Fireside Chat with Walter Lee

Welcome to the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast! This week we're joined by Walter Lee of the Chasing Tales Outdoor Podcast with not a whole lot of an agenda. The guys talk about the importance of deer camp, hunting fashion, and how to simplify your approach to hunting. We're really all over the board this week but it was a fun convo. Happy Hunting!

[00:00:00] Hey, thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast, where you're gonna hear a valuable hunting based conversation that's tailored for us southern folk. If you love what we do and would like to support Southern ground Hunting, you can visit patreon.com/southern Ground Hunting, or you can click on the link in the show notes below.

We'd love for you to join the Southern Ground Hunting community today. Again, that's patreon.com/southern Ground Hunting. You can also support us by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. It helps more than and we greatly appreciate it. And now let's get to the show.

I'm a bottomless pit for his, I'm a history buff. I listen to audio books like all the. My, my vocabulary sucks. I thought mom was bad too. Stutter. But Eli Yeah, Eli at when we were driving one day he was like, I like [00:01:00] Walt man. He talks really good. He's got a huge vocabulary, . It's yeah, he does.

Eli's from Winston County. Winston County is Winston County, Alabama. Ain't nobody talking with a whole lot of big words. , you know what they talking. Bardo . They eat that boy, they, that boy can flat out, listen, y'all catch a lot of health about family trees being straight. I'm telling you, his has got a Y somewhere behind him and it's half human, half bardo.

I'm telling you right now. That dude is straight out somewhere. I took a picture of him, Matt, and he was, he like, like they were doing this calling competition at the Patreon hunt. . Eli gets up there to do the, he's, he entered the competition or whatever. He's a good caller too, but he gets up there to do a hoot owl or hoot.

And like most people, when they do the hoot they just keep their their face and they may do something with their jaw. They're like, yeah. But Eli, this boy's mouth, like his [00:02:00] jaw comes outta socket and it like goes up to the side. It's oh, . I don't know how he does it, but it looks like a freaking exorcist.

Yeah. He starts moving like a blow up, Tom. Yeah. He is manifesting something, coming outta his mouth, moves over to the side of his head and it's, and it sounds good too. It sounds amazing. It's I don't remember whatever. No, man, I took a picture of him. I turned up my shutter speed, my camera one day.

I was like, Do that. Ahoo, I'm gonna show you. He is man, am I really that bad? Is it really that bad? Dude, your whole face shifts. . . He like an anamorphic. I'll tell you, I'll tell you what it looks like. You know how in the movies when somebody turns into a werewolf and their jaw like, does that weird?

Like that? Swear to God. And that's what he did. And he had a, ah, and his eyes got really big and he couldn't like move him. He just had to move his whole body for a second. His head turned. His head turned. Yeah. All the way around. Yeah. That was freaking out. That's great. Guys, if [00:03:00] y'all can't tell already, we have turkeys on our mind and it's a, yeah, it's a very tough thing.

Running the Deer Hunting Podcast, the last two weeks we've done a series with David Miller jumping into post-season scouting stuff and it was great. We really appreciate David and what he does for the podcast and the knowledge that he brings for us. We've got Parker McDonald here tonight.

That's eat up with turkeys. And we also got Walter Lee in here that's eat up with turkeys as well. So we're I'm excited to see what kind of conversation we're even gonna dive into tonight. So we don't have a set topic really to talk about. And sometimes those are the most fun conversations sometimes.

So we're not trying to push an agenda on anybody. We're just here to talk some deer hunting while we think about turkeys. trying to mean. Walt just had a whole political discussion before the last two hours before we got on the [00:04:00] line here. I do not talk politic. I do not talk politics on podcast.

Yeah. No, I don't really wanna talk politics in general. You mix that with deer hunting and campfires and it's not a good thing. Yeah. But how about this, how about how, why deer camp is so great? Cuz nobody talks about politics. We have different deer camps growing. Y'all talked about politics.

Oh my God, all the time. And I would just sit there and zone out staring into the fire because I didn't even want to hear it as a kid. It was so bad. And the thing is with politics is and that crowd, pretty much everybody's gonna agree on the same things over and over again. It was like one big circle of ideology.

It was all the same thing. , they were all in bullshit. Just regurgitating it. Yes. And Budweiser flow. And the, and Black and Miles got smoked. He just got even more outrageous the entire time. Y'all, y'all are smoking black and miles at Deer Camp? Oh man. I grew up with an old school camp, dude. One dude [00:05:00] smoked a frigging pipe.

It was beautiful. I didn't understand the pipe. Black and Miles is a little that's kinda like a gas station Cigarillo. Older generation though, man. That was a, like I said, they were in it, huh? Yeah. At least in southeast Georgia it was. God, I used to love a good black of mine. I smell it to this day and I go right back to the dog house.

We had this. At my hunt camp I lived on my hunt camp. I was lucky. But there was this old man, Mr. Griffin, he was like your grandfather to me. And he had an old two car garage out back that he put a, a plexiglass wall up, had air condition, a pool table, all kinds of cool as antiques in there. Oops, sorry.

You gonna have to edit that out. Oh no man. Cool. , listen. Cool, cool. Antiques. And the boys would sit in the back and we'd play pool while the old men pontificated up front and they would drink Budweiser, just straight Budweiser, not Bud Light, none of that. Budweiser tall boys and smoke black and mild. And they'd sit there in their rocking chairs and it was a privilege if one of them got up and left.

It was a privilege to sit in one of those rocking chairs and the moment another old man would pull up in his golf cart, your butt better been up out [00:06:00] that chair back there playing pool quiet. There was no talking to be at there. . Yeah. Smell those black of miles to this day and I'm right back there. I love them.

