Mike is the president of Pass It On - Outdoors Mentor program

Welcome to another edition of Whitetail Rendezvous. Today we’re heading over to Kansas, and we’re going to talk with Mike Christensen. Mike is the president of Pass It On - Outdoors Mentor program. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike: Bruce, thank you for having me on today.

Bruce: Well, how’s the weather over there in Wichita today?

Mike: We’ve got a beautiful day today. Its going to be in the 50s, a little slight overcast, a great, beautiful day to be outdoors.

Bruce: Well, that's great and Kansas is a great state. It's a got a lot of great bucks, and I want to jump right into Pass It On - Outdoor Mentors program, the hows and the whys and why you got this rolling.

Mike: You know, I got started working with Big Brothers and Big Sisters back in '99. A neighbor of mine worked at Big Brothers and Big Sisters. And when Kansas had their first youth upland season, he knew that I was involved with Quail Unlimited at the time. And he asked if I could round up some guys to take some kids out on that first youth upland season. Well, it was a chance for us to take the dogs out a week before the season opened and see how the birds were looking. So we jumped at it. And I really had no idea what Big Brothers and Big Sisters was all about, but a chance to get outdoors a week early sounded good to me, so away we went.

A couple of years later, we got to where we were doing a couple of hunts a year with these kids, and it was really interesting. The first time we did, I figured we'd take these 14, 15-year-old kids out, and they were going to be walking our tails off. But after the first couple of fields, they were physically exhausted. They couldn't keep up with us old guys. It was really amazing. And the program grew from there.

In 2002, I was hired by Big Brothers and Big Sisters to start up an outdoor-mentoring program for them here in Kansas, and it's been really, really tremendous. We're able to give kids who won't have a chance to go hunting or fishing that opportunity. And we do that by recruiting mentors, men and women, who love the outdoors and want to share those experiences with a kid. And it's really been a tremendously rewarding experience for me.

Bruce: What type of challenges are you having finding mentors, men and women, who want to take an hour or two on a Saturday, or even more time than that, and getting involved in a kid's life?

You know, that's our biggest challenge, Bruce, is finding more mentors

Mike: You know, that's our biggest challenge, Bruce, is finding more mentors. We have literally thousands of kids at Big Brothers and Big Sisters agencies across the country on the waiting list, and 75% of those kids are boys. I'm not going to say that all those boys want to go outdoors and go hunting and fishing, but I'd wager that the [inaudible 00:02:59] and there are a lot of these kids that will never get off the waiting list. They'll never get matched with a mentor. And that was one of the reasons why Big Brothers and Big Sisters here in Kansas was interested in starting an outdoor-mentoring program, because they realized that the demographics of hunters and fishermen are male. And they were willing to try and reach out to that demographic and get them involved with these kids, and it's a win-win situation for everybody.

Those of us who love the outdoors get to expose kids to the outdoors and maybe have future hunters and fishermen. The kids win because now they have a mentor and they get to go outdoors, and the outdoors community wins. It's just a win for everybody, and we just really need to encourage more men and women to step up and help ensure that our outdoor traditions are carried on by these kids.

Bruce: Now when you're looking for mentors, are you branched out throughout the country and have state directors? Tell us about your structure.

Mike: Well, right now we're just really in Kansas.

Mia Anstine writes for Women’s Outdoor News, Western Whitetail Magazine and Beretta

Welcome to another episode of "Whitetail Rendezvous." This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. We’re heading down to southwestern Colorado today, in Pagosa Springs, meeting up and talking with just a dynamic woman who represents a lot of women in the outdoors, Mia Anstine. She’s co-owner of Wolf Creek Outfitters, but Mia is more than just a hardcore, gets the job done, takes care of her clients, outfitter. She is a writer for "Women’s Outdoor News." She probably writes "The Comfort Zone" for "Western Whitetail Magazine." She has a blog with Beretta, and she’s an active board member with the local chapter SCI, Safari Club International. She served, as well as I have served, at the Colorado Sportsman's Round Table Committee, representing sportsmen throughout Colorado, with its director [inaudible:00:01:03]. She's also a professional member of Professional Outdoor Media Association. Mia, welcome to the show.

