Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, we're diving
Speaker 2: into the wisdom fill parenting philosophy the Klay Newcomb's leaned
Speaker 2: down as he's introduced his four children to the hunting lifestyle.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light, and this week we are
Speaker 2: continuing our series on parenting outdoor kids, and specifically today
Speaker 2: spending a lot of time talking about introducing your children
Speaker 2: to hunting. And our guest today, as I mentioned at
Speaker 2: the top, is the one and only Clay Newcomb. If
Speaker 2: you are not familiar with Clay Newcomb, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You must have been living under a rock or something.
Speaker 2: Clay is one of my colleagues here at Meat Eater.
Speaker 2: He's the host of the Bear Grease podcast, host of
Speaker 2: the Bear Grease road Show on the Media to YouTube channel,
Speaker 2: and I think one of our foremost thinkers, speakers, and
Speaker 2: storytellers within the hunting and outdoor community. He's a just
Speaker 2: a wise man. He is full of intuitions and insights
Speaker 2: and ideas and fascinations that I think we all can
Speaker 2: learn from. And so today that was my hope, is
Speaker 2: that we could get my friend Clay here to share
Speaker 2: a little bit of his experience in his journey as
Speaker 2: a dad and trying to introduce his kids and teach
Speaker 2: his kids about hunting and using hunting as an opportunity
Speaker 2: to grow young men and women. And he's had a
Speaker 2: lot of experience doing it. He has four children, two girls,
Speaker 2: two boys, and the oldest of which is twenty one.
Speaker 2: So he's been doing this for twenty one years now.
Speaker 2: He has seen what has worked, he's seen what hasn't
Speaker 2: worked as well. He has lived it, he's learned it.
Speaker 2: He has a lot to share. And man, I just
Speaker 2: wrapped up this conversation with Clay. I think there are
Speaker 2: some really really nice little gems here we can take
Speaker 2: away from this. We're gonna learn some things about his philosophy,
Speaker 2: and I think that is an important takeaway is that
Speaker 2: you know there isn't necessarily a one right answer to
Speaker 2: any of these questions about how to introduce your kids
Speaker 2: to hunting or fishing or the outdoors. There's no specific
Speaker 2: correct way to do any of these things. But if
Speaker 2: you can develop a philosophy, if you can develop a
Speaker 2: set of values or processes that you go through that
Speaker 2: will inform how you make these decisions, that will guide
Speaker 2: you as you go through life with your son or
Speaker 2: daughter and experience all that the natural world has to
Speaker 2: throw at you together. Having something to fall back on,
Speaker 2: a foundation, some set of ideas that help you make
Speaker 2: decisions throughout life. That's going to be helpful. And Clay
Speaker 2: shares with us his and I think we can all
Speaker 2: borrow from it in part, maybe in whole, to help
Speaker 2: us on our own journeys as mothers, fathers, and as hunters.
Speaker 2: So that's our conversation today. It is fun, it's insightful,
Speaker 2: and actionable, I think would be the last way I
Speaker 2: would describe it. So with that out of the way,
Speaker 2: I don't think we need to be labor this anymore.
Speaker 2: I think we should just get to my chat with Clay.
Speaker 2: It's a good one and I hope you enjoy it
Speaker 2: all right here with me now on the line, we
Speaker 2: have the one and only Clay nukembe Clay. Thanks for
Speaker 2: being here. Hey, Mark, I appreciate it, man, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: appreciate you making time to do this. You are a
Speaker 2: busy man with a seemingly endless supply of Bear Grease
Speaker 2: episodes to record in all sorts of adventures. So thanks
Speaker 2: for clearing the schedule.
Speaker 3: It's all hype, man, don't tell anybody, but yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's it's it's not hard. I just, like you know,
Speaker 3: roll into work just whenever I want and don't travel much.
Speaker 3: It's easy, Mark, This is no big deal.
Speaker 2: You know what. You're good at a lot of stuff, Clay,
Speaker 2: but Lion is not one of them. Hey, what's what's
Speaker 2: the word on that Country Life? How's stuff going on
Speaker 2: that so far for Brent and you?
Speaker 4: Oh, man, it's it's I think it's going really well.
Speaker 3: So at the time we're recording, there's three episodes of
Speaker 3: this Country Life which have come out, which are the
Speaker 3: host of that show? Is my good friend your friend too,
Speaker 3: Mark Brent Reeves. Brent's from Arkansas. Brent's kind of been
Speaker 3: on the Bear Grease cruise since the beginning, not officially,
Speaker 3: but he's been involved in my podcast for a while
Speaker 3: and just a longtime friend. And so he now has
Speaker 3: a podcast. It's short, it's twenty minutes long. It's a monologue,
Speaker 3: it's kind of funny. It funny folksy teaches you a
Speaker 3: little bit, and just a real lighthearted, little little narrative
Speaker 3: about country living man. And it's going good. We're getting
Speaker 3: a lot of good feedback on it. And it's on
Speaker 3: the bear Grease feed So it's like part of kind
Speaker 3: of the bear Grease world, kind of like Foundations is
Speaker 3: for you and Tony Yep exactly.
Speaker 2: So Brent had an episode talking about the different things
Speaker 2: in his pocket. Right, has that made you at all
Speaker 2: any more self conscious about what's in your pocket? Or
Speaker 2: have you have you started thinking about that a little
Speaker 2: more now that folks are probably asking you about that,
Speaker 2: you know what? Brent?
Speaker 3: He sometimes people in media might like exaggerate the stuff
Speaker 3: that they do. Like for example, they might talk about
Speaker 3: all the stuff they carry in their pocket, but really
Speaker 3: on any given day they might not actually have that stuff. Brent,
Speaker 3: for real, for the last forty years has literally carried
Speaker 3: all that stuff in his pocket. Anything you do with him,
Speaker 3: you can be like, hey, Brent, where's that buckeye, and
Speaker 3: he's got the buckeye, which is shocking to me. He
Speaker 3: always has his case knife, he always has his pocket.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not a joke what he did me
Speaker 3: Mark Man. Any given day, it's a wild card what
Speaker 3: I've got in my pocket. I don't have any routine,
Speaker 3: but I have been influenced by Brent, and I have
Speaker 3: been carrying a pocket knife, which honestly too much people surprise.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't always have a knife on me, and
Speaker 3: I'm a little ashamed to say that, but it's just
Speaker 3: the truth.
Speaker 4: But I have been carrying a case case trapper.
Speaker 3: With me nice last month or two because someone gave
Speaker 3: me one, and I've actually really, I really like it.
Speaker 2: I've been torn on the knife thing. I've always had
Speaker 2: this little keychain knife. It literally looks like a key,
Speaker 2: but it has a little tiny knife that folds out
Speaker 2: of it. So it's very handy to have. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't open a package or cut a you know,
Speaker 2: small piece of rope or something in a pinch. But
Speaker 2: I've debated bringing an actual, nice, bigger folding knife with me,
Speaker 2: and I'm always off and on about that. I'll carry
Speaker 2: it around sometimes and it seems like bulky when you
Speaker 2: don't need it ninety percent of the time, but that
Speaker 2: ten percent when you do, it's really nice to have
Speaker 2: that larger, more functional piece. So I don't know, you'll
Speaker 2: have to tell me what the report is after a
Speaker 2: few more months, Carrien hears.
Speaker 3: What I've what I've learned about carrying this, this pocket
Speaker 3: knife I've been carrying is it's it's almost like just
Speaker 3: having something to do with your hands, like I'm holding
Speaker 3: it right now, not even I think I was holding
Speaker 3: it before we even started talking about this, Like I
Speaker 3: just kind of I just kind of fiddle with it
Speaker 3: all day, and it's I'm just conscious of it, and
Speaker 3: it's that's it's almost like you just use it, like
Speaker 3: not as a functional knife, but it's just like something
Speaker 3: to to fiddle with.
Speaker 4: That's that's that's bad. Maybe that's maybe this is not
Speaker 4: a good crutch, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: It could be better than some things I used to. Uh.
Speaker 2: I used to spin my cell phone as like a
Speaker 2: fidget thing. I would just spin it in my fingers
Speaker 2: and that led to me dropping it and having some
Speaker 2: damage several times. So knife is a better option. Ah
Speaker 2: On the topic of hand though, other than what's in
Speaker 2: our pocket, clay. As you know, I'm doing the series
Speaker 2: about parenting outdoor kids, talking about you know, we spend
Speaker 2: so much time on this podcast talking about how to
Speaker 2: hunt deer, how to hunt, how to kill deer, how
Speaker 2: to how to pattern deer, how to do all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and we'd like to sess over all that.
Speaker 2: But I frequently think, why don't we? I shouldn't say that.
Speaker 2: I don't frequently think this. I think about this sometimes
Speaker 2: and tell myself I should be thinking about it more often,
Speaker 2: Which is how come we don't spend as much time
Speaker 2: debating and discussing how to get our kids and teach
Speaker 2: our kids about this stuff. Why don't we spend as
Speaker 2: much time doing that as we do obsessing over where's
Speaker 2: this big buck going to be tomorrow? Or how old
Speaker 2: is this buck? Or what pinch point will be the
Speaker 2: right one. So that's all to say. I wanted to
Speaker 2: give it some attention because I'm assuming you would say
Speaker 2: this would be true for you too, that as a parent,
Speaker 2: once you do become a father or a mother, it
Speaker 2: totally changes your priorities. It totally changes everything about how
Speaker 2: you experience the outdoors. But a lot of times we
Speaker 2: just kind of go along with the flow and we
Speaker 2: figure stuff out, and we don't actually explicitly talk about
Speaker 2: this with other people, like how do you do this?
Speaker 2: Or how do you do it right? Or how do
Speaker 2: you do it wrong? Or what are some lessons we
Speaker 2: can learn? And I don't know if that's just because
Speaker 2: everyone's experiencing it and so we don't feel like we
Speaker 2: need to talk about it, or if or if maybe
Speaker 2: it's because there's no real way to claim expertise on
Speaker 2: the topic. I don't know what it is, but well,
Speaker 2: I mean tell me this, Clay, would you consider yourself
Speaker 2: an expert on teaching your kids how to hunt or
Speaker 2: fish or be outdoors people?
Speaker 4: No? I No, I don't. I don't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know that.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a it's a categorization that could be
Speaker 3: labeled expert or not expert.
Speaker 4: Because it's such a.
Speaker 3: It's such a it's such a complicated thing because we're
Speaker 3: always well, let me step back. I think it is
Speaker 3: good for us to talk about this stuff and for
Speaker 3: every parent to think about it consciously, because anything we
Speaker 3: don't think about consciously, don't discuss, don't have some philosophy
Speaker 3: and even more than a plan, it's a philosophy, and
Speaker 3: that's different like a plan is like we're gonna A
Speaker 3: plan is more.
