Show Notes
In this episode, the host reflects on the recent wrestling season with his children, sharing the emotional highs and lows of coaching and competing. He transitions into discussing culinary experiences with wild game, emphasizing the importance of utilizing their harvest. The conversation shifts to ice fishing plans and the excitement of introducing his children to this new activity. The host expresses his desire to raise future hunters and anglers, outlining the teaching standards he aims to instill in his children regarding outdoor activities. He concludes by highlighting the significance of spending time in nature and the lessons learned through these experiences.
The 4 Sportsmen Standards:
- Hunting and Fishing is a lifestyle with the ultimate goal of acquiring food.
- The “Hunt” is a Testament of Experiential Learning, not a sport.
- Consistent practice hones the skill to be quick and accurate, persevering the harvest
- No matter the outcome, harvest or not, time spent in the wilderness is good for the soul
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Show Transcript
Huntavore Podcast (00:01.134)
Well, hey folks, beautiful evening here in Michigan. I tell you what, for those of you that are viewing this in video on YouTube, you can tell that I'm still in my school garb. I'm also, my hair is a little bit disheveled from a whole day of being in a gymnasium. Our youth wrestlers were in a novice tournament today and also in a
Duel's championship. We had a really young squad. So being being Matt side and really having to coach each one of those kids through their matches and then into the Duel's the emotions from both us as coaches and them as wrestlers actually participating. I tell you it was a wild ride. I am exhausted but at the same time I think
I think my soul is rejuvenated. My soul is full just having the experiences, just the core memories that were made with those kids. I mean, shoot, blood, sweat and tears. We covered it all this weekend. And yeah, that included my boys as well. My oldest, middle and youngest sons participated.
not only Friday at a duel at another school, but then also on the really big championship tournament. We're tired. We're exhausted. This was the crescendo of our season. Wrestling has come to an end for at least my boys. There is going to continue practice for some of the advanced boys that have the remaining tournaments that are going on, the My Ways and the War Zones that are going on. So...
we'll still be going to practice, but I think, as far as my household is concerned, think we are done competing for the year. So that's good. That's good. We've got another season under our belt. Everybody's happy. Everybody's enjoying the sport of wrestling win or lose. We were, we were on all different gamuts. had, my youngest get some wins and some losses today worked out really well for him.
Huntavore Podcast (02:29.602)
My middle boy went undefeated on the day and my oldest, he had to find the heart and hustle to wrestle up a weight class and really had to take it to some much bigger guys. He gave it his all, he gave it his best and he felt bad on some of those losses, but he turned it around on the wins that he did have and man were those morale boosts, not only personally for him, but then for the team in general.
just to really rally behind that win and to keep things going, to end that on a good note. So all in all, proud dad sitting here, tired dad sitting here. And that's where I finally got a chance to come and sit here in front of the microphone and lay out my thoughts. I got a lot of things to cover. Culinarily, we've kind of been on a hold just because of everything that's going on in my life.
I did chat with a couple, a couple of friends cause they're like, Hey, it's kind of been quiet over there from hunt of war. And yeah, yeah, it has not a lot of activity on the Instagrams. Not a lot of testing and trying new things and making fancy stuff. It's been a lot of, I mean, nitty gritty feeding the family with wild game sort of meals. It's been burgers. It's been tacos. It's been spaghetti and it's
been utilizing our harvest. It's been utilizing our ground venison, which has been, I mean, each time you eat it, I can't get over it. It's just great stuff and the boys put it down and that's gotta be a testament to their development thus far. They're getting stronger, they're getting bigger and to see them continue to eat that stuff, to continue to love and enjoy the ground that we make, it's been
It's been wonderful to be able to continue to do that. So yeah, one batch in and shoot, I'm looking at it. I don't know if it's going to make us through summer. We might have to make another batch to get us through without having to purchase any meat, but be able to acquire it all ourselves. Huge big push to with the big day in the gymnasium, we're going to switch gears and I think we're going to hit the ice. So.
Huntavore Podcast (04:57.612)
Yeah, it's gonna be, we're gonna have a Monday off, so we're really excited about that. I've got a new shanty, a little pop-up insulated hub for me and the boys to go out. I went with the double hub, I went with the six man. Really excited to get that out on the ice, really excited to put that to the test, and to just invite more people. Being in our pop-up blind with the deer,
the deer pop-up blind and then having the heater in there and then all of our stuff, our three holes and then three rods, well, four rods trying to run those. You're in everybody's business. It is tight quarters. It is an absolute blast, but a little bit of space would be helpful. So we're looking to invite the cousins out tomorrow. We're looking to really amp up the amount of kids that are getting their chance to do some ice fishing in a very hot area that we know can be super productive. So
that's on the docket. It's going to be a little bit more of a like slow relaxation, taking a couple of days off and then getting back into the swing of, of work and school and having kids switching gears from one sport to the next. A lot has been said about my kids right now. And there's good reason for that. I know when I started this podcast, it was really a focus on the culinary aspect of it.
