Outdoor Books For Kids With Josh Ishmael

This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast Nate and Andy get the chance to talk with Josh Ishmael, the founder of Flatlanders TV about a new series of outdoor children's books he has created.  First we get into what Flatlanders has been doing and some of the cool hunts he has been fortunate enough to film throughout his years doing that.  Then we get into his series of outdoor kids books.  Josh has currently authored 4 kids books so far in a series featuring Hank the Outdoorsman.  He has written "Deer Hunting with Dad" "Turkey Hunting with Dad "Sadies Gone Fishing" and "Catfishing with Grandpa" as well as a coloring book.  All of his books are designed to get kids interested in the outdoors and he has plans on many more.  Make sure to check them out at the link in the description below.  Thanks for listening!

[00:00:00] Welcome to Missouri Woods and Water podcast with your host Nate and Andy.

Micah decided he had more important things to do today. , it's very rare that it's just you and I. So talk all the shit you want, my friend. Yeah, just get after it. He needs it because he does it every time you're, every time you're not here, he talks the shit I get. We'll see on the next episode. I guarantee Micah does not listen to this.

He I'll be honest with you, I don't listen to all of them, but I know you don't. I'll say this and I bet Micah doesn't listen, so unless I get a response. I'm gonna say Micah doesn't listen. Okay. And he can kiss it. Listen to his [00:01:00] k Fkf. . I don't think he listens to kf. No. He's listening to 1 0 3, 3 hot jams and some shit.

Hey, you know what it is? That means you listened to it. It was 14 1 0 3 jams. Baby people from Kansas City know exactly what we're talking about. Yep. And everybody else is what the hell? That's true. Yeah. It makes it out about this far, to be honest with you. Yeah. What are you up to?

Same old trying to you tired from last weekend kill coyotes and you still catching up on sleep? Last weekend, I think I finally got caught up. Yeah. We both decided to go out night hunting and two nights in a row. I did. I don't, I just remember one night. Yeah. Okay. Against my better judgment, I stayed out later than I probably should have.

but you guys had a good night though. You killed five. Dude, we killed five, but we should have killed probably 12. So you like from a coyote perspective, you guys had a lot of action then? I seen 12 in one field. See, we [00:02:00] only saw four dogs all night. Okay. Killed three of them. We called in multiple doubles.

We did shoot one that we never found. But I have one site for some reason I think I figured it out. I think the temperature is shifting my zero and I'm talking about I had less than a hundred yards coyotes. And that doesn't make any sense. Whiffing them. It does. So humidity and temperature can shift the zero in a thermal site.

I've been researching, trying to figure it out because I pulled it out and I shot. Or is it because you're zero going back to the middle? That whole conversation we were having, I'll have to admit I was wrong on that. Told you. So if you're, if your crosshairs are back in the middle, then maybe that's your problem.

Is it They're not zero middle. Yeah, they're not, they're they're just very close to the middle part. That just looks like it is. It looks like it is. Yeah. So I want you to admit to all of our list. I was right. I just did. I said I was wrong. And like even mine, it looks about perfect. It is just a little bit low, maybe a little left.

. But you would have to be really paying attention now. Now, my old gun, it was on, it was like low and left. You could tell [00:03:00] it was off, but they said most guns, it should be almost dead center. Just cause the way they're set up. Yeah. It might be high or low, but it should be, most of 'em are gonna be pretty close.

Pretty darn close. Because it's a digital scope and not, yeah. Anyway. No. That's about it. That sucks, dude. I'll tell you Jason, guys, don't take some kids this weekend. , which is convenient cuz it's the topic of the show. Oh, that's a good point. So yeah, I had a, we had probably the craziest thing ever happen.

Yeah, tell us about that. I didn't even got to hear this story really. I mean I did, but not like in detail. So me, Russ, and Micah went out and we only were planning on just doing four or five sets. , cuz Micah wanted to go back to that place where he had the degradation tag. Oh yeah.

Killed another one there, by the way. Oh, cool. I'll tell you about that one. That was cool. Yeah. And then a another spot that he just got and then a few old ones that he had hunted just to see him. , we went to the degradation tag place and we set up on the east side like we had talked about.

If we go back there and we don't go to that side of the farm. Yeah. We're stupid. [00:04:00] Yeah. So we did and we had sat there for maybe, 18 minutes. I actually closed the caps on my thermal and said, this is it. Micah goes, , there's a coyote right there. And it was, in that field and like in that thick stuff.

Yep. So me and Russell both get on it and all you can see is the Coyote's head and maybe like part of the neck. Looking back at us, it was broadside looking back at US 135 yards. I think Russell says I'll shoot the head. I said, I'm gonna shoot for what I think where I think the body is right and shot and it just disappears.

So I thought we missed it. And I'm like, ah, damn dude, I blew a hole through that thing's shoulder. Like you would not believe the six arc. Really? Just dropped it where, it didn't even budge from the Yeah. Blood pool. So I really need to move my site because I intended, fully intended that six to be on the six arc.

Dude, I'm telling you, you're gonna lie. It's on my six five, but my six five's away, it's like a 13 pound gun. I'm telling you that six arc is so fun, man. But I have a lot of ammunition for my six [00:05:00] five . That's, that makes it hard. Yeah. But the story, that was crazy. . The other dog we killed, I don't even remember where we were.

Oh, we were back at that. The other, the spot where we killed the female, not the male. . We killed the male. Oh, nice. Yeah. He came in just hooked his little head up and I'm like, there you are. I like that scanner, man. I do. Yeah. It's nice. But the crazy story is we go to this spot. We've never killed a dog before, ever.

We park the truck, we literally get out, walk 20 yards and stand in front of the cedar tree. , we're calling, we hear dogs all around us. Re reply, but at least 500 plus yards away. Each pack we're sitting there for a while, blah, blah, blah. Next thing you know, Russell turns it, it was from the left to right.

Russell, Micah, me, I was furthest right. Russell was furthest left. Okay. All of a sudden, Russell turns around and is what the, and all of a sudden you hear. a coyote had run across the road right in front of our truck [00:06:00] and right up behind us. Oh wow. Straight down wind of us, by the way. And then did not care when got to us.

Started bouncing around and that's what I heard. It start growling and I could hear like grass wrestling from it running. And Russell goes, there's a coyote bleeping right behind us. So I say, what? And about that time Russell said, it's running around the tree. It ran around the cedar tree about 25 yards away and got behind another cedar tree to my right.

. So I was the closest one of the dog. So I swing my gun, find the dog, shoot it, and explode a tree branch. Oh no. Boom. I'm like, yep, I missed guys. . I can tell you that. The dog takes off and goes, runs out in front of us. At 120 yards. And then stops right at this little tiny berm and once again, just is showing us its chest and neck.

Russell says, I'm gonna aim for the head, I think, and I aim for dead centered chest. . And she died. [00:07:00] Nice. It was a young female too. That's the craziest part about it. I'm wondering if you guys are playing, if she thought another female was coming into her territory. It's possible. Depend on what sounds she thought.

I'd be curious to see like what that, what sounds you all played to figure out. So I did a lone how Yeah. And then a female invite. I bet you she thought another female was about take her man. Yeah. And I don't remember if I had moved into other stuff or not. But it was, dude, it was the, I've never been that close to a coyote.

That's pretty cool, like that now. I never actually saw it. Yeah. Cause it was dark outside. Yeah. Just hearing it right there and Russell's dude, I could feel its breath. It was right by a bit. I almost feel like he did. Yeah. , which, the call was in front of us.

Another, 40 yards. It was, came off of you guys not off of that call. Yeah. It, I think it went, it knew something was there, that's for sure. But also, and it wasn't like mangee or nothing. It was a good looking dog. That kind of plays in a little bit, the experience you're talking about, what we talk about today on the podcast.