Mia: Hi there. How are you?

Bruce: I'm awesome. I'm just excited to be chatting with you. I talked to Barbara Baird. She was on the show a couple months ago, and she said, "Man, if you ever can get Mia out of the mountains and off her horse and get her on the show, she would be awesome." So let's talk about Mia, and let's just talk about Wolf Creek Outfitters right now. Give yourself a little self promo. What I didn't say in our warm-up, Mia, is that at the end, you'll have a couple minutes to give promos and shout-outs to sponsors, to friends, to anything or any person, any entity that's supporting you, or anything else you'd want to say.

Mia: Okay.

Bruce: Got it?

Mia: Sounds good.

Bruce: Okay. Let's start off with Wolf Creek Outfitters. Let's talk about that.

Let's start off with Wolf Creek Outfitters. Let's talk about that

Mia: Well, my husband and I co-own Wolf Creek Outfitters. He ran it when I met him, and he's kind of got me on board, helping him take out new hunters and mentor the youth into hunting. It's something that I really enjoy doing, spreading the traditions to the next generation, so we can ensure that they continue on. It's been a lot of fun. It's something that . . . As you said, I spend a lot of days up in the hills and riding horses, scouting, hunting, and just trying to educate others into what hunting is about.

Bruce: Now what game animals do you hunt?

Mia: We hunt elk, mule deer, black bear, and [inaudible:00:02:50] turkey. We do that in southwest Colorado and in northern New Mexico.

Bruce: Now have you ever hunted whitetail deer?

Mia: This is great that I'm on your show, and it's a whitetail show, because we just got back from an event with Remington [SP] Country in Missouri. I've actually been on two whitetail hunts, and both of them have been unsuccessful. The first one, I learned what sizes in that location in Minnesota, where shooters . . . I saw a couple that I wasn't quite sure if were shooters, and I tapped on them. When I returned to the lodge, they told me, "Yeah, that was good that you packed." So I ended up coming home empty-handed after the Minnesota event. Just this past month, in Missouri, I went with my daughter. I was myself and Jessica Callam [SP] at Remington, she and her daughter. We went on a whitetail hunt there, a mother/daughter hunt, and it was a lot of fun. But believe it or not, we came up empty-handed again. We could've shot either sex.

Jessica and her daughter saw a couple of does the second evening, but it was past shooting light. My daughter and I, we didn't see a single mammal until the very last morning. We saw two squirrels. So I don't even know if there's whitetail there.

Bruce: Oh, my goodness. I'll just throw this out. I left home October 24th, came home November . . . two days before Thanksgiving. I never had a doe under my stand, and I saw over 30 bucks. None of them were shooters. I have set limits now. You know?

Ron Ahrens Keepin’ It in The Ozarks

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon, and we’re going to visit with Ron Ahrens today. Keepin’ It in The Ozarks. Ron, welcome to the show.

Ron: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Bruce: Well, let’s talk about Keepin’ It in The Ozarks, and your team member there. What’s that all about?

Ron: Well, what it was when I retired from the post office I had finally gotten bored with retirement, so I started working at Lowe's. And one of the employees there at Lowe's was a team member on a local show and he branched out on his own and encouraged me to buy a camera, and so that's how I got started. So we got some more team members, and now we've probably got, I think, 12 on our team. So everybody hunts and everybody videos. You know it gets kind of boring behind a camera. So we want to give everybody a chance, and then you can have more kills on a show too, so that's kind of part of it.