You know who else? My wife. She likes black of miles too. Yeah, it's a classy, lemme tell you something. Is it though is kinda not a classy thing, but she's only depends on where you at. What part of the. Yeah, I guess so because yeah, I've always thought like black and miles are what you roll weed up in.

Yeah. Pretty much like that was the only reason people were buying black and Miles . Nobody actually liked the, yeah, they just thought the wood tip wine tasted good mixed with cannabis. That's out the doghouse and those areas outta the doghouse. I'm like that when he passed away, he I got that in the wheel.

I got his bow in the closet. Is there long? There's a good black mile in there. Probably. What? What is that? Is it a sheath full of Polaris? Yeah. Quiver as the bow hunters. Bow hunters would call it a quivers. . These are all cedar eras that thing's huge. These [00:07:00] are cedar eras that he glued the tips on pretty and heated them by hand.

It looks sharp. Is it sharp? I don't know. Touch it. No, it's not. You're gonna see that on the end of Parker's Bow. This. . That's his new Broadhead right there. . It's a it's a bear. I'm an idiot. Foc baby. I have five. No, there's no foc to this era. , man, a can. I have five unopened boxes of these from the eighties that I threw away and didn't think they were valuable.

The old school, you can get that thing sharper than a frigg razor. It's old school steel. Heck yeah. That's cool. Yep. I know we're jumping in on the Deer Camp thing. My, my childhood in deer camp was totally different. We weren't like a part of a club that like camped out, did fires cooked out. Me and my dad just stayed to ourselves and I that's how I still hunted this day.

I guess within the last three years I've really branched out hunting with people, but like I hear people say [00:08:00] Deer camp and I get jealous because, , I would've liked to experience that, but then you also hear a bunch of stuff about people having to be quiet and talking about hiding their spots.

So it was totally different from me, from what? From what y'all are experiencing. I know what Walt's about to say, and he is about to get over, get on here, and he is about to start plugging away on. His own little Patreon that he's got going on , he's about, I look, we locked Eyes and he's I'm about to say it.

I knew I was, go ahead, sorry. You're correct cause you're correct. So here's the deal. If you're like Matt and you think, boy, this sure applies to me. What you should do is pause this podcast, swipe over to the Chasing Tails Outdoors podcast and join our Patreon . Cause we have a, oh, we have a Patreon. But we don't have a discord group.

Yeah. Yeah. And how many channels do you have? Huh? We don't have a Discord group. No. How many channels in polo? On Polo? [00:09:00] Just one man. There you go. Yeah. But in, in all serious, we're wait time out since you did that, I just remembered. I just remembered a little wager that we had going on. Which one? Yes. We had a wager that was, are you gonna bring that back after you waived that debt?

Did I wave it? You did. When did I wave that ? Right after the season ended, and I called it Adam. I called Adam and I said if I win this wager, he's gonna act like it wasn't a real wager. And if I don't lose, before we go any further explain the wager to everybody. Go ahead, Parker. As you remember it, Walter decided, I don't know where he decided it at.

that he wanted to make a bet that he was gonna kill a bigger buck than me. This year we told Matt Caesar deer, I was chasing, okay that mean he, if I showed you every trail camera, I deer [00:10:00] that you going too. Not in Florida Hall. So Walter, hey, I got some Florida deer and I said, listen.

If you want to do that, you can like we, and not just because I've just killed a whole bunch of big deer, but you gonna tell the backstory or not? You gonna make me do it? I don't remember what the backstory was. Backstory was you were in a slump because your season had taken a turn and you were poor mouth and everything.

And so I texted Babe, which is Adam in my phone cuz his wife calls him. and I said pretty normal thing for their wife to call their husband. I don't usually call my friends by the name that their wife, my wife called me won't. Don't call me. I said to Adam, I said, I'm gonna challenge him to a wager so that he'll get out more.

And I challenged you then so that you wouldn't this is on the air. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask, so this wager was for motivation for Parker. Absolutely. You were just being a good friend to motivate Parker. This was charitable contributions to the southern ground family.

Yeah. So here the, [00:11:00] here's what. What's the bet was, or the Yep. This is what we had to win. What you had at stake. Yeah. Here's where, here were the stakes. That's a good way to say it. Whoever wins the other has to put an ad for their podcast on their podcast. And did I never even questioned whether or not this was a real thing.

So I don't know why you think that I would've, because I said it on a podcast, we would've glad. Had you bu had you killed a bigger deer, we'd gladly put an ad on this podcast for the Chasing Tales podcast, which we actually already do cause we talk about you a lot. I know. I hear about that all the time.

Oh, we talk about you a lot. If Drew's on here, we're really gonna talk about you a lot. I, boy a talk woman he loves to get at Walt. But anyways, we haven't done it yet, but I'm, I don't remember calling off that you called. you said. So I said, I killed that little six point and he called me and he said, how big is he?

And I said, he's tiny. And he goes and I'll never forget it. He went, [00:12:00] so is your season over? And I said, yeah, I think it's officially over. He goes, . He goes I'm not gonna hold you to that, to, to that ad face. I went, okay. And I called Adam in that moment and I said, I told you he wasn't. He was gonna call it off if I didn't do it.

You probably felt bad. Yeah, it's kinda like when your little boy decides he wants to fight you and he doesn't have a chance. , listen this. Daddy, who did, who knew I didn't have a chance. I was getting on some really big deer and I was getting really close.

And every time I'd call him, he'd go, did you get the big one? And I'd be like, no. And he'd go, Sorry. Relief. Hey, those were some big deer that you just sent me like that, people don't think that's, where you're hunting. So talk about talking about Deer camp too. I'm the same as you, Matt.

Mine and your Deer Camp experiences were probably pretty similar. Dad had a few friends that we would hunt with from time to time. One guy in particular, his name is Dale Washburn. , [00:13:00] just the bit, he was a RAs about guy. I don't know why I'm talking about him. Like he's dead. He's alive. , . He's not dead the late.

