Show Notes
Hey everyone and welcome to history in the making! Okay maybe that's a little bit overkill, but still we have some really exciting news to share in this episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast. Matt & Parker are joined by a common face around these parts, Walter Lee. They share some huge news about the future of Southern Ground Hunting that you'll definitely want to hear.
The guys also announce a huge giveaway we're doing to celebrate the new changes. We're going to be giving away a Bowtech CP28 bow, fully loaded with a Black Gold sight, Ripcord rest & TightSpot quiver. Make sure you're subscribed to The Southern Collective on YouTube for a chance to win!!!
Extra entries if you're a part of our Patreon community:
https://www.patreon.com/socohunt
Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!
Our Partners:
Tethrd - www.tethrdnation.com
Nucanoe - www.nucanoe.com
Bowtech - https://bowtecharchery.com/
Black Gold Sights - https://blackgoldsights.com/bowsights/
Ripcord Rests - https://ripcordarrowrest.com/
TightSpot Quivers - https://www.tightspotquiver.com/
Join or Die Knives - https://joinordieknives.com
Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast, where you're gonna hear a valuable hunting based conversation that's tailored for us southern folk. If you love what we do and would like to support Southern Ground Hunting, you can visit patreon.com/southern Ground Hunting, or you can click on the link in the show notes below.
We'd love for you to join the Southern Ground Hunting community today. Again, that's patreon.com/. Southern ground hunting. You can also support us by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. It helps more than and we greatly appreciate it. And now let's get to the show.
All right, everybody. Welcome back to one of the last episodes of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast. We've got just a few more left of this thing. We told you guys we had some big stuff. Coming down the pipe and we're gonna talk about it This week. I'm joined by [00:01:00] Matthew Res, like normal and a new, yep, a new business partner, I guess you could say.
Longtime friend repeat guest on the show. One of my best friends in the world. Yeah. Several times actually. We got Walter Lee joining us today. Walt, how's it going? Hey, man. It's going great. It is a cool 98 degrees today, I think at two o'clock. The bugs are biting and we're about 53 days away from my final countdown of the year.
So we're 53 days away from college football, which means I'm one week away from deer season. That's how I frame that up in my head one week away, so that's pretty good. College football starts and then the next week is Florida's opener. Is that right? Georgia's opener. Technically Georgia's opener.
Technically, we're like three weeks away from South Florida opening. I just, I can't bring myself to drive eight hours to hunt and a hundred degree heat. That is true. I forget about [00:02:00] it every year. Yep. And then usually around the time I'm at the beach right now. I'm in Daytona. And if people hear an echo, it's because the only place I get good wifi in this condo is in the bathroom.
So my my computer's sitting up on the toilet. Are you toilet? Are you sitting on the toilet? I'm not. The computer is, I'm just sitting on the hard tile that I think we lost. Matt Walter, we did just that quick. His hotspot ran out. Old boy driving down the road too quick. His hotspot wasn't hot enough.
But we're doing kind of a hodgepodge podcast today. I wasn't planning on doing another podcast while I was here, but we're going do knock this thing out, Walter as Matt's gonna get back on, I'm sure but what, we've got some, we've got some pretty big news to share with people.
Dude, I am excited if they haven't already heard, if they haven't already heard about it. If they live under a rock and this time of year, that sounds pretty cool temperature wise. So I might be if y'all can report back and let me know, I'll start [00:03:00] crawling underneath rocks too. But yeah, it's big news.
It completely changed the hunting industry. Completely. Completely Changes the whole hunting industry as a whole. You're correct. It does. It's that big a news. No, but I started out the episode saying that this is gonna be the, one of the last episodes of the Southern Ground Hunting podcast.
Because you and I are gonna join forces and Matt's gonna be a part, Brett's gonna be a part. All the guys gonna be a part of this. I'm really excited about it. So I figured we take this week, we've got a few more episodes that are going to roll out through the month of July. But I figured I would take this week or this episode and just share the vision of what we're doing and talk about some of the new things coming up. I'm super pumped about it. I've been pumped about it for, I guess we've been going on nearly six months of sitting on this idea. And and here we are. It's time. It is. Yeah. And it got real.
Oh, there's Matt, he's back. It got real right about the time I. It wasn't even [00:04:00] the announcement, it was when we updated my podcast feed to say the Southern Collective Hunting Podcast. Yeah. And I went to find my podcast to look for another episode while I was recording with Jake Bush and I told him, I said, dude, I don't know what happened, but my feed is gone.
And I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling and I can't find chasing tails. And that's cause chasing tails wasn't there anymore. It was kaput. As of that moment, chasing tails does not exist anymore, so it's gone. You heard it here. Southern Ground Outlived Chasing Tails podcast.