Speaker 4: External, like we're gonna do this, this, and this.
Speaker 3: A philosophy is a is an ideology of why we're
Speaker 3: doing what we're doing. And so if you don't have
Speaker 3: a plan and a philosophy, then you you result. You
Speaker 3: fall back to your default, which every one of us
Speaker 3: has a default way that we deal with our kids,
Speaker 3: which is often very flawed. And the thing about parenthood
Speaker 3: and mark your parent, I'm a parent and we were
Speaker 3: both parented by parents, is that is that anybody on
Speaker 3: planet Earth can look back at and see the places
Speaker 3: where their parents got stuff right, but also the places
Speaker 3: where their parents got stuff wrong.
Speaker 4: And the idea.
Speaker 3: Is that you would be able to ethically look back
Speaker 3: to your parents they did and be like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do something different. They tried hard, you know
Speaker 3: most of the time, most in general, most parents are
Speaker 3: trying pretty hard.
Speaker 4: Some aren't.
Speaker 3: But and you can say I'm going to do something
Speaker 3: different than they did, and then I'm going to take
Speaker 3: the good things and replicate that. But if you're unconscious
Speaker 3: of that you just can replicate negative patterns, and so yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: I think I think we got to take this serious.
Speaker 3: And I think there's some kind of tropes out there
Speaker 3: about how to introduce kids to the outdoors that are
Speaker 3: just not that productive, And yeah, I want to we
Speaker 3: can talk about those things for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we definitely do it. I love that point you
Speaker 2: make about how you know, I think parenting can be
Speaker 2: based on a philosophy, not necessarily like a set of
Speaker 2: steps or a strategy, but a philosophy that you can
Speaker 2: always fall back on or or I got to believe
Speaker 2: that that is also informed by like a value system. Right,
Speaker 2: there's all these things that come down the line that
Speaker 2: maybe we haven't experienced before, but we have a philosophy
Speaker 2: or a set of values that we can lean on
Speaker 2: to guide us, to help us make those new decisions
Speaker 2: or you know, kind of weather this unfamiliar territory. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to get into what your philosophy is, what
Speaker 2: some of those negative tropes are. But before that, I
Speaker 2: want to first get a little more context. I'd like
Speaker 2: to personally even just better understand a little bit of
Speaker 2: how your early years built you to who you are
Speaker 2: and led to the parent that you are now. You
Speaker 2: mentioned this idea that a lot of us, for some
Speaker 2: of us, it's the only real training we had in
Speaker 2: parenting is just looking back on how we were parented,
Speaker 2: right as you just mentioned, and probably for all of us,
Speaker 2: we can think of good and we can think of bad.
Speaker 2: What do you remember about your childhood, Clay, What those
Speaker 2: early years were like when your dad or other family
Speaker 2: members or friends were helping introduce you to hunting and
Speaker 2: the outdoors. What stands out as being those formative experiences
Speaker 2: or lessons.
Speaker 3: So I can talk pretty freely about this because I've
Speaker 3: talked very freely about it with my with my dad,
Speaker 3: who everybody in the Bear Grease world knows because he's
Speaker 3: on my podcast a lot. He's I have a I
Speaker 3: have a great relationship with my dad, and and so
Speaker 3: I would have I was born in seventy nine, so
Speaker 3: I grew up in the eighties, you know, as a
Speaker 3: as an adolescent and teenager in the nineties, and the
Speaker 3: the idea of introducing kids into the outdoors, the philosophy
Speaker 3: of the age was very different back then, and and
Speaker 3: the philosophy was there was very little coddling, There was
Speaker 3: very little actually trying to make an experience pleasant for
Speaker 3: a kid. It was it was more just like, Hey,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna go hunting with me, this is where
Speaker 3: it's gonna go, and this is the way it's gonna be.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't like our dads were jerks.
Speaker 3: It's just that's just I mean, like my dad, he
Speaker 3: worked a regular job and could only hunt on the
Speaker 3: weekends and didn't hunt very much on Sunday, so he
Speaker 3: kind of had like one day a week to hunt.
Speaker 3: He was a very serious bowhunter for what he had
Speaker 3: and so man, he wasn't gonna let much get in
Speaker 3: the way of him doing what he needed to do
Speaker 3: to kill a deer, you know, during the postseason on
Speaker 3: public land in Arkansas. And so I had to just
Speaker 3: kind of get with the program. And both of my
Speaker 3: brothers didn't really like that program too much. And I
Speaker 3: think Dad would say, you know, he was probably pretty
Speaker 3: pretty hard to deal with back in those days. I mean,
Speaker 3: he just wasn't very accommodating, and honestly, I don't know
Speaker 3: that either of my brothers would have ever been that
Speaker 3: interested in it. And I'll kind of get into that
Speaker 3: a little bit later when I talk about I don't
Speaker 3: think all of our kids have to be hunters, nor
Speaker 3: do they want to be hunters.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: And so I'm not sure if he'd have done stuff different,
Speaker 3: if if the results would have been any different, because
Speaker 3: I have two brothers that don't hunting is not a
Speaker 3: big part of their lives. They both have hunted, and
Speaker 3: one of them is kind of getting back into it.
Speaker 3: But now, my first memory of bow hunting was the
Speaker 3: first time my dad actually took me out to hunt
Speaker 3: and I could.
Speaker 4: I had a bows in the fourth grade.
Speaker 3: It'd been shooting, could pull forty pounds, was legal to hunt.
Speaker 3: Dad took me out and put me in a tree
Speaker 3: stand way before daylight, and Mark I got, well, he
Speaker 3: puts me in the tree stand. It's like, man, I'll
Speaker 3: be back at ten o'clock and it is black dark.
Speaker 4: And how old he's going.
Speaker 3: I was in the fourth grade, so I would have
Speaker 3: been I think, nine years old. And he's not like
Speaker 3: going like one hundred yards on the ridge. He's getting
Speaker 3: in this truck and driving, you know, miles to some
Speaker 3: other place. And and I got scared to death and
Speaker 3: just started crying, I mean straight up crying. And it
Speaker 3: was a terrible experience, and he ended up taking me
Speaker 3: down and just kind of like leaving me in the
Speaker 3: truck while he went and hunted, and uh it it
Speaker 3: it was very traumatic for me, but I kept hunting
Speaker 3: with him and he did accommodate me a lot after that,
Speaker 3: but it was a negative experience. And so anyway, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of guys my age, your age would
Speaker 3: would probably have fairly similar experiences of dads that were
Speaker 3: just pretty hardcore, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, so I love these stories of your childhood
Speaker 2: with your with your dad. I like to joke about
Speaker 2: how me and Gary would have got along real well
Speaker 2: when it came to deer hunting because we were on
Speaker 2: the same pronom.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ye, but you told me when I was down there
Speaker 2: hunting with you guys a couple of years ago and
Speaker 2: I was talking with your dad, you had told me
Speaker 2: some of this, and you talked about kind of your
Speaker 2: dad's attention to detail and obsessiveness with things like scent
Speaker 2: control and and really having a detailed deer hunting program,
Speaker 2: and how his obsessiveness on that side of things actually
Speaker 2: drove you away from that style of hunting and that seriousness.
Speaker 2: Can you can you expand on that a little bit,
Speaker 2: A little bit, how like these experiences you had early
Speaker 2: on shaped who you then became as a hunter.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so he my dad, you know, his philosophy,
Speaker 3: just to sum it up, would be to control the
Speaker 3: things that you can control to the t.
Speaker 4: And he grew up in the Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and and and actually that's my philosophy too. It's
Speaker 3: just it's my emphasis is in a different place. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And and so he grew up. He in the nineties
Speaker 3: kind of came of age and became a really good
Speaker 3: deer hunter for hit, for our area and for what
Speaker 3: he had and and a lot of that revolved around
Speaker 3: sink control. And so he just was like hyper meticulous
Speaker 3: about sink control. And he was kind of a gear guy.
Speaker 3: He loved gear, He loved tweaking on tree stands, he
Speaker 3: loves I mean, my earliest memories of bow hunting are
Speaker 3: being out in our.
Speaker 4: Yard at our lighted outdoor.
Speaker 3: Archery range, shooting our bows at like eleven o'clock at night,
Speaker 3: trying to get dialed in to go hunt the next day.
Speaker 3: And it's not like we waited till the last minute.
Speaker 3: It just thirty years ago, bows were just.
Speaker 4: Different than they are now.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you just had to shoot all
Speaker 3: the time to stay consistent. And anyway, Dad loved tweaking
Speaker 3: on gear, and so that made me be ultra simplistic
Speaker 3: in my gear. Like if you sat down and meet
Speaker 3: with me and start talking about deer hunting, the last
Speaker 3: thing I'm interested in is gear. People are like, what
Speaker 3: kind of setup do you have? And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I do know. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm very proficient in the woods, so you know, I've
Speaker 3: got some fundamental understanding of gear, and but but it's
Speaker 3: not what I get excited about. I don't get excited
Speaker 3: about tinkering with bows, and I don't get excited about
Speaker 3: all this kind of in my mind, the man made
Speaker 3: side of deer hunting than honting. I get very excited
Speaker 3: about being in the woods, hunting strategy in the woods.
Speaker 3: And and so I wouldn't say I certainly wouldn't say
Speaker 3: I'm any less serious. I mean, in some ways I'm
Speaker 3: more serious than my dad, but my focus was in
Speaker 3: a different place, and absolutely it came from his obsession
Speaker 3: with it. And it's funny because my son bar Newcomb,
Speaker 3: who's become a really good deer hunter, himself. He is,
Speaker 3: he's kind of gone the other way back towards like
Speaker 3: he talked to Paul and it's like, man, Grandpa, I
Speaker 3: think you got this figured out. I think my dad's
Speaker 3: kind of kind of light on the details when it
Speaker 3: comes to some of this stuff. So, you know, it's
Speaker 3: like this pendulum swinging.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But but no, I think generationally we we learned and
Speaker 3: there's a whole lot of stuff that I absolutely are
Speaker 3: fundamental to who I am and how I bowhunt that
Speaker 3: came from Gary Nukem, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so to overgeneralize and correct me if I'm
Speaker 2: overgeneralizing this too much. But if I were to say,
Speaker 2: what were some of the things that didn't work so
Speaker 2: well for you? It was maybe, you know, being pushed
Speaker 2: into your dad's way of doing things too much, to
Speaker 2: too much of a degree, and maybe sooner than you
Speaker 2: were ready. Would you say, if you had to kind
Speaker 2: of really simplify some of the challenges of Gary's approach,
Speaker 2: that kind of shaped you for better or for worse.
