. Jim
Speaker 1: was such a neat guy, like he didn't know. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's ever listened to a podcast before. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't have known anything about this podcast. And we just
Speaker 1: showed up at his office and I just said, tell
Speaker 1: me your favorite duck story and he just started talking
Speaker 1: and he told me like three all in a row.
Speaker 1: And I trimmed him up. But he was a neat well.
Speaker 1: If I could, if I could add one other thing,
Speaker 1: it was the stuff about Mr Alvin. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: figured you're even get in that. Yeah. Mr Alvin Taylor
Speaker 1: and I were very close friends. And uh, I was
Speaker 1: talking to Amy on the way up here today and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm coming what. I told her what we
Speaker 1: were doing, and I asked her, Amy's my oldest daughter.
Speaker 1: She's thirty four now, and I asked her, no, thirty one?
Speaker 1: And I asked her about Mr Alvin and she said, oh, Dad,
Speaker 1: I have such fine memories. She was probably six five
Speaker 1: or six of just sitting on a stool in there
Speaker 1: in his shot while me and Mr Mr Alvin worked
Speaker 1: on duck calls. And she says she could smell the
Speaker 1: wood when he was turning the wood, cocabola and stuff.
Speaker 1: But he was he was a he was a pretty
Speaker 1: cool cat. Pick up that duck call, Austin, would you
Speaker 1: have known the name Alvin Taylor? Yeah, so that's pretty
Speaker 1: so this one to talk to him about the what
Speaker 1: you told me about the shape of that, Oh the shape.
Speaker 1: He's got an acrylic duck call, which I would have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks just like he was a plastic I remember
Speaker 1: going in there. This is the first call I ever
Speaker 1: got from him, and he was looking at he said,
Speaker 1: what is that call? Right there? He says, you do
Speaker 1: you know how to hold a blow a duck call?
Speaker 1: Like yesterday? I know how? He said, Well, if you
Speaker 1: were going to show somebody, what's the best way you
Speaker 1: could tell him how to hold this duck call? Wait,
Speaker 1: the way you put it up to your mouth and
Speaker 1: blow on it? And I said, I don't know. He said, well,
Speaker 1: look at it now, so it looks like a coke
Speaker 1: bottle track. He said, that's the way, so when you
Speaker 1: take a sip out of a coke bottle, that's the
Speaker 1: way you put air. But he it looks like he
Speaker 1: made that. I mean, not all duck calls look quite
Speaker 1: as much like a coke bottle as that, but that's correct.
Speaker 1: But that's where that's what he was after when he
Speaker 1: made this design right here, looks like a coke bottle.
Speaker 1: It looks like the top of a coke bottle. And
Speaker 1: that's why you put the way you would sit out
Speaker 1: of a coke bottles the way you put air into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Yeah. So he's got three alban They even
Speaker 1: got his name on him. They say Alvin Taylor four. Yep.
Speaker 1: Mr Alvant signed up. I've got that's just a few
Speaker 1: that I brought up here, but I've got several of them.
Speaker 1: They're all really special. Let's it's a pretty good pile
Speaker 1: of money later right there. This calls are expensive. I've
Speaker 1: seen the money bay before. Yeah, six seven, eight hundred bucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty cool? Cool cool? Um, kay, favorite duck story just
Speaker 1: of your your stores. So I have a nickname when
Speaker 1: Ore in our little duck hunting community and it's called
Speaker 1: beaver run. So we um just like Amory here, imiliar
Speaker 1: with the Baptism duck hunting. So every year I kind
Speaker 1: of have to. But this is just like an ongoing
Speaker 1: memory because it happens every year at least four or
Speaker 1: five times. So where we hunt is flooded Cyprus, and
Speaker 1: it's behind our house and they're just beaver runs everywhere.
Speaker 1: And for the longest time, I was the duck dog.
Speaker 1: So my dad and all his buddies would kill them
Speaker 1: and they'd go, they said, Kaylee, they decided go out there,
Speaker 1: and I'd go get the duck and bring it back.