It did, man. Let me, lemme throw a question at you real quick. All right. I'm gonna take over your feet and I promise this is the only time this podcast I'll do that. How does it feel saying that southern ground's coming to an end? Man, it's it's rough dude. I. It's good and bad.
I think I said it on your podcast the other day, when you quit a job it doesn't matter how much you loved or hated the job, quitting a job is a hard thing to do. It's really hard when [00:05:00] you actually do like the job. And that's how, that's how I feel with Southern Ground, and this season of things that are going on, it's like, I put a lot into that and I don't wanna say that I'm the only one, Matt put a lot into it as well this last year.
Guys in the past like Michael Pike, guys who have been a part of the show and been a part, they've put in time. There's a lot of work that's gone into creating the Southern Ground brand and a lot of money, if I'm being honest with you. Yeah. As you well know, and but I don't look at 'em, I don't look at it as a bad thing.
I didn't get fired from a job. We're going to, to new Horizons, man. It's gonna be some new stuff. There's gonna be some growing pains. There's gonna be some of that stuff that happens through this transition and through this merge. But at the end of the day, we are gonna have more fun because we're gonna be.
Doing what we love with our friends who, people who I genuinely call my best friends. And we're gonna be creating more stuff for [00:06:00] the end consumer, for the people who listen to this podcast or watch the YouTube videos. It's just gonna be better all the way around. It's all excitement here.
Maybe just a little bit of that. Like right now I'm sitting here on this Zoom call and I was looking at the Southern Ground logo that pulls up and I'm like, man, I'm not gonna see much of that anymore. It's sad, but. The So SoCo one's cooler. The SoCo one's awesome, but you can archive, all your southern ground stuff.
And Walt, you were saying, with Parker going from southern ground to Southern Collective me and Parker started working together last year. It was, what was it about this time, Parker? That we started doing stuff together. Yeah, it would've been a little bit earlier.
Yeah. But yeah, dude, it was that I was, and I was gonna say the same thing, dude. You kinda had to live this last year and Yeah, and it's, I don't know, it's, I'm getting to re I was excited last year, to do it. But when you start partnering with people that are like-minded like we are, it was just two of us.
And [00:07:00] that, that meant a lot to push each other. So now we've got, Brett and Walt that are, we're gonna continually push continually. Push ideas off each other, and like we've said, on the other feed, we've all got our strong suits, but we come together to build, what we believe is gonna be an awesome team.
And we've already seen that. We've already seen how we're working together and that's what excites me the most. It's not like just this one thing's put on this person. It's everybody together. And, as Parker said, with us being, the, these are our best friends, our best hunting buddies, I grew up.
Where everybody looked at me like I had three eyes because I lived and breathed, toning, and now we're in a group and not just saying the four of us, this is the group with our Patreons, our Marco Polo guys, they're, we're all a tight-knit group and that's what's. Driving me so much this year to, to want to do my best, to want to produce the most amount of content and to do it with like-minded people.
And so that's, for me, jumping [00:08:00] from, Southern Pursuit, Southern ground over doing Southern Collective each three of those have something in common. And it's, the south. And that's what we're here to do is produce southern content for people and to do it at the best we can.
And that's, I. I can't express enough about our group that I'm just, I'm so excited to jump into this. Matt, you are correct. It is really exciting and part of the thing that makes this thing more exciting is this Patreon group. And I'll let Walt talk about that for a minute.
We haven't really we haven't really Told everybody yet what this new, we've said the name and stuff, but we haven't explained it really in depth. And Walt, I believe you gave me the opportunity to do that on your podcast. And so I'm gonna give you the opportunity to just unveil this new project that we're gonna be working on.
You said, so you cut out for just a second. I'm gonna, you're talking about the Patreon component of this, right? [00:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I can I'll edit that part out. I'll read you that whole question. Sure. Matt, you are, you're a hundred percent on that. The Patreon group really makes this thing more exciting, and that's largely due to Walter's effort that he's put into Patreon in the last.
Couple years and but we haven't really, we haven't really explained what this new brand is and what the vision is behind it, this whole project. Walter, I think you gave me the honor of sharing that with your listeners. So I'm gonna return the favor and let you just give like a, an unveiling of this new project.
Yeah. Yeah. So SoCo is the backbone of com. It's community SoCo is all about community. And what we found before we merged was that there was this gravitational pull towards needing connection. Whether you grew up with Hunt Camp or you read about these famous hunt camps it's on our bio, on our website where, you just grew up idolizing these things or hearing about this Aragon by there's still a need for connectivity.
We're all humans, man. I'm a [00:10:00] lone wolf in the woods. I like to go off and do my own thing, but at the end of the day, I like sharing it with people. And so Patreon's gonna be our digital Deer camp. This is gonna be a way for you to connect with like-minded people, support the show while you go.