Bruce: Well, talk to me about what your productions do, who carries them, and what's the important part of doing that show?

actually it's a local show at the Lake of the Ozarks

Ron: Well, right now it's web-based. It's on YouTube, and actually it's a local show at the Lake of the Ozarks. Our local channel at the Lake of the Ozarks contacted Justin and he started it all, Justin Sapp. And they want to start running his YouTube, on their show now. And then next year they want to start, actually putting a formatted show together to run on their channels. Then next to that we're going to on the Hunt Channel, and it's on YouTube and Amazon. It's a new web...I don't know how they actually...it's something to do with the internet. It's like a little...I don't know for sure what it is. Justin's got it all...I don't know how you would say it. You plug it into the TV. It's a thumb kind of thing and...

Bruce: So anyways, yeah. The production's going to be on YouTube or other digital channels, not specifically on the Pursuit Channel or the Sportsman Channel or the Outdoor Channel, but your own channel. Is that correct?

Ron: Right, right.

Bruce: Great.

Ron: Yes.

Bruce: Well, let's talk about your beginning in hunting. Where did your hunting tradition come from?

Ron: Well, I lived on a farm. I was born in Russell, Kansas, and I lived on a farm out in Missoula, Kansas. So I could actually hunt right outside my back door. It was awful nice, and my dad never did really take me hunting a lot, but he never told me, no. He was a farmer, a Kansas farmer so he worked all the time, and so that's how I got my start. There's a lot of pheasant and quail in Kansas. When I was young, there wasn't a lot of whitetail, to tell you the truth. I can remember what I would do is go out to the fields with my dad, when I was just a kid and I'd take a hammer, a pliers and a screwdriver. And when I'd get bored going around and around in the field, dad would just stop and let me off and I'd dig in the dirt.

I remember the first buck I ever saw in my life. It was I got bored, jumped off the tractor and there was a pond close by. So I was playing around the water there in the pond, and I went over to the dam and just looked, and there was a big buck at the bottom, and that was the first whitetail buck, I'd ever seen in my life. So that was pretty exciting to me. So I had to run back and dad went down there, and he wasn't there anymore, of course. But that's a memory I'll never forget.

Bruce: That's great.

Ron: So then I left the farm and went in the Air Force, and in the Air Force you travel quite a bit. I was in Oklahoma. I did some quail hunting, out in Oklahoma. Then I went back to Kansas, in Wichita, and of course then I got to go home, and hunt some more at home, there. And then I got transferred to Anchorage, Alaska, so we did a little bit of hunting up there in Alaska, and I'll tell you what. That was probably one of my biggest regrets in my life is that I didn't go h...

Derek Peterson; founder, owner, and manager of Peterson Cartridge Company

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon and today we've got a special man on the phone because he's going to talk to us about match grade brass. His name is Derek Peterson, founder, owner, and manager of Peterson Cartridge Company. Derek, welcome to the show.

Derek: Thanks for having me, Bruce, I appreciate you having me on the show.

Bruce: So Derek let's start right off and you were telling me in the warm-up about why the company, Peterson Cartridge, came into being. So let's start right there and let's roll with the foundation of your company for the next few minutes.

Derek: Sure Bruce. So again, I'm Derek Peterson of Peterson Cartridge Co. So I'm one of the founders, one of the owners, and I'm one of the managers. And we got started in making brass casings for the ammunition industry back in 2013. We're located out of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be specific. And it all started in the Fall of 2013 when we were looking for brass for ammunition for hunting. I personally hunt with a .308 and a .243 and so my father and I were looking to find ammunition, couldn't find any as you guys all remember we were in the center of the [inaudible 00:01:37] and the throes of the big ammunition shortage. One of them in the recent past. And my father went to me and said, "We're entrepreneurial, find a way to make ammunition." So we went to our first show which was the NASGW show, the wholesaler's show, and that was in October I think of 2013 and we went and talked to some folks at the show and said, "We're going to make whole rounds." And they said, "Well, you can if you'd like but you're going to not like your life very much because you can't find any components." And so we took that information and me and my father went out in the hallway and said, "So, we can't find any components. Why don't we make brass? That's one that everybody seems like they can't find." So we went back in and said okay, we're going to make brass, that's what we're going to do. And we talked to a lot of people and they welcomed us in with open arms. "You're going to make brass, we'd love to talk to you." So that's basically how it got started. After that we did all the research on what machinery we wanted to purchase and to make the brass and where we wanted to set up our shop, and what calibers we wanted to make and so that's basically how it got started. It all got started from, we couldn't find hunting ammunition. And so we figured we're going to find a way to help fill the demand and make our own.