Speaker 1: And every time I would find a beaver run and
Speaker 1: just there I went and it would just be up
Speaker 1: to my up to my chest, and I'd be soaking
Speaker 1: wet and freezing, and it was just miserable. It went
Speaker 1: on for years. So I was like, I'm tired of this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a dog. So I got my first
Speaker 1: dog about four years ago, Max the Yell, a lab,
Speaker 1: and I thought, finally like I don't have to go
Speaker 1: out there and the beaver runs and in and fall under.
Speaker 1: So I get this dog, send him to college. He
Speaker 1: gets all educated. He's supposed to be great. You know,
Speaker 1: this this new best thing. Bring him on his first
Speaker 1: duck hunt. And I'm trying to set up his stand
Speaker 1: in the tree, and I swear, if it's not a
Speaker 1: two ft radius that I fall four times because the
Speaker 1: dog and it just it just continues to happen. So
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing memory that still falling down. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so um and then I would say, my my best
Speaker 1: memory with duck hunting is my very first duck kind
Speaker 1: of went on with my dad, my grandpa and him
Speaker 1: built this duck blind out behind our house, and I
Speaker 1: just begged and begged and begged to go with him
Speaker 1: for for years. He's finally like, all right, you're you
Speaker 1: can hold a gun, You're old enough, let's go. And
Speaker 1: he had bought me for Christmas duck house shoes. They
Speaker 1: had a little they were Mallard how shoes. They had
Speaker 1: a little duck on them, and I was just obsessed
Speaker 1: with them, and I thought, that's what you should wear
Speaker 1: in the duck blind. It was it was freezing cold.
Speaker 1: It was probably twenty degrees outside, which is cold for
Speaker 1: a kid. And I have these Mallard house shoes on
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in the duck bline and it's just
Speaker 1: I mean, ducks are everywhere, which is it's hit or
Speaker 1: miss at home, And I just remember sitting with my dad.
Speaker 1: We had a heater, he had made coffee and homemade biscuits,
Speaker 1: and I had my duck mallard shoes on, and just
Speaker 1: I don't think I should killed a duck that year,
Speaker 1: but it was just going with my dad and my
Speaker 1: grandpa and the duck blind he got in my mallard
Speaker 1: How shoes a good? All right? I know I jumped
Speaker 1: the gun on the dog earlier, but it seemed like
Speaker 1: the good segue. It was great, it was, it was good,
Speaker 1: it was. That was one of them. I came with multiple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so similar to Kaylee, grew up going duck hunting with
Speaker 1: my dad and my brothers and getting all dressed up.
Speaker 1: I can distinctively remember the smell of chapstick, hot chocolate
Speaker 1: and honey buns. I know that's a very combination, but
Speaker 1: that and you know, just getting zipped up in my
Speaker 1: cover rolls and I would sit on a dog stand
Speaker 1: and just watch and watch, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing ever. It was like sitting back to
Speaker 1: watch I don't know, the razorbacks play in my mind
Speaker 1: as a little girl, was watching all these ducks come
Speaker 1: in and everyone get their limit, and then going back
Speaker 1: to school on Monday saying, we got our limit this weekend,
Speaker 1: like it was a It was a really big deal.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty special. Another really fun memory. Another one,
Speaker 1: there's some cool pictures of you when you were a
Speaker 1: little girl. Ye your camp. Yeah, I remember holding all
Speaker 1: the ducks. There's some get bulls in there. Colors are good,
Speaker 1: misty at taking pictures and documenting for real, Like any
Speaker 1: duck is going to have just a lot of real
Speaker 1: photographs on the wall. They really do. So that was
Speaker 1: pretty special. And then when Joe and I first started dating,
Speaker 1: uh back when we were in high school going out
Speaker 1: and uh we it was water sprows up that morning
Speaker 1: and we said, okay, we're going to go in an
Speaker 1: afternoon hunt. So we go out and we don't think
Speaker 1: we're going to kill anything. We end up with our
Speaker 1: limited ducks in like fifteen minutes, and we just started dating.
Speaker 1: We were high fiving. I mean, we're just did we
Speaker 1: just become best friends? So so that was that was
Speaker 1: that was really special. Mr Booth Duck story. Um, so
Speaker 1: like a lot of duck hunters. I started duck hunting
Speaker 1: for one reason, and it had nothing to do with ducks.