But also be able to find that encouraging deer hunting mentor, whether it's for things you haven't done before or, honestly just overall encouragement because I think the best thing. About this group, and it's subdivided into two platforms. We'll talk about that in a second. Is that there's n there is a constant ongoing recycling of information.
And I don't mean that, and like you're gonna hear the same thing over and over again, but every single experience that Matt has, he's bringing to the table to share. Same for Parker, same for Split Shot in Chicken Buck and Tall and all these other guys. These aren't these guys actual names, by the way.
Yeah. The first time I ever heard you talking about your Patreon guys, I'm like, where do these people come from? The [00:11:00] swamps of Florida? My gosh, that name's like chicken Flo. And don't let that name fool you. The dude crushes some big deer. Yeah, it does. Yeah. But that, I think the names dude give give a really good I mean it's a fun part of the Patreon and I think it's just a fun part of what, how you are walked, because you pretty much give everybody a nickname. Yeah, I think I've had three of them in your phone Saved my contact. What was it, p Dizzle Mac Dizzle or something.
P Dizzle S is your current nickname. It used to be Bark Buster. Bark Buster, because I've shot my Fair Share of Trees. Yep. And Gut Shot was another one because I've shot. Far back a couple times. Too many. Yeah, I changed that one cuz it felt a little insensitive killing a tree or wounding a deer and not catch it.
And I get recover and it seemed different. But and I'll say this, like you just said, nicknames are subject to change. Bark Buster has been awarded to old trucker Kyle, who last year gave everybody hell and then proceeded to butcher. Just straight heart shoot, like a three Edge Oak [00:12:00] sapling.
And was man enough to put it in the Patreon group, which I don't know if that's man enough or stupid now that I say that out loud, but but so let's talk about the two subsets, right? So we've got two different areas that you can get plugged in. So if you support Patreon and you wanna be part of this community, we have an app on your phone called Discord.
Probably anybody our age has a, an idea of what Discord is. But if you're not familiar, think of an old school deer for. It's all the dialogues are broken up by topics. We have everything from things gray beard hates, which includes fried chicken. Also not his birth name, also Not his birth name.
Yeah. Or the color of his beard originally either. Fun fact. But we have all kinds of stuff in there. And he's not a pirate. He might be, I wouldn't rule that out. But it, it's a lot of fun in there. So we have a lot of categories that you can just via text, right? It's, Hey guys, I got a question.
You get a bunch of responses, but we have this second tier, which is the Patreon, Marco Polo community, which [00:13:00] is short format as long as Graybeard isn't using it. Video messages. And we have three or four different groups in there. Deer hunting, a BS group. A Turkey group and a fishing group now.
And so that's four groups. And basically it's a great way to show people the stuff that we're talking about. We'll have a guy be like, Hey, I need to carry my platform and my sticks. What do you guys do? And then you've got 50 something plus people all willing to show you exactly what they do. It's perfect.
It really is. Like when guys talk about a l Deer or Texas Bow Hunter was another one. GMs G GN forum. Yep. Even the Turkey scene has several of them with what is it? Old Gobbler forum. There's a lot of 'em. Rock Slide is another one.
This isano the, it's basically what this is what this Discord group is for anybody needing like a picture of what it does. And dude, it, that is probably one of my favorite parts. And the funny thing is I don't really I don't write just a ton. But there's [00:14:00] so much information to just skim through even the old stuff, man.
Like I was reading through something from like January of this year and I was like, huh. It was like something about trail cameras, I think. And so it's just a wealth of information right there. And I want to reiterate too, Walt I think it's easy for somebody to say, oh, that sounds like something great for somebody trying to get into hunting.
And it is, you're, you would be correct in that assessment, but also it's great for somebody who's been a hunter, who's been a veteran. We talked about graybeard and and chicken buck and split shot. And those guys, they've been hunting their whole lives, man. And they're good at it.
And they share a ton of really good information. So it's really not it's not all about you and I and Matt and Brett and all these guys. Trying to mentor or teach. It's, it just naturally happens within the group itself. And and there's some coolest crap benefits to being a Patreon member as well.
We've got things like the Patreon hunt. Talk about that Walt, because to me [00:15:00] that is one of the greatest benefits of the whole thing. Everybody's always looking for a chance to go and hunt somewhere and hang out with a few people and not have to go everywhere by yourself. I think this is a really fun one.
I think this is gonna be huge. So this is, as far as I know, the first deer camp. Vibe. I don't even know how to pitch this, but basically 2023 is gonna be the first ever Patreon deer camp that we do, that we're gonna feature a dog hunt. Let me just say right now, there's a, that's a very controversial thing for a lot of people.
And by no means do, if you want to come to this, do you have to dog hunt? We just have several, I don't call 'em dog hunters, they call themselves dog hunters. But to me in today's society that doesn't do them justice. These are hounds men, if you ask me like they truly are. Craftsman at what they do.