Bruce: So ladies and gentlemen we're going to unfold the show because I've been reloading for quite a few years, I've got a couple of guns and I found that reloading helps me get accuracy. And my rifles shoot very well, If they don't then I sell them and get a rifle that shoots well with the loads that I can make. The one thing that I was talking to Derek was, I don't know anything about brass. I've bought brass from Midway or Cabela's or someplace. I got bunches of brass and got 1,000 or 2,000 brass cases for all my calibers and I really don't know about brass. So Derek, walk us through why match grade brass, not just what you buy from Midway, but actually match grade brass, is so important for accuracy.

Derek: Yeah, sure, happy to. So I'll hold off on going into our process and our quality control and I'll talk about what makes match grade brass and why it is important to shooters and hunters alike. So our tagline is match grade brass. And so what makes match grade brass go by the name is able to be used in a match. Whether it's an F-class match or just any other kind of match. It's consistency. And so consistency leads to accuracy and also precision. So precision, putting the next shot as close to the last shot as you can. And accuracy being how close to your intended target do your shots fall.

Jeana Mitchell of Country Camo Outdoors

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. We're heading east today and we're going to talk to Jeana Mitchell. Now Jeana is an interesting lady. She has a number of companies and a blog. Talk about Country Camo LLC, Country Camo Outdoors, and she's a blogger for Queens of Camo. Jeana, welcome to the show.

Jeana: Thank you, Bruce. It's nice to be here.

Bruce: Well, in the warm up we talked about a lot of different things and let's just talk about the hunting tradition. Where did that come from in your life?

Jeana: Actually when I met my husband. As a child I wasn't allowed to hunt. My father just thought the woods was no place for a girl so it wasn't anything that I was allowed to do, although as a child I was always playing in the woods and wanted to be there, it's just that I wasn't allowed to hunt. So when I met my husband, he encouraged me to go out, he got me my first bow. Of course, I had served in the army so I knew how to shoot so I had that on my side. Ray bought me my bow, we went out. My first year, I shot four deer so he said I was a natural and it just rolled from there.

Bruce: Wow, wait a minute, your first year you put four deer down with your bow?

Jeana: I did. I shot a buck and I got three doe that year.

Bruce: Okay, let's just stay right there. Ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of ladies listening, there are a lot of young hunters listening, old hunters that are just thinking about taking up the sport and so let's sit and explore just exactly what happened because obviously your husband taught you pretty darn well and you're a good student. So let's talk about what you did to be proficient in getting those animals. Just talk to me about it.

Jeana: I practiced. I didn't want to let him down, I didn't want to let myself down and in our family we have the rule that you only hunt what you're going to eat and we practiced to make good ethical kills. So I waited for my shots and I was only good at that time at about 20 yards so I would have to sit and I'd watch deer far away from me and it was so aggravating to see these deer like 30 and 40 yards and know that I couldn't take the shot. But I was patient and it paid off and I had good shot placement and I don't know, I was just super excited, the feelings that came over me. And I thank God because every time that I got in my stand I would pray that God would provide meat for me and my family and allow me to make good ethical kills and he came through for me that year. Now since then, I've only taken one more deer so I think it may have been because of luck.

Bruce: How old were you when you picked up your first bow?

Jeana: I was 40.

Bruce: Forty years old.

Jeana: Yeah. So it was only seven years ago and so I was older than a lot of people but I guess younger than some people, too. So you're never too old to learn something new and if you're passionate about it, you can become proficient.