Speaker 2: On that side, I think that was the challenge, was
Speaker 2: that was maybe that side of things.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not entirely sure I can I understand fully
Speaker 3: what you're saying there, I didn't kind of develop my
Speaker 3: own world until I was grown. Like, I did everything
Speaker 3: he asked me to do and wanted me to do.
Speaker 4: And that's the only reason I.
Speaker 3: Was successful when I was young was because I just
Speaker 3: I went with his plan. But then when I started
Speaker 3: hunting on my own and moved away, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I could do things a little different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me rephrase that question, Claire, real quick. If
Speaker 2: you were to look back on your childhood and the
Speaker 2: way your dad introduced you to these things, if you
Speaker 2: had to point your finger at what worked and what
Speaker 2: didn't work, could you point me at a couple of
Speaker 2: things on each or one on each side of that.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to say that what he was
Speaker 3: doing didn't work. And maybe I'm still understand your question
Speaker 3: back because his system worked great for him, and it
Speaker 3: was more just about how we wanted to hunt that
Speaker 3: was a little different, So I'm still not I mean,
Speaker 3: like the difference in us today would be primarily the
Speaker 3: way we handle scent control.
Speaker 4: Is is that kind of what you're leaning towards?
Speaker 2: More so what worked for you as a kid when
Speaker 2: you were learning to hunt and learning to be an outdoorsman,
Speaker 2: and your dad was trying to teach you these things,
Speaker 2: or whoever else you were hanging out with that was
Speaker 2: teaching about these things and bringing you in. I'm curious
Speaker 2: that what were the things that seemed to connect with you,
Speaker 2: like what got you into the outdoors? What were the
Speaker 2: things that your dad did that made you be like, man,
Speaker 2: I do want to be a hunter. Man, I love this.
Speaker 2: This is how I learned some stuff. And then what
Speaker 2: were some of those things that Gary did or didn't
Speaker 2: do that made you think like I don't really want
Speaker 2: to go out and do this or this was traumatic
Speaker 2: you know, or are the examples of that From a parenting.
Speaker 3: Perspective, Well, I would say the dominating theme of my
Speaker 3: childhood with my dad was very positive, I mean, very
Speaker 3: excited about deer hunting. He was he he he portrayed
Speaker 3: it to me in a very appealing way. The way
Speaker 3: he talked about it, the way he dealt with it. It
Speaker 3: was clear to me that this is something that was
Speaker 3: highly that he highly valued, and so I wanted to
Speaker 3: highly value it. And and I would say that's probably
Speaker 3: the uh. Well, and aside from just the excitement of of.
Speaker 4: Killing deer with a bow.
Speaker 3: When I was young in in our area, very few
Speaker 3: kids were. I mean, for real, I was probably the
Speaker 3: only kid in my grade that was killing deer with
Speaker 3: a bow consistently in high school and stuff. And oh
Speaker 3: there was a lot of accolades that came from that
Speaker 3: and satisfaction.
Speaker 4: And it was all just because.
Speaker 3: I was I mean, my dad was putting me on deer,
Speaker 3: you know, and we were easing I mean, we were
Speaker 3: hunting public land. It wasn't like we're hunting over feet
Speaker 3: nobody was hunting over feet back.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, he did a.
Speaker 3: Fantastic job of portraying this lifestyle and just the camaraderie
Speaker 3: he had with his friends. All that was great. And
Speaker 3: I can't really point to anything he did wrong other
Speaker 3: than just I mean, for real, I don't know that
Speaker 3: he did it wrong.
Speaker 4: It just was what he had to deal with.
Speaker 3: I remember one time on Saturdays, if we went with him,
Speaker 3: we hunted pretty far away from our house, and so
Speaker 3: if you were committed to go, you had to hunt
Speaker 3: all day. And I remember one day I wanted to
Speaker 3: come back to some kind of school get together in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, and so I went with him that morning
Speaker 3: and then I was like hey, dad, can I go home?
Speaker 3: Which meant he would have to go home, and he
Speaker 3: took me home. I remember it was kind of like,
Speaker 3: what you want to go home? But he accommodated me
Speaker 3: on that. I remember that, which would have been hard
Speaker 3: for him because he got had to skip out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he.
Speaker 4: Did a lot of stuff, right. I don't know if
Speaker 4: that answers your question, Mark, No, that does?
Speaker 2: That does? Is there anything now that you're a dad
Speaker 2: yourself and you've been one for twenty one years? Is
Speaker 2: there anything that you can point directly back to your
Speaker 2: dad as as something that you've carried forward with your
Speaker 2: own kids. So something your dad did with you that
Speaker 2: when you became a father, you were like, man, I
Speaker 2: gotta do the same thing with my boys or my
Speaker 2: daughters when I'm teaching them to hunt or bringing them
Speaker 2: outside or whatever it is.
Speaker 4: He was.
Speaker 3: He was very intentional with teaching us what was going on,
Speaker 3: Like he wouldn't. I still see, like competent fathers doing
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff today is just like taking a
Speaker 3: kid out and just putting him in a tree and
Speaker 3: letting him hunt without teaching him.
Speaker 4: I had friends that I went to school with.
Speaker 3: Whose dads did that and they killed deer, you know,
Speaker 3: with rifles and stuff. And we me and that kid
Speaker 3: would go out in the woods and they would have
Speaker 3: no clue really what was going on in deer hunting.
Speaker 3: And I would be like, man, we got to find
Speaker 3: some tracks and trails and scrapes and rubs and funnels
Speaker 3: and pinch points and and and you know, and I
Speaker 3: would just be like talking a different language because Dad
Speaker 3: trained me that way. So, so, really, teaching your kid
Speaker 3: to be a woodsman, and that's what I have really
Speaker 3: tried to do, and haven't haven't some some kids are
Speaker 3: going to be very receptive to that and others less receptive.
Speaker 3: But giving him, you know, he gave me the tools
Speaker 3: that I needed to be a successful hunter and trained me.
Speaker 3: I mean he trained me, you know, very intentionally as
Speaker 3: a young kid. And I've tried to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you do you feel like, maybe you don't
Speaker 2: know the answer to this, but do you feel like
Speaker 2: your father took the same approach with your two brothers
Speaker 2: and it was just that they were just a different
Speaker 2: personality types, so they weren't receptive or was there something
Speaker 2: else that led to them just not connecting with this
Speaker 2: lifestyle the way it has for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he did. I think he would have
Speaker 3: had the same approach with them. They just kind of
Speaker 3: had less interest from the beginning. I feel like they
Speaker 3: did and he And that kind of goes into one
Speaker 3: of my points, Mark, is that every kid is different,
Speaker 3: and so you to give them all a chance, you
Speaker 3: kind of got to have a different strategy with each
Speaker 3: of them. And I think he did have the same
Speaker 3: strategy with all of us, like exactly the same and
Speaker 3: so and I just had a natural tendency to lean
Speaker 3: into all this stuff, and my other brothers they just
Speaker 3: didn't as much. And that's what I've seen with my
Speaker 3: kids is the way I treat bar Nukem, who he's
Speaker 3: now seventeen and really is a competent hunter. I mean,
Speaker 3: you could just turn them out of the truck just
Speaker 3: about anywhere and say, hey, go kill an elk, go
Speaker 3: kill a bear, go kill a deer, and I feel
Speaker 3: like you'd have a pretty good chance. He just understands
Speaker 3: what's going on, and I'm much harder on him. I'm
Speaker 3: just very different with him that I am the other
Speaker 3: kids that are also hunters but just aren't as interested.
Speaker 4: As Bear is.
Speaker 3: And I would be a little more accommodating to them.
Speaker 3: I would not be as a as aggressive in planning
Speaker 3: with them, you know. And so that goes to that
Speaker 3: one of the things that I wanted to bring up
Speaker 3: is just like every kid's different and you got to
Speaker 3: treat them different.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Is it a situation in your experience with your kids
Speaker 2: where you try to introduce them in the same way
Speaker 2: and then see how they react to it, and then
Speaker 2: you say, Okay, these two are on board with this,
Speaker 2: but these two it's it seems like it's going to
Speaker 2: be different, So I'm going to have to change my
Speaker 2: approach or you know, how do you? I guess what
Speaker 2: I'm getting at here, Clay, is what has been your
Speaker 2: experience trying to assess each of your children and their
Speaker 2: interest and how they're ready for the next thing, or
Speaker 2: how interested or not interested they are, and how much
Speaker 2: pushing or training or I don't know, what's that been
Speaker 2: like for you?
Speaker 3: Okay, I think that there's there are eight There are
Speaker 3: sectors of a child's development up until they're eighteen years old,
Speaker 3: when the parental influence is different at different times from
Speaker 3: zero to about eight years old. Mark, I don't I
Speaker 3: didn't let my kids make very many decisions. I made
Speaker 3: decisions for them, and I would I would be and
Speaker 3: this isn't dogmatic. I didn't do this every time, but
Speaker 3: to generalize, I decided when the kids went hunting with
Speaker 3: me and when they didn't. So it wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want to wake up and go deer hunting
Speaker 3: in the morning, you know, ask a seven year old.
Speaker 3: I didn't get They're not ready to make that choice.
Speaker 3: I would say, Hey, we're going deer hunting in the morning.
Speaker 3: I'll wake up, We're have some breakfast, we're gonna we're
Speaker 3: gonna go out, we're gonna have a good time. We're
Speaker 3: gonna do this, and I would. I would basically interpret
Speaker 3: for them what they needed to be doing to give
Speaker 3: them the exposure that they needed. And then from about
Speaker 3: eight to fourteen, you start giving them some more choices
Speaker 3: because their preferences have begun to be formed and you
Speaker 3: don't want to oppress them. But also they're not fully
Speaker 3: making choices on their own. But that's when you might
Speaker 3: be like, hey, we're gonna go fishing over here. Would
Speaker 3: you like to come or would you like to you know,
Speaker 3: go do X activity, and you know, you give them
Speaker 3: a little bit more choice. There are times when you
Speaker 3: would just be like, hey, we're going hunting in the morning,
Speaker 3: this is the way it's going to go down, and
Speaker 3: you just make them do it. And then you know,
Speaker 3: by the time they're about fourteen, fifteen.
Speaker 4: To eighteen, there's a.
Speaker 3: Lot more choice, a lot more choice with them. Son,
Speaker 3: do you do you want to go deer hunting in
Speaker 3: the morning? If you do, you know you need to
Speaker 3: be up, you need to be ready. And so I
Speaker 3: think our hunting is a great place to to implement
Speaker 3: some of these just responsibility.