Speaker 1: It was because my dad and I went, not just
Speaker 1: so I could see ducks, but so I could see
Speaker 1: my dad in his element. Um. And I probably I
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know when I was six or
Speaker 1: so so thirty years ago, and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: remember the exact things we used to get it at
Speaker 1: the gas station. Twenty ounce bottles of Coca Cola peanuts,
Speaker 1: and we put down in the coke bottles Austin cheese
Speaker 1: and peanut butter crackers and some honey bums. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so that you know, that was just a ball for
Speaker 1: me to to get to hang out with my dad
Speaker 1: that much and be in pursuit of something together. Well,
Speaker 1: the week before last, my nine year old killed her
Speaker 1: first and she had she had she had gone a
Speaker 1: shot with Kaylee the day before. Um and she she's nine. Um,
Speaker 1: and I tried to get her to use the eight
Speaker 1: seventy that I learned to shoot, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit too heavy for downgraded, a little too started.
Speaker 1: She probab she had a bunch of claim nights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and then we went up the next morning,
Speaker 1: uh in flooded green timber. And I told her, I said, now,
Speaker 1: you've never seen ducks work like this before. I said,
Speaker 1: when the first group comes in, I don't want you
Speaker 1: to shoot. I just want you to drink it up.
Speaker 1: And you just watched him come in that way, and
Speaker 1: the second group comes in, you'll have a frame of
Speaker 1: reference for what your shot looks like. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: she's nine. She's sitting on a dog stand and she's
Speaker 1: doing so good. She's not winting, she's not cold, she's
Speaker 1: not fidgeting, she's quiet. She's just drinking it up. And
Speaker 1: that first group comes in and it's just it's textbook
Speaker 1: they read. They read the script textbook. And now was
Speaker 1: anybody else shooting? Or it was me and two other adults. Uh,
Speaker 1: we didn't let him land, but you know we we
Speaker 1: shot him when we were supposed to. And it was perfect.
Speaker 1: And as soon as the gun silence does us all
Speaker 1: or or the gun noise dies off, she just squeals.
Speaker 1: She got that was amazing. And then the next group
Speaker 1: that came in had a little bit more light now,
Speaker 1: so it's easier for her for her for her to shoot.
Speaker 1: She put up a twenty eight Gage semi automatic and uh,
Speaker 1: it was a green head that was the first one
Speaker 1: in the hole. And he's sitting there fluttering and uh
Speaker 1: she picked that gun up, pull the trigger and he dropped,
Speaker 1: and uh there were three adults in the hole and
Speaker 1: there was not a dry So, you know, being the
Speaker 1: thirty six years in advance of what I enjoyed so
Speaker 1: much now sharing it with her just meant the world
Speaker 1: name cool man. That's great, Misty. Duck hunters are sentimental too.
Speaker 1: I like the roles that I'm playing in today's podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm like the the uneducated person over here who needs
Speaker 1: Clay to kind of fill in. I appreciate that. That's
Speaker 1: what I am, uneducated when it comes to duck hunting.
Speaker 1: I've never been before. My favorite duck story is that
Speaker 1: Amy has invited me to go with her. I've never been.