Memories, memories, that's gonna be a core memory for you. Nice. What is that called? Segue? Nice. Pivot. Pivot Andrew. [00:08:00] Yeah, let's what we talking about today? We have Josh Ishma on with Flat Landers and Josh is doing something pretty cool. Little took a little turn, I guess in his career, somewhat.

He's still doing what he always does in the filming wise. But he is now author authoring. He's a published author. Yeah, he's a author. Writing some children's books about the outdoors. Yeah, about hunting, fishing. He's got four books and a coloring book out right now. And spoil alert. Sounds like there's more to come.

Yeah. And we talk about the books in the show and we will link them in the description as well. But but let's get into some sponsors before we start. Let's get through these guys. Show our appreciation for the people who allow us to do what we do and then talk to Josh. Yeah. So let's start with let's see here.

All right let's start with Habitat Works. Right now is the time, guys, if you're going to do some, some preparedness some off-season work, you need to be getting hold of our our buddy [00:09:00] Dustin Williams. We need to be getting a hold of our buddy, Dustin. Yeah, we need to also we need to have a show with him soon.

We have a grand plan that I'm worried is slipping through my fingers because I'm not getting it. We're not getting it done, but Dustin is gonna be a part of that show and that plan. If it doesn't happen, we're still gonna have him on. But check him out at Habitat Works. 8 1 6 7 5 2 73 90.

Mention us when you call. Get 15% off any service. Now's a great time like Andy said to be doing this stuff. Timber stand improvement, forestry, mulching, prescribed fires. And then mapping and planning is the stuff I like. Yep. Camel Fire. Camel Fire. Your daily flash sale for all things sporting and hunting.

Never know what's gonna be on there and you're talking crazy discounts. You're talking 20, 30, 40% off. Download the app and get yourself in trouble and buy some cool stuff. Now's the time of year. I used to spend most of my money on here cuz I get season was over for me from a Deere perspective and Elk.

I would start buying stuff [00:10:00] for next year. Start planning for next year. Yeah. Yeah. Good Discounts on there. Check them out. Yeah. Hunt worth. Hunt worth gear, dude. . I'm gonna say it. . I love bibs. You're now a bib guy. I wore bibs Friday and Saturday. Yep. Night. And all I wore was a base layer on my bottoms, my bibs, a base layer on top, and my coat I wore.

It's nothing else on top. And I actually got hot. I used, they're heat, loose stuff as a game changer. This night. Hunting you throw on some heat loose. Holy shit. I'm not scared of any temperature. Most of our sets, I had my coat unzipped. Yep. Cuz I was hot. Yep. And even actually the second night, I didn't even wear my Matterhorn coat.

I wore my Saskatoon coat. Yeah. And I was still, I've been wearing, yeah. I don't know what it is that thinner hoodie with a face mask. Oh. Can't think of the name of it. Shelton. The Shelton hoodie. Yeah. With the the vest. Money work. Pretty good, huh? Yeah, dude, it's just to keep that [00:11:00] warmth cor, because it's got you.

Yeah. Pretty sweet. So check 'em out, hunt gear.com. Use our code mww 15 for 15% off. When you check 'em out, black ovis, all things hunting, camping, check them out. Any, like in anything off season wise, you're starting to prepare. They got boots, they got clothes, they got arrows, broadheads, you name it, check them out.

All your hunting needs, boots and clothes. Makes me think of boats and hose. Yeah, let's, yeah, gotta skip that one. WW 10 for 10% off from black ovis black ovis.com. Athlon optics ridiculously. I did it. Good Optics, ridiculously good price. Yep. I I'm waiting for some rings to put my Midas tack on. I'm telling you that Midas, I.

Arguably, I think, no, it's not. Arguably it's my favorite scope I've ever owned. See, that's why I think I might end up with a [00:12:00] K Cronos soon because the Kronos has the exact same radical that radical, that aperture, whatever you call it in the, in that scope is money. It's a, mine's a five by 25, which for me is perfect.

That's exactly what I want. It's my favorite scope. I recommend a Midas tack if you guys are looking at something. I'm a first focal playing guy. We all are. Now it, it checks all the boxes. Yeah, you run a Midas tack five by 25. I also have a Midas tack, same exact scope. I also run an Aries e t r u h d three by 18.

I just realized I'm a pretty f big fan of all the Midas line cuz I like the Midas range finder. I got the Midas tripod, which I think they don't have one. Rangefinder, they have two. They do. Oh, they have a golf one. Mild than they have the other. Yeah, that's right. Shorter range one. Yeah. . I'm ranging stuff out to a thousand yards where my old, I won't say name of it.

My older one would, shit was 47 years old. Man. It might have been like 10 years old. . Yeah, but check 'em out. Athlon optics.com. They got some good stuff, [00:13:00] man. Alps Outdoors. We are huge fans of this stuff. We're actually going through and looking at some stuff we need to get for this year. Missouri based company.

Awesome folks too. We're probably gonna have them on the show to do some stuff this year. They have a foundation that about getting kids in outdoors too. , they are always our biggest supporter. Yes. They've been great to us for the youth Hunt that we sponsor every year. So love working with those guys.

Check 'em out. Alps outdoors.com. Use the code 2023 Woods Water. It's a new code for this year for 30 freaking percent off. That is awesome. There's stuff guys, Turkey season's coming quick. They have some of the best packs, I believe voted 2022, I wanna say Turkey Vest of the Year by i Sport. I don't remember the award.

You me, check it out. Go to the website. I remember it being on there. Yeah. They have the Turkey, two of 'em, Turkey Vest of the Year, and they're grand Slam is one of the, it's award-winning Turkey vest. I know they won the New Elite Pack won an award at [00:14:00] Shot Show. Yep. Or yeah. Or was that Yeah. Shot show they work at, because the long spur deluxe is phenomenal.

Then they have the grand Slam. , we're going down the rabbit hole right now, but yeah, the Grand Slam won. Best Turkey vest. Best for Long sits by Outdoor Life. Best Turkey vest for long set, 2022 for out from Outdoor Life. And then the Super Elite 4.0 won best overall from field and Stream, assuming Turkey vest.

Yeah, 2022 from Field and Stream. So check them out. Highly recommend both of those as long as, as well as the long spurred deluxe and their elite packs as far as big game packs or money too. They got a new Bino harness coming. I know what you're going, I'm excited for that. That Shield Bino harness.

Yep. Yeah. Christmas. Maybe I'll finally make it into the Barna harness. I keep trying and then I Yeah. Stop wearing it. All right. Zer land boots. You can't get, I'm I don't know. I've always been a cheap boot guy when I've grown up. Just, whatever was available [00:15:00] at Walmart type deal or Orland's Zer Land's changed the game for me.

I don't know. My, my mastodons are covered in shit now. Yeah. You stepped in by a pile of it. I stepped in a pool of cow shit walking out Saturday night. So that was cool. You would think like the, so those cresta we have, I have the high top ones. , there were some of the lightest ones. We have like boots that they have in general.

. But mine are the high top duty money and night hunting cuz they have offer support and you're walking through fields you can't see and they're lightweight busting your ankles. Yeah. Yeah. Check 'em out. Za land usa.com. I think that's it for our sponsors. Got 'em all. Got one more thing. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Giveaway. I like it. I like giveaway. We've been talking about this for a while. Okay. Okay. But we're gonna do it a little differently. We're gonna make you do a little work as the listener, but you got a chance to win a free. hat. The new hat, the new, I guess So we Coyote hunting hat [00:16:00] we haven't seen, we have a new Coyote Alternate logo.

