Oklahoma Outdoor Outreach Foundation

We have a very special episode on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast this week. Tim Slavin runs the Oklahoma Outdoor Outreach Foundation and joins John to talk about the great acts of service they provide. The foundation is celebrating their fifteenth anniversary this year, and their mission is to "provide disabled, chronically and terminally ill individuals the opportunity to enjoy the heritage of outdoor sporting activities." Tim and his volunteers have 16 hunters signed up for their spring turkey hunt coming up this April, and have two deer hunts planned for the fall.

Tims passion for this project shines through as he talks about the hunts and opportunities they are able to offer. Those opportunities take a lot of work though, and the organization is always looking for more volunteers. Tim talks about who is eligible for their hunts, and what they are looking for in volunteers. Even if you are not an experienced hunter, they are always needing folks to help around camp to cook, clean, and organize. If you don't feel comfortable being a guide, and cleaning isn't your thing, they are more than happy to accept financial help as well. They are a 501 c3 non-profit organization, and you can learn more by listening to this podcast, or check out their facebook and website at oklahomaoutdooroutreach.org. 

[00:00:00] Hey guys and gals, welcome to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast, brought to you by Arrowhead Land Company. Here you'll be educated, entertained, and equipped to get more out of your outdoor experience. So hold on tight because here we go.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast. I hope you guys are doing great as always. And today we have a fantastic episode. In fact, I think this episode is so good and so important that we're gonna switch things up a little bit. I've done this once or twice in the past. But today we are talking to Tim Slavin from the Oklahoma Outdoors Outreach Foundation.

I met these guys at the backwards show a few weeks ago. I knew right away that I wanted to have 'em on the [00:01:00] podcast and help them. Get the word out there on their events and stuff, and they have an event coming up pretty soon. So that's why I wanted to go ahead, push this episode forward. And so I'm going to wait for my usual intro, just random gibber jabber type stuff until the end.

And I'm just gonna go ahead and get into Tim and i's interview if you want to hear what's going on with me I got some Habitat stuff to talk about, some Turkey plans to talk about, stick around till after the interview. But again, I want to make this episode first and foremost about the Oklahoma Outdoors Outreach Foundation and Tim, and the great things that these guys do.

Yeah, that's what we're gonna jump into. So we're gonna hear a quick word from our partners. We're gonna get into the interview, and then if you guys wanna stick around and hear me ramble on, I'm gonna do that at the end. So thank you guys for tuning in. As always. I would encourage you guys, please listen to this episode.

Please reach out to Tim and his organization, help these guys out, whether it be [00:02:00] financially, whether you can volunteer your time, whatever it might be. For some reason this just really. Really struck a chord with me and I'm very passionate about it. So yeah, that's what we got in store for today.

Thank you guys for tuning in. I'll see you guys after the interview right after this. Although we have had some crazy weather the last few weeks, things are finally warming up, and that means it's time to hit the water and do a little fishing. If you're looking to try something a little different this year, you need to check out private water fishing.

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Weather, time of day, moon phase, and of course location. It's your one stop shop for everything trail camera related. So check them out@deerlab.com. And don't forget to use code Oklahoma Outdoors for 20% off your membership. Hey everybody, welcome to today's show, and today we're talking to Mr. Tim Slavin.

How you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, good. And man, I I ran into y'all's booth at the Backwood Show and I knew right away that I had to get y'all on and I was trying to hurry a little bit because y'all have an event coming up and I wanted to try to get this episode out before that event.

But before I get ahead of myself here, first let's just introduce yourself real quick and then we'll get into to [00:05:00] what we're really here to talk about. Tim, why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about. Hello everyone. My name is Tim Slavin. I live in CE, Oklahoma. And in 2007 I started with a group of men nonprofit foundation here in Oklahoma called Oklahoma Outdoor Outreach Foundation.

And so we're right at little over 15 years old now and have been going really strong and. Our lives and our ministry with a ton of people in that period of time. Awesome. Yeah. The Oklahoma Outdoors Outreach, and that's what we're here to talk about today, obviously. And man, like I said I stopped by y'all's booth and I don't believe I talked to you.