Great. But we, I grew up West Texas. He's a RAs about guy and he was just the funniest, not on purpose, like oil field. Rough around the edges, dude. You. God, he was so funny and so much fun to have at Deer Camp. He's like more of an uncle. Really? , because him and my dad were so tight.

So he would he would hunt with us too when we were out there. But for the most part, like we didn't really dad's not a drinker, so most deer camps are people sitting around drinking beer. He don't really care if people drink beer around him or anything like that, but we don't, we never really did that scene.

, I'm talking about my dad, like he's dead too. . He's not. He's alive. I'm trying to stay. Boy. Yeah, dad. Dad's not dead either. The heart of an angel. So you start playing . No, dad's very much alive. He's on a cruise right now. [00:14:00] Hey, did y'all know that cruise shit go to Columbia as a port? Really? That seems weird.

That feels like a mule transaction happening. Seems. Hey, where y'all going on your cruise? Oh, Korea, North Korea, . Really? We're gonna see, where y'all going? Where y'all vacationing yet we're thinking about. Afghanistan, maybe two of the sweatshops. You lost all three of your Columbian followers,

That's not even a racist thing. That's like a, it's just equate to them like really bad. What's the first thing that you think of when you think of Columbia? Drugs? Pot. Yeah. Okay. Two things that could mess somebody's foot pretty bad. I dunno that it's Korean, Iraq level, but , I immediately think of Pablo Escobar, right?

That's a good one. Yeah. Colombian. That's Columbia. I'm gonna, I am gonna say that the hot women [00:15:00] edge out the cocaine though, that I was thinking about. I think it might be hot loo and cocaine. Really. I think I, I think about, I think. I definitely think, anyway, that doesn't have anything to do with different conversations, anything.

But we're talking about deer camp. Are we were talking about Deer camp and for me I value that the type of raisin that I had, right? Like me and dad are pretty tight now because of, that's just kinda what we do. We spend a lot of time together, but through hanging out with guys like Walter and going on their Patreon hunts and then just, the trip that I do with Clayton Bond to Kentucky.

with that group of guys some of the tethered hunts that have been on, there's a lot of value. So it's, it is a lot of fun. And you genuinely, I get, I enjoy the trip more when you have more people to share it with. . , everybody's telling their stories and you're having a good time.

And when somebody kills something, golly, that's , everybody's fired up about it, when everybody goes on a track, yeah. And everybody going on a track. It doesn't make anything better. Like the [00:16:00] moment is still what the moment is. It just amplifies what happens there. If you miss the deer, everyone's sad with you, and it's a sadder experience, right?

If you're on a blood trail, the anticipation's higher because, When you kill that deer, you're still feeling that high. When you miss that deer, you're still hitting that low. But because it's and I tell people this all the time, it's like having a cameraman. Everyone's seen really well-intentioned self film footage.

It captures it. It's a hunt. The moment you have that second person there in that situation, it's just amplified. . It's more of what it is. And when you have that deer camp mentality where you can come in and you've shot a spike on public land in Florida and the cabin erupts, like you just won the Daytona 500 right.

That is an amplitude of an already awesome feeling. Or when you, we had one guy, he shot a deer, couldn't find it. We had five guys go back to their hometown to get their blood tracking dogs and then come back to find the fricking deer. And so it's like the very last day [00:17:00] everyone's leaving, right?

There's only five guys left at camp. Everybody's on polo and then his face pops up and he's found this deer and like polo's erupting and everybody's losing their gor. It just, to me it just amplifies what is hunting as it is. I don't really feel like it change. , but that might also be because I came from that past.

So that, to me, that's what hunting is. I've had to develop being a solo hunter, and that's taken a lot of energy from me. There's a lot of people, it's tough for some folks. Yeah. Yeah. They don't know. They don't know how to cope with it. I've dragged plenty of deer out by myself. I've done plenty of things by myself, and now, I'm 28 years old. I'm not that old. , how do I want my, my kids, I know y'all both have young kids. Like what kind of foundation are y'all setting for them, going forward, y y'all are already setting a hunting, hunting camp kind of atmosphere with the people you surround yourself with.

And part of you said it very well, like you and your dad are really close like me and my, my, my dad's my best friend. Like I [00:18:00] Turkey hunt with. that's Saturdays are designated for me and daddy Turkey hunting, and then during deer season, Saturdays are me and daddy unless I go somewhere else. And so that, that's great to cherish.

But it's also cool to experience the things as Walt talking about cuz it amplifies that because when I get a around a bunch of dudes, y'all know how it is. It is like what you turn into teenagers. get giddy, get the giggles. And some people are like, oh, y'all are acting like a bunch of schoolgirls.

No, we're just enjoying ourselves. Like it's a good time. And, my, my whole voice changed. I've done a couple videos with some buddies and I've killed a dough and I haven't killed a butt with any of my buddies, but my whole demeanor in my face, my voice, I get a high pitch voice going on.

I don't have a deep voice anyways, but you get excited and you just, you go crazy for a second. , that's what makes it so fun, and you can look back on and really take in. What do you think about when I killed that Osceola last week? I [00:19:00] had never, I don't think I've ever had a, like a camera guy film any kind of kill or anything like that.

An Eli filmed that one and I just got country all out of nowhere, , and I don't talk the air in War Britain. I just got. , like I don't say the word like, you know how people say what's going on Buff? Or whatever. I don't say that. I don't, that's not a word. B a w is not really in my vocabulary unless I'm making fun of caraway.

Holyfield. Yeah. That's pretty much the only time that's right, is when I'm mocking what the hook gone by. Yeah. When I'm mocking a ignorant people. But when I shot that murder, isn't that, say. I don't think so. No. Okay, good. It's different. I know good people like got no good guys who say that.