Speaker 1: That's in here studio audience. No, she's and Rea's invited
Speaker 1: me to go with her, and so I'm I'm super
Speaker 1: excited about it. Mainly, I want to cook a duck
Speaker 1: like I used Clay's clay suggestion last time and it
Speaker 1: was no good. So I have done some research and
Speaker 1: I told Bear, I said, hey, if you are sun Bear,
Speaker 1: I mean kind of went out. He really he enjoyed
Speaker 1: duck coming with Clay last year and he and some
Speaker 1: someboddies decided that they thought they found a duck hole
Speaker 1: up here, which was a long shot and and anyway,
Speaker 1: but they went out and I told him, if you
Speaker 1: get a duck I'm gonna I've got recipes and we'll
Speaker 1: have a big party tonight. So if I if Yeah,
Speaker 1: And also the other thing, I would like for Kaylee
Speaker 1: to show me how to shoot. Do you think she
Speaker 1: can fix my right eye dominance problem? Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: need to come see me. Yeah, I'll fix Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: like that. We need to do that. Yeah, my daughter
Speaker 1: is right handed, but left eye dollar Okay. Oh that's tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is tough. It is tough. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: I was until Brent Reach told me. This is this
Speaker 1: is your this is a problem. I think being left
Speaker 1: eye dominant being a right hand shooter is kind of
Speaker 1: like having like food allergies that aren't real. Stop this
Speaker 1: guy statement, Just this guy when he gets it. When
Speaker 1: when Clay doesn't have a lot of tolerance for weakness,
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you all that. Okay, he's a he's
Speaker 1: a fantastic he's a fantastic, fantastic husband, excellent father. But
Speaker 1: like people come in and say that they're they're gluten
Speaker 1: free or there, this or that, and Clay like, probably not,
Speaker 1: that's not true. And it's like he's got I see
Speaker 1: him when he gets a cold. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen very often, but when it happens, he's out,
Speaker 1: I mean completely years I get a cold, I've got
Speaker 1: I've got stories, y'all, I've got stories about I was
Speaker 1: not allowed to even give an introduction today. Back to
Speaker 1: my original point that those are very sentimental people, and
Speaker 1: that comes back to I thought Scott Harness he did
Speaker 1: a good job of describing something that from the outside,
Speaker 1: when you become a duck hunter like I have become,
Speaker 1: it is an incredible amount of work. Very early in
Speaker 1: the morning, very cold, very wet, very like for real.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like, wow, this is a lot of work.
Speaker 1: And what Scott described to me, and he kind of
Speaker 1: said it on his on on his story, was that
Speaker 1: there's so much surface area for human interaction but also
Speaker 1: interaction with boats, trucks, dogs, shotguns, ducks, and waterfowl. Like
Speaker 1: there's a there are a lot simpler things that you
Speaker 1: could do in in outdoor space that would just be
Speaker 1: like hey, let's like grab a shotgun and like walk
Speaker 1: through the woods and still hunt squirrels. I mean, just
Speaker 1: as an example, like like that's pretty simple. Duck hunting
Speaker 1: is not simple, but it's very It's also rarely does
Speaker 1: someone go duck hunt by themselves, Like you definitely can
Speaker 1: and people do, but generally, I mean, I would say
Speaker 1: the vast majority of duck hunting is totally about the
Speaker 1: people that you're with. There really is. It's a social endeavor,
Speaker 1: it really is. And uh and so it really is
Speaker 1: a unique culture. But it has a lot of surface
Speaker 1: area for stuff to go wrong. That's kind of what
Speaker 1: Scott was saying was that there's a lot of surface
Speaker 1: area for stuff to go wrong, for wild stuff to happen.
Speaker 1: And he was saying that duck hunters are story collectors.
Speaker 1: They're not really after ducks. Like if you're a deer hunter,
Speaker 1: like you're really trying to kill. You're trying to kill
Speaker 1: a deer and and a lot of times the success
Speaker 1: really might be whether you killed one or not, and
Speaker 1: you're alone most of the time too, So it's just solo.
Speaker 1: It's just it's pretty much a solo endeavor. And uh,
Speaker 1: but duck hunting, yeah, I think you can hear that
Speaker 1: in all their stories. Um. I always say, there's there's
Speaker 1: like an inverse relationship between the amount of snacks that
Speaker 1: our kids get and their passion for hunting. And so
Speaker 1: Bear and Clay will go hunting and it's like you're
Speaker 1: going fast for three days and here's can of sardine's, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, but then if he'll if he'll take one
Speaker 1: of our girls, are you saying because bears a passionate hunt,
Speaker 1: there's no quality snacks. There's another one that gets like
Speaker 1: you know, it's like going to a candy shop every
Speaker 1: time they go hunting. But I appreciate these stories. I
Speaker 1: think it's like these are y'all stories are especially for
Speaker 1: someone who's who hasn't grown up in that world, in
Speaker 1: the duck hunting world. Your stories all of you had
Speaker 1: several honeybun mentioned, uh, some biscuits, homemade biscuits. You know.