I believe I talked to another gentleman, but like I said, new right away. This is something that I would love to, to. Promote on the podcast cuz I think what y'all do is just awesome. So real quick, why don't you give everybody kind of the 10,000 foot view what the foundation does and who you guys are.

Okay. So [00:06:00] what we do is we take disabled chronically and terminally ill kids and adults hunting. We have, right now, we have scheduled for this year, three events, a spring Turkey hunt. A youth deer hunt and then a kind of an all ages deer hunt in December. . And we have been doing that for many years.

We've done fishing trips at Texoma, we've done camps for Children's hospital. We've just done a lot of different things over the years that are very similar to what we still do right now. . That's great, man. Very cool. And so I got several questions I want to touch on here. They'll all be pretty simple, but, mostly I just wanna help people understand what it is y'all do and really, how people can reach out to you guys and help or go on one of these hunts.

And my first question pretty simple is just, who qualifies for one of these? Who qualifies as really anyone that's physically disabled no matter what condition we have. It's like the upcoming hunt that we have in April. [00:07:00] We have five folks in that hunt that are in wheelchairs.

A couple of them are quadriplegics and so just anybody that's physically disabled it. Is strictly physical dis disabilities. Gotcha, gotcha. But it can also be someone that's deaf if they have an interpreter. We've had folks with us in the past that were blind. . So it's been just a bit of everybody.

We have lots of, cancer patients that come to us that want to. . We're not make a wish by any means, but we try to fulfill everything. We have a ton of equipment. We don't provide guns, but we have a ton of adaptive equipment that we can use to help people out to get them out in the field.

It's funny you bring up Make-a-Wish. I actually just learned a week or two ago that I believe make-a-Wish no longer. Like hunting and fishing wishes anymore. So it's great that there's organizations like y'all that [00:08:00] have stepped up to fill that void. Cause like I said, I don't think they grant, basically I think the animal rights people got to 'em and they no longer grant those types of wishes.

I understood that myself. . Gotcha. All right. . Let's talk about, where these hunts take place. Y'all are, a private organization tell us a little bit about just where the hunts take place, where people stay, where the actual hunting goes on, and just how everything lays out.

Our spring Turkey hunt and our youth deer hunter both held in northwestern Oklahoma northwest of Fairview, Oklahoma, major county. People will bring travel trailers to stay in. They can stay in the community center that we hunt out of on those two hunts. We have folks that will pitch a tent inside the community center.

It's fully equipped, it's heated not air conditioned, but it's heated. . And, they'll come in, pitch a tent or set up a cot or whatever the case may be, or bring a travel. We'll have a lot of different people in travel trailers, and then some folks will go [00:09:00] into Fairview Oklahoma and get a hotel or a motel, whatever the case may be, and stay in there.

There's a lot of restaurants over there in case they want to grab something that we don't provide and so that's where everyone stays during the hunt. Over the weekend, the hunts generally are always a three three, three day. Two night, three day hunt. And then we provide all the meals breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the hunts.

That's one of the things that we spend money on, is providing meals. And as far as lodging and meals are concerned, that's all pretty well taken care of. Unless someone wants to go to a separate. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. And are these hunts like, in the fall when you're doing deer hunts and stuff like that, is, are they usually all based outta one location or will you have, two or three, three locations going on at the same time?

Or is it all pretty much centered in one spot? They're pretty much centered in one spot. The, like I said, the Turkey hunt and the deer hunt is those are held in that [00:10:00] community center. It's Cheyenne Valley is where it's. and they're based out of there. And we go every different direction that we possibly can out of there.

And then the hunt that we have in December is held in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. Okay. And we base out of the fairgrounds there and then go in every direction that we need to go to have the hunts. Okay. The hunts, the. Held completely on private land. It's all by donated land from private landowners.

We don't hunt any public, we don't hunt any high fence. It's all fair chase hunts completely. And so we're proud of our landowners. The world to us. We couldn't do this without, . And so we have some outstanding landowners in Garvin County and in major county, Oklahoma. Awesome.

That's great. That's great. So switching gears just a little bit I know one thing that y'all are [00:11:00] always looking for are volunteers. What are y'all looking for in a volunt? . We're always looking for guides of course, and guides and all volunteers are subject to, to background checks, but we're always looking for guides.