I'm saying, I only say that when you're mocking or Apparently when I shoot turkeys now. Yeah. Because when I shot this Turkey, I just immediately got country and I'm like who is this fellow? What word did I just use? And it just, Float out of my mouth so [00:20:00] nicely. Turkeys, bring it out, you man. It does.

So you know, you're telling a 40 year old man to get it. Boy, it just, it flies off the tongue. It brings out who you are. I think that's really what matters. That's really the lesson here, Parker, is I think you bury your country really hard. You have this false persona that you bury, but deep down you're about as Texan in Alabama as it comes.

You see that? When you're eating potted meat, just for fun. Yeah. . Listen, dude, I'm not like a potted meat guy. I don't love spam. Like I don't get that. I have found if you, I found God's gift to fake meats. I don't know if it's even fake. It's just can barbecue dude. Canned barbecue is canned, pulled pork.

That's not pork. It's a, it puts pork parts problem. Pork. Pork like bologna. Do you get spam? What is before? It's blended together and compressed. That's what I get covered in barbecue. Get pot, get potted meat and put it [00:21:00] on a cool ranch or nacho cheese. Dorito. That's good. Hotted meat. Potted meat.

Yeah. Do you seem like you being a sausage guy, you like those Oh, I like Venus. Yeah. Being put it on a crack. I love Beanie Weeny. No, I ain't touching a Beanie Weedy, but I will eat a case of Vienna sausages. I don't like that. Nna. Get the hell off this feed. Just go ahead, Vina. It is not vi it is a Vienna sausage.

I have Vienna. Most guys in Alabama say Vienna. Vienna, . Yeah. Vienna Sausage. God. At least most guys that I know. Hey here's the thing I, I listened to, y'all were talking about random stuff being pulled out my butt at the beginning of this podcast, linguists. , right? People who studied language in this country, Southern folks are mocked for their accent.

The funny thing is, if you study the history of language, we are retaining our European roots with the way that we talk. It's everyone else that should be mocked because they're pleadings cuz they've forgotten who they are. . [00:22:00] So there it is. So maybe is the, so we still belong? I think we're still royalty.

Why am I paying taxes? That's a great. Great conversation. I think we talked about that earlier. We ain't working on airways,

So we've talked about deer camp, what it means to us. Did we? Yeah. We have. Yeah. And what about the gas stations that have all the Polaroid pictures from, like the eighties y'all ever want to go back to that and be part of that? I'll tell you, I'll tell you one. I'd like to even get back.

I remember you run into somebody that hunts and their eyes light up and your eyes light up. They go back to their truck and they pull out a photo album out of their center console full of them photos. Four, about six says if they got it, the 24 hour turnaround place. Y'all remember that? I remember when 24 hour turnaround with a marketing pitch, because you'd normally took longer, but have it, and he'd be like, oh, I think that's Janssen's boy.

And he flips it out and on the back of it, it's got the. and [00:23:00] you'd be sitting there for six hours sweltering summer heat, just talking to this dude. Oh, and look, you can't tell in the photo, but he is got a split brow back there in the back and he flips it over. He goes, oh yeah, we found this three days later and you put it back in the thing.

And I remember that like I remember sitting there and connecting and the moment you were talking to another outdoors man, he had a stack of photos in the center council and nowadays what people are looking at when they do that, yeah, obviously they. , they have a freaking $8,000 camera they're taking their pictures with, and you can obviously see the split brow ties.

It's every photo you , is really well made, see the eyes on the fly. Oh yeah. I think more camera. That's one of my favorite things to do right now is just mismatched the flip outta stuff. . Yeah. It almost makes me feel better when I don't have any matching camo on.

It's funny how that cycle went about. It is, I grew up with mismatching camo because I couldn't afford it. I remember wearing army surplus BDU that I'd get from the [00:24:00] goodwill. You good. You ever have to do that. They were do double stitched cotton fabric so that if they ever What you're talking about yeah.

You're talking about That's what I grew up. Yeah. I would say I did that, but I get to Turkey hunt private land in Alabama, so that means I'm privileged. Yeah, we're peasants, bro. It's a real world. . Yeah, we're peasants over here. We gotta wait. That's why I didn't drive to Florida. No, that was a huge thing.

That's like what you said. I think we look at people different now if they have magic camo. It's kinda , what are you doing? Isn't it funny? Yeah, it is totally changed. I don't care that as much. And that was short-lived. That was really short-lived. Like now people are like, I just wanna wear solid.

The solid thing is kinda a big deal. And I do, I'm with you. I'm with all those people. Yeah. And I also remember when I felt like such a ba for having matching camo for the first time. I was like, shoot, man, when I take these trophy pictures I know what I'm doing here. No, I'll never know.

I hit the steer with the, you sound like a bunch of women matching clothes. Yeah. Did my boots go with this? That's right.[00:25:00] No, y'all ever been in a deer camp where guys are like, man, what do you think about this? Do you think these pants look good with this shirt? Y'all ever seen that? I have.

I've been that guy. Deer camps are probably the worst because still guys are trying to flex, people are talking about their outfits and it's real similar to probably a women's get together. Yeah, I'm clearance last year. This is a real Louie, not a fake one. , no I got, like, when we went to Kentucky this year, I like did a big order of some clothes and I was like really excited to wear 'em and I think I wore the same pants like four days in a row just cuz I, I felt cool walking through the woods and I'm like, I was floating or something.

It's just weird. I don't get it. Same with Boots. I got a pair Those on, not the, you get got the Crisp, or Crispy, crisp, whatever they're called. Yeah. The crispy ths. I wanna get a pair of that, but the OnCloud tennis shoes, Uhhuh, . I've got OnCloud boots, [00:26:00] like I'm, I can run Fast through the woods.