Bruce: Let's talk about any barriers that you had to get through, and this is for our listeners to hear what a lady 40 years old, married, husband loves to hunt and is investing time. So let's talk about how your husband taught you or allowed you to embrace the outdoors and embrace hunting and embrace harvesting game, killing game.

Well, I guess I was lucky because our children were pretty much grown at that time so we didn't have to worry about being at home

Jeana: Well, I guess I was lucky because our children were pretty much grown at that time so we didn't have to worry about being at home. They were both in high school so I didn't have to worry about staying at home with them or finding baby sitters so we had the time to go out. They were at the age to where they could take care of themselves so I had the time to go out and I know that that's a problem for a lot of both men and women because in today's world, there are a lot of single men out there that are raising children as well ...

Dawn Freeland Mentoring & Empowering Women in the Great Outdoors because Women Hunt Fish & Camp Too!

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and we're heading to the Midwest today,out east, and a lady named Dawn Freeland. She believes in Mentoring & Empowering Women in the Great Outdoors. Now Dawn is a woman who hunts, fishes and camps too. Those are the titles of her stores Hunt Fish & Camp Too And if you're on social network, you know who Dawn is. So Dawn, welcome to the show.

Dawn: Well thank you. Thank you for having me.

Bruce: And ladies and gentlemen, this is a six-month odyssey of getting out schedules together. Would you agree?

Dawn: Woo hoo! Finally getting it done!

Bruce: We're finally getting it done! We've had a great warm-up.

Dawn: Persevered!

Bruce: And in the beginning of the show, -- and I'm just going to start right out with this -- we were chatting about, "What's a trophy?" Because I was sharing about a younger deer. It was a gorgeous one, 35, 10-point, heavy brow tines, and it was still a young deer. It came out of Iowa and it was the perfect deer to be the logo of Whitetail Rendezvous, my new show. Brand new. Full potential. And we're growing.

Dawn and I started talking about that and Dawn said, "Well, here's what I feel about it." So Dawn, let's here how you feel about it.

Dawn: Well to me, the trophy hunter, or "trophy" is anything that had captivated you. That is something that you've worked for, that you've earned, that is a legal and an ethical kill. I've always said, "A trophy is in the eyes of the beholder, or the hunter." A trophy to one person might not mean the same thing to the next person.

A small doe, perhaps, which is something that you've worked for, you've stalked. You've put the time in. You've put the effort in. You made a clean kill shot, and obviously it was a legal shot. And that you're just as grateful for that deer putting meat on the table as if it was the largest buck that you had ever seen in your life. It's still a trophy. It's something that you feel in your heart. It's something that you feel in your soul. And it's something that you just are excited about, and you are just happy about, and very proud of.

Bruce: Now, why do you think we're fixated -- and I'm talking about both guys and gals -- about mega bucks? Huge bucks, you know. We're talking Booner Bucks, or, "It's got to be a Pope and Young 125, 130 buck or I'm not going to shoot it." A Pope and Young, Boone and Crockett, 150 or above. But don't you think we're missing something there?

Dawn: I have a different take on the whole thing. A lot of people disagree with me, and that's okay. That's just fine. I disagree with them also. But as long as we're respectful of each other's opinions and what not. Some people, they only want to take the biggest and the best, and they pass on anything that's smaller. I'm seeing in some of the areas of the country that have that mentality -- that you have to have certain points to take a buck -- we're finding that some of those areas that that's been instilled in for a while, some of the genetics are getting a little messed up.

Some of the smaller bucks, that aren't being taken and that have the genetics big issue, are prevailing, so now they're in the gene pool. They're really spreading that out there and we're coming up with a lot of smaller bucks. Now I look at equality and I kind of have a little bit different take on that.