But we're also always looking for people to help around the camp. When you provide meals for, 60 to a hundred people, it takes quite a bit to coordinate all that. So we're always looking for that. I ask a lot of our volunteers and they would probably smile if they hear this and agree with every bit of that.

Because it is an enormous amount of work. Whenever you have, especially deer hunts, whenever you're getting up at four o'clock in the morning and cooking breakfast and making coffee, and then you're staying up until, whatever time at night, cleaning everything up. So we're always looking for volunteers for that, and we're always looking for guides.

. . So the guide, you have to be at least 18. And like I say, everybody's subject to background checks. So help in the kitchen and help around the camp. It's, it's just whatever age, [00:12:00] what, whenever you're handy. . Gotcha. You mentioned earlier that y'all do not provide a gun.

So if you're, looking to volunteer as a. . Are you supposed to bring a gun? What all gear does a guide need to be prepared to bring? He needs to bring just his regular hunting gear at just like he was going hunting. We have guides that will bring guns along and let somebody use a gun.

Cause not everyone has 'em. , lot of times we'll provide ammunition if that's what's needed. We really leave it up to the hunters and they're guardians to reach out to us to see what's needed. Most of the time they have exactly what they need, but they just don't have a place and they don't have someone to go with them.

, so that's really. . Gotcha, gotcha. And most of these hunts are these ground blinds or tower blinds, feeders, food plots. What kind of hunting scenarios are you talking about? All of the hunts are outta ground blinds. We've probably got somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 [00:13:00] ground blinds right now, anywhere.

Every manufacturer, primos, baronets, all lot of double bulls lot of cabellas, just a little bit everything. None of 'em are exactly the same. We have a lot of equipment that we have purchased over the years from BassPro, Cabela's. Like bog pod, death grips. Those are the favorites of everybody right now to use because they're so easy to use and you're not sitting there having to hold a gun all the time. And and then we have adaptive equipment to where we have wheelchair mounts. That they can use. We have actuators that they can push buttons and pull the trigger, and a guide can help them with that.

And that's really for if they're a quadriplegic they have to have someone help 'em, of course. But yeah all the hunts are outta ground blinds. We don't do any towers just simply because, it's hard to get into 'em. So we, we provide all of that equipment as well. And then, are most of these hunts over feeders or kind of variation feeders and food [00:14:00] plots? It in deer hunts, they're, most of 'em are over feeders. We've partnered up in caston, bang down in Walters. and bought we bought a dozen feeders about a year and a half ago. All seasons feeders is what we're using.

, and those are out. They're, you can stand on the ground and fill 'em and we don't have to worry about the cows getting to 'em or anything else. Hogs or whatever. . So we've been using a lot of those. We do hunt some food plots some wheat fields, different things, alfalfa, whatever.

But . It just depends on where we're at. A lot of places we're just using feeders. . Gotcha, gotcha. All right. Let's say that, somebody's listening to this and they have a family member or a friend and they think that they qualify for one of these hunts. Where should they go to, to contact y'all and, see if they can get signed up?

There's a couple of different ways. We have a website of course, and then Facebook is probably the best place to see us simply because you can go through and see [00:15:00] pictures from the beginning of when I set Facebook up until now. You can go all the way through the hunts and different things that we've posted through the years.

But all the information to get in touch with us is on our. And that's Oklahoma outdoor outreach.org. And so it's really fairly simple. But all the information is on there as far as getting in touch with us, phone numbers on their addresses, on their everything is on that website. So they can make a call once they call the number that's on the website, they're gonna get.

I answer the phone. If I don't answer it, then of course just leave a message. That's the best way to, to learn about us is to look at our website and to go back and look at Facebook. And we're also on Instagram as well. But more than anything it's Facebook. Gotcha. I'm guessing a pretty similar answer, but let's say somebody's listening to this like myself and they want to get involved, they want to help out, they wanna [00:16:00] volunteer.

Same place, or do they need to go somewhere else? Same place. Send us a message on Messenger. We'll get back with you. There's guess four of us. Monitor Messenger on Facebook, and one of us is gonna get back with you. It may be, a little while, but one of us will get back with you.