Would like, oh, that was a, they ain't got that money, bro. My wife got me that for my. Almost does, man, I can I spit fire for a second? I don't spit fire. Are you gonna, are you gonna push your Marco Polo group again? No. Uhuh. Okay. No. But has it officially become douchey to wear new designs of camo? If you're not wearing mossy yore real tree, it's uncool now.

Like I remember, when I was in college I was like, one day I'm gonna be able to afford fill in the blank camo. Cause I'm not gonna try and put anybody on blast. And now I'm like, I can't wait to get that stuff off faster, man. I'm like, I wanna blend in. I wanna look like every Joe Blow out there.

Bottom land make me look like a stump man. I don't, it's true. Here's the thing that you get when you buy things like first lights, Sitka, [00:27:00] things like that, whatever you wanna call 'em, top tier type stuff. KU U is probably in there. Yeah, definitely. That you get this functionality that's actually pretty legit with all three of those companies.

Yep. You've got really good functionality. Like I've never owned a piece of civic gear. Adam has, and Adam has told me, he is like, dude, it's just the best. Like it's really good. Like it's the. , the which one was it that he was telling me? The fanatic maybe? Oh, fanatic. He wears literally every time he hunts, like how everything is designed with intentionality, but when you see the guys that are like killers, and that doesn't mean that not a lot of, I know killers who wear nice camo too. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. That, that, that absolutely. , but it just seems like maybe that's not their top priority. I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I think.

I see a dude walking in and said, guy, I think that dude just got out of a box line off of a manicured field behind right fence [00:28:00] that no one else can. Not even Carl Ray could jump over, right? That's just that's, are we open? Can we blast him now? Is that a thing? It's public record.

Yeah. You can't stop the hop. That's all I'm gonna say. Stop. We won't really blast a whole lot of people, but are we even blasting it? This is public service announcement. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But that's what I think and when I see it and I'm the guy that's wearing the matching name brand camelo now.

And so it's like I have that connotation of the other dude wearing the same thing I'm wearing. And that sucks cuz I, I like the stuff, I just don't like. The feeling it comes with it. Yeah. That's where I, that's where I land because I feel the judgment. I walk into the gas station and it's it doesn't matter that I've got a freezer full of beer and I shot turkeys last year and then I'll probably shoot turkeys this year.

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and they've done some pants. I'm wanting to get a pair of 'em. Haven't got a pair yet. I've been putting that off. I think they're really good quality. But they're not, I don't think they're the Okay, like first light and sicker, like the designer brand. [00:30:00] Like the designer clothes at the honey. Honey, yeah.

They fit the way they fit, make you feel like you look better. They're, and they technical, they're technical garments. They're not just a piece of fabric that you put on for. You're talking four-way stretch. You're talking about goretex impregnated laminate stuff. It's legit impregnated, what a word.

Yeah. Goretex. What? How you do that. You're not such a vocabulary. How does that happen? Impregnated? I just roll off the tongue, man. . It's that sickest. But you have these different, you have these different technical garments and they truly are better. Today we were outside and Walt said we were looking at a.

And his wife was like, look at that cardinal. He said, oh, that's not a cardinal, that's a red bird. You know what? You're right. It's a juvenile cardinal, like a juvenile cardinal. It's called, most people would've just said a baby cardinal. Yeah, it's not a baby. It's foreign. It's a juvenile cardinal.

It's a juvenile. Anyways to enforce this the clothing deal real quick. [00:31:00] So I bought a pair of first light underwear, . I be just, cause I just, cause I wanted to see , I'd wear them suckers every day if I could afford it. , I do. I've got one that's $35 a pair and they're worth it. You only gotta wash 'em once a month.

They're great. They're great. They're great. Just hope you don't a month, no. If you wear 'em around work, I mean he, now he's got a blue collar job. He actually leases his desk. I said, collar job, man. Yeah. I walked through the woods. Yeah. . All right. . We weren't gonna say nothing about it, but you killed a Turkey today and this is why we're kinda we're, this is why we're kinda on for a while I was like, Hey I'm Turkey hunting.

Like I don't really wanna think about deer. And you've been taking charge of this deal and today you're like, I just wanna talk about turkeys. Yeah. It's finally got you, finally got to pull a trigger on a bird. Tell us about, but I'm, this [00:32:00] isn't a we can't talk about this, can we not, is it not allowed?

I'm trying to think how I can tie it in with deer I didn't see any deer today. There was scouting for deer when I was a co accosted by a wild Turkey gobbler. Yeah. I had a Turkey try to rape me accost to send him off. Yeah, thank you. I don't even know what that word means. Assaulted berated. I've gotta pull out my fourth grade vocab book to see what that is.

You gotta work on Alabama, man, accosted. Yeah. I just don't, y'all are really making me sound like a pretentious, even if I knew the word, I don't think I would use it. Okay. Anyways, but now, yes. I did kill a Turkey today. It was a very beautiful, perfect morning. and everything went wrong to begin with, and then everything went right within a matter of 10 minutes.

I got under some birds and ended up booing them up. Got in there a little late. They shut up. They were two more gobbling, [00:33:00] about 400 yards away, and I tricked up the hill. Al Hooted located them, walked up the hill again. Al Hooted hit was about 80 yards. I sat down, yep, three times, and he came right in.

I. and that kinda, yeah. It was I killed him at six 30 this morning before work, and I don't think I've ever killed one that early. I expected him to still be in the tree, but he was on the ground, had a hen with him, so it was it got me going, needless to say. I know I've been talking about it a good bit.

And I've done a little bit of Turkey hunting. Just hadn't killed one yet, but that's all I can think about now. I'm ready to see it. Ready? I can tie it into deer real quick. You want me to do it? Yeah, do it. Talk about this hunting before work. Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah. That's hard with deer. When I hunt the, when I worked at the church, I'm gonna tell 'em myself, but I don't care.