Yep. And we've got some hats we might sell. Some don't know, but we wanna give one away. And the only w the only thing you have to do to enter, to win one of these hats is go to either iTunes or Spotify wherever they do reviews on podcast. Apple Podcast. Yep. Leave us a review. Preferably five stars , right?

Yeah. But hey, you do what you want to do. Don't go leave us a crappy review. You're not getting the hat . No, I'm kidding. Leave us a review and then the only way we're really gonna know, cuz you know, sometimes they're coming on, you don't wanna put your Yeah. Send us a DM on any of the social media platforms that we're on.

Go wild Instagram or Facebook. Send us a DM letting us know you left us a review. Yep. And we will enter you. And guys, if we get, A hundred dms going, 50 reviews. We're gonna know, we're gonna know, we're gonna know. But I think it makes it, decent chances to win a hat. Send us a DM and this will come out on Tuesday.[00:17:00]

We will pick the winner, the the following Monday. So five days after this comes out. Okay. We'll pick the winner and we'll send you a free hat. We've got a few colors to choose from. We've got a few more colors supposed to be coming in, don't know when they make it. And we will, we'll let you have one of our cool new Missouri Woods and Water, Missouri Woods and Water Coyote logo hats.

So do that. Only way you're gonna get it so far. Yeah. We'll do it end probably. All right. You wanna get into the show? We've already gabbed for 18 minutes, so whoever's still listening, this is the Missouri Woods and Water podcast.

Okay with us tonight, we've got Josh Ishmael with Flat Landers tv. Josh, what's up man? Nothing, guys just actually went shed hunting today and found a couple old ones, but nothing new, but that's all we got going on right now. There you go. That's good. That's good. A good day for it. Nothing it wasn't too [00:18:00] cold, but it was cold, but not too cold.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Yeah, for February. It's a pretty good day. Let's see. Yeah, I You're not too far, you're not too far from us, right? You're just across the state line. You're in Kansas, aren't you? Yep. Just a little bit east of Lawrence. So with a big snowstorm coming, we figured it was a good day to get out before they get buried in snow.

And we've got, probably half our deer have dropped and Get after 'em a little bit, but no luck and didn't wanna barge way into the bedrooms yet to try to blow 'em out. And then they drop on the neighbors and they don't want that either. , right? Yeah. Yeah. And today is February, what? 15th. 15th.

We're recording this. Today is the day of the parade for the Kansas City Chiefs. We talked about it a little bit before we recorded . None of us went while everybody else was busy at the parade. Josh was shed hunting. I was in northeast Missouri working. And you were working too? Yeah. I like all these people that can take off work at a a minute's notice.

Minutes notice. Must be nice. Awesome. I think they closed 90% of the city, right? I know they took, they closed our school. So a lot of the kids from like my daughter's grade went to the parade. [00:19:00] So it was creating issues for employers I think because you, I mean you can't just shut down everything.

I don't know. Did you see how many people were there? There's a lot of people there. Shut down a lot. But, so what have you guys been up to out there at Flatlanders? I know you guys were at ata cuz that's where Micah and I ran India. , but what have you been up to out there? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We did ata we had a great year this year.

Deer hunting wives. We killed, we were four for five. Jess and I killed great deer, Jess. I actually killed a drop time deer. Oh man. Our oldest Jackson killed, oh, probably, if not his biggest dane close to his biggest, and then our youngest. And he's 10. Our youngest is seven and she killed her fourth deer now No way.

And our middle who's nine, he didn't kill one this year, but he actually never even went, we never even had anything to show back up on camera that was mature or anything. So he's up first for Turkey season and he he draws the first card for Deere next year. So there you go. We try to keep it as fair as possible with three kids.

It gets a little jealous and then an R after the woods. Yeah, definitely.[00:20:00] That's awesome. So did you just do Ata, did you do any other. ? No, just a t a I did shot show for 10 or 12 years or something, and for the exact same reason I didn't go to the K C K or the Chief Parade Today. Shots show is just a mess.

, there's so many people and it's hard to get business done at Shot Show because there's so many people, you can't talk to anyone. And ATA is still that handshake deal where you can pop into a sponsor booth and talk to the marketing director somewhat at cha show. It's not like that at all.

It's so many people, so hard to get to talk to anybody. And yeah, like I said, I didn't go to the Teas Parade today because 500,000 people doesn't sound good. So I went to Chad Hunting by myself. Yeah. Fair enough. Did you go to ATA as media also? What were you in there as? Yep. Yeah. Media. So what'd you think have you been every year recently or, yep. When's the last time you've been? . It'd been right before Covid was the last time we had went. We didn't go [00:21:00] last year or the year before, so we had gone in two years, but before that, I'd went for, shoot, I don't know, 12 or 15 years in a row.

Yeah. Which I'm sure you have a different perspective. This was our first year, Micah and I we decided we wanted to try to go, so we went, Andy bitched out on us and didn't go. But I'm with Kyle the o the only thing I would say is we were so busy on Thursday that it felt like Friday was over by lunch, which a lot of exhibitors were putting, starting to.

What do you call it? Pack up. Pack up at noon, around lunch. And so you felt like the place was getting a little empty, which we were able to talk to some people a little bit more then. But man, I almost felt like I had one more day to really play with some items. That's the one thing I think I missed out on, is I didn't get to mess with as much stuff as I normally would've cuz I felt like I was trying to say hello to a lot of people.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I guess I misunderstood your question in the first place the previous years at this a t i, I saw a group of 25 [00:22:00] people around one booth. It was a backpack company and they were giving away a backpack and there was a big crowd around this backpack company and there was 25 people and we were like, wow, what's going on over?

Back in the day. I say that like I'm an old man, , but six or seven years ago when Stent Crusher had just come out, they used to have, and all the bow companies did their launches at ata. . So it was nothing. I remember at the time I was filming for Mcil River Ventures and we were sponsored by elite Archery, and we showed up to their booth and there was 250 people wrapped around the booth.

Michael Buffer, the UFC announcer. Oh yeah. There he was the one announcing all the bows for this year's lineup from Elite Archery. And he, he like full did the, it's time and it was a huge CIN crusher. They would throw out these, like they have Win checker grenades. , and they'd throw 'em out in the crowd and there'd be 250 people wrapped around.

And there'd, I remember Hardy when he first was starting, he was playing in [00:23:00] the lobby at a t a no joke. And you're like, oh my God. It was cra when you see, like ATA this year, if this was your first year and you walk through and you can walk up and down the aisles, uhhuh no problem.

Uhhuh five or six years ago, you, it was like, as to elbows, you were sliding against people's backs, getting down the aisles because there were so many people there. It's amazing the amount of people that aren't there now. So maybe I, yeah, I'll be very surprised next year when it moves to St. Louis, a lot of the people I talk to aren't going, oh man.

Yeah. A lot of the manufacturers, they're like, we're not going, cuz it's, at least in Louisville it is. You're able to, it was in Louisville, right? Indianapolis. The Indianapolis. They, you could stay in a hotel and walk the bridgeways over and down into it. Yep. Louisville, you can't, St. Louis you can't.

Yeah. So you have to stay off and then drive in. Then they charge you for parking and it's a pa and it's, No offense to St. Louis, but it's not Nashville, right? It's not [00:24:00] Dallas. It's not a big place to get things done. And the armpit of Missouri, I feel like , Hey, St. Louis listeners, we're sorry.

Remember Josh said it , we'll probably be going next year just cuz it's in our own home state. But I'll be honest with you. I hope it never gets back because I felt like it was, there were people there this year, but like you said, we were able to easily get from one area to the other.