There'll be a message that'll pop up saying that, I don't remember exactly what it says, but happy that you reached out to us. We'll get back in touch with you, but we will get back in touch with you cuz we do need volunteers. Always. . it, the thing about volunteering with a, an organization like this we are a family.

We truly are a family. This is not something that just some guys get together and do. This is a whole bunch of us that get together on a regular basis and do this. And so if someone's out there and they want to get involved in an organization and feel like that they're family it's a great place to go.

Cause you'll meet some great people and you eat some great food and have a great. More than anything. [00:17:00] If you're volunteering, I think you'll get more out of it. As far as the volunteer portion of it and what the hunters get out of it. , gotcha. It's a great place. Yeah.

Awesome. So let's say somebody's listening to this and maybe they're not the most skilled hunter. Maybe they have a scheduling conflict and can't make it to the event, but they still want to help out. What are some other ways people can, do y'all need help, like beforehand or donations, what's, maybe somebody who can't make it to the event but still wants to help the organization.

Are there ways that people can still do that? Absolutely. We always need donations. . One of the reasons why some of these organizations don't do this stuff is cause insurance is outrageous in cost. And so that's one of our big expenses. And then of course, food and everything else is a big expense.

But We always need donations. And the best place to do that is, is go to face, or excuse me, go to our website. There's a donation page on there. You can look it up. It's set up through [00:18:00] PayPal, but if someone doesn't have that, they can't, don't have that capability. They can always mail it in. The address on there is my home, and so it comes straight to me.

. So anyone that wanted to make a donation can do. We will sit down and write your receipt. Cause it's a 5 0 1 nonprofit. It's completely tax deductible, so anyone that wants to make a donation can do it like that. Awesome. Great. All right. I got just a few more questions for you. One, maybe just kinda walk us through a day in the life, whether you're there to hunt or to volunteer kinda, the daily schedule or what the weekend's gonna look like.

And then after that I wanna make sure that we get the dates for these events. But but first just walk us through. If somebody shows up to one of these events, what are they gonna experie. The Turkey hunt coming up and I apologize to anyone that's listening. That hunt is full.

, it filled up really quick. We've got 16 hundreds and that may not sound like a lot to someone out there, [00:19:00] but 16 hundreds is an enormous amount of folks to have to find a Turkey hunting spot in the state of Oklahoma right now. Cause Turkey hunting hunt is not as good as what it's been in the past.

but you would show up around 12 o'clock. Everybody, get together, you'd meet your guide. We always have some sort of giveaways for hunters and guides as well. We try to make sure that we take care of everybody as far as getting them, whether it's a backpack or whether it's a, a range bag or you.

This particular one. We're purchasing t-shirts for everyone that shows up for this hunt. And that may not sound like a lot, t-shirts a t-shirt. I kinda like 'em myself, but you'd get there at noon, meet your guide, get settled in, figure out where you're gonna stay if you're staying at the community center, grab a snack.

That will be on Friday, the 21st of. Everyone will hunt that evening until dark, come back in have dinner and sit around and fellowship together, spend some time [00:20:00] together and then everybody goes to bed. Gets up bright and early the next morning. Have some coffee, some juice, whatever. Go out and hunt Saturday morning.

Come back in around lunchtime, have lunch spend some time in the afternoon. I'm pretty sure what we're going to have on that particular hunt this time. We'll have some skeet shooting in the afternoon for everyone that just, wants to play around for a couple hours and then go back out and hunt in the evening, late afternoon.

Come back at dinnertime on Saturday night at every Turkey hunt we've ever had. We have a kids' Turkey calling contest which it'll be judged by three or four of us. And it's a legitimate contest. These kids really compete, so it's a lot of fun. They get prizes and and then this year we're gonna try to have a kind of an.

game amongst the guides at this hunt. Because this is basically our 15th anniversary. And so we'll [00:21:00] have some games so we can laugh at the guides and make fun of them. Go to bed, get up Sunday morning, go hunt. Everybody has to be back in relatively early, by 10 o'clock or so.

Get everything cleaned up, packed. and then 11 o'clock every Sunday that we have a hot we have a church service, of course. And it just depends. We've had all kinds of different people over the years preach and speak, give their testimony. And I'm not a hundred percent. Who's gonna be there at this hunt, but there'll be someone that will be there at this particular hunt in the spring.