Speaker 4: Things that the kids are going to have to deal
Speaker 4: with in life. So I would.
Speaker 3: Say, and then in each in each sector of that,
Speaker 3: you're evaluating, you know, does this kid enjoy this? Do
Speaker 3: you think they're gonna grow up and want to do this?
Speaker 3: And my two boys are pretty different. Bear is just
Speaker 3: naturally just like just interested wanting to learn. My second son,
Speaker 3: he he loves to go. He's less interested in the details.
Speaker 3: And I think he'll come back to hunting and it'll
Speaker 3: be a big part of his life someday.
Speaker 4: I really do.
Speaker 3: He's I asked him the day, I said, Shepherd, how
Speaker 3: many deer have you killed? And he said, he said,
Speaker 3: he killed eleven deer and he's killed two bears. He's
Speaker 3: coon hunted with me a lot, but it's not his
Speaker 3: the driver of his life, you know, And you know
Speaker 3: you just kind of perceive that. So I'm I treat
Speaker 3: shepherd different than I do bear.
Speaker 2: What about differences between between your boys and your girls?
Speaker 2: You've got two of each, have you? Is there any
Speaker 2: noticeable difference in this approach you've taken between the two
Speaker 2: genders or is it just like child by child They're
Speaker 2: all different their own ways, regardless of if they're boys
Speaker 2: or girls.
Speaker 3: I would say it leans toward the latter of what
Speaker 3: you just said. My oldest daughter hunted with me when
Speaker 3: she was young. She liked turkey hunting. She's killed deer
Speaker 3: and turkey. But she was just from the very beginning,
Speaker 3: I just knew she wasn't going to probably be a
Speaker 3: real active hunter. We could just tell that, you know,
Speaker 3: she just wasn't that interested in it. My second daughter
Speaker 3: was very interested in it, and until she was about fifteen,
Speaker 3: I would say she was She was probably the toughest
Speaker 3: hunter of all the kids. Like if I was going
Speaker 3: on a difficult hunt, that wasn't going to be much fun,
Speaker 3: but wanted to take one of the kids.
Speaker 4: I would have taken River.
Speaker 3: And and she's still very interested in hunting. She she
Speaker 3: moved off to go to college, and so she hadn't
Speaker 3: hunted much the.
Speaker 4: Last couple of years.
Speaker 3: But I tried to treat them the same for the
Speaker 3: most part. Unfortunately, as they've gotten older, it is a
Speaker 3: little different with girls.
Speaker 4: And you know, somebody could get mad at me for saying.
Speaker 2: This, but.
Speaker 3: I'm a little less comfortable with my girls going out
Speaker 3: on public land. My girl going out on public land
Speaker 3: by herself doing stuff. I just am It's just the
Speaker 3: nature of the world we live in. And I've run
Speaker 3: into that because at times there's been times in the
Speaker 3: past when Rivers like, hey, I'm going to go out
Speaker 3: and do this, and I'm like, well, okay, let me
Speaker 3: think about that River where where I absolutely would let
Speaker 3: my son do it. And uh, that's just the truth
Speaker 3: of it, And it's an issue of safety and an
Speaker 3: issue of context. River at times has wanted to take
Speaker 3: the dogs out coon hunting at night by yourself on
Speaker 3: public land, and I've had to just be like, River,
Speaker 3: you can't if barrow go it.
Speaker 4: Did it y'all can go.
Speaker 3: And and I think that's okay to acknowledge that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is there anything else you found over the years
Speaker 2: with your two girls? Well, I guess you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: known until you had boys afterwards. But were there any
Speaker 2: other things that had to shift with your approach with
Speaker 2: the girls versus the boys, or when you had when
Speaker 2: you started going through these experiences with your boys you realized, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: I can do it totally different now. And that being
Speaker 2: because your two boys are both younger than your two girls, right, that's.
Speaker 4: Right, two older girls and two younger boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So were there any other things where you realize, like,
Speaker 2: this does require fundamentally different touch or or set of
Speaker 2: you know, ideas, or could you apply the same general
Speaker 2: philosophy across all four?
Speaker 3: I think they were the same, Mark, I really do.
Speaker 3: I I didn't treat the girls much different than the boys.
Speaker 4: I really didn't.
Speaker 3: I I just just tried to to to teach them,
Speaker 3: tried to I did everything about the same.
Speaker 4: I really did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one thing that I don't regret at all.
Speaker 2: But I I only I only have boys, so I'll
Speaker 2: never know what that is like or what differences may
Speaker 2: or may not be there.
Speaker 3: Come on, Mark, you're not quitting, honest, Sorry, Clay.
Speaker 2: I try not to be a quitter, but this is
Speaker 2: one phase in life where I am sign sealed and
Speaker 2: dotted delivered. I'm done.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay. There can be surprises.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know the details of all the
Speaker 3: medical procedures, but stuff happens.
Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, we'll be having some stern conversations with the
Speaker 2: doctor if that ends up being the case. Clay, you
Speaker 2: hit on something a second ago, though, I want to
Speaker 2: dive into more because it's one of the big questions
Speaker 2: that I found myself wrestling with just in these first
Speaker 2: you know, five years of being a dad, and everyone
Speaker 2: I've talked to so far on this topic I've brought
Speaker 2: it up to, and that is this idea that you
Speaker 2: discussed kind of early on with your children. How you
Speaker 2: know hunting can be this opportunity to teach important lessons
Speaker 2: like responsibility and toughness, and so as you describe when
Speaker 2: your kids were younger, in your mind, you were saying, man,
Speaker 2: they just need to get out and do this thing.
Speaker 2: They don't necessarily know why or how, but I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell them, Hey, we're going we're gonna be
Speaker 2: out there at this time, we're doing this thing. So
Speaker 2: there's that approach, there's putting your kids out there to
Speaker 2: do these things and developing some toughness, some fortitude, some
Speaker 2: developing some skills that will be important for them. That's
Speaker 2: that's one side of the hunting equation that I think
Speaker 2: hunting brings to the table for kids. There's this other
Speaker 2: side that a lot of folks talk about, which is, well,
Speaker 2: you got to keep it fun. You got to make
Speaker 2: sure they're enjoying the experience. You got to let them
Speaker 2: have some some choice in the matter, because if they're
Speaker 2: not enjoying it, then you're gonna push them out of
Speaker 2: this thing and they're not gonna want to do it anymore.
Speaker 2: And so it seems like there's this balance between trying
Speaker 2: to make the experience fun and enjoyable for them so
Speaker 2: that they develop a passion themselves, versus using hunting as
Speaker 2: an opportunity to teach important life lessons. How have you
Speaker 2: thought about that dilemma or that balancing act and how
Speaker 2: have you tried to approach that yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good that's a complex and a good question.
Speaker 4: I think it all.
Speaker 3: Goes back to these age brackets of kids and how
Speaker 3: parents interact with the kids during these particular seasons of life.
Speaker 4: My kids early on and early on in their life.
Speaker 3: I was not full time in the outdoor industry, so
Speaker 3: it's not like this was my job, but it was
Speaker 3: very much a lifestyle that I was. I wanted to
Speaker 3: live and so and Misty wanted to live. I mean,
Speaker 3: our life revolved around us eating wild game, you know,
Speaker 3: every day of the year, and being a family that
Speaker 3: loved nature and interacted with nature. And so my kids
Speaker 3: kind of I would like to think that they just
Speaker 3: woke up one day and gained consciousness that not every
Speaker 3: kid in the world had to do what they did.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like it's just like if you live
Speaker 3: on a farm, you wake up and you do the work,
Speaker 3: and you do the chores, and this is just my life.
Speaker 3: You know, a farm kid doesn't have an option to
Speaker 3: be anything different. That's the way we kind of handled hunting,
Speaker 3: and not that it was like a job.
Speaker 4: But it's just like, yes, what we do, it's like
Speaker 4: and I.
Speaker 3: Made a very the one thing that you know, man,
Speaker 3: when your kids are as old as mine, Mistery and
Speaker 3: Mark almost I would say weekly, if not three times
Speaker 3: a week, talk about the way we raised our kids
Speaker 3: and things we did right and things that we did wrong.
Speaker 3: And the one thing that we did right was for
Speaker 3: a decade plus, anywhere I went unless it just absolutely
Speaker 3: could not, I couldn't take a kid, which there was
Speaker 3: certainly hunts.
Speaker 4: I didn't take kids on.
Speaker 3: But man, if I went to the grocery store, if
Speaker 3: I went to bid a landscape job, if I went
Speaker 3: to scout, if I went to do anything, man, I
Speaker 3: just was dragging those kids with me everywhere I went,
Speaker 3: not for fun, just because they just needed to be
Speaker 3: with me.
Speaker 4: I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to teach him.
Speaker 3: I wanted to just be having be there observing me
Speaker 3: being a human. And that exposure today spent man that
Speaker 3: like kids have phones and kids have parents think the
Speaker 3: trend of the age is to think that kids have
Speaker 3: all these options and you'll damage them if you don't
Speaker 3: let them make choices.
Speaker 4: And boy, the biggest mistake that I feel like I.
Speaker 3: See parents doing is reasoning with a five year old
Speaker 3: or reasoning with a four year old. You don't reason
Speaker 3: with them, You interpret life for them and let them
Speaker 3: know how things are gonna go and and uh, and
Speaker 3: then as they get older and more mature, you begin
Speaker 3: to introduce choices and responsibility and all these things. I'm
Speaker 3: not answering your question directly, but basically, hunting. Hunting is
Speaker 3: just it's just a platform to teach your kids about
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff. And am I out there like saying, now, son,
Speaker 3: this is a life lesson. When the acron falls from
Speaker 3: the tree, it becomes no, it's just like get out there,
Speaker 3: and I mean, you know we we we gotta work hard,
Speaker 3: we gotta we we've got to understand.
Speaker 4: I mean it just life happens, you know.
Speaker 3: Just even hey, we're going hunting, Go get the drinks,
Speaker 3: put them in the truck, and then come back and
Speaker 3: get those ratchet straps out of the garage and put
Speaker 3: them in the truck. I mean, just the exercise of
Speaker 3: having a plan, doing it, acting on it.
Speaker 4: There's just lessons all over it, you know.
Speaker 3: And then the rare time when you're actually kill an animal, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's when you can be strategic about implementing ideology of
Speaker 3: why we do this and taking care of the meat
Speaker 3: and this is our food and this is healthy and
Speaker 3: sustainable and good and this is a celebration and this
Speaker 3: is you know, this is a pinnacle moment of our life,
Speaker 3: you know, at an external level.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I want to I want to dive
Speaker 2: into two parts of what you just said there. But
Speaker 2: first the I want to explore an example of this
Speaker 2: whole toughness versus experience or fun versus toughness kind of situation.