You need to take small and big. That's just my personal opinion. This is how I feel about it. Some people, like you said, are fixated on only taking the biggest and the best. You know what? That's awesome for them. They choose to do that. Good for them. That's just fine.

We live on a farm that we cash crop, and we have a lot of animals that feed off of our corn, and our hay, and our soybeans, so they're always ravaging the land. They're always taking.

Robbie is Arrow Seed food plot product manager. He develops and tests new mixes for wildlife, especially white-tailed deer.

Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and we're heading over to Nebraska today, and we're going to talk to Robbie Johnson Arrow Seed Company. Now, Robbie is a versatile member of the Arrow Seed team there in Nebraska, and he's a retail manager, but the thing he likes really to talk about, and that's why he's on the show, He develops and tests new mixes for wildlife, especially white-tailed deer. Robbie, welcome to the show.

Robbie: Well, thanks for having me, sir, and I appreciate the time and just the opportunity to sit down and talk with you for a little bit.

Bruce: Well, the first thing, I see a picture here of a pretty nice whitetail from Iowa. Why don't we start the show right off, and talk to us about that buck.

Robbie: That deer is kind of a, how do you want to call it, a deer in the making, without even know it, in a sense. We got a big friend and dealer over there, and Buddy over there, he's been working with us a for a few years now, and got his whole farm operation going into the food plot line, and getting a lot more diverse mixes with perennials and annuals that we offer. Last year he called me and said, "Hey, there's three tags left if you want to get a muzzle with your tag." At the time, I was busy doing our summer annual forage part of the summer, and I said, "Well, if there's one still left at lunch, I will." There was a reason that tag was available, and sure enough I went home and went through the whole operation, got the tag, and then from there we kept watching show gamer gamer pictures and seeing what he had, and every week it was pretty exciting.

That's when you really get excited to look at pictures and campers, and when you're hunting a totally new, different ground and never been there, but tell you what. After having...I've been on this particular farm, there was 25 acres of food plots then, so food wasn't a problem, and that was a nice thing, because it was the end of December there, and was extremely cold last year. It was one of those things that if you had food, you had the deer, and that's exactly what happened.

So that particular hunt, it was probably one of the coldest times I've been. Fortunately, had some blinds out of the wind, but still I think some, I don't know if you remember last year, but some of those winds, they were 10, 15 below wind chill, and those deer, they were out at 2:30 in the afternoon. So it was a cold, long sit, but definitely a pretty cool hunt to even have that opportunity to experience an Iowa hunt like that.

Bruce: Well, our listeners can't see the photo, but it's a 10-point mature deer. How old was that deer?

Robbie: That was a four and a half year old deer, and we've actually got the sheds from him, that two and three. I don't want to call this a management deer, but it was one of those deer that from two-, three-, and four-, even as three- and four-year-old sheds, they just didn't do what he wanted to or what we would have liked to, but he's about as pretty of a deer, and it was a pretty picturesque hunt, if you want to call it that, as far as the food plots and how everything happened. That farm's definitely got a lot bigger deer, a lot more opportunity, but this particular deer, I was wanting to help him out with this herd rather than necessarily go in and steal out of the piggy bank, if you want to call it that.

But after seeing it and having the history with it having sheds for two years before that was pretty neat to do that. You get into Iowa, Kansas, even from Nebraska and Colorado, the whole Midwest, they've got their hot spots and their areas of managed properties, and they can definitely hold a lot, and good quality deer, which is nice.

Bruce: And that's a great segue. There's two things. Let's talk about December hunting and what you had to do to prepar...

Dr. Brooks Teller : Yeah, becoming a healthy hunter is critical

Bruce: Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. Whitetail Rendezvous presents Episode 121 with Dr. Brooks Tiller @DrBrooksTiller of Orion's Kin TV. We're heading out to talk to a Dr. Brooks Tiller. He's a husband, a father, international physical therapist, been involved with U.S. Olympic teams, Chinese Olympic teams, movement specialist, performance coach, author, speaker. He's going to talk more about his upcoming book during the show. When he isn't busy with all that, he hosts Orion's Kin TV. Dr. Brooks, welcome to the show.