Speaker 1: I think that there is something about the food and
Speaker 1: the the socialization aspect of it and bringing your kids
Speaker 1: and having that multigenerational experience. Yeah, it's it's you can
Speaker 1: hold duck camp. Like that's something that that I missed
Speaker 1: out on because Gary Nucom was such a die hard
Speaker 1: bow hunter, like he we didn't like, we didn't really
Speaker 1: want to have a big camp. I mean, just need
Speaker 1: to say it today. And that's what's cool about duck hunting.
Speaker 1: And it's also what's cool about me not really knowing
Speaker 1: much about duck hunting until I was an adult. That
Speaker 1: I think makes me value it. And uh, come along
Speaker 1: and those emails, man, boy, I get those duck emails
Speaker 1: from Luke Naylor. You know, duck season is only sixty
Speaker 1: days and deer season you've got this bigger span to
Speaker 1: do it. That's from Moore concentrated, Like you get sixty
Speaker 1: days and guys hit it hard and they do. It's
Speaker 1: amazing how people are so obsessed with it in the
Speaker 1: idea of duck camp and you think about you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: it goes by so quick. Yeah, and you can't miss
Speaker 1: the day of it. You gotta go coast the day
Speaker 1: maybe the day that's right, the day you can't kill
Speaker 1: him from the couch. I think duck hunting to that
Speaker 1: outweighs them. Any other hunt is or any other hunting is?
Speaker 1: It kind of after season still carries on through the
Speaker 1: rest of the year because you have dogs that you're
Speaker 1: training and working and preparing for the next season. And
Speaker 1: it's just I think it's it sets itself apart from
Speaker 1: dear Anger. Yeah yeah cool. Kennie. Tell me about your
Speaker 1: business And I asked her before the podcast. I said,
Speaker 1: is you're shooting? How you make it a living and
Speaker 1: what you do? So? Yeah, what what you do? So?
Speaker 1: Um my full time job is athlete on t mu
Speaker 1: s A. So with that, I opened up a shooting
Speaker 1: lodge called Cypers Creek Shooting Lodge. It's out in Greenbrier
Speaker 1: and it's basically a place where it's a training facility.
Speaker 1: It's a place where you can come and learn how
Speaker 1: to kill ducks. You can learn how to clay target shoot,
Speaker 1: you can try some squirrels whatever. We don't discriminate. Um
Speaker 1: I could. I could probably put on a clint Yeah
Speaker 1: you probably could, um yeah yeah, um so yeah. We
Speaker 1: I have a training facility there that coach. I love
Speaker 1: to coach the younger generation and just get them involved
Speaker 1: because shooting is one of those things that if you're
Speaker 1: not the best athlete, if you're not a football star,
Speaker 1: basketball star or whatever. Um, you can pick up a
Speaker 1: gun and I can probably get to you to be
Speaker 1: as good as you want to go with it. So
Speaker 1: UM have the shooting lodge there out in Greenbrier and
Speaker 1: we have every clay target discipline that that you could shoot.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different discipline sporting plays, Olympic trap,
Speaker 1: American trap, whatever. And so how would people would they
Speaker 1: how would they get your services so they can go look?
Speaker 1: Is it like a couple hour things? However, however long
Speaker 1: Amory has been out a couple of times, Austin has
Speaker 1: been out, his family, Um Joe has been out. But
Speaker 1: you can go to Cyperscreet Shooting dot com and there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot of information on that, or send us
Speaker 1: an email at booking at cyperscreet Shooting dot com. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to do a plug for people who may
Speaker 1: want to get into duck hunting, and that is go
Speaker 1: visit someone like Kaylee or a game and fish shooting
Speaker 1: range and shoot a gun first before you go out.
Speaker 1: And we have instructors at all of our gaming fish facilities,
Speaker 1: and obviously Cypress Creek. That's where, that's where I I
Speaker 1: love it. Oh my gosh, Kayley straightened me out of ton.
Speaker 1: But go and learn the proper way to do it,
Speaker 1: just like Austin did with his daughter, and you enjoy
Speaker 1: the experience so much more because I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I ever shot a shotgun, it was like, oh here,
Speaker 1: you know your brother has done this, You've seated enough
Speaker 1: shoot it. And I shot it and you know, it
Speaker 1: just about knocked me down and it kind of scared me.