We could have more intimate conversations with people instead of just hey, and, way you went. . People are real good that they're real good about hiding their marketing managers. They're smart. You know what I mean? They've done this runaround forever. Hey can I talk to your marketing guy?

Or, I'm with this and that, and they're like, oh, yeah he's at lunch. And I'm like, I know him. He's four people away from you right now, . He's just standing hiding him, the bad thing that I didn't, Mike, was the bow companies didn't showcase their bows. Really? And the amount of distributor, like Mossy Oak Real Tree, like they weren't at ATA this year.

So that, that kind of sucks. Makes you wonder what the direction of it is, going [00:25:00] forward. Yeah. Is it, are shows dying off or are they transitioning to different shows? Is, what's the, I think with the digital, yeah, because they did digital what, two years ago at Digital ata?

. I can tell if a product's cool online. Yeah. You know what I mean? I don't need to have it in my hand like, Now I, I guess a bow and stuff like that. I would rather shoot it before I buy it rather than just, I'm not gonna buy a used car off Carvana on the internet. But I like, I do touching things, but it's not as relevant anymore.

If you see leave by Morgan using it there's credibility behind that person's name, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, social media has hurt shows, and especially like from the bow manufacturers, I mean that, like you said, they used to all release their flagship bows at ATA every year. And this year, Hoyt Matthews elite, none of them were there.

Pse, BoTech some other ones were there and I think Prime might have been there, I can't remember, but I only got to shoot the pse, , which was cool. But I didn't even feel like I had [00:26:00] time. Like I always felt like we were onto the next thing. And of course that was our first year it was just, a lot going on, but it's overwhelming.

It's overwhelming for sure. It's a kid in a candy store type mentality when you see all the different outdoor products and you need to go to each one. For us, it's a little different because we're going to sponsors and we're renewing contracts and stuff, so we're not really bouncing around for, to check out all the products.

It's it's a different thing for us. We're having to go re-sign contracts for the, for that year or see the new products and learn the new products so we can get out and promote the new products. That yeah. Yeah. So long story short, that's how this all kind of started.

Now, long story short, Mike and I walked by and Josh I think was sitting on a couch. Him and his wife now or fiance? Nope. Wife. Yeah. Okay. I know you guys got engaged, but I couldn't remember how long ago. No, but anyway, we walked by, I'm like, Hey, I'm pretty sure that's Flat Landers right there. So we said hello to you guys and got the talking and you talked about some books.

[00:27:00] and let's back up a little bit. Yeah. Let him tell us about himself. About who? Flat Landers. Oh yeah. I totally forgot about that. Skip. Yeah. 10 minutes into it. Let's talk about an introduction, . Yeah. Tell the folks, tell our listeners who you are, what Flat Landers is, and a little bit about yourself before we get into the meat and potatoes of today's topic.

Good call. It's a flat, we're a family based show. So myself, my wife Jessica, and she has three kids. So I have three kids. They didn't hunt, they didn't fish, they didn't do anything before they met me. And I think our third day I found out that Jessica taken she had taken Hunter Ed in her PE class in high school, and by day 10 of us dating, she was in a deer blind and actually killed like 145 inch eight pointer.

It was that fast. And so since then she was hooked. And then coming full circle, , all the kids have now killed turkeys. They've all killed deer. Jess shot some coyotes. We've been AMLO hunting, we've been awed hunting. We've hunted a lot of different stuff. But I think the [00:28:00] coolest thing for us as flat landers is I've been lucky enough to go all over and film all over and kill stuff all over and whatever, but it was the introducing to the next generation or a new hunter that kind of refired me up because it started being, not, started being, I guess like every deer is still cool, but it was, I'm going deer hunting this year, and it was just routine, and so when I was able to introduce Jessica and she killed a couple deer with her crossbo, and then she made a, like a solid decision of, I'm not doing a crossbo anymore. I want to be able to get my weight up to an actual compound bow and go out and shoot a deer with that. Now she's done that a couple times and killed great deer with that.

And then you go to our oldest, who's now 10, who shot five deer. Our middle is nine is shot two deer. Which one of 'em was 172 inch deer. Ooh. The biggest one in the family ever. My biggest one. 66. And he shot a 1 72 on his first day. Oof. Of his first hunt ever. He's ruined. He's ruined. Talk about ultimate bragging [00:29:00] rights of the family when you walk out and your first 1 72 walks in, shoots it runs 40 yards.

Tips over. And he is did I win the big buck competition? He said, what's so hard about this guys? , come on. We're in a muddy blind and it's 50 degrees outside and he shoots it and tips right over in the soybean field and doesn't have any hard drags, no nothing. And then our youngest is she's a seven year old girl and I think she might be the most ate up with it of anybody.

And she goes out, she loves going out and she's killed, I think 40 or now. That's awesome. It's, and one more off topic thing. It's another thing is, thank God we live in Kansas and not New York because New York, I can't, I think they can't hunt until they're like 15, 12, 15.

I really know which one, but. Yeah, they can't hunt at all. I got some buddies up there that they want to take their kids hunting and they legally cannot. So they have to travel to different states in the Midwest so their kids can hunt at all. Are they at least allowed to go hunting with their parents on track there, but, or not even that?

I think they can go hunting with them. No, I think they can go with them and but they can't hunt. Okay. They can just go [00:30:00] tag along, which, as a kid, you're not gonna want to just go sit in the woods if you can't be the one behind the gun or whatever. If you can't go and you, if especially you say you're going with your parents just to watch them and then you don't see anything, I'd rather be on a Game Boy or a Nintendo or an iPad or, so you gotta get 'em out there and they have to get behind the trigger and actually get a possibility of it. And then backing up just a little bit before that is they wanna go out and learn all the things that you're doing. They wanna go out and shoot a crossbow or a 22 or whatever, they gotta. If you can't get 'em hooked till 15, they're gonna be hooked on other things and then it's too late. They ain't gonna be hunters. Yeah. That's New York for you. Long-winded way of exactly what flat winds is, but . There you go. Hey, that's awesome. And like you said you've filmed all over the place mainly for the outdoor channel, if I'm not mistaken, through the years.

And you've filmed some really cool people. I say you, you mentioned you got to do some cool cool guests there, not guests. You've filmed for them, but who all have you gotten to? Yeah, [00:31:00] so let's do some name tag here. I wanna hear 'em.

Yeah. So my, my, I filmed for 12 years on the Outdoor channel. My mainstay was with a show called Sean Michaels, McMillan River Ventures, which Sean Michaels, for people who don't know, was H B K WW Wrestler, heart Heartbreak kid ever. Yeah. Yeah. So he. Came out of, he retired and then started a hunting show.

And so if you guys don't know Sean Michaels stop listening to us. Exactly. Exactly. I would agree it's gonna get worse. So I filmed him and a guy named Keith Mark. They had a show called Sean Michaels, MCIL Adventures. McMillan River Adventures is a moose hunting concession in the Yukon. And so our homebody, I guess was the Yukon where we went up every year and we'd shoot a couple moose.

And so in the Yukon, I was lucky to film. So Keith obvious he shot the world record with a muzzle loader. I filmed that. No way. Sean shot five or six moose [00:32:00] with All with those Jeff Foxworthy came up with us and hunted with us. Donald Trump Jr. Came up and hunted with us Rock bor Leon. A lot of really cool people came up.

And the cool thing about it was when you got to see him kind in the raw element, when Foxworthy shot his moose, he literally shot it. The moose ran off, it tipped over at 50 yards, he dropped to his knees and cried. And it was like the true rawest emotion you could ever possibly see. Michael Waddell, he came up and shot one with us one time, so it was lucky, so I was able to, wrestling wise, I got to film Stone Cold Steve Austin down at his ranch down in Victoria, Texas. That's sweet. Triple H. Triple H did gator hunts with us down is he as large of a human being as he looks. . Oh yeah. Yeah. He looks like a giant person. . Yeah, it was. So speaking of giant people, being with Sean Raw 1000 was actually in St.