Speaker 2: And I want to see how you deal with this.
Speaker 2: As an example, Let's say you were out there with
Speaker 2: one of your boys when they were let's say six
Speaker 2: or seven. This is that first phase of that parenting
Speaker 2: child relationship you've described. Let's say you're out in the
Speaker 2: hunt and you're sitting together somewhere and starts raining, and
Speaker 2: it's cold and it's windy and it's rainy, and you've
Speaker 2: been out there for a couple hours already and things
Speaker 2: haven't been going your way. But in your mind, you know,
Speaker 2: let's say we're turkey hunt maybe, and you know that, man,
Speaker 2: if we stick it out till nine o'clock or ten o'clock,
Speaker 2: there'll be that second wave of a gobbler starting to
Speaker 2: cruise through, and you know it could pick up. So
Speaker 2: in this situation, your son is cold and he's sick
Speaker 2: and tired of it, and he says, Dad, I want
Speaker 2: to go home. This is kind of miserable. In your mind,
Speaker 2: would you say, all right, he's not having fun anymore.
Speaker 2: We should get out of here to keep this from
Speaker 2: becoming a miserable situation. Or would you say, nope, son,
Speaker 2: this is this is how it goes sometimes, and in
Speaker 2: your mind you're thinking, man, you're gonna better for it,
Speaker 2: because you're gonna learn how to deal with being uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: And we'll see how some perseverance, you know, leads to
Speaker 2: better things. Maybe if we stick it out. What would
Speaker 2: you do in that kind of situation.
Speaker 3: It's totally subjective to what's going on in that kid's life.
Speaker 3: I when Bear Newcomb was he was probably he was
Speaker 3: probably eight years old. It was open today, Arkansas bear season.
Speaker 3: I wanted him to be with me in the tree
Speaker 3: when I hunted, and we went in and set for
Speaker 3: I think I'm gonna say six hours. It may have
Speaker 3: been longer than that, and it rained the last three
Speaker 3: hours of daylight. And he was the kind of kid that.
Speaker 4: Liked that.
Speaker 3: He knew it was hard, and he enjoyed the feeling.
Speaker 3: Like he was tough, and I was feeding him that.
Speaker 3: You know, I was like, bear, man, I think if
Speaker 3: we just set it out, I think we got a
Speaker 3: chance of the bear. And you know, you know I
Speaker 3: and he could tell that if he set it out,
Speaker 3: I was gonna like that and he was going to
Speaker 3: be tough and validated.
Speaker 4: And he he bought into that.
Speaker 3: And when we sat till dark, and to this day
Speaker 3: we talk about that because we sat so long in
Speaker 3: the dark that just waiting for a bear, just like
Speaker 3: last light that people back at camp came to check
Speaker 3: on us because they thought, surely they're gonna get down.
Speaker 3: You know, it's raining. Something's happened. And to the boy bear,
Speaker 3: the guy's back at camp were just bear.
Speaker 5: You sat there the whole time in the rain, goy,
Speaker 5: you know, And it became probably a really pinnacle moment
Speaker 5: for him. Yeah, another kid of mine, I absolutely probably
Speaker 5: wouldn't have done that.
Speaker 3: It might have ruined him. It might have just made
Speaker 3: them get back in the truck and be like this guy,
Speaker 3: my dad is crazy. This is the last thing I
Speaker 3: want to do. So it's tough, man, it's tough. You
Speaker 3: got to feed them just the right amount of toughness,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of it would have to
Speaker 3: do with what you agreed upon before and how you communicated.
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes it's like, son, we're going to go
Speaker 3: out today and if you want to come, I want
Speaker 3: you to come. But if we go, we're going to
Speaker 3: sit till dark no matter what. You know, if it rains,
Speaker 3: we're gonna be ready, We're gonna have some snacks. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just about communication. And if they agree to it
Speaker 3: and then get out there and want to change the agreement,
Speaker 3: then you might have the leverage as a parent to
Speaker 3: be like, son, we're going to sit it out, okay,
Speaker 3: and you know this is what we planned and we're going.
Speaker 4: To stick with it.
Speaker 3: Or if you just went out and things went really
Speaker 3: bad really quick, you might just be like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: let's let's jump in the truck and go home. I mean,
Speaker 3: your your kid has to trust you that you're not
Speaker 3: that you're not going to just you know, put them
Speaker 3: in a really tough situation that they weren't ready for,
Speaker 3: so that it's such a complex situation mark you understand.
Speaker 3: And then a lot a lot with even what's going
Speaker 3: on individually with that kid, you know, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: it's it's it's a lot of contextual things that would
Speaker 3: make that decision.
Speaker 2: So you're telling me there's no simple step by step
Speaker 2: handguide I can look at that's gonna give me all
Speaker 2: the perfect answers for every situation. Cli that is exactly right, Mark, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that Uh. This is That's why this parenting thing, I
Speaker 2: think can't be talked about enough because there is no
Speaker 2: one right answer. There's no clear cut way to do
Speaker 2: any of this stuff. It all comes down to case
Speaker 2: by case context. It comes down to your kids and
Speaker 2: the current moment in reading the situation. And and that's
Speaker 2: why I think what you said at the beginning is
Speaker 2: probably so important. Having a philosophy or a set of
Speaker 2: values for like having a system, right, Like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to have a rule book. There's not going to
Speaker 2: be like a ABCD is always going to be the
Speaker 2: way it goes. Every situation is going to be different.
Speaker 2: We're going to encounter all these different circumstances. But if
Speaker 2: we have a basic philosophy that we can lean back on, say, okay,
Speaker 2: well I've never seen this before, but I do know
Speaker 2: that A, B and C are really important to how
Speaker 2: I make these parenting decisions, and I will run this
Speaker 2: new circumstance through that philosophy, and that will give me
Speaker 2: the way to approach this thing, right. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that's what we have to try to be building,
Speaker 2: is building what our philosophy is and then learning how
Speaker 2: to apply that to each new day.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, Mark, I have I have four things here
Speaker 3: that I think if I think I can say I'm
Speaker 3: right now and to make sense in the context of
Speaker 3: our conversation, I've got kind of some bullet point bullet
Speaker 3: point statements about introducing kids the outdoors.
Speaker 4: Can I run through those?
Speaker 2: I would love to hear them?
Speaker 3: Okay, Point number one and this would be on a
Speaker 3: power point if I presented it to a group of people.
Speaker 3: If you had said, Clay, I need to hear a
Speaker 3: presentation about how to introduce kids to the outdoors.
Speaker 4: What's important? These four things would be on it. Number one.
Speaker 4: The parent, the adult has.
Speaker 3: To be a whole safe person who a kid would
Speaker 3: want to be around.
Speaker 4: In general.
Speaker 3: You know, this is like taking it way back, like
Speaker 3: we could be talking about sports, like how to intro
Speaker 3: produce your kids to sports, how to introduce your kids
Speaker 3: to cooking, how to introduce your kids to horseback riding.
Speaker 3: And the number one thing is is that you've got
Speaker 3: to be a person that a kid would would would
Speaker 3: want to be around and enjoy being around, you know,
Speaker 3: because if you're if you're a tyrant, if you're if
Speaker 3: you are dismissive, if you're not engaging with these kids,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, you want to take
Speaker 3: them hunting and be super engaging. And I think this
Speaker 3: might be more of an example for like hunters outside
Speaker 3: of a direct family that were maybe trying to introduce
Speaker 3: a kid into hunting, not your own kid. It's just like,
Speaker 3: I mean, if your kid doesn't want to go with
Speaker 3: you to the grocery store, they're probably not going to
Speaker 3: want to go with you hunting either, you know. So
Speaker 3: that's like a fundamental thing. Part two would just be
Speaker 3: every kid's difference. So you got to make it right
Speaker 3: for them, you know, the idea that you got to
Speaker 3: have be loaded with snacks and make it easy and
Speaker 3: make it simple and make it fun. And that works
Speaker 3: for some some it's not the best strategy. It certainly wasn't.
Speaker 3: The strategy that got me into hunting was making it easy.
Speaker 3: Some of my kids I've intentionally made it hard for them.
Speaker 3: I mean, bear nukemb, we were hunting bears over bait
Speaker 3: for years and years and that's just the way we
Speaker 3: hunted bears. I intentionally told bar Nukem, because yeah, bear
Speaker 3: hunting over bait is for sure a higher probability of
Speaker 3: success than hunting out in national forest. I mean way
Speaker 3: harder hunting a national forest. And bear could have killed
Speaker 3: a bear over bait when he was six years old
Speaker 3: and I told him, I said, son, I think you
Speaker 3: ought to kill a bear in national forest for your
Speaker 3: first bear. And so he every year watched his brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters kill bears and other people, and he could
Speaker 3: have gone and sat on a bait, and he didn't.
Speaker 3: And he finally killed when a national forest when he
Speaker 3: was fifteen. Like, we made it hard on purpose. But
Speaker 3: my second son, I let him kill a bear over
Speaker 3: bait when he was like twelve, so make it different.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 3: Basically the philosophy that I would have would be that
Speaker 3: I want to introduce the kids to the excitement of
Speaker 3: interacting with nature. That's what we're doing, and that would
Speaker 3: be teaching them about the woods, teaching them about the
Speaker 3: the trees, the mushrooms, the grass, the barn owls, the foxes,
Speaker 3: the coyotes, the river systems, the mountains. You know, having
Speaker 3: an understanding and interpreting that for them. I mean, a
Speaker 3: kid drives, drives. You drive past a mountain, and a
Speaker 3: kid doesn't know that that's cool. I mean drive past
Speaker 3: the mountain and be like, look at that mountain, man,
Speaker 3: And that thing was formed by when tectonic plates bumped
Speaker 3: up against each other so long ago that humans don't
Speaker 3: even have record of it. And and the top of
Speaker 3: that mountain there's different animals that live up there then
Speaker 3: live at the bottom. And on the north side of
Speaker 3: that mountain there's a whole different set of trees than
Speaker 3: is on the south side of that mountain.
Speaker 4: That's wild.
Speaker 3: Like just being excited about it, like interpreting for them
Speaker 3: when you hear barred out, My goodness, did you hear
Speaker 3: that barred out? And you know, so that's a philosophy.
Speaker 3: It's like, I want my kids to to see value
Speaker 3: and interaction nature. And then you know that comes down
Speaker 3: to actually taking an animal and taking it home and
Speaker 3: eating it. But the main thing that I would say
Speaker 3: is that not every kid is going to be a hunter.