And that's because that's where my passion lie. That's where my heart was at and continues to be. And now I'm entering a chapter along with that, where I have an opportunity to, to, to bring up, to rear up hunters in my household, to rear up anglers and foragers, to have my kids.
have an understanding of what it means to put something on the table, whether you mill it, whether you grow it, whether you shoot it, whether you fish for it, whatever that may be, they are going to have an understanding of what that all is. Having an upbringing involved in the meat industry and on a farm, we had our own set of
Huntavore Podcast (07:24.878)
traditions, had our own set of things that we would do, really like holidays that would happen or like dates that we would be looking forward to and gatherings that we would have. But none of that was around hunting because we were all focused on the farm. Me taking a sidestep, still being close to the family farm, but now really, really guiding myself on my own path.
I have an opportunity to create traditions, to create something around the hunting and fishing that we do and why we do it. We have an opportunity here for a first generation hunter to pass on to the second generation hunters and whether they pick it up or whether they take it.
on or whether they, they move it on and, know, then allow their kids to come see Papa, come see grandpa when he, when he goes hunts, however that that's going to look, we're going to get our chance to have our start. And I'm really, I'm really excited about this whole idea. I'm also maybe overthinking things extremely, extremely heavily.
Not in the fact that it's not important, but the same time I'm like, I can't screw this up. I want to do something amazing for the lineage that is to come past me. Started with my sons. And as an educator, I had an opportunity to, you when I went through my schooling and it was really breaking things down into the fact that like, okay,
This is what you want to teach. Now you got to have some objective. Well, actually you should have some standards that you want to be held to. You got to have some points that say this is important and to make sure that all of the teaching that you do points back to that curriculum, those big items.
Huntavore Podcast (09:48.236)
whatever it is, whether it be in the classroom or for the sake of me being the PE teacher, pointing that back to standards that really highlight recreation, that really highlight physical activity and the knowledge of how physical activity and recreation benefit your health. We call it the NASPY five. There's
There's five standards that we use in fiscal education. so that everything's going to point back to those standards. It's just an easy way to make sure that things are lining up, that you're putting your curriculum in a good spot to make sure that you're highlighting what we are doing. The big, the big whys and hows essentially.
So that's why I really, I really was hesitant on putting out this episode because I, I wanted time to think about it. And I've had a chance to really mull things over and even, even getting a chance to just be a dad and a wrestling coach to see these kids. And really I'm, I'm putting everything back to the big, why we are doing this.
And kid would come off after a rough match. And I got to talk about the, we're doing hard things here. And the more that you do hard things, they're not going to be necessarily easier, but you are going to be able to do these hard things and you're going to be able to go harder and harder and harder. Eventually you're going to see the fruit of your labor. You are going to see yourself develop as a wrestler. You are going to see your shots become crisper.
and more effective, you're going to see your breakdowns be more effective and you're going to be able to turn guys over with your better pinning holds. But it takes practice and you've got to go through these hard things. And so being able to now translate that being jacked up and fired up about that led me to be motivated to get this episode out and to kind of get myself through those hard things.
Huntavore Podcast (12:05.154)
So I know there's going to be a lot of different approaches to how guys introduce their kids to the outdoors. There's going to be a lot of approaches on when it is okay to use a firearm, transition to archery. When can they be in a tree or be on the ground? There's a lot of things that are going on with that, especially now too, with the amount of options that you have with youth season and apprentice licenses, there's opportunity for
younger and younger kids to be able to be involved with the outdoors, which is super exciting. As of right now, my boys have been involved almost in a secondary aspect. they have been observers, in the hunt, but they have been participants in the harvest. They have fought, they have sat in the blind with me. We've had opportunities. I've had,
I was able to take a deer with my oldest. We tried to take a deer with my middle boy, but the opportunity never really set itself up. And then the youngest, we haven't got there yet. We've sat in the blind. We've also gotten bored and tired and decided, hey, let's get out of here before it gets to the right time. And then we got to ruin a hunt. So we had some great quality time together with that one.
But we're starting to get to the point now where we're wanting to be more participants in the hunting and fishing. And that's where some big conversations have happened with myself and my wife on what their involvement is going to look like. With my wife really wanting them to be a part of what I'm doing to share that with them.