Will they gonna do fire you? Yeah. They can't fire me anymore. , like there were times. . [00:34:00] Absolutely. I had every intention of skipping out on some work and just continuing to hunt. Maybe I shot a deer at seven o'clock and you ha, you feel like you have to post it that way. Oh, it went out before, before work.

Big words before work. And kill it because you just can't hold it. You can't take it. the weekend because I think it goes through everybody's mind. I can just wait till the weekend and post a picture of it. But most people can't. That's tough. I've told myself I'd do it, but can't. It's it's a real thing.

And I know there's a lot of guys out there doing it going before work. There's a lot of very sick individuals who kill a beer. What do you mean? They've called in sick. Oh, I gotcha. Oh yeah, I was scared where that was about to go. . . No, that kinda held my breath. Feel deer. I'm wonder in like a blue collar [00:35:00] town like Coleman, where I live, dude, when I wonder how many people actually call out, I've know a lot of small blue tower, blue collar towns where deer with a hunting culture is strong.

They don't even fight fate. They just shut down for certain times of the year. There was a town in southeast Georgia, I can't even think of the name of it. It had one pulp mill and the pulp mill shut down for the first week of deer turning season. They did not even fight it. It was just part of the benefits you're gonna get paid and they shut the dang thing down because they just knew no one was gonna be there.

So why are we gonna try and get stuff done? Yeah. Yeah. I had a lo, I had a logging crew do that this year. He had one piece of equipment go down and he went, oh, okay. That's a good excuse not to work for the next month. And they didn't work for the next month, . They went up, they have a cabin up in Kentucky, went up there and just stayed there.

And it was, that's fine. Whatever. I need you to work. But if you can somehow survive and not work more power to you, I'd probably do it too. Yeah, he's doing all right. He is got a cabin in Kentucky. Yeah. They rent it. [00:36:00] Oh, they rented. I thought you meant, yeah, they rented out. They got you. But no the whole, I don't deer hunt before work.

It's too much work. That's, I've got, as I've gotten older I've understood that like a peace of mind going in the woods is a lot more rewarding than going wondering, hey, if am I gonna get a phone call? What do I do if I get a phone call? How do I, you. What would happen if I got caught?

That's too much of a stress on me to be able to actually enjoy the hunt, if that makes sense. Cuz even on weekends, if I have something that is pressing for me to do or I go hunting in the morning and I gotta be back by 11, you kill a deer, you can just scratch those 11 o'clock plans out of the way.

. So there's a lot. I'm clear that it's worth it, like at that point if I kill a deer. I think your criteria changes though, right? Because you're not gonna cross. Yes. You're like, [00:37:00] if I'm gonna do this and I'm going to call out, or I'm gonna cancel a meeting where other people have scheduled time, it better be fill in the blank.

It's not just buttoning. Yeah. Yeah. Sue I will tell you now that I work for myself, like today, I was working a bird that I honestly should have killed. I would really like to kill 'em tomorrow. And I was getting work calls and work emails and, people messaging me about designs and things and stuff that I've been working on.

And so I do get to hunt a lot. I can hunt pretty much what I want. But I don't really ever get like the valuable like rest hunt. , I'm out. Hunting until I kill something, and then I'm gonna take two days and I'm gonna work solid and I'm gonna get right back to it.

You know what I mean? So I don't ever really get this huge release of punching out. Yeah. Like I'm going to just enjoy it. It has happened a few times [00:38:00] where I've been able to finish all my work, get everything done, not take anything new and just shut it off. And those are. That though is you pretty much hunt whenever you want to.

That's what I'm saying. Like it's great. Yeah. It's a trade off though. So if people want to if people want to go out and just get it done, make it happen, go out, grind it out. Yep. Kill as many deer, whatever as. It's a great thing to go to work for yourself and Sure. And be able to make those decisions.

But if you value hunting, because it really helps you get away from everything else. And maybe stick to weekend warrior in. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because you, those two days can be very, you know what, it's biblical too. It really is. Let's talk about this. The Sabbath is a very biblical thing.

So much in fact that it's one of the 10 command. of having this day of reset. God took a day of reset whenever he [00:39:00] created the earth, right? , like it talks about it in Genesis, and so I think that we, you really do have to have that just as humans, just as human beings. We've gotta have this time to ourselves where we've been busting our tails for six days, but on Saturday you go out and.

that's your release, that's your getting away from everything. The way that we do it and the way that I do it is not so much, and so a lot of times I feel like it's almost like you almost feel when you're doing it that way, it's almost like Mother Nature's working against you. You know what I mean?

, it almost even not Mother Nature, it feels like just things are working against you. Because you Yeah. Like you're fortunate to go and getting that reset. It's, you're not using it in the way that maybe it was. Yeah. I think it, it also, if you don't have that flexibility, it also forces you to be very efficient, which is something you talk about a lot.

Is you pride yourself on being efficient when you go into the woods, when you go in and you expect to come out with [00:40:00] something. Less efficient now that I can hunt more. But I still, you say that, but even when you thought more, when you aren't efficient in the time that you're out there and you're not killing deer and you're not getting on deer, you talk about how inefficient you're being.

So I think it's always present in the back of your mind. . I think that a lot of guys feel a lot of pressure with that one day that they have because their career doesn't give 'em that time. They don't have that ability to flex their hours and do stuff, and I think that actually that pressure to form cribbs 'em in a sense.

, I think you end up overthinking things. Yeah, because I truly believe the guys like Andy may. I think what makes them killers is they simplify. . I don't think he sits up all night going, I wonder what that deer's gonna do. The joker simplifies the approach. I think they're doing this. So I'm doing that, and he's confident in there and he goes in there and obviously he's got a pattern and he understands what things are doing.