Speaker 3: And so, but what we want to do is leave
Speaker 3: every kid that we interact with with a positive impression
Speaker 3: about hunting in the natural world. So like, my oldest
Speaker 3: daughter's not up, she's probably not gonna be a big hunter,
Speaker 3: and she may never hunt again the rest of his life.
Speaker 3: But my goal with her was that when she leaves
Speaker 3: my house and she goes out into the world, she's
Speaker 3: proud that her dad is a hunter and that her
Speaker 3: family ate wild game, and that hunting is this positive
Speaker 3: thing in American culture. And that's what we can do,
Speaker 3: I think, with every kid, because they're just not gonna
Speaker 3: be hunters.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, you take.
Speaker 3: Ten kids, it's probably about the national percentage of people
Speaker 3: that our hunters are gonna be hunters.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know you do.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what that would be. Two or
Speaker 3: three of them at most would end up having some
Speaker 3: connection to hunting. Seven of them aren't. But those seven
Speaker 3: that aren't can at least be like, yeah, my uncle
Speaker 3: was a hunter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really cool. He was a pleasant human to
Speaker 4: be around.
Speaker 3: They they were they they dealt with this thing in
Speaker 3: a competent, intelligent way, and they wouldn't describe it like that.
Speaker 4: But you understand.
Speaker 3: So the goal is I just want my kids to
Speaker 3: have positive impressions of this lifestyle. And that's really meaningful
Speaker 3: in our broader society, as most people aren't gonna be hunters.
Speaker 4: We don't need them to.
Speaker 3: Be hunters, but we need and want people to view
Speaker 3: hunting for what it is, and it's this great platform
Speaker 3: for conservating wild places and wild animals, and it's not
Speaker 3: just this barbaric thing that is is dead and dying, you.
Speaker 4: Know, yea. So those are those are my four things.
Speaker 2: Those are great, Clay. I'm curious how you what your
Speaker 2: take is on how to handle that last point you
Speaker 2: brought up, that being the fact that not every child
Speaker 2: grew up to be a hunter, and you mentioned your
Speaker 2: oldest daughter is an example of that. I imagine this
Speaker 2: being a challenge as a parent trying to read that situation,
Speaker 2: trying to decide or understand, Man, is my kid just
Speaker 2: not that into it? And should I keep pushing it?
Speaker 2: Should I keep introducing it? Should I keep offering it?
Speaker 2: Should I keep trying to move the needle there? Or
Speaker 2: do I just need to accept this situation and recognize, Okay,
Speaker 2: Bill or Jenny or whatever she's she or he just
Speaker 2: is not. This isn't going to be their thing, and
Speaker 2: I just need to stop pounding it because that's just
Speaker 2: making it worse. What has either been your personal experience
Speaker 2: dealing with that with your daughter, or what would your
Speaker 2: advice be to someone else who might be trying to
Speaker 2: wrestle with that themselves right now? How do you understand
Speaker 2: that and deal with it?
Speaker 3: I think a simple answer to a complex question, as
Speaker 3: it goes back to those age brackets of parental influence
Speaker 3: inside of a kid's life. Your five year old is
Speaker 3: not capable really of deciding whether they're going to be
Speaker 3: a lifelong hunter or not. A sixteen year old has
Speaker 3: a much more robust understanding of whether this is something
Speaker 3: that's going to be a part of their life or not.
Speaker 3: Not totally, but they've got a much better understanding than
Speaker 3: of five year old. So you know, if your five
Speaker 3: year old doesn't want to go hunting and that's a
Speaker 3: big part of your life, I would say absolutely, don't
Speaker 3: give them a choice. Make them go with you, make
Speaker 3: it fun, Do make it fun, to accommodate them.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: Build it in is just this is well, and I
Speaker 3: think parents just give kids too much choice. Your kid
Speaker 3: was put in your family for a reason, and you
Speaker 3: and your wife get to decide the culture of your family.
Speaker 3: That's the design of the universe, and you have the
Speaker 3: right to say this is who we are. And then
Speaker 3: as they graduate out of that, they get to make choices.
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying is there's there's a time period
Speaker 3: when you do push it pretty hard, and then there's
Speaker 3: a time period when you let go. So I think
Speaker 3: just as the kid gets older, you see this is
Speaker 3: not a major thing for them, you can you can
Speaker 3: back off a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know. This brings me to another one of my
Speaker 2: current questions of the topic that I'm thinking a lot
Speaker 2: about right now with my oldest son, who is just
Speaker 2: seems to be really really into all this stuff, like
Speaker 2: he's just eating it up. He's obsessed. He wants to
Speaker 2: hunt all the time, he wants to fish all the time,
Speaker 2: he wants to go with me on every hunt, he
Speaker 2: wants to see it all, do it all. He's really
Speaker 2: eaten up with it. So I am wondering about and
Speaker 2: wrestling with and thinking about the appropriate way to foster
Speaker 2: that excitement and that fund that he has right now
Speaker 2: his love for the thing. How do I balance that
Speaker 2: with also the necessary teaching of the seriousness of this
Speaker 2: and the sacredness of life and taking a life and
Speaker 2: teaching respect for this kind of stuff. And you know,
Speaker 2: an example this would be, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: young kids get a BB gun at some point. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if your childhood was like this, Clay,
Speaker 2: but I got a BB gun at one point, and
Speaker 2: I was just like a little kid that wanted to
Speaker 2: go on a tear and I wanted to hunt every
Speaker 2: little bird I saw and every little chipmunk. And that
Speaker 2: was probably part of what, you know, helped my progression
Speaker 2: as a hunter, and just having those experiences as a
Speaker 2: little kid and learning to do the thing myself. On
Speaker 2: the flip side, how do you introduce, you know, concepts
Speaker 2: of not taking more than you need or not killing
Speaker 2: something flippantly. And I'm wondering now, as my son has
Speaker 2: a BB gun and I'm trying to think, like, man,
Speaker 2: how do I make sure he's still enjoying himself? But
Speaker 2: also when do I introduce these concepts? How do I
Speaker 2: introduce these concepts without it being over his head or
Speaker 2: without it smashing the fun out of it? Because I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: you have to this this. Did you experience any of
Speaker 2: that yourself, Clay, what are your thoughts on that balancing act?
Speaker 4: You know, I think I think it is.
Speaker 3: It should just be kind of intuitive how you it was,
Speaker 3: it was you would scale down your philosophy to the
Speaker 3: knowledge level of the child, just like you would with anything.
Speaker 3: Like when you're driving in a car and your four
Speaker 3: year olds in the back seat and he says, Dad,
Speaker 3: why do you why are you driving like that? Why
Speaker 3: do you drive on this side of the road or
Speaker 3: why did you stop there? And you're like, well, Sun,
Speaker 3: when you drive and the red light's on, you have
Speaker 3: to stop. When it's green, you go. You know, you
Speaker 3: just dumb down driving, or you know there's a speed limit,
Speaker 3: there's this, and and I think it's the exact same way.
Speaker 3: Like you, as an adult have this pretty complex, pretty
Speaker 3: robust system of ethics and values that dictate that Yep,
Speaker 3: I will shoot a deer out of a tree stand
Speaker 3: in October, November, and December, but I won't shoot one
Speaker 3: with a rifle out of season in June. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, uh, that's really clear, and and so you
Speaker 3: just translate it down so when your son brings home
Speaker 3: a bird that he's shot.
Speaker 4: You be like, wow, son, good shot. How did it happen?
Speaker 4: Where were we at?
Speaker 3: And you'd be like, man, this is a beautiful bird.
Speaker 3: Look at these wings. Can you believe this? This is incredible?
Speaker 3: And you know, when you're dealing with birds and baby guns,
Speaker 3: that's a little gray area there, but I think we
Speaker 3: all did that. And then you say, man, this this bird.
Speaker 3: You know, we gotta we gotta find a way to
Speaker 3: a bird's wrong. Example, let's let's use a game they
Speaker 3: kill a quail and you're like, and it's in season,
Speaker 3: you'd be like, oh, man, this is beautiful, incredible shot.
Speaker 4: Good job. Well we gotta we're gonna eat this, We're
Speaker 4: gonna use it.
Speaker 3: Just bringing it down and yeah, and when the sacredness
Speaker 3: of law that I think is instilled in a kid
Speaker 3: very early, and it's totally done by parent describing that,
Speaker 3: you know, at their level and and and understand that
Speaker 3: we don't take an animal's life flippantly, but also that
Speaker 3: it's very normal, you know, to eat stuff has to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, I think what you're saying resonates with me.
Speaker 2: It's it's all about reading your child and where they're
Speaker 2: at speaking at their their language, at their level, and
Speaker 2: balancing the the joy of the moment with the seriousness
Speaker 2: of it. But man, it's it's It does also sometimes
Speaker 2: seem or at least maybe this isn't for everyone. But
Speaker 2: I constantly find myself looking back and saying, did I
Speaker 2: do that right? Am I doing this the right way?
Speaker 2: Am I? Am I screwing up my kid? Or am
Speaker 2: I setting him up for success? Was he too young
Speaker 2: to see me? Got that deer? Is he old enough
Speaker 2: to understand this? And should I have him out with
Speaker 2: me when I'm doing this? Is this? Is this too soon?
Speaker 2: Is this too much?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 2: I'm constantly wrestling with those kinds of things as I'm
Speaker 2: navigating these waters for the first time, doing the best
Speaker 2: I can. But there's no report card that you get
Speaker 2: at the end of the day that says, well, you
Speaker 2: did this right. You got an A here, you got
Speaker 2: to be here, and a C there. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't have that report card. So it's one of those
Speaker 2: things that you never quite know and you just hope
Speaker 2: that you're doing it the right way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you just got to expose them to it.
Speaker 4: I've had somebody ask.
Speaker 3: Me that before, like would you let your kids watch
Speaker 3: you get here, and oh gosh, absolutely. From the very beginning,
Speaker 3: it's just like kind of a I like, just a
Speaker 3: common sense approach to parenting. It's that if this is
Speaker 3: something that's permissible for me to be doing, then it's
Speaker 3: okay for my kid to be introduced to it at
Speaker 3: some level, you know. So it's like, absolutely, let them
Speaker 3: watch you get a deer. Talk to them about the
Speaker 3: sanctity of life while you're doing it, and talk to
Speaker 3: them about food on the table, talk to them about
Speaker 3: the life of this end, you know, at the level
Speaker 3: that they can understand.
Speaker 4: But the other extreme is that we just bombard them.
Speaker 3: With with all this philosophy that they're not ready for.
Speaker 4: I mean, sometimes you just gotta let them shoot the bird, you.