Louis. And so we went to Raw 1000 with Sean and got to go [00:33:00] backstage and meet the Rock and Brock Lesner, and those dudes are just like not natural human beings. They're so freaking big and just ridiculous, bigger than life type people. It's, it was really cool. I got really lucky and got to do a lot of really cool things with Sean and Keith on that McMillan River Adventure Show.

And it was that's awesome. It was cool. Yeah, I got to film in Alaska, Africa, and New Zealand. We got, it was very cool. Sean would be in the airports in middle of nowhere, Africa, no running water, anything. And they knew exactly who Sean Michaels was. They watched him on VHS tapes.

They'd literally take his passport and take pictures of his passport and stuff in the middle of these airports that were so tiny. But they knew exactly who Sean Michael's most, no matter where you were in the world. So that is really cool. Really cool. Yeah. So how many years have you been like professionally filming?

Oh, I don't know. I think I start, my, my very first trip was with Jim Bern Worth. He did a show called Western Extreme on the outdoor channel for a [00:34:00] long time, and we did a, it was a, I was 21 and I'm 34 now, so 14 years. That was an interesting trip too, because we went Wyoming and then straight to the Yukon, and when I was in the Yukon with Keith, we got charged by a moose and he shot it with the bow on a full charge.

and killed it. It ran 25 yards, tipped over dead. And then the next day Ted Nugent showed up and I filmed him shoot his first ever moose at 20 yards and it ran off and died. And that was my first trip ever filming, ever. And I filmed at Elk Hunt and a Moose Sun and literally came back and was like, what the hell did I just do?

Dude, I feel like in what, 13, 14 years you've had literally like a hall of fame filmers career. Oh yeah. Yeah. We've been talking about Patrick Mahomes, the last couple, like how he's had a hall of fame like first six years. Josh is sitting here talking about like 13 years of filming and in my mind, this is like a hall of fame film lineup if I could Yeah.

That, that's crazy, [00:35:00] man. Although, I will say not to discount any of the wrestlers we've talked about. I was a big wrestling fan when I was a kid and we have not said my favorite wrestler's name yet. You want to guess who it was? Probably is terrible. Nah, he was a stud. . He wasn't a mainstream like he was mainstream.

He was mainstream, but he was not everybody's favorite wrestler. He was on ww e or w c w I guess when it was first that you'd probably be like a Scott Hall or No. A Kevin Nash person. No. He a sting. Give us a hint. I got that. Okay, stink. Okay. I'll give you that. I'll give you that. And it was always because I used to collect their action figures and he'd always have these different face paints and different pants.

And I was like, oh, he's wearing the scorpion ones today. He was my favorite one. Yep. Yeah. Then he went bad. He went to the n w man. I was big into wrestling when I was young. . It was fun. It was too, I was huge into it. I was actually in Missouri in Keer Arena when Owen Hart fell from the ceiling. Are you serious?

Oh man. [00:36:00] I was at that oh no. So did they, what hap, did they shut it down? No, at that moment, No. I mean at that moment, yeah. But Owen Hart fell from the ceiling and hit the ropes on the edge there. And you didn't know if in the arena, you don't really know if he's dead or alive or it's a dummy.

It's wrestling, nothing's real. , and then they cart him out and whatever and you sat there for 10 or 15 minutes with nothing happening. And then the Ho Train hit and Godfather walked out and you're like, wow. Show back on. We had no idea. And like you find out later that he passed away, man.

Yeah. I watched it later and like they had announced oh, Owen Hard has died. And then the Ho Train yeah, show goes on. GM Christmas just died and we had no idea, but in there. Dang. Yeah. That's pretty awesome, man. And then as your careers morphed Mike and I don't even know how we got on the subject of the books when we were talking to you and Jess at ata, but you have now out become an author which I think is, I know you written of things before, but these [00:37:00] are books.

What, what made you think about going down this road? Yeah. Which I already know the story, but tell us about what you're doing now. They're not just books, they're, yeah. We'll get into exactly what they are, but what made you where did this idea come from? I was with Jess in a Target and we're walking in the books section and I'm walking through and I'm like, these things are garbage.

We were looking for a baby shatter book, and I'm like, nothing. talks country or hunting or fishing or outdoors or, it's, they're dumb. They were all literally just dumb. Captain Underpants, just stuff that like, I couldn't relate to at all when I was a kid. And so I was like, I gotta write a kid's book.

And I'm an idea guy, Jess she appeases it. She just let Oh, that's great. You know what I mean? Because I just, I have a million ideas all the time. And so I said, I was like, I'm gonna write a kid's book. And by the time we left Target, I had written the book. You were holding Deer Honey, with dad. I had wrote the entire thing on my notes in 45 minutes while Jess was shopping.

[00:38:00] And I started reading it to her when we were driving home and she's I actually think you're onto something here. And I then I read it to a couple of buddies that are in the industry and they're like, you've had a lot of ideas, but I think this one might stick. And here we are.

That was literally January of 22. And now we're in February of 23 and I have four. Four books out and a coloring book and two more in illustration with a backlog of ones that I've written. So it's nice. It's went from a idea in Target to now, which I had no idea. I've been a cameraman editor type guy for, like I said, I guess 14 years.

And writing a book was never on my radar. Never even thought I could write a book or do anything. Now I was able to go out, write it, get it illustrated and now it's, it was in the top 20,000 books sold on Amazon during Christmas time, which 20 [00:39:00] thou Top 20,000 doesn't sound like that great. But when there's 3.2 million books, that's about, there's a lot of books.

That's the top percentage right there. Yeah. You need to say percentile. Makes it sound better. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about the book that's in our hand now, but the four books percentile is that 20,000 divided by 3.2 million. , I don't know. And then I'll be able to tell you, but we're gonna talk about the one that is in our hands right now.

But the four he's got are deer hunting with dad, Turkey hunting with dad. Sadie's gone fishing and cat fishing with grandpa. And then the coloring book is titled Hank the Outdoorsman the coloring book. They're all centered around Hank the outdoorsman. So do you wanna explain that a little bit, Josh?

That's in the top 1%. I told you one percentile right there sounds better if you say it that way. 99. 99 percentile actually would be the way you say. You said 20 th top 21,000, right? Yep. Yeah. . Yeah, you're in top. That's top 1%, man. That's freaking sweet. Yeah. Which it was pretty good for a hunt, a kid's hunting book to get in there.

And this, I mean it, so we were able to, to.[00:40:00] . That doesn't sound good, but we were able to reach some children, . We were able to reach some children during this outdoor season. And it just goes to show that there isn't anything, there's not a whole lot of 'em out there that are like that.

Yeah. So all the books are, right now, they're centered around Hank the Outdoorsmen, right? Yeah. So talk about that theme. Hank was, Hank, the name was, when Jess and I first started dating it, we said, if we ever had a kid, what would you name it? And I was like if it was a boy, it'd be Hank.

And she said, that's exactly the name that I was gonna so that was just our name. We've, if we ever had a kid and it was a boy, it would be named Hank. And so this is the creation of that. And then it just morphed around childhood experiences, like I've wrote books Hank goes to school and the mom and the dad and the grandpa pull hank outta school and take him fishing.

You're just pulling stuff off. Personal experiences because just like you guys, I can remember the first time I ever went deer hunting. I didn't, I wasn't hunting, but I was, my grandpa had made a wooden stand and he chained it to a tree three feet off the [00:41:00] ground, and I sat kicking off the edge and he tree stands away.