Speaker 1: And I was afraid to shoot a shotgun for a while.
Speaker 1: So I wish that I had done, you know, the
Speaker 1: proper outlets to do it. So it's incredibly important. It
Speaker 1: makes things more enjoyable. Yeah I know how to shoot. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I got So I've got a lot of questions about shooting. Um,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm super curious because a Marie you're I mean,
Speaker 1: you're a seasoned hunter and yeah, you're you're getting You're
Speaker 1: you're improving as a result of going to Kaylee, so
Speaker 1: she's able to help, like and then Austin's daughter is
Speaker 1: a brand new That's that's kind of fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: That so earlier we're talking about I dominance I shot,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm left handed. I shot right handed for ed,
Speaker 1: did just get real? I shot right handed forever because
Speaker 1: that's what my dad my brothers did. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: they shoot right handed, That's what I'm going to shoot.
Speaker 1: I was out at the range one day shooting trap
Speaker 1: with somebody and they go, I go, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of gotta work on it a little bit. And
Speaker 1: he goes, well, uh, you know, what eye dominance are you?
Speaker 1: I said, well, I don't really know. I think I
Speaker 1: think I'm right eye. Did the test left eye dominant? Started?
Speaker 1: She left handed made the biggest difference in the world. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I am, I'm left handed, but I do some things
Speaker 1: right handed. So this is back and I don't know
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen. So I'd gone a majority of my
Speaker 1: life just shooting right hand and just kind of figuring
Speaker 1: it out, adjusting to it, and you know, get some
Speaker 1: decent shots. And then in the past few years, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I could do some brushing up and
Speaker 1: improve even more. I was a fine shot. I could
Speaker 1: go out and have a good duck hunt, but I
Speaker 1: want to be better. So I went and so interesting,
Speaker 1: my shell bill has been has been cut in half.
Speaker 1: It's great. Really, Yeah, I never thought of it as
Speaker 1: a financial move. Shot gun shells are expecting at the
Speaker 1: highest levels of competitive shooting. How much of it is
Speaker 1: natural talent and how much of it is years and
Speaker 1: decades of that's a great question. So at my level,
Speaker 1: it becomes how much work you're going to put into it?
Speaker 1: After you learn the fundamentals of the game, it all
Speaker 1: becomes mental and it's who. For example, at Olympics, I'd
Speaker 1: never been on that stage I was competing. It's a
Speaker 1: girl who is a three time Olympic medal assistance her
Speaker 1: fourth Olympics. She's seen that platform before. So she beat me.
Speaker 1: She she beat me by one time, she got gold
Speaker 1: by one. But at that level, one target doesn't define,
Speaker 1: you know, in my one target, Yeah, it doesn't define
Speaker 1: if she's a better shot or if I'm a better shot.
Speaker 1: It's it's the stage that you're on. So at that level,
Speaker 1: it's just who's going to outwork who. She's pretty mean,
Speaker 1: she wears a do rag and so, but she's the
Speaker 1: sweetest person. She speaks like seventeen languages. She's just she's
Speaker 1: very cool girl. Yeah, she's she's she's really cool. So
Speaker 1: the much of the shooting is is, but you've got
Speaker 1: to be naturally really talented. Though, the biggest part in
Speaker 1: shooting is learning how to use your eyes. And anybody
Speaker 1: can learn that. Whether your right eye dominant, left eye
Speaker 1: dominant right handed, left handed, that doesn't doesn't matter when
Speaker 1: it comes down to it. It's how you learn to
Speaker 1: use your eyes. So if I were to take you
Speaker 1: out and a big flock of ducks come in and
Speaker 1: I say, hey, Clay, what did you see on those ducks,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, I saw thirty or forty ducks. I
Speaker 1: can see the green around its neck. I can pick
Speaker 1: out a detail on that duck, and that's what separates
Speaker 1: what I'm going to shoot versus what you're going to shoot.