She's pushing them to go with me. And I think also on maybe on a selfish note, she's like, get these things out of here, get these kids out of this house and take them with you. You don't get to Cisco sit quietly in the woods by yourself. You're going to take some of them. So I think that's just on the selfish end of it. But at the same time, she's also right that if we, if we want our kids to enjoy this lifestyle and to understand this lifestyle, they have to be.
Huntavore Podcast (14:28.248)
participants and we're getting closer to that that time. So what I've done is I made myself four standards. I will put these in the show notes. I'll probably put these somewhere in a post and we'll consider it an open rough draft in the fact that this is what I'm going to be putting out. This is what I'm going to be.
printing off and putting on my gun case and putting on my bow box, my archery area to make sure that I'm continually pointing towards these major four items. These are what are going to be those things that when we're going a field and
Huntavore Podcast (15:22.362)
something happens, whether it's not a good hunt, whether it's adverse weather, we didn't get the result that we were hoping for, or plans get mixed up and then we don't get a chance to go out, whatever that process may be, these are those four major things, four major teaching standards that I want to lean back on.
to make sure that my kids are understanding the lifestyle that I'm leading and trying to then share with them.
Huntavore Podcast (16:04.846)
So my four objectives, or should I say four standards. First one, hunting and fishing is a lifestyle with the ultimate goal of acquiring food. Food is big in my family and acquiring our protein does not come lightly. We admire the animals that we take. We want the highest quality meat.
and protein that we can put on our table, whether that's going to be domestic that we acquire ourselves, raise ourselves, or seek out someone to raise it for us, or even acquire the wild game that we enjoy, we're going to make sure that that, that our hunting and fishing is pointing towards that.
We, we could get into antlers. We could get into methods of take and distance and everything that does seem to pop up in forums and, and bragging rights and everything alongside of that. There is room and there is space for that, but at the same time, I want to make it pointed that we are acquiring food here. So yeah, your brother might get a bigger fish than you.
you may get a bigger buck than your brother. Ultimately, as a family, we're going to use that to the glory of acquiring food for the table and being able to share that amongst us. So yes, being brothers, there is going to be a lot of bragging rights that are thrown around. But I want to continue to point towards the lifestyle that we've chosen.
as acquiring our own food and acquiring our own protein. Second, the hunt is a testament of experiential learning. It is not a sport.
Huntavore Podcast (18:12.008)
Lessons are learned afield. Lessons are learned in the stand, on the way to the stand, out of the stand, dragging it back at the processing table. Lessons are learned. I can't plan for something to go correctly. I can't plan for something to go wrong. Well, I can plan for things and bring the necessary items and be prepared for certain things that are going to happen. But as we all know as hunters, things are going to happen.
And our ability to adapt and our ability to recover from those situations is going to be something that you got to think about. without expecting or without expecting it, lessons will come out there in front of us. And I want to make sure that we're grasping that, that it's the experiential learning. It's us getting better. It's us becoming sharper hunters. It's us becoming
more precision anglers, it's us learning when to use something and when not to use something and not to turn it into a sport that if you come home with something you won and if you didn't come home with something you've lost. Because I feel like just the win and lose doesn't tell the whole story of the hunt or the experience. so keeping our minds keen on to
When you come back and you, have all of your arrows, you have your bow, you have all of your shotgun shells and you have an empty live well. What did you learn? What was the bigger lesson taken from this? Not just that you came back empty handed.
Third, consistent practice hones the skill to be quick and accurate, preserving the harvest. Pointing back to number one, Hey, why are we out here still shooting at dusk? Dad, I want to go do something else. Why do we have to come out here and join you shooting a bow? Dad, I've already shot a bunch of rounds. Why am I now shooting a few more rounds or
Huntavore Podcast (20:30.762)
whatever it may be. We want to make sure that whatever method we're going to try to use that we get that consistent practice with that implement. We want to be able to practice that so that our harvest is preserved through us quickly taking the animal and dispatching that animal as accurate as possible. The quicker it dies, the more that our harvest is preserved.
At the same time, we are also looking at the ethics of this as well. We don't want it to run off. We don't want to get lost. again, preserving our harvest is ultimately going to point back to our first, first objective, or assuming first standard of wanting to acquire that.
And fast and then last kind of pointing up to number two as well. No matter the outcome, me. Yeah. No matter the outcome, harvest or not, time spent in the woods is good for the soul.