Dr. Brooks: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Bruce: Hey, let's just start right off. You are a busy guy. How do you manage all that? And I think you like to hunt whitetails along the way.

Dr. Brooks: Yeah, yeah. Whitetail is my main prey. Yeah, it's a busy...but for me, I think that an idle mind is the devil's playground, so I don't want the devil playing in my mind, so I stay busy. When it comes down to it, I love to do the things that I do. When you're passionate about something, it doesn't seem like work and a chore. So I do stay busy just doing the things I love.

Bruce: Let's talk about, now, helping people achieve good health, good stamina, good flexibility so they can go out in the woods and enjoy their time, whether they're spotting/stalking, they're sitting in a tree stand, or they're hunting from a ground blind. Let's talk about why it's important that we all are healthy.

Dr. Brooks: Yeah, becoming a healthy hunter is critical, because...I'm here in Tennessee, and of course in the southeast a lot of guys hunt. But we also have the biggest population of overweight. If you look at the most overweight people, they are most found in southeast. I realize this, you know, coming like from my family. My grandfather passed away, and a lot of it was some lifestyle choices of smoking and the work that he did. He passed away a little early, and it really got me motivated after I finished physical therapy school to get out and help people to be better and be healthier. Whether we're traveling out west and you're spotting stalk, and you're walking ten miles up a mountain, or if you're sitting in a deer stand, either way, you need to be healthy.

There are different ways to be healthy, but the biggest thing is eating the food that we actually kill. We have the best food available to us. You can go to one of these big, fancy stores and you're going to find Boston for $10 a pound. But you can go out and get a deer and bring home quite a bit of meat for a lot less than $10 a pound, especially if you butcher it yourself.

Then it's moving. If we're sitting in a deer stand, this time of year, everybody's getting ready to sit in a deer stand, and you'll sit there...some guys sit there all day. Or you can just sit three or four hours. Your muscles get tight, and you lose a lot of flexibility. Then you many wind up getting injured. It might just be bending over to pick up your kid, or bending over to tie your shoes. It's not the tying your shoes or picking your kid up that actually did it, it's the fact that you're sitting in your stand, sitting in your vehicle, sitting in a desk at work, for that long a time. Your muscles have gotten short, gotten tight, and you don't have the flexibility that you used to.

I've seen this with anything from outdoorsmen to Olympic-level athletes, that they do the same thing over and over and over and over. And then all of the sudden they bend over to tie their shoes...and the guy that squats 1,000 pounds, he ties his shoes, and he blows his back out tying his shoes. When it comes down to being healthy and fit, we've got to make that a priority in our life. We take the time to make sure our stand is in a good spot. We make sure that we have the trail cameras out, we've got everything ready, we've tuned our bow, we shot our guns.

Well, those deer are going to travel and I'm fortunate enough that we have a lot of farmland around. Now, for them to get to the nearest field, they barely have to go, they just have to walk outside one foot of the swamp and there's fields. So we always have, you know, there's always bean fields and corn fields that surround the swamp. Now the other thing that puts challenges on it, I mean, the only way that I could have afforded it 12 years ago, is like I said, that land is good for nothing but hunting. I've got a railroad track on one side and I've got I-90 on the other side

Well, we're actually on a featured, one of the small groups that are featured on a show called The Search. It's on the Pursuit Channel through either Dish or DirectTV, and it's eight teams vying for a spot, for their own spot, on the Pursuit Channel. so it's a reality TV show contest. So last night was the second week of the search but it was our first time being featured on there for a video. So our show aired last night. We had a nice watch party and it went really, really well. We had some great sponsors like Moultrie, and Horny Buck Seed Company and those on the social media side, they really shared our page and got us a lot of votes and we're in it to win it. We've got like 12 more weeks and we'll see who the winner is.