, what a, that's a way to think about it. How many times have we heard people talk about like [00:41:00] everything was going wrong? Matt, here's a good example. Your Turkey this morning, you're running. Didn't think you were gonna get there on time. Everything's going wrong. You almost, my, one of my biggest Alabama buck that I've ever killed was on a day where my motor broke down and I just had to just take the next best guess.

You know what I mean? , and yeah, I simplified it. Didn't overthink it. I guess I'm gonna go over here because I can't get to where I wanted to go. I'm just gonna set up on it best and the wind works out for it, so I'm just gonna go there. I cherish the day. , there's an extreme amount of adversity.

A lot of people in the polo group will sometimes get on there and oh, this happened. Oh this happened. Oh, and you can see them getting down. And I've experienced enough in the woods. There's almost this universal threshold that has to occur, like so much effort. Ha and this sounds really like hippy for me to say, but it feels like people are like, what does it take to do to kill a Turkey?

What does it take to kill a deer? It takes what it. and it feels like you're putting [00:42:00] deposits in this bank of I've earned it. And that can look a bunch of different ways, but it feels like somehow there's like a universal realignment where when the motor breaks down and your controlling motor doesn't work and you're paddling your way into a random spot, those are those monstrous deposits into that, that it takes what it takes.

And then suddenly, I, that's when I killed my, or see my biggest deer, the big Georgia buck. . That was a day every day gum thing went wrong. That one? No, that's the Florida deer. Oh, that's a Florida deer. Hot. Dang. Yeah, and that was a day at everything. Right now that you say that the wind was wrong.

The cold front didn't come through. It was 69 degrees to start the morning in, in November, it was supposed to be 47. The wind shifted while I was in the stand and actually blew out into the field that I was watching, the cutover that I was watching, and it was blowing in his. . And the only reason why I killed that deer was because a dough kept running outta the bottom that he was chasing I grunted.

And before the wind picked up and really hit him in the face, he skirted the edge of the field and came in at 10 yards and I shot him and he [00:43:00] fell at 30 yards from him. So let's talk about this. We talked about it a little bit last night on Limb Hangar, which here's, there's plug for Limb Hanger podcast.

If you're in a Turkey hunting and you really wanna hear this story, Matt Turkey that he killed, you wanna hear some tactics and things like that about. We're gonna talk about it at some point on limb hanger. We're trying to keep all of our Turkey conversation as much as we can there. . But I did talk about this last night.

So what's the one thing that I've always seen work in Turkey hunting? How many times have you heard somebody say I just sat down and just sat there and he came in, or I just sat there for a couple hours and I heard him gobble and went after him. This is, it literally happened to me today. , I have heard it happen.

So so much so much to a point where you start to see a pattern. Of freaking slow it down. If you'll slow it down, you don't always we wanna be running and gunning and covering ground. That voice in the back of your minds, like you just gotta put on miles, put miles and miles. Miles.

When [00:44:00] usually, I mean for me, if I'm Turkey hunting in an area, it's, cuz I probably know that there's a Turkey there or , I've found sign or I've seen on. , you'll just sit there. I've killed more birds like that than anything. So we see that pattern and it, we have to fight it to, for people.

I have to fight myself every single time when I decide to do that. And almost every time, I'm not gonna say almost every time it works. So many times it works. . But we have to fight that. Talking about deer hunting. If we just went in and said, screw it. I think there's a deer here. I'm gonna go in and kill.

be mindful about wind and things like that. But I talk about this a lot with Jeremy Aaron, watching him on Do-it-yourself, hunter. It's like the small things just roll off his back and the big things roll off his back. He doesn't let a whole lot affect how he's hunting or how he's doing anything.

He's gonna do what he does and he is gonna go in there, something bad's happened, roll off his back and he's good to go. [00:45:00] And the guy kills deer. I think we really. You need to start doing what you're saying and simplifying. Yeah. I re I think that confidence is the kind of confidence that actually does kill Absolutely.

Deer, turkeys, whatever you're after. I think and this isn't something that I invented, I listened to Zach Farba one time. It was the second publicly and dear tour. He was in PA and they're walking in, they were hunting this mountainside. He was hunting on the ground and he ended up shooting the deer three on the third.

He was honing in on this area and the wind was wrong, and this was that and all. He had all these different things and he looked at the camera and he go and he says, A lot of people overthink hunting and they overthink what they need to do to kill a deer. At the end of the day, you can't control very much.

So find one thing that's to your advantage and leverage it. If the wind is good for an area, leverage the wind. If the ground is soft because it rained, it's time to be on the ground. Use the advantage. Advantage that you can [00:46:00] move around. And I would say in the past couple years, I've tried to really simplify it.

I know there's deer in the area for this reason. I've proven that this is a good spot. I don't question her anymore. I look at the set of circumstances I'm given, and Brett talks about this a lot. He look he bases everything on him. That's his one advantage. He can control. He feels. I don't, I look at this from a variety of factors.

What's the pressure look like? What are the different elements that go into it? And then I just find one and I just commit to it. And it doesn't matter how the hunt pans out, I know that advantage was to me, whether that's access, A lot of times it's access. Is this an overlooked spot that I can park here, walk around the corner and just slip right in While everybody else is having to huff a long ways?

I feel like it's made me a better hunter. Last year I killed probably the most deer I have since I. here, and all I did was pick one thing, largely wind thermals. I pick, I have, I honed in really hard on thermals and feed trees and I took those two things and wherever I found feed trees and I had thermals that I could and access.

Probably those three are [00:47:00] my, my, my big deal, my big three. I try and align those as much as possible, but really comes down to. Thermals and finding that one thing that you can really have to your advantage is why I get so frustrated, and you and Adam bore this out last year. I get so frustrated when I would pick that spot because the thermals or the wind should be doing something and then it shifts and that advantage is taken away from you because the whole hunt was predicated on that being good because of whatever it was.