Time in the field, I want my boys to really enjoy being in the outdoors, both with the recreation of the specific task that we were going on, but then at the same time, enjoying the majesty of the woods, of the streams, of the lake, wherever we are trying to acquire our food, to enjoy and see God's creation at work, to see...
how things have been so masterfully put together and to have reverence for that. I know there are listeners here that may or may not agree exactly where my religion lies and that is totally okay. But I think we can all at least agree on that nature and wilderness is a precious thing and to spend time within it should not be downplayed.
Huntavore Podcast (22:33.686)
And so that is what I want to make sure that I got on there. So those four takeaways are what I have, and I'll make sure to write those down word for word. Maybe that's something you want to put on your, your gun case or your, your gun locker. Maybe it's something you want to put next to where your camera was stored. know it's going to get put a lot of places where, where I can see it and push back to it.
I think my overthinking here, overplaying things is going to hopefully pay off at the end. But I'm hoping to do just a few series of episodes here and there sprinkled in, and I'll make sure to try and put these episodes someplace in a chronological order so that we can march along with that. But my transition from being a first generation hunter to now being
first generation passing on to second generation is fast approaching. And so I need now to prepare myself for being able to teach. I need to be able to pass that on. This is that, I know I've heard it a lot of different places too. There's the, you know, the R3 of trying to bring back old hunters.
And at the same time, recruit new hunters at the same time. Like I don't even see this as necessarily recruiting my sons, but it's more along the lines of come see what dad does and come see why dad does it. And here's your opportunity to join in this.
lifestyle that I've put together. You know, I figured it out on my own and so being able to share what I have with them is going to be, I would say, pretty fantastic. Yeah, we're going to have to figure out what our traditions are going to be. We're going to have to figure out if we're going to keep records or what things we want to do on opening day for something special.
Huntavore Podcast (24:50.51)
or if we have the close to the deer season or close to whatever season that we happen to be, you know, small game, squirrel and rabbits. If there's some day or tournament that we do want to go in to enjoy the hunt with a group of people and then make sure that we follow it up with cleaning all of those for the harvest piece at the end. However, we want to put this together.
I know one that I think I really am looking forward to is, you know, there's a few guys that like to have their, their new hunters take a bite out of the heart. I kind of want to preserve that heart. Don't, don't be taking a bite out of that. We want to turn that into tacos. You can eat that later, but I still think taking as, as you feel dress the animal, taking a finger swipe, a thumb swipe of blood and putting it under their eye to signify that
This is the hunter that drew the blood that brought the harvest to us. That is something I think I'm very much been looking forward to as we've gotten closer and closer. Now, I know some families, their kids have already been out hunting where my oldest has not yet. And that's gotta be something where each individual parent has to figure that out.
what their kids are capable of. It's not necessarily like, I don't think my kids are capable of hunting on their own, but again, we've done a lot of things altogether. I've put a sharp knife in every one of their hands, and that means I've put a sharp knife in a 10, eight and six year old hand and showed them how to skin off.
meat from a bone, how to take off silver skin from meat, how to cube meat, how to do all these practices with a knife so they're getting really good knife skills.
Huntavore Podcast (27:00.45)
that's been something that they've already participated in. So they've done that aspect and now it's like, all right, now we can continue out to the field.
Huntavore Podcast (27:11.595)
So all this rambling to say, I'm overthinking everything when it comes to trying to teach my kids how to hunt and maybe add hunting to their own personal lifestyle. I'm gonna have to go through this learning curve of how to teach them when to do stuff or how long am I gonna have to be with them before they go out there their own solo? That's gonna have to be something.
that we're going to have to talk about. And I think we're still quite a ways off of that. But when do I get my son in the tree with me? Or do we continue to sit on the ground? These are all going to have to things we're going to to flush out. Or that I'm going to have to flush out and figure that out. But in the meantime, I'm going to take those four standards and I'm going to hold on to those because that is going to ultimately tell me
When is it appropriate to get them in the tree? When is it appropriate to get them a larger firearm or that 20 gauge that we're then going to use instead of the 22? When is it appropriate to get them a compound bow and to begin working with that implement? That's going to be those objectives or those standards. That's going to help me decide what needs to happen. Doing this as systematically as possible.
but at the same time, trying to give the best understanding of our lifestyle as a family, the lifestyle that I have come together and worked with my wife to create and now be able to pass on to our children. So all in all, four objectives, I keep saying objectives, objectives would be the next level down. So we will have objectives underneath all of those standards, but those four standards.
are what Huntivore is going to go by as he continues to lead his children to the outside and to acquire our own food.
Huntavore Podcast (29:21.326)
So whether you choose to take that up and maybe create your own standards, or it's gonna just be doing what you do as a parent, make sure that the knife that you are using or what your son or daughter will be using, make sure that that blade is very sharp.