Speaker 6: Know, yeah, and uh and and and then at a
Speaker 6: later time it's like, hey, done, we're probably we probably
Speaker 6: ought to only shoot birds that you know, that we
Speaker 6: need or that we specific kind of targeting or or
Speaker 6: you know, not you know, introducing some level of responsibility
Speaker 6: into the thing, you know, in stewardship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, uh, what about time away from your kids?
Speaker 2: You mentioned this a little bit how early on when
Speaker 2: they were young, you were taking them everywhere with you,
Speaker 2: but you know, except for certain hunts where they couldn't
Speaker 2: join you. And so this is the thing I've thought
Speaker 2: a lot about, which is, you know, when I when
Speaker 2: I hear about my dad's childhood or when I look
Speaker 2: at my childhood, I can hardly think of any hunts
Speaker 2: he was doing that I wasn't with him, you know,
Speaker 2: once I was you know, old enough to tag along,
Speaker 2: and he always talks about man he was with his
Speaker 2: dad all the time. I am at a situation in
Speaker 2: you too where I want to take my kids with
Speaker 2: me on on lots and lots and lots of these experiences,
Speaker 2: but I also, you know, I also want to still
Speaker 2: do my own thing. I also want to be able
Speaker 2: to go on these hunts or have to go on
Speaker 2: these different experiences where it just wouldn't be safe for
Speaker 2: possible to bring my boys along for some of these things.
Speaker 2: And so I find myself sitting out there on day
Speaker 2: seven of a you know, rut hunt where I haven't
Speaker 2: seen my kids in seven days, or where you're in
Speaker 2: Alaska on a moose hunt or something you haven't seen
Speaker 2: your kids for fourteen days or whatever. How have you
Speaker 2: thought about over your twenty one years as a father,
Speaker 2: Clay thought about this balancing act of balancing our own
Speaker 2: personal obsession or passion for hunting and the time and
Speaker 2: we spend out there by ourselves, and knowing that every
Speaker 2: time we're out there by ourselves doing this thing, we
Speaker 2: are not spending time with our kids. How have you
Speaker 2: thought about that, How have you tried to approach that
Speaker 2: balance of balancing your own personal interest in time doing
Speaker 2: this with the time with your kids.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you've used the key word there, and
Speaker 3: that is balance. And because there's got to be a balance,
Speaker 3: Like there's absolutely times when you're gonna go hunting and
Speaker 3: your kids can't come, and that's okay. That is so
Speaker 3: introduces boundaries to your kids that are going to be
Speaker 3: in every other part of their life.
Speaker 4: So I think it's okay.
Speaker 3: I think it also goes back to family architecture, which
Speaker 3: family architecture would just be like, what is the design
Speaker 3: of your family that you are using to live life successfully?
Speaker 3: And if you're if you're a hunter and your serious
Speaker 3: deer hunter, and you you and your wife feel like
Speaker 3: this is an important part of your life and what
Speaker 3: you're supposed to be doing, then then absolutely I mean,
Speaker 3: there's gonna be You're gonna you're gonna go to Iowa
Speaker 3: and hunt for seven days once a year and it's
Speaker 3: just okay.
Speaker 4: And you know, my dad did.
Speaker 3: That, and I remember some of my most exciting times
Speaker 3: of hunting was when he was gone, and I could
Speaker 3: not wait to hear how it went.
Speaker 4: That was a big part.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if my dad, I don't know
Speaker 3: how that happened, but I vividly remember once Dad went
Speaker 3: to South Texas deer hunting, and the whole week I
Speaker 3: was just I mean, I was talking to the kids
Speaker 3: at school, Man, my dad's down in Texas. He might
Speaker 3: kill the world record down there, I told. I remember
Speaker 3: thinking that, I mean, because it's like it's possible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean he's in Texas and uh and so yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's balanced and and you and.
Speaker 4: I both know it.
Speaker 3: There the seasons of life when things are permissible and
Speaker 3: when they're not. When my kids were young, I was
Speaker 3: not in the outdoor industry, and it would not have
Speaker 3: been permissible for me to devote, you know, just an
Speaker 3: incredible amount of time to being gone, like financially and
Speaker 3: Leaven Misty with the kids, like there was just a
Speaker 3: time when that wasn't quite as.
Speaker 4: Normal as it would be today.
Speaker 3: And now their kids are older, and so I think
Speaker 3: the balance of life and with your spouse is trying
Speaker 3: to find what's the correct architecture for our family, you know,
Speaker 3: because you don't Yeah, I mean, hunting is not is
Speaker 3: not really that important in the big scheme of things.
Speaker 3: It's it's you've got to you've got to find a
Speaker 3: way to balance life.
Speaker 4: And it's going to be different for everybody.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we go to you know, I'm
Speaker 3: really involved in our church and involved a lot of
Speaker 3: other men's lives, and it's like I hu more than
Speaker 3: any of them, and it's because architecture of our family.
Speaker 4: It's like it's my job.
Speaker 3: And even if it wasn't my job, it was, it's
Speaker 3: just it's just I built my life this way on purpose.
Speaker 3: And uh, there's other guys that maybe just hunt one
Speaker 3: or two weekends a year and that's kind of the
Speaker 3: architecture of their life. So it's like what's correct for you,
Speaker 3: what works? And a lot of that's determined by you
Speaker 3: and your spouse and how you decide you want to
Speaker 3: live your life, you know, and if and if it's right,
Speaker 3: it'll be great for your kids, you know it'll be
Speaker 3: it'll be good for your wife, it'll be good for
Speaker 3: your kids. And if it's detrimental to them, then you know,
Speaker 3: that's where you start making adjustments. And it might just
Speaker 3: be a seasonal adjustment of you know what, I probably
Speaker 3: can't go on a ten day hunt. I could go
Speaker 3: on a six day hunt during this period of time.
Speaker 4: I understand.
Speaker 3: I can't go on three big hunts every year, you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm just gonna go on too. And I
Speaker 3: think that's the maturity that we got to have as parents,
Speaker 3: is knowing when those times are and and and when
Speaker 3: they're not, and just kind of being okay with it.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of a bummer and it's just life.
Speaker 3: But you know, you're really fired up when you're in
Speaker 3: your twenties, and then by the time you're in your thirties,
Speaker 3: you're you're you're competent, you have a little more money,
Speaker 3: you may have a little more time, and but oftentimes
Speaker 3: in our thirties is when our kids are kind of
Speaker 3: in the heat of their development, and so it feels
Speaker 3: like parenting overlaps in conflicting ways. Sometimes our natural desire
Speaker 3: to want to go and do stuff, and it just
Speaker 3: you just got to find the balance, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true. And I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it is just trial and error too, Like we to
Speaker 2: all of the stuff, right, we don't know, We're not
Speaker 2: necessarily going to know the right answer to every one
Speaker 2: of these situations. So you try something, you try the
Speaker 2: best you can figure and then you got to read
Speaker 2: it and assess, Okay, you know, how did this last
Speaker 2: year go? Did I have the balance right? Or was
Speaker 2: that trip with my boy? Did I push it too far?
Speaker 2: Did I not push it enough? And then try again
Speaker 2: a little bit different next time, and just keep on learning.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the same thing as becoming a better
Speaker 2: deer hunter, right, It's you try something, you assess how
Speaker 2: it went, and then you adjust. You try something, you assess,
Speaker 2: you adjust. I think as long as you keep trying
Speaker 2: to learn and keep trying to adjust, you're going to
Speaker 2: move in the right direction. But that's a process, and
Speaker 2: it takes it takes thoughtfulness and a sense of purpose,
Speaker 2: Like you're going into it knowing that this is a
Speaker 2: process and knowing that you're trying to learn versus just
Speaker 2: blindly doing stuff and not thinking about it at all.
Speaker 2: There's something there, a little of a hard pivot, Clay.
Speaker 2: But one thing I was curious about before I let
Speaker 2: you go is this, If I were to look at
Speaker 2: Clay Newcombe and your connection to hunting, it seems like
Speaker 2: hunting for you has been something as connected you to
Speaker 2: the past uniquely. Like that's something that I feel like
Speaker 2: you talk about a lot. You have seemed to allow
Speaker 2: that to inform much of who you are as a
Speaker 2: hunter and otherwise. And I'm just curious if that's something
Speaker 2: that came to you by way of your family. Was
Speaker 2: that Was that something your dad was talking to you
Speaker 2: about when you were a kid. Was he talking about, well, well,
Speaker 2: we're doing this and this is the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that our ancestors did, or that Daniel Boone did, or
Speaker 2: that so and so did and or does that? Was
Speaker 2: that something that's naturally developed for you? And uh, you
Speaker 2: sought it out yourself. That's that. That's part one of
Speaker 2: my questions. Part two is then how I'll get lost?
Speaker 4: Get lost? Because I think I've got a good answer.
Speaker 3: I think that I saw, No, my dad would not
Speaker 3: have been interested in history. I would not have been
Speaker 3: that interested in history.
Speaker 4: Growing up. But I think that I came out of.
Speaker 3: I kind of came into adulthood and recognized that I
Speaker 3: came out of a very cultured place. And by cultured,
Speaker 3: I mean things were done on purpose, things were this
Speaker 3: is the way that people thought about this, this is
Speaker 3: the way people handled that, this is the this is
Speaker 3: what people valued like And I'm talking about in the
Speaker 3: hunting space.
Speaker 4: And I became curious as.
Speaker 3: To why we were the way we were, And I
Speaker 3: think I just kind of bumped into looking back at
Speaker 3: some of these guys and being like, oh, Gary nukeom
Speaker 3: is that way because of this thing way back in
Speaker 3: American history or the.
Speaker 4: History of the South.
Speaker 3: And it was really interesting to me because I think
Speaker 3: we're influenced by a whole bunch of stuff that we're
Speaker 3: unconscious of. And so you know, just and you've heard
Speaker 3: me say it, Mark, but a great example is that,
Speaker 3: you know, Daniel Boone introduced to the world old really
Speaker 3: the idea of loving and cherishing wilderness and solitude. Before that,
Speaker 3: in the general, the general philosophy of the world was
Speaker 3: that the wilderness is where you went to die. The wilderness.
Speaker 3: You know, we were we had been trying to get
Speaker 3: away from wilderness for a gazillion years, and we came
Speaker 3: into civilization, and then this American boon went to Kentucky
Speaker 3: and someone wrote a book, and how much of it
Speaker 3: he did I was on purpose, I don't know. But
Speaker 3: he talked about solitude and loving wilderness, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, Americans were like, Yeah, we don't have big
Speaker 3: cities and beautiful thousand year old architecture. What we have
Speaker 3: is wilderness, and and that became a part of the
Speaker 3: American identity, was love of wilderness and solitude. And it's like,
Speaker 3: that's why we love bow hunting, that's why we have
Speaker 3: all this public land that you know, was like, hey,
Speaker 3: let's let's save some of this. That's why we have
Speaker 3: federal wilderness. Is that the ideology of somebody way back.