And I thought I was deer hunting, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just sitting there, I was sure I was being loud and annoying, and I'd be sitting there stop moving. But my, my grandpa knew he was what? He, we'd walk through the woods shooting stumps with our bows and my grandpa always did a cool thing where he would take, he always had pocket change, every grandpa has pocket change.

He'd take pocket change and flip it into stumps and be like, someday a hundred years down the road, somebody's gonna find that it's gonna be worth something. So just little stuff like that, that your family or friends did or something that, that just. To some people it's stupid, but to guys like us, it's no, that's really, yeah, looking back on it now, you're like, that's cool.

And that's like a core memory I guess you would say that yeah. Little's, tiny, stupid stuff like that just stands out to a kid. So I've just taken those life experiences that I had when I was a kid or that I've witnessed going through and filming stuff and just took him and now put him into books and just trying to touch every area that a kid could even remotely want to go to [00:42:00] with deer hunting and Turkey hunting.

And the next one, spoiler alert a little bit the next one's duck hunting. There you go. Hank goes with his mom and dad. This is the first time mom ever goes hunting, but mom and dad go hunting in an A-frame blind in a cornfield and Hank actually learns how to call and he's the one who calls him in for his parents.

It's it's building up to down the road I think. Hank will be hunting. So then you'll be following Hank Long as he's hunting. And I don't know, it, I wanna have more titles than Dr. Seuss. Let's put it out . That's pretty awesome. And you're exactly right. That's those stupid stories that, people think you have are how the legacy moves on.

My your children, Andy's daughter's starting to get out there with him right now. My son's I missed the boat with my 15 year old daughter. She has no desire. But I'm gonna keep on her. Maybe someday she'll come back around. These things they have happened to 'em are a lot bigger deal to them than you think they are as their parent.

And, they remember those stories. [00:43:00] Like you were saying, your grandpa didn't think anything of throwing that pocket change into stumps. But here you are, 30 years later, 20 years later, talking about it. And, my, hopefully my sons don't think anything. I don't, they, I don't think anything about some of the stuff I've said in the tree, stand with him or wherever, Turkey hunting with him.

But they remember those things. My son still, my oldest son still talks about the time we went Turkey hunt together, the three of us. Oh, really? And how I remember how we walked in on that, that roosted , or whatever it was. And we ended up having to sit down and I remember having him in between my legs, like up against my chest because So you could help him?

Yeah. And he was like, I was nervous, but then I wasn't nervous cuz you were holding me. I didn't realize, but I was like, I was holding him. He's got a gorilla grip around his kid. Yeah. And I think the reason was I was like keeping him still, like I was like that Turkey was so close and he hadn't come down off the roost yet, so we were just trying to.

Wait for him to [00:44:00] fly down and then he flies the opposite direction. But it's, it was just, he's gonna remember those things forever. And then this is just another way for kids to remember stuff about getting into the outdoors is, I remember that book you bought me mom or dad when I was, six.

I go do what Hank does or, yeah. But I like, and that's the exact thing we wanna, these are it's a bedtime story and we have a lot of people come back and say their kids come back to it. Bedtime stories, like the big bad wolf. Everybody thinks wolves are bad because of the big bad wolf.

Wolves are bad, but everybody reiterates that they're bad because of the big, bad wolf. If you can instill positive hunting into their brains while they're. Then you can go to that and I don't think your son, he remembers a little bit of that. There was probably more to it, but it was probably lack of oxygen to the brain.

Cuz you probably had another . Very possible. Very possible. Okay. It was just I'll, you know what's crazy is I'll remember that hunt forever too. Just because I think that was the first time I'd ever taken him Turkey. Honey. I [00:45:00] think it was one of the first time we went in there. I can't remember for sure.

But it was just like, we got in there a little bit late and we are, we're going to the spot we want to be and boom, there's a Turkey. And we're just like, oh no, what do we do now? Cuz he can see us if he's got his eyes open. . And it was just, I thought it was so cool because that he saw a Turkey.

, his first hunt. We didn't kill anything. It was still successful, but it was still cool. But even if you, even if you went there and you didn't see that Turkey, right? The kids remember just the, the smallest thing that you, and I just take for granted, if you went in there and you didn't see a Turkey, you would remember waking up.

You could probably spill your coffee in the truck. He probably got a little muddy. You know what I mean? Just those little tiny things that even if he didn't see a Turkey, he was out there and made memories. If it wasn't a Turkey, it would've been you found some mushrooms, or you played in the mud, or, you guys were bantering back and forth and making fun of each other, and he thought he was one of the guys and so kids pick up on that little stuff. . Yeah, they obviously, they want to kill something or see something or whatever, but just being a part of the club, [00:46:00] I guess you would say Yep.

Is, they'll remember that stuff forever. Yeah, I remember that. I remember waking up early and driving down to magazine, Kansas and going down there and hunting with my dad and the very first duck I ever killed standing in the smallest weeping willow patch you could ever possibly imagine.

And a hin mallard floated in and I shot it and I thought I was Fred zinc . I thought I was the dude. I could kill everything and anything ever out there, actually, matter of fact, I wish I could find it. It's in my office, but on the back of a picture, it's a picture of my brother and.

In front of an old bridge. If you open the back of the picture it has in there, I ought to go get it. On the back of the picture it says like 2001. And I was so ate up that every year I would keep, there's a post note on the back of the picture for every year that I hunted and it told exactly what I shot that year.

Whether it was like, I had banner years where it was like a snow goose, two ducks and a quail . And I write on, and I, and that was like, that was top shelf . [00:47:00] I was like 14 years. I was 13, 14 years old. If I killed five or six things in a year when I killed a deer, a Turkey, two quail and eph pheasant, like record books, write down like I'm somebody, I'm Fred Bearer yep. Yeah. It didn't take a lot to appease me when I was a little hunting. But yeah, it was fun, that's for sure. And now looking back, and I found that just last year, and I found that and I was like, man, that is, Cool.

And something you're gonna look back on because I don't know about you, but like those mounts on the wall, can you, do you know exactly where you killed them? Because there's some, honestly, there's some in here that I'm gonna have to write 'em on the back cuz I guarantee you in 30 years Yeah, there's gonna be other ones on the wall and I'm gonna say, damn, like I killed that one in at my grandpa's in 2010.

I, yeah. When It's funny you should say that, 2060, because I've talked about keeping a journal for years and I've not done it yet. Yeah. And I need to now so on the back of all of my amounts, I'll write the date, the nickname of the deer, if it has any nickname and [00:48:00] what it scored.

And, but you're right, as my sons get more into it, they've both killed a deer now. One of 'em was a buck and. when I'm 60, 65, 70, and I look at that deer and I'm like, did I kill that thing? Or who's is that? Hopefully it'll be at their house by then. But keeping a journal about those, because right now I can look at every deer I've ever killed and remember the story.

I can remember everything about it. Part of that is my O c D brain and my photographic, like I can remember sports scores when I was 17 years old, but other stuff, I don't remember any of it. Like names I suck at, but I can remember scores of games or stuff that happened to me. But eventually those memories are gonna get less sharp.

Yeah. And you're right, a journal. Something to remind you of what happened. A good friend of ours, of the show, Tristan Williams, he keeps a journal every time he goes hunting. Just every little thing. I wish I'd have started doing that when I first hunted. Just no, for sure. Every [00:49:00] day who I went with, what I did and I haven't and I need to, but life gets busy.

Yeah. I know some guys that do that, especially with deer stuff where they know that like the rut, it's gonna be these 3, 4, 5, 6 hot days, no matter if it's hot or cold, they still rutted. Just the same on those few days. God, how valuable is that information? Because he's still hunting the same spots he was hunting 10 years ago.