Speaker 1: So it's just really learning how how to use what
Speaker 1: you have. Remember got one time on a some type
Speaker 1: of training instructional video saying that he was trying to
Speaker 1: count the wing flaps of crows and they're just like,
Speaker 1: and I think about that a lot. I don't do
Speaker 1: it very often, but yeah, that's interesting. So it's all
Speaker 1: about It's about it's about detail. Like when Amory comes down,
Speaker 1: I make her pick out a detail on the clay
Speaker 1: target that we're shooting, whether that be the center dome
Speaker 1: or the ridges that's on the clay target, or the
Speaker 1: black rim. Because if she's looking at a hole, she's
Speaker 1: looking at a whole picture. Her site is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit different, her aim is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit different. If she might be a
Speaker 1: little left, and because she's seeing the whole picture, she's
Speaker 1: gonna say, I feel like I was right on it.
Speaker 1: But if you hone in on the detail, now we
Speaker 1: can say, okay, so where you look at when clay pigeon,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see a detail where that's a light
Speaker 1: spot on it from the sun, where that's a shadow,
Speaker 1: just any kind of detail that I could pick out.
Speaker 1: It's like a therapy lesson when you go out there
Speaker 1: talking with her and her dad and figuring it all out.
Speaker 1: And once we did that and I realized, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: been using my eyes wrong for this long, you're starting
Speaker 1: knocking him down and it's so much more fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if I was going to toss my phone to
Speaker 1: you and say, hey, catch this, I throwed up, the
Speaker 1: first thing that you're going to look for is your
Speaker 1: eyes are going to look for it, and your hands
Speaker 1: are going to know where to go. Shooting is the
Speaker 1: same same concept that parallels with your hand I coronation there,
Speaker 1: M you think I'm ready. I don't want him around
Speaker 1: because he doesn't believe that I have a condition. We've
Speaker 1: been over this. He doesn't believe in conditions. But I
Speaker 1: have a feeling you're you're shooting learning that would Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a guy I don't I don't know him well,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's a guy that does some traditional
Speaker 1: archery bow hunting classes and most of his stuff is
Speaker 1: about mental understanding of shot sequence named Joel Turner. It
Speaker 1: seems like a good guy. I don't know him, but
Speaker 1: he talks about like you're either He's talking about traditional
Speaker 1: archery where you don't have sights like it would be
Speaker 1: with a gun, and uh, he talks a lot about
Speaker 1: sequence and knowing what you're gonna do before before you shoot,
Speaker 1: and it kind of makes you when you hear him talk,
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, I guess I'm just kind of guessing
Speaker 1: a lot. But I'll tell you what it works good
Speaker 1: for squirrels long ways away and you just keep shooting guessing. Okay, great, Well,
Speaker 1: um Man I've I've like throw up like multiple bad
Speaker 1: jokes that I was looking for a little studio audience.
Speaker 1: Today we're all the whole thing about let the squirrels
Speaker 1: get far away and this kind of you have a
Speaker 1: little bit more room for guessing where to aim. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm impressed with the with the the knowledge that
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that you you have and could
Speaker 1: impart to people with just a little bit of training.
Speaker 1: My grandfather was a there's a picture of him, where's
Speaker 1: it at? Where's the picture of pet? He used to
Speaker 1: be right there, where's oh? Right there? Yeah. He. I
Speaker 1: grew up shooting ski with him, and he was he's
Speaker 1: a bird dog man, and we we shot skip for
Speaker 1: all the time with cotton in our ears, probably the
Speaker 1: reason I'm deaf. But he always talked about blacking him
Speaker 1: out and follow through, like those are the main things
Speaker 1: he talked about, was black him out and then follow through,
Speaker 1: like if you're moving through a bird, just keep moving.
Speaker 1: But that's about as technical as we got. But shoot
Speaker 1: where the corn goes in, where the corn goes out?
Speaker 1: M M. And as his attorney, I just like to
Speaker 1: clarify for the record that he is not as my attorney.
Speaker 1: He is not employing in anyway that he duck hunts
Speaker 1: over corn. Yeah, that's what I was thinking that. It
Speaker 1: was like that does that work? Uh? Well, hey, thank
Speaker 1: you Austin, director of the game, and finish in here.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Anne, Marie, thank you for coming. Thanks,
Speaker 1: gonna take it up. I told Misty I wanted to
Speaker 1: take her back down there. Come on. It sounds like
Speaker 1: we're gonna make something work, like you're gonna come. Yes,
Speaker 1: I had a request. Uh. Since I've been listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast, I hear about this gentleman sitting next to
Speaker 1: me that used to god on by me too when
Speaker 1: you still could, I kind of want to hear them
Speaker 1: call he got still Today it's not there as much pressure.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is the Alvin Taylor is Alvin Taylor call?