Speaker 3: Leopold and a bunch of these guys were like, man,
Speaker 3: let's save some of this, just as it was for
Speaker 3: people to go and find solitude. And I think it's
Speaker 3: interesting to just see where that connects.
Speaker 4: To the past.
Speaker 5: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: So then part two. My question then is have you
Speaker 2: tried to help your children make those connections, make those
Speaker 2: connections during their childhood when you were raising bears, A Hunter,
Speaker 2: were you bringing these stories up and talking about these things?
Speaker 2: If so, you know, I'd love to hear more about that.
Speaker 3: Or if not, you know, the answer to this mark
Speaker 3: all day every day brother man. Living with me is
Speaker 3: like it's like Misty Misty and the kids. They would
Speaker 3: tell you it's like NonStop Beargrease podcast.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: I talk at them all the time, and I'm joking
Speaker 3: and kind of making fun of myself because they make
Speaker 3: fun of me. They kind of roll their eyes sometimes,
Speaker 3: but I know they're just joking. I think so much
Speaker 3: of parenthood. I I talked at my kids for years,
Speaker 3: like if we're riding in the truck and they're not
Speaker 3: talking and they're eight years old and we traveled a lot,
Speaker 3: just all the time. Yeah, and I would just talk
Speaker 3: to him, I mean, just tell him stuff that was
Speaker 3: way over their head, but just just thinking this is
Speaker 3: gonna be it's gonna be more developmental for them to
Speaker 3: hear their dad just talking than than to just sit
Speaker 3: there or to listen to dumb country music, you know.
Speaker 4: And and that really was the philosophy that I had.
Speaker 4: I mean, I and I think Gary Nucom did that
Speaker 4: to me. Uh, he really did.
Speaker 3: Dad loved just he just would talk to me and
Speaker 3: and and.
Speaker 4: Not ask much from me at times.
Speaker 3: And I've done that with my kids, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: they they know about all this.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: I think we've got to interpret for our kids and
Speaker 3: show our kids what we're passionate about, and we don't
Speaker 3: have to amend that for them. Like I don't really
Speaker 3: care if my kids think Daniel Boone is cool. I do,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna talk to him about it, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna tell them all this stuff.
Speaker 4: And and I think that they.
Speaker 3: May not care about Boone, but it teaches them how
Speaker 3: to to be passionate and informed, and they'll take that
Speaker 3: template for their life and go out and be passionate
Speaker 3: about something, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So so I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't tell them what I think they want or
Speaker 3: need to hear. I just I'm trying to just be
Speaker 3: who I am and and and and show that to him.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah. That resonates with That resonates with me
Speaker 2: a lot. And I'm gonna use you next time. My
Speaker 2: wife rolls her eyes at me, and you know, bemoans
Speaker 2: the fact that I'm a constant. She calls me a
Speaker 2: tour guide whenever we go anywhere with kids or even
Speaker 2: with other people. I'm like, well, this is this moan
Speaker 2: and this thing happened here, and two hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: this thing happened and did you know that, A, B,
Speaker 2: and C and so, Yeah, they feel the same way
Speaker 2: about me as it sounds like your family does about you.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to tell my wife next time, like
Speaker 2: Clay said, this was a good thing to do and
Speaker 2: that she should appreciate it, and I will say the
Speaker 2: same thing to my boys and we'll.
Speaker 4: See that absolutely their ears off.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm going to keep on keeping on. So I
Speaker 2: got one last question for he then, Given your fascination,
Speaker 2: I think would be fair to say of the history
Speaker 2: of hunting and the American wilderness and rural America and
Speaker 2: these different things that you've you've dove into over the
Speaker 2: course of the years of the Bear Grease podcast and
Speaker 2: much of our other work, I'm curious if you can
Speaker 2: point to any one lesson that you have tried to
Speaker 2: share with your own children that came to you from
Speaker 2: someone in history, someone like Daniel Boone or the ancient
Speaker 2: American hunting cultures, or or Warner Glenn or any of
Speaker 2: these folks that you've studied over the years, can you
Speaker 2: point to one lesson from one of them that has
Speaker 2: been important for you to pass on to your children.
Speaker 3: Hmm, Man, that is a really specific question. Mark if I.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of my.
Speaker 3: Deep dive study of history, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: has come in more recent years.
Speaker 4: I think that's a tough question.
Speaker 3: It's a fair question, because I think I would talk
Speaker 3: to him about that kind of stuff all the time.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I've got a real I can't say, like, well,
Speaker 3: Boone went into Kentucky and did this and did this,
Speaker 3: and so this is why we're doing this, Like it's
Speaker 3: not quite that direct, you know, sure.
Speaker 4: I think I think maybe in general Boone.
Speaker 3: Probably reading Robert Morgan's book Boone ten or twelve years ago,
Speaker 3: one of the most fascinating things to me was how
Speaker 3: so much of Boone, who's this American icon was influenced
Speaker 3: by Native Americans. Boone was Boone because of his interaction
Speaker 3: and adopting and being taught the ways that Native Americans
Speaker 3: interacted with the landscape here, and so you know so
Speaker 3: much of and so I think that brought back into
Speaker 3: me a deep appreciation for Native American cultures, which I've translated.
Speaker 4: That to my kids.
Speaker 3: I feel like just when we you know, with all
Speaker 3: the stone points we find and us just talking about it.
Speaker 3: So I don't because my original fascination wasn't necessarily with
Speaker 3: Native Americans. It would have been more with you know,
Speaker 3: people like Boone or Crockett or whoever.
Speaker 2: So may not be exactly what you're looking for, Mark,
Speaker 2: but Clay, I'm never looking for anything other than the
Speaker 2: thing that's on the tip of your tongue. That's true
Speaker 2: to you, and you always you never disappoint You've You've
Speaker 2: shared a lot of really interesting ideas here, Clay that
Speaker 2: have helped me personally. I think there's some things here
Speaker 2: that can help me in my thinking and my practice
Speaker 2: as a as a father. So I thank you for that, Clay.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, you're a great You're I said it the
Speaker 3: first time you I was on one of your podcasts, Mark,
Speaker 3: is that you're you're a fantastic interviewer. You asked a
Speaker 3: lot of really insightful questions and that's meaningful.
Speaker 2: So well, thanks, I got one last question for you
Speaker 2: then on that Oh you've you've said you had one
Speaker 2: last question like four times. I know that's one of
Speaker 2: my interviewer tricks to keep dragging you along. Clay, you
Speaker 2: write that down and try it out next time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: Oh. My last question is simply, what is there anything
Speaker 2: folks should be looking forward to? Can you preview anything
Speaker 2: that's coming down the line on the Bear Grease podcast
Speaker 2: or Brent's podcast, anything that folks need to know about
Speaker 2: the work that you're doing that they can look forward
Speaker 2: to and that they should come and check out in
Speaker 2: the coming weeks or months. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't ever do this. I would never do this.
Speaker 3: On a Bear Grease feed, like tell people what I'm
Speaker 3: working on, but I'll tell you and your people, Mark,
Speaker 3: all right, when does this come out?
Speaker 2: This will come out on May? So this is next week,
Speaker 2: So May.
Speaker 4: Eighteenth, Okay, no problem, we are.
Speaker 3: I'm working on a robust series on Davy Krockt, which
Speaker 3: is it kind of it's funny. It's funny that you
Speaker 3: brought up what you did. We don't always do these
Speaker 3: kind of big time iconic folk Key Rose.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the main our big historical series
Speaker 4: that we've done. We did what on Daniel Boone, which was.
Speaker 3: Maybe one of our most popular ones we ever did
Speaker 3: a lot A lot of them are are are lesser
Speaker 3: known people like Hult Collier, who was African American guy
Speaker 3: that guided Teddy Roosevelt for the bear that would influence
Speaker 3: the Teddy Bear. That was one of the most fascinating
Speaker 3: series we ever did. Hulk Collier was born a slave
Speaker 3: and ended up guiding the president on two bear hunts.
Speaker 4: Uh, Hult Collier.
Speaker 3: We did a series on Cumpsa, which was the Shawnee
Speaker 3: leader who was just lived an incredible life, incredible story.
Speaker 3: And then, uh, we're now doing this Crockett series. And
Speaker 3: we don't do always historic stuff. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: a lot of your people probably aren't. Maybe they're not
Speaker 3: listening to Bear Grease, but we do. We do stuff
Speaker 3: on living people. We do basically anything is on the
Speaker 3: table that is of interest too well to me.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about that Crockett series. My son Everett loved
Speaker 2: your Boone series. And just this morning we had a request.
Speaker 2: We just got to our place out in Idaho. So
Speaker 2: we're sitting at the breakfast table and we're looking out
Speaker 2: over the mountains and my son says, hey, Dad, can
Speaker 2: we listen to the Davy Crockett song? And so we
Speaker 2: put on the Ballad of Davy Crockett by Fest Parker,
Speaker 2: and then and then after that we listened to the
Speaker 2: Daniel Boone song by fest Parker, so it's fresh on
Speaker 2: my mind too.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's awesome, man.
Speaker 3: That's funny that we're going to talk a lot about
Speaker 3: that song and the Walt Disney stuff that that made
Speaker 3: that famous Crockett.
Speaker 4: Crockett's life is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be looking forward to that one, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure my boys will too. So keep up the great work, Clay.
Speaker 2: You are doing world class stuff. And I know I'm
Speaker 2: not the only one who appreciates it, but for everyone
Speaker 2: out there, I will just say one more time, thank you.
Speaker 4: All right, appreciate it, Mark, Thanks for the kind words, all.
Speaker 2: Right, and that's a wrap. Thank you for listening, Thanks
Speaker 2: for being here, Thanks for continuing on this journey as
Speaker 2: we discuss our role as parents and how we can
Speaker 2: introduce our children to this incredible wild world that we
Speaker 2: get to enjoy. As I mentioned already, make sure you're
Speaker 2: checking out everything over in the Bear Grease World, the
Speaker 2: Bear Grease road Show, the Bear Grease Podcast, this country life.
Speaker 2: All that is great. Clay has a lot to offer
Speaker 2: and we're thankful and fortunate that he's putting it out
Speaker 2: of there into the world. So check it out, subscribe
Speaker 2: to his podcast, watch the YouTube videos, and until next time,
Speaker 2: my friends, thanks for being here, and stay wired to