So if hey, hey on November 9th, my mom's birthday, there's some big deer always get killed. I know that November 9th on my property, like they're running like crazy or I know I've killed most, I would say most of the deer I've ever killed is October 23rd because they're starting to feed up for the rut and all that stuff.

And I know that because on my property as that is somebody else's property's. , maybe it isn't, but you know your properties that well. So I wish a hundred percent. I wish I did the journal thing and yeah, now you're like, man, I don't know if I wanna start now. I'm getting pretty old. I'm 35, but, [00:50:00] got plenty of time. Yeah, I think it's cool. Like you said, yeah. The same lines in the back of the book here. You put some questions just to keep kids, intrigued or thinking, but like number three, he said, how did you feel when dad harvest his biggest buck? And that's not like an answer in the book, I don't believe it is.

Basically, how did you feel reading this book? What did it make you feel like? Make kids think about it. Were they excited? Were they I like that. That's a feature I really like. It got that kid thinking about it and what feelings that, cuz that's hunting these experiences we're talking about, taking notes about, that's what it's doing.

It's creating these, that's why you remember him is because it made you feel something. It made you feel, yeah. Excited. It made you feel. Whatever you wanna talk, however you wanna describe it, but I think that's cool about the book. Yeah. And in, in that same breath is it's how that kid felt.

Like his daughter doesn't really like hunting. That's okay. It's not for everybody. That's perfectly fine. And you can't push them to love the outdoor, and if they don't love it, that's [00:51:00] okay. Find what they do love and go spend time doing that. Yep. And if they read that question, it was like, yeah, it made me sad.

You can go and explain to 'em I'm, I understand it makes you sad, but it's the circle of life and , you need to be harvested and numbers need to be maintained and he shot it to feed his family. I think that's one of the things, like our kids, I think they pride themselves the most.

Do our kids love score? Absolutely. What kid isn't gonna lo, everybody wants to hit a home run, not a single. Yep. You hit a home run like that's really cool. They wanna shoot the biggest buck they can. But I think the coolest thing is when we sit down to dinner and they know we're eating deer seeks, they literally ask every single time, who shot this deer?

But it's like they're proud of who's providing dinner? Yeah. Tonight for our family. Which kid provided dinner? Cuz heck, usually it is kids. . Yeah. There's only two of us so three of the times we could be having their deer. So my son's the one who provided deer for us this year, yeah. And I think that what's cool is, and I'm not saying everybody's gotta do this, but one thing I wanted to do with both of my son's first deer, [00:52:00] where I wanted each of them to know what it was like to feed others. So both of their first deer, we only got half of the deer back. I made sure we went to a processor that would allow us to donate a portion of the deer cuz I wanted them to eat.

Their first deer. But then I wanted them to feel like, hey, you're helping somebody. You can help others too. Yeah. When you kill a deer you don't have to always, be full of your freezer. If you feel pretty good about what you got, you can help feed others and, I think that was cool.

Another really cool I thing I thought about your book was, and I don't want to give too much of it away cause I want people to buy it and read it. But I have to give a shout out to Brian, the illustrator, cuz what I thought was really cool is as you were reading along, you got, there's pictures in the book that kind of tie in the The story and then the kid can visually look at some stuff and say, okay, I see what he means.

Oh, this is cool. The buck in this situation. Deer [00:53:00] hunting with dad is a pretty nice buck, right? He's got some split. G one s looks pretty sweet. He looks bladed up right here. Sure. Like you can experience the stick right along as kid is, how many points was it?

I think you had to go back and count, right? . Yeah. Yeah. Keeps them well and you talked about your ooc d my O c D is when you see a commercial or an ad that says, check out this duck call and it's the goose. Or they say, look at that bug and it's a stag. You know what I mean? So when I made this, I made positive that everything is gonna be anatomically correct.

All the gear's gonna be right. You know what I mean? Dad's gonna have the right bow with the right arrows looking the right way because you don't know what a kid's gonna pick up on. Like even like form wise, or his release or holding a right-handed bow left-handed or . Exactly. Just little stuff like that.

And heck, there might be mistakes, I'm not sure, but like just little tiny things that, that go, I think a [00:54:00] long way. So when in our head it's dad's buying this book because he has these memories of his dad or grandpa. Yep. He's it's a little double-edged sword, right? So he's buying it because he, it brings back those memories from him.

Then he knows he wants to plant those in his kids. . So you're, it's a. You're the one buying it , the kid's not buying it, you're buying it for the kid. So you're getting those memories of then after you read this book to and you're like, man, I tell you what, when I was a kid, we did these, and God forbid you pulled out actually four by six hard pictures and showed those kids like the, they wouldn't even know if it what it was, if it wasn't on a screen.

what's his book he got here? Yeah. Yeah. What the hell's a book? Exactly. I can tell you mom and dad's house, this book isn't on a Kindle, right? Yeah. . This book isn't a Kindle. I don't understand what's happening here, so I can't scroll, I don't what's happening every one of our books, you're right, every one of our books is based around, and it ends with.

A subtle jab at technology, so it, there's always a, you can't [00:55:00] get these memories by being on the video game type thing. Yeah. A lot of not, I guess negative toward technology, but you don't make memories being inside our kids just everybody else's.

They like being on screen time, but they're outside all the time because we tell 'em like, are you gonna remember your high score on whatever you're playing, gonna remember going outside and playing baseball with your friends and something cool happens and God forbid you hit a baseball and it goes through a window.

You'll remember that forever. . Yeah. You're gonna remember playing among us or something stupid like when you were kid. No, you don't even remember what among us is. It's a dumb game. Go outside and make memories. It wasn't a dumb game. Moral mortal comment was terrible but you're exactly right.

That's what I was getting to say. You're, you are, , you mentioned core memories earlier. Your core memories. I have zero. I don't know what my high score and Call of Duty was. I used to play it all the time. I have no idea what any of those things are. I could tell you, the story about almost every single deer I killed, the ones I was with my mom, ones I was with my dad the, my first year I killed on my own.

My [00:56:00] dad's Turkey hunting lessons. He would talk about it, but it was just go do it. What do you mean go try, see if it works. There's turkeys back there. Go mess up some. That's, that's a lot of how it was just go out and just, I won't wanna say jacked around the woods with a shotgun by jacked around the woods with a shotgun and Turkey call

Right? Yep. And you had 20 twos or red rider BB guns that there wasn't a songbird safe around? Oh, no. When I was around there, I never killed any cause that'd be illegal, but Right. There was not a I sure scared a lot of them and shot a lot of pop cans and stuff, which makes you sound crazy.

Oh, I shot a bunch of pop cans off the string back there. No, I shot a pile of pop cans with a BB gun just bec and just chased them around the yard. You'd shoot 'em and they'd shoot over six inches, you'd shoot 'em again and just keep trying to push 'em down. Stuff like that, heck, if you did it in someplace you just get in trouble.

Yeah. But let kids be kids and let 'em just get outside and enjoy and adventure and learn. Yeah. And books like this. Drive that home. Another thing I like about his books was the words to no section. , cuz the parent knows a lot of these things, [00:57:00] but like a knock. What is a knock?

You also, after they read it to the kid, they can go through that with them and say, Hey, do you know what a knock is? You also to think is this is also hitting, I'm sure Officer Josh was aware, but not every kid lives in an outdoor community. Not every parent lives in outdoor community.

And I feel like these books hit a niche. You're right. You walk into Walmart, walk into Target, whatever. There's not stuff that teaches the outdoors for kids. . I bet you there's parents that don't know what some of those words are. A knock or a what? They don't bow hunt. They don't know what it's called.