And then the deer hunts are kind the same thing. You hunt Friday, Saturday, Sunday, come back in. Our youth hunt, we always have a ton of stuff for the kids that go on the youth hunt. They always get backpacks and flashlights and whatever. , I've always thought camouflage packs were a lot of fun for kids, so they always get those so they can [00:22:00] paint themselves up before they go hunt.

. But that's itinerary with these hunts. They don't. They don't change a whole lot. We do have in Paul's Valley, we have a big dinner every year on Saturday night, we invite all our landowners in. And we do have a fundraiser down there on our Saturday night Hunt in Paul's Valley, and that one's in December.

, can't give you exact dates for the Hunts. Youth Hunt will be Youth weekend in October and it's usually the second weekend in October, and then the all ages hunt is usually the last weekend, November 1st weekend December is when that is. Gotcha. Awesome. All right, man I really appreciate this.

I've talked to you before. I'm hoping to make it out for at least part of the time on this Turkey hunt coming up. And so yeah, I hope a lot of good comes from this. Real quick before I let you go, I wanna make sure people know where to find y'all if you wouldn't mind giving us, website, [00:23:00] Facebook, all that good stuff, just whatever, however you think people need to get ahold of you, let us know how to do that.

Our Facebook page of course, is Oklahoma Outdoor Outreach. Our website is Oklahoma outdoor outreach.org g, and the information is really on both of those to get in touch with us. There's a phone number on there. Our websites on both of them. and the address I think is on both of them as well. So if someone wants to mail something in or whatever, they can do that.

So that's how you get in touch with us. But one thing I really want to stress to everyone listening that if they have any questions about who we are and what we are and what we do, Is to go on both of those and take a look. And you'll see, especially our website. Our website has been redone this year, early this year.

It's a little more interactive than what we've had in the past. There's a couple of kids that are on the first page that you'll see. One that's been with us [00:24:00] for some time now, that's just a super little kid. His name is, hes. And then there's another one that's on there that went with us on a deer hunt down in Paul's Valley last year.

Never hunted before in his life and shot his first deer. Shot his first buck, and his first do just had a great time. The smiles on these kids are unbeliev. So that's how you find out about us. And then the other thing I'd like to add that we're unusual as far as an organization is concerned.

We are all volunteers. Everyone in the organization's a volunteer. No one gets paid to do any of this, and we never have. And so I pride myself in starting an organization like. and I pride myself in running an organization like that and keeping it that way. We've had a lot of people try to change that over the years, but as long as I'm part of it's not going to change.

That's where it's gonna be. We're gonna be all [00:25:00] volunteers. . . Fantastic. I love it. Tim, man, thank you so much for coming on. This was great. This was fantastic information, and all I can say to anybody that listened to this is please help these guys out. Whether it's a financial donation or giving up your time to come out and help them.

It, it just sounds like a fantastic cause and I'm gonna try to get involved myself. Man, Tim think you hit the nail on the head. Any. Tidbits before we get going here? Not really. It's just, like I say, I think you'll get a lot more out of it when you volunteer for something like this than you could ever expect.

That's why I got involved in doing it. I've done this for. almost 20 years. I started with another group and worked with them for a while and then decided to go this route. But you get so much out of this, it's unbelievable the feeling that you get to, to give back to people that can't do for themselves.

. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you Tim, so much for coming [00:26:00] on. I really appreciate it. I hope y'all get a lot of a lot of hits off of this thing and I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing all this with. Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Yes, sir. We'll talk to you later.

All right. Thank you. There it is, folks. The Oklahoma Outdoors Outreach Foundation. Thank you Tim, for coming on and sharing all that information with us. And guys, I can't stress this enough. Like he mentioned the hunt itself, this Turkey hunt is full, but if you have some spare times, you're not too far away.

If you're looking to get out there and do something a little different, please think about volunteering your time. I plan not to be there. I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it the whole weekend. But I plan to be there probably at least Saturday afternoon and into Sunday. So yeah. Thanks again, Tim, for coming on, sharing all that great information with us.