Speaker 1: He made this from me in nineteen Let's let's hear
Speaker 1: let's hear your call. What kind of calls you running?
Speaker 1: So I've got two separate cons. I've got to cut
Speaker 1: down calls, and then I've got sorry, three cutdown calls.
Speaker 1: And then to j Frames, which I said, those are
Speaker 1: just different cons. What um what? Brent Blue was a
Speaker 1: j frame, So I'll try to blow on these cutdowns
Speaker 1: and y'all can hear. You'll can hear the difference. It
Speaker 1: will be louder. Keep your bike up like that if
Speaker 1: you can be louder and raspier. Okay, yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's it's got a little more meat to it,
Speaker 1: doesn't rasp volume excellent. Well, heck, we're blowing duck calls. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is I got this one from Jim Stinson the
Speaker 1: other day, and he ill tell you what he did
Speaker 1: with me is he uh, he was trying to teach
Speaker 1: me how to just make one quack and he he
Speaker 1: wouldn't let me blow up more than once. And he said,
Speaker 1: he said, pretend like you're blowing out a candle. He said,
Speaker 1: pretend like you're blowing out a candle, but you're but
Speaker 1: you're closing your lips like going and that's and he
Speaker 1: so he said, and then he he had me do
Speaker 1: that like twenty times, and he would go, he would
Speaker 1: come every single time I did it, he'd go, nope, nope, yep, yep, yep, nope, yep, yep, nope. Ye. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was like intense. And then he said Okay,
Speaker 1: do it twice you there you go, m he go, Nope,
Speaker 1: he misses it on the second one. But anyway, he
Speaker 1: just like marched me through it, which is pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just quiet. I saw it takes boys, words of words
Speaker 1: of wisdom. That's what was an email, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what the email jokes are getting a lot of less.
Speaker 1: I will I would like to bring up this gift
Speaker 1: that uh, that the Durramis has brought me from from
Speaker 1: a stop they made on the way to the the northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1: This is a black rifle. Uh, just like a twelve
Speaker 1: ounce pack of coffee, and it has a full real
Speaker 1: black panther on the cover and it's a Lava Panther
Speaker 1: Black Rifle Coffee Company's hashtag. They are one of my sponsors.
Speaker 1: So actually, if anybody would like a black rifle savings,
Speaker 1: you can use my name, Kaylee. Picture you like shooting something.
Speaker 1: I cannot confirm a black panther man. This this is
Speaker 1: a big win for us, Lava Panther. I thought it
Speaker 1: was really special. You know, meat eaters big in with
Speaker 1: there's a meat eater blend of black rifle. Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: had it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. Yeah, they they are.
Speaker 1: They're such a good sponsor. They ship stuff to the
Speaker 1: lodge all the time, so all we drink is black rifle.
Speaker 1: That's all I carry in the lodge as well. And
Speaker 1: they support veterans, they do, they do. I think it's
Speaker 1: don't quote me on this, but I want to say
Speaker 1: over half their company is veterans work there. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I've heard that too. Great, well, Emory, just
Speaker 1: see my black panther up there. Oh yeah, first thing
Speaker 1: I saw when I came in. I finally got a
Speaker 1: bottle resting place for him. He was kind of bouncing
Speaker 1: around the office, but I got him. I got him
Speaker 1: up there. I don't know why he's not above the
Speaker 1: mantel in the house, but that's just yeah. Oh man, yea, well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much. Yeah, yeah, great stuff. And
Speaker 1: the next series of Burgrease it's gonna be incredible. That's
Speaker 1: all I can say. It's kind I think I'll go
Speaker 1: home now. What he's quoting for stump. You have you
Speaker 1: ever seen the TV? Not very often. This man does
Speaker 1: not like what Hey, Happy new Year, everybody. Great