Yeah. So this is a, this is a good way for all of 'em to learn sometimes. Yeah. You're make a good point. It doesn't have to be, this could be a book bought by people who don't even hunt, or fish or, the other four, the other three books that he's got. Just to get them all interested and, like I said I think he did a great job.

My oc d was entertained during this book. Even to the point where you've got your bow drawn back. I'm looking at the Broadhead going, I wonder if that's a slick trick. Is that an exodus? ? What is that? Because it's a really [00:58:00] good detailed, like you can see the Broadhead, I can tell it's a three blade fixed head, I'm pretty sure.

And I'm sitting there going, I wonder what that is. , . So I know my buddy Brian, he's not a hunter, so I had to go through and , make sure and be meticulous and send him screenshots of every single thing and exactly what I want. Down to the food plot, lettuce looking stuff that's in the field.

You know what I mean? That's obviously for everybody to know, like turn ups and radishes and stuff like that. For a guy who doesn't know that, the outdoors is a funky world. Like we go and till up good land and plant stuff that's gonna die and then and then we do it again next year and spend a bunch of money and dump a bunch of fertilizer in the ground to hopefully make it bigger and better next year and whatever.

And to normal people, that's not normal. But to us it's that's normal and I would what we're doing. Yeah. Imagine my life any other way. Yeah, definitely agree with you, man. But deer Hunting with Dad is the book that I read to my sons when we got back from ata.

Bennett liked it obviously a lot. , can I do that, dad, can that be me? And that, I think that's exactly what these books are doing is you're right. Bringing. [00:59:00] A book to, the hunting community for kids. Cuz you're right, I didn't know of anything. I think this feels a huge void.

Yeah. That's needed. I appreciate it. That was exactly the goal. One of the lines in there is my dad's a camouflage superhero. What kid doesn't want to grow up to be just like their dad? And when, hopefully when your son said that Hey, can I do this or whatever. Can we do it right now?

No, but we can go fishing, we can go shoot a bow. We can go, give him another alternative that we can do right now. We can go shed hun We can go. I can go do whatever. Go fishing, go shoot bows, go. We'll sticks. Who cares? Anything that gets 'em outdoors and yeah. Loving that.

I, my kids like the peace and quiet, believe it or not. They're loud kids, don't get me wrong. But they like going inside, outside and sitting in peace and quiet. . So is there a plan on I, I guess a series, you have what, four now you said a couple on the hopper in multiple waiting.

Is there a plan on Hank's about to be busy, it sounds like? Yeah. There, there definitely is a plan. [01:00:00] But I, again, I've never done this before. And I'm not going to go with a publisher because a publisher just, they take everything. So there's no means of going and doing it.

And it's, you can't even break even. So I'm doing it all on my own. My wife's a big Shark Tank person, so I want to go to the big box stores with these and whatever, but I don't have all the answers to all the questions yet. As far as right now the one you're holding is the paperback.

Now I need to go through and get all these into hardback books because parents want hardback books more than they want paperback books because a kid's gonna tear up that. Do everything with dad and then God forbid you have to buy another one. And darn it, say Darn it, stick with the paper back.

Dam it. . So we're crossing all of our I and or crossing all of our T's and dunking all of our I and trying to get the hard backs going and everything, and making sure we have everything perfect before we go into those bigger meetings and they say, Hey what's your hardback cost?

And we're like, oh shit. We haven't even thought of that yet. You know what I mean? Yeah. So we wanna make sure we have everything in ducks in [01:01:00] a row. I guess you would say that before we, we venture out too far from our comfort zone because Yeah we've never done this before. My, my wife's in marketing and stuff like that.

So we have an idea and I'm in the outdoor industry, obviously, and so like I know a decent amount of what hunters want or outdoor companies want or whatever. So we're trying to actually try to find some partners in the, that. people that would move an n WTF with the Turkey hunting with Dad or yep.

Ducks Unlimited with the the duck hunting book that we're working on. So stuff like that, we're just trying to grow and evolve and we're only a year into this and we sold thousands of books, I would say, last year, which if you can sell thousands in the first year of what you're doing this literally came off notes on my phone, so I it's gone bigger and better than I could have ever planned right now.

And we're just trying to get it to everybody because if it gets in one kid's hand, , how do you know they don't give it to another kid or in influence another kid and then you make another kid a hunter. So that's the end goal. That's awesome. Yeah, and that's why we wanted to have you on, I think, [01:02:00] bringing more awareness to books like this out there for kids is our goal with having you on today.

So before, we wrap a bow on this one why don't you tell people how they can find your books so that they can buy one, get their hands on? We will link the Amazon I'm assuming that's probably the easiest way people to find them, but, tell 'em how they can get ahold of you guys and how they can get ahold, get their hands on one of these books.

Yeah. So hank the outdoorsman.com is where all of the books are on our website. Obviously Amazon has 'em as well. Flatliners TV is where you can find our show. We're on YouTube, carbon tv, masio, go. And looking to be actually on a another. TV network possibly next year. So we're growing and evolving on that end too.

So we're busy, we're, we are bi between kids baseballs and gymnastics and hanky outdoorsmen. And my wife has two businesses and I have, it's a lot. So we're doing the best we can and moving and evolving and trying to take over the world. Awesome. Go ahead [01:03:00] Andy. I was gonna say a core memory of my, you're talking about, I keep going back to that, but like you're talking about kids being busy and everything.

I remember I got to Miss was youth season. I'd get to miss basketball practice and go deer hunting, but the agreement with the coach was I had to bring him some deer. Yeah, he had to get some jerky from it and that my, my absence would be excused. So I can remember that just as a core member. I'm surprised there was anybody at practice growing up in a farm town like that.

Yeah. During you season . But once again, for the listeners, the books are Deer Hunting with Dad, Turkey hunting with Dad. Sadie's gone fishing and cat fishing with Grandpa. He's got four books out right now and there is a coloring book that you can pick up too for the kids. Be sure to check them out.

We will link the website and the Amazon link to the books so that folks can pick 'em up and support this. Awesome. This awesome thing that Flat Landers is doing. And Josh, we appreciate your time and coming [01:04:00] on. Yeah. Bellas, I appreciate it for sure. And if there's any time that you guys are gonna be like, like we, we have met at the Bud shoot down in Marsh, Missouri, if you guys are gonna do one of those.

Let us know cuz we'd love to, to join up with you guys again. We're looking to do three Ds again and you guys are just kinda hop skip it and jump away, sounds like. Yeah, we definitely need to we didn't do a very good job last year doing ems. You guys used to shoot at one, if I remember right.

There's one out by you. So it was like an elevated 3D archery place. What was always wanted never It archery elevated. Oh, that's easy enough. Elevated archery. I always wanted to make it out there and try that because it did that, but we never did. I remember you, you're the one that told me about that.

Yep. It's a great spot. Elevated archery. It's a you there's a deck and you step out onto a tree stand and that's your hard angles down. And I think you can shoot out to 80 yards now on a tree standing. It's all downward angles. They're, the whole thing is trained like you hunt, I like it. You're out there. Yeah. And you shoot from jp, he's a buddy of ours, but he's just a dick sometimes. He puts like the squirrels in the trees and the dude sells arrows and [01:05:00] he likes to put spots where you lose arrows. So you're shooting 80 yards at a standing bear and you're shooting 10 yards at a squirrel and a tree that's behind two other trees.

So it's really fun and it does test you and it makes you, it, it train like you hunt. That's exactly what you're doing when you're doing it. And I can't say that I've never lost scenario. And I think Jess has a couple still stuck in the trees too Hey that's all right. Sounds like a good time to me.

Yeah, that's for sure. Oh, good. Josh with flatly underst tv, thanks for coming on today, man. Yeah, fellas, have a great night.

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