And I think the dog hunting mantra it, or at least the public persona is that they're just a bunch of hicks that run out there, drop dogs and hope for the best. And that's not the case. These guys love their dogs. There's a science behind it. These guys have taught me more [00:16:00] about deer hunting just from having ran dogs and witness patterns that deer have.
But we're gonna have our first deer hunting. Patreon Hunt as Soko it. All the information is on our Patreon website. It is gonna be at the tail end of January. I'm not gonna say anything more about that because what I don't wanna do, and this is something that happens every year, is people try and crash the party who aren't part of the Patreon group.
Whether that's. Creators or other people who just aren't part of it. And this is really truly one of our ways of saying thank you to the people who are helping to support the podcast. So if you're interested in the show notes, there's gonna be a link. I'm sure Parker can share that you can go and sign up.
It's limited entry because the campsite can only hold so, so many people. And it's capped at 30. And as of the time we record this, we're already up to 21. This is a. Heavily look forward to thing. We do this for Turkey too. I think that's important to say is we're gonna have a Turkey camp as well. And I know we have some big plans for future hunts as well that may include the state of Alabama.
Absolutely. We and for people thinking about this, I always run [00:17:00] things through this filter. Like we really try hard with these hunts to make sure that everybody knows, like we're not. We're not trying to hotspot places. We talk about that quite a bit on the, on this show.
That's the exact opposite. So that's why we try to make it a little bit I guess exclusive to the Patreon members the Patreon members. Most of those guys they ain't trying to do that either, they're not trying to broadcast hunting areas. But going back to what you said about the Turkey hunt, man, the Turkey, the Patreon, Turkey hunt this past year was my favorite, one of my favorite Turkey hunts that I went on.
Went on all season. Just the overall community aspect of it was great, but the Turkey hunting was pretty, pretty rock solid too. And we had a great time on that trip. You're talking about dudes was Chuck and Pat? They freaking opening day of this Turkey camp, these jokers went out and killed four birds.
Just them went out and killed four birds. Chase killed one that opening day. And dude, [00:18:00] you want to talk about just the morale of a camp that has had some stuff killed in it? Golly, it's so much fun. I wouldn't trade those days like that for anything. I re they go so far deep into my cherished memories just because of what you're talking about.
It's the community. Like I've killed a lot of stuff by myself and it's fun, man. I love it. I love hunting. I'm like you, I like to hunt by myself a lot too. Those are fun. The ones I remember is when I had people with me and it goes back to this deer camp. Mindset or this deer camp feel, which is went into every single part of the formation of the Southern Collective, which is what we're called the Southern Collective.
You may hear us say SoCo for short. We're gonna say that actually probably a lot is a little bit easier to say. But every part about the branding the things that we're rolling out has to do with that community aspect. So much so that the, even the logo that we chose for this thing is a fire pit, a fireplace, a campfire.
Yep. Man and when I think about what the campfire means I [00:19:00] think about the times with my dad. He talked about it in our Father's Day episode. The campfire is such a centerpiece for a deer camp, and a lot of the greatest memories that we have come from that campfire cooking over and opens open fire.
Dad mentioned it in a podcast when I was a kid. One of the greatest memories of hunting that I have I was a kid and we went out and hunted, went and ate breakfast or we went back to camp to make some breakfast. We didn't have any pots and pans, so we made some eggs in a Dr. Pepper can, like we cut open a Dr.
Pepper can, made some scrambled eggs in it, dude. Like those type of things are I feel that a lot of people miss out on 'em, especially adult onset hunters, which we have a lot of those in the Patreon group as well, and they get to have those moments. And I just think it's like, And that's why it's the, it is the sole focus.
We decided that every decision that we make about this thing is gonna come back to, does it go back to the fire? Does it point people back to the fire and yeah. I'm pumped [00:20:00] about it, man. Passionate about it too. I think that's why I'm so excited. I know you and Matt and Brett, all the guys are just pumped about it as well.
And so it's just We're in a weird phase of it right now, just starting, but man, I'm super jacked about the future of it. Matt, can I ask you a question? Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, listening to you two talk and I've been, I y'all said lone wolf, you hunt by yourself.
My whole life, it's just been me and my dad. I've been skeptical of hunting around other people just cause that's, Kind of the stigma for deer hunting, you kinda just do it on your own for where I'm from. And so we joined hunting clubs, but I never experienced hunting camp. There was not a camp house.
There was no fire. I never got around that. But in the last, three or so years I've started, getting a little out of my shell, being around people and dealing with that. It just brings something else to the. The environment like Parker's saying, be being around people, like-minded people that aren't just total, turds, they're [00:21:00] actually wanting you to do well, because, I think that, if you get a hunting club and you start talking to a lot of grown men and you start hunting the same spots, they get mad, they'll kick you outta the club if