All right. We're gonna transition here just a little bit. We're gonna go into kinda just my random side that I usually like to talk about. I got a few things to bring up here just with my own personal Hunting and upcoming hunts and [00:27:00] habitat stuff. Man, where to start? I think I'm gonna start off with the habitat stuff that I've been trying to do this spring.

Got some new good things. I got some bad things. The first thing is man, it's been like probably four or five weeks since I got out there and I dozed my my fire break for the burn that I wanted to do this year back there in the. and I just, I'm starting to get afraid that I'm not gonna be able to get that done.

The weather in my schedule just will not cooperate and line up together. We've also just seemed to have an early spring this year. Everything's getting super green already. It's what, it's not even April yet. And everything is already getting super green and so I still want. I'm still looking at weekends and stuff and the weather yet again, this weekend it looks like it's gonna rain on Friday and which means probably wouldn't be able to burn this weekend.

And so I, I still want to do it. I'm just honestly not sure if I'm gonna be able to get it done, which is gonna be a huge bummer one that I already [00:28:00] put into the work to do it. And two I've just been counting very heavily on getting that burn and getting some more. Some more.

Basically being able to hold some more deer. And so if that doesn't work out, I'm gonna be very sad about it. On the upside I did something that had been thinking about. I really wasn't planning to do it until next year, but I don't know why. I just got a whim. I got inspired. and I went online and I ordered some real world wildlife switch grass.

I got enough for I got the smaller bag, which they say is good for two to three acres and I'm not doing it really for much of a bedding area type thing, which is probably what most people think of when they think of switch grass. I'm gonna use it more for screening. And so I got two food plots in particular that it, one of 'em has always been a little bit wide.

One of 'em is usually pretty decent as far as, getting good access and stuff. But it's the one in the back my biggest food plot and last year I've talked about it before, with the drought, my brother ended up having to put the cows [00:29:00] back there, left 'em back there for a while.

and they just hammered it and it hasn't really recovered cuz we, even after we pulled the cows, we still didn't get any rain during the growing season. And so we've had a lot of rain. It's great growing conditions. We actually got a new plow something I had never heard of, but it's called a finishing plow.

And so it's made to not actually. Cut down deep into the dirt like a traditional plow. It's supposed to be more gosh, I don't know what the word is. Everybody's pushing no-till drilling and stuff for soil health. And basically this is a plow that kind of accomplishes those same. goals, and so it doesn't go super deep and you can adjust the angle of it so you know when you wanna really tear up the ground and everything, make it a steep angle.

When you're ready to get that good, solid, nice, smooth seed bed, you can lessen the angle. And like I said, it's a finishing plow. It's made to get you a nice, good, solid seed bed. And so I'm gonna do that. And then we have a cult packer. And so I haven't decided if I'm going to broadcast the seed or use the cult [00:30:00] packer.

I haven't used the cult packer a ton and with such a small seed amount, I wanna say for the two to three acre bag is only 10 pounds which is like nothing when you're talking seed per acre. So I'm not sure I. Putting this expensive seed in the Cota packer and so I might just broadcast it. I don't know.

We'll wait and see. But anyway, so my plan is to widen the food plot out. And in that I'm going to put the switch grass. I'm gonna make it pretty much on two sides of the food plot. And so that would cover my access. And then on one side, I'm gonna make it a little thicker where we're up against the neighbor.

I'm gonna try to push the deer off the neighbors a little. , and that would probably be an area that's thick enough for some deer to bed and if they really wanted to, but it's not what I would really call like a bedding area. So yeah, so that's the plan. So got the switch grass coming, gonna pick up some soybeans.

I'm probably gonna go ahead and get the switch grass in the ground. Probably not this coming weekend, but the following weekend because I think it needs to be planted a little bit earlier when it's still fairly. and I was [00:31:00] gonna go ahead and plant the soybeans, but after doing a little research and thinking about hunt, hunting over these soybeans next year I think I'm gonna wait and plant them a little bit later.

