Reuben Dourte Common Ground

Common Ground Bowhunter, Reuben Dourte Common Ground, is a little project that I started and it's just a place where I go and I kind of describe it as my platform for my musings and adventures as far as whitetail deer hunting goes. So I go on there and I write my blog posts about what's happening in the woods throughout the year. And then I do a few articles on my stand setups and the strategy that's behind it and then some of the self-filming that I started doing we put into videos and share some of them on there.

So it's a work in progress, it's fun, it's kind of what I do for a hobby, Reuben Dourte Common Ground

So it's a work in progress, it's fun, it's kind of what I do for a hobby when I wanna relax in the evening and more or less I started it kinda with the thoughts one day my kids could, if they wanted to pursue the outdoors they could go on there and see what was going through dad's brain back then, so.

Bruce: Well, where's it going and do you have a website, tell us more about it and just where do you think the thing's going?

so the website is just http://commongroundbowhunter.com

Reuben: Yeah, so the website is just commongroundbowhunter.com and the name I kinda just derived from the idea that some of the areas that we're hunting in Pennsylvania and the southern tier in New York really most of the eastern hunting that we do isn't quite the pristine parcels that maybe some people hunt in the more well-known, big buck states. But that's part of it for the Pennsylvania hunter. And we're not short on challenge. We have plenty of bucks to chase, plenty of deer but it's not always quite as much about the inches of antler as it is the pursuit. And so that was kind of the thought behind it and what I wanted to portray and I'll admit I feel like I pale in comparison to some of your other guests as far as being this big buck slayer.

I've had my share of success, but I profess to be the end all, be all to big buck killing. But I do feel like I'm able to relay the information that I've gleaned from different sources that have affected the way that I hunt. I feel like I can relay them to people in a relater able manner. So that was kinda why I thought it would be something that I'd like to start and kind of a fun project. Reuben Dourte Common Ground

Bruce: Now are you doing filming with this also?

Reuben: Yeah, so I thought, I guess it was back in 2014 before season, I knew that one of my buddies had just a real cheap camera arm and I was like, "You know what? I got this Handy cam here," and I was, "why don't I try and get some footage? That might be fun, that might add something to the hunt." So I got his camera arm and I started filming and I shot two does that year on film and had a lot of fun doing it, and what I found was, when I was in the woods with the camera I guess the way that I would put it, it didn't feel like I had to have every hunt be a success in the sense that it resulted in a kill. Like, if I saw a yearling buck making a scrape, and I got it on film, and could take it back to camp and show the rest of the guys back at camp, or show my friends, that was almost as much fun for me as it was shooting a deer. Reuben Dourte Common Ground

And I found myself going back after season and just watching my footage and reliving those hunts. And that just became almost invaluable to me and I thought, "You know what? This would be really awesome if I just threw these together into short video my kid, he was born in May of 2015 and I'm trying to brainwash him into being a deer hunter, of course. So he likes to watch all the DVDs and videos that I have and I was like, "You know what? It might be cool for him one day to able to watch dad hunting a little bit." So yeah, that's kinda how that started and then just been upgrading some camera equipment along the...