Yeah. I'm there. I think simplifying the way that we do things would. Up our effectiveness and I think go quickly. A bit at fault here. Yeah because all the information that you've put out, we've bombarded people, if you wanna do this, then you need to do this. And have you considered this mock scrapes and rub lines Diet time sign versus daytime sign.

Like we've bombarded people with all this information. But I think, I don't think Dan Info makes it complicated. I don't think he sits up at night thinking, what am I gonna do to kill this deer? I think. He goes in, he Scotts the area. He relies on that [00:48:00] information and he goes into the crime that he has, and he kills deer.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll stay up late. You too. Looking at deer maps, trying to align the stars. Yep. Most of the time you're never gonna align the stars unless you just, know exactly what it is. But I like I'm like you. Even like a tree. The tree. You climb like a tree. I'll stand in a spot. , and I'm just like I don't think there's any, a good tree anywhere in here.

I I leave. I'm the opposite. I get to where I'm, I get to where I'm like, this tree would be so good for this reason. . This tree. Oh, man. But that tree has the creek runs right by that one. That's bow range shot for that spot. . What if one comes out over here on this corner, on this edge, That's where I get I don't usually have finding trees other than trying to just pick the right one.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, and that's what I'm saying. It's just we can get in any trim. We're saddle hunters. You can hunt anywhere you want to. [00:49:00] I can get any as long as I can. D r t in it, . That's right. As long as it's big as my hand. Yeah. small tree c. Tiny tree challenge. Do you remember that when I did that?

Yeah. The dude that broke the tree and fell from the tree. Did you see the tree that I hung in Kentucky this year? Uhuh, I didn't get up very high. Two feet, it's two feet up, but it was like freaking that big. Why did you slam the ground? Because it was a cornfield and they had left a buffer strip of corn.

Just get up. So I got up just a little bit to where I could see the opening. So if a deer walked through there, it actually was a killer. talk about overthinking things. I think we overthink height in the woods. I think it's all movement. I think we do. Obviously there is an advantage to being up high.

Yeah. But there are times when like that, where the best spot just is not Brett, Missouri, he ratted three trees together saying he could be up eight feet off the ground. He looked down in the grass. , he said I could ordain near, just pulled myself up into the [00:50:00] platform. I. Yeah I haven I, maybe I'm the only person.

This is gonna be ridiculous. Have y'all ever spent way too much time trying to figure out what tree to get into and then like you, it's golden hour and you're still trying to get set up. Oh yeah I'll be climbing in. I'm like I'll go to this one and I'll walk like 20 feet that way and real quiet and I'm like, oh, this tree sucks.

And you back up 20 more feet. I'll climb this one. And you get up like two sticks and you start to question it. I've gotten to where things like that. I just said, basic tree. I'm just like, screw it. I'll walk. I'll walk a whole area. Like I'll walk, almost walk a circle around the area. My scent, yeah, he's on right there.

Now I gotta go over here. If I, yeah, what the heck? If I have my tracker on, I'd like just walk circles around the place. Ain't deer want to here woods aint no wonder, ain't nobody killing any deer. . It just, and then that gets into my head, you can't simplify that. That's just another factor.

Yeah. Yeah, man. I'm with you. I'm worse with turkeys, I think. Yeah. Me and my dad got to fight. [00:51:00] We get to fighting over trees. Oh. That we're gonna set up. It's bad. Really? Yes. I, he's, he threw his gun one time and got so mad at me. , your dad. I like your dad's style. He didn't throw his gun at me.

It was just a Oh, okay. , you report that. I told my dad, this walnut tree is what we're gonna, next thing I knew I had a Mossberg 500 stock in the maximum. Hit me across the face. . Yeah, I'm not, I'm very decisive when it comes to Turkey to the point where I probably should slow down that bird Sunday that I.

I looked up and I was like, Ooh, there's my shooting lane. That's how I'm gonna catch that bird. And I should have sat my butt down and I go 20 yards and I plop down. I did the inflexible getting, almost getting too old. Flop. Uhhuh. . When you put the ceiling underneath your butt and you just fall back into the tree.

Yeah. As you just sat down. I did that. And as I did that, that Tom went like this around the tree and looked right at me, went locked. I didn't even raise my [00:52:00] shotgun. I knew it was over. He just, did you go, did you do the infa. Dad, you lean back, you're gonna get a hernia. If you don't, you gotta release a little tension.

I'm glad it's not only me, I hit the ground hard when I go to sit on a tree, it's like I could hurt myself. It's amazing. We don't scare off the turkeys, honest God, if you ever think about it, because then you take that that that vest material that's quiet as a church mouse, unless you're up against.

And so it's like a pine trees. Yeah, son. The tree just fell right there. The Turkey still comes sometimes. Most of the time they don't. That's probably kill Turkey. Johnny won't kill. You know what a dude somewhere is like, he would just throw quietly, kill Turkey.

Oh, fellas, I'm getting tired. I gotta get up early. I got, I think I got a beat on a bird. I think I've got ticks on me. I gotta go check myself. I know I got tick on me. Yeah, I do. There's this whole country song. Ooh. [00:53:00] Ooh. She's right there. You are leaning back pretty far in that bed. What?

What if the, oh, I'm cozy checking in. Protect. Your pants are off. I'm about to go to sleep. . It's my bedtime. Yep, it's my bedtime too. And it's an hour later here. Hi, y'all better go to sleep. Yep. Hey, thanks guys for listening. Hey guys. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast.

You can keep up with southern ground hunting by following us on Facebook or Instagram or subscribing to the YouTube channel, and you can be sure to check us out@southerngroundhunting.com to pick up some of our merch, read some blog articles and all that good stuff. I truly hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and we'll see you here again next week.

Remember that God gave you dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beast of the earth. So go out and exercise that dominion. We will talk to you next week.[00:54:00]

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