Either late April, maybe early May, something like that. Because I like, again, I'm probably, most likely I'm going to leave half the soybeans and or half the food pot and soybeans and then, Replant the other half into more of a fall food plot type thing. So I'll still have some standing beans, still get the benefit of that for early season, and then even super late season.

and then the other half of the food plot will be just a normal fall food plot type thing. So that's pretty exciting. Again I've just, I've learned a lot more about Switchgrass. I know some people of go back and forth on whether it's a good thing versus just like regular native grass.

But again I'm using it more for screening than I am for bedding. If it, turns out great and I love it, maybe I'll order some more next year and make a larger like bedding area type thing. . But I think for what I want this year, I think this would be great. I also talked to [00:32:00] my brother about redoing a couple of our fences to really benefit both of us.

I want to keep the cattle out of a few more areas. I'm going to basically give him some more area for the cattle. And so again, he'll get a little bit more pasture, I'll get a little bit more no cattle area. And so it's gonna work out for both of us. Yeah like I said, habitat wise, still hoping to burn.

Not sure it's gonna happen. Got some some wow. Just went blank. Got some switch grass, . Sorry about that, folks. Got some switch grass on the way. And as I mentioned, I am for the first time ever going to try to do a spring soybean planting. I told myself I was gonna do it last year. When it came down to it, I just didn't feel like I should spend the money on it.

But this year I'm, again, I'm trying to hold more deer, trying to give them more of a reason to come stay on our property. And so I am gonna plant some soybeans this spring. What else here? Turkey season. That's what I wanted to get to also. Something that, I don't know why I hadn't thought of it [00:33:00] earlier, but again, I have my sister who now lives in Nebraska married a farm boy.

His family has quite a bit of farmland. It's where I went and did my whitetail hunt last year and deer hunt. I saw a few turkeys and for whatever reason I was just like, there's a lot of Turkey content coming out right now. And I was like, man, I saw some turkeys. And and the thing is, the turkeys that I saw were Miriam's also.

and I've never killed a Miriam. That was the first time I'd ever even seen a Miriam Turkey. And so I did a little research and come to find out, Nebraska has an early archery Turkey season and it lines up with a conference that my wife is gonna go to and for her work. And so I'm going to take some time off work.

I'm gonna take our child with me , and my sister's gonna help me babysit, and I'm gonna go to Nebraska and do some archery Turkey hunting. So very excited about that. One thing that, again, like I never, it never even registered uh, I've killed an Eastern Turkey. [00:34:00] I've killed Rio. . If I were to kill a Miriam's, I would be three quarters of away to a Turkey Super slam.

And so if that were the case, again, I'm not like a huge Turkey hunter. I feel like I've gotten more into it than the, last couple years. If I were to get a Miriam's Turkey, I would be awfully darn tempted to look into a Florida hunt to go get an Osceola. and complete, complete the super slam.

So yeah, that's in the back of my mind or the hunt is happening. I am planning to go. I haven't got to see my sister's new house that they just built. So yeah, very excited about that. And then also at the same time, I plan on doing a bunch of scouting for deer because I plan to go back this September for the early archery season.

And so it's gonna be a great two for one. Again, one of the things. I learned last time I was there was that my sister's father-in-law can basically get me access to hunt on just about anywhere I want to in a couple mile radius. And so I'm gonna be talking with him before I go up there. I'm gonna try to get permission on, I think at [00:35:00] least two of their neighbors.

And so while I'm up there, obviously gonna do some Turkey hunting but I'm going to do a bunch of deer scouting also, I thought about even maybe taking a couple cameras with me. I still have one up there that I never took down after last season. So that'll be cool to check, see what's going on there.

But yeah, I, a couple, two of their neighbors I think could be some really good deer hunting. And so selfishly, yes, I'm gonna go Turkey hunting, but a big part of the reason I want to go is also to do some deer scouting and of course hang out with my sister. Obviously that's a big part of it too yeah.

So that'll be my first Turkey hunt of the year. That will be, I believe, the first week in. . It is, like I said, I mentioned it is with a bow. I'm not a huge Turkey bow hunter. I don't really know why. I just, for some reason, I don't know where I even heard it. I just remember hearing an interview a few years ago that like turkeys are made to be killed with a shotgun.

They're not really made to bow hunt. They just have, know, a pretty small vital area. I have shot one or two turkeys with my bow that I have not found. So I of have that bad [00:36:00] taste in my mouth, but that's just the only option I. Cuz I don't think I have an opportunity to go later in their shotgun season.

So I think it's also gonna be a pretty challenging hunt because I think they're far enough north that's not really when the breeding season is. And so I think they're gonna be, probably doing some gobbling, but I don't think they're gonna be like just gobbling their heads off. I don't think they're gonna be super aggressive or anything like that.

So it could be a very challenging. . But yeah, still very excited for it. As far as my other Turkey plans for the year, still trying to figure that out. Man, I have a busy couple of weeks coming up and I just don't know. I'm sure at some point I'll be able to sneak away. Just not sure exactly when that is.

I don't think I've mentioned on here. My wife and I are actually gonna go on a vacation the week after. And we're gonna go to Gulf Shores, Alabama, spend some time just literally sitting in some chairs on the beach doing absolutely nothing. Very excited about that. Work's been pretty crazy. Her work has been even crazier than mine, and so we just needed some time to, to just hang out and do nothing.

But I believe the weekend, the week will be [00:37:00] gone. Is Oklahoma's open? So that'll be pretty tough. I think I think Texas opens this coming weekend. And I have my buddy's place out in West Texas where I killed my bird last year. Again, still same open invitation, just trying to find some time to get out there.

Yeah, I'm not sure. So yeah. That is exciting. Yeah, I'm I really, technically I can hunt three states this year for turkeys, which I've never done before. Never even really thought about doing before, but it's pretty exciting. So there's a chance I could kill a Miriam, Eastern and Rio all in the same year.

Who knows. Probably not gonna happen , but it is possible. So what else do I have to share with you guys? Oh, yes. One last thing last week's episode, if you listen to it like I said, much more of a serious episode tackled a few more of the tougher issues going on in the state. A lot of legislation.

One thing that I found out about before that episode released, but unfortunately I'd already, recorded the episode, edit it, and sent it off and everything like. But there's been some talk about pulling c w D regulations away from the [00:38:00] wildlife department and giving them to I believe like the ag department, like the department that, talks about farming and ranching practices and stuff like that.

I haven't dug into this too awful much but I think that sounds like a terrible idea. Why would you? Something so potentially serious away from the department that, employs biologists to study stuff like that and give it to the ag department that has much, much different interest and concerns.

I just don't understand that whatsoever. So that's another big one. I already have a few more episodes lined up with two guests at least. We're gonna be talking about these issues a lot more, the c w d, the velvet season. The Kansas Trail camera ban, all those topics that I covered last week because you would be amazed, like I had a record number of messages over the last two weeks about all this stuff that's happening in the state right now.

People are very concerned for good reasons. And so I do want to cover [00:39:00] it some more. So be looking forward to those and then we're gonna once again probably get back to a little bit more lighthearted stuff. I don't want this podcast to be too awful, dang serious. I really try to keep it lightheart.

But again, the stuff that's going on right now is very serious and it has some big consequences to the future of hunting in our state. So I wanna make sure we cover this stuff and I wanna make sure the word gets out there. Other than that's pretty much all I have for you guys this week.

Little bit shorter of an episode but again, the Oklahoma Outdoor Outreach Foundation. Really wanted to get them on before their event. Try to get them some more volunteers, maybe some more donations. Check out their website, check out the Facebook page like Tim talked about. If you guys have any topics, any concerns about the stuff going on.

I listened to another podcast about the proposed velvet season. Man, there's a lot. to it when you get underneath the surface. Then, yeah, I don't know. One thought that I had was, they keep talking about how it's gonna be a draw hunt and I don't really understand [00:40:00] the thought behind that.

If it counts towards your two buck limit anyway. I don't really understand why you would need to draw the permit for it. If it was gonna be a bonus tag, I completely understand the draw process and why you would want that. But if it is gonna count towards your normal bag limit anyway personally I don't understand why you would need to draw the tag.

So anyway, we're gonna cover that way more in depth in the next couple weeks, so I won't get into it anymore. Thank you guys for checking out this podcast. Thank you guys. For listening to me ramble every week. Thank you so much for the support and until next time, I will see you guys right back here on the Oklahoma Outdoors Podcast.[00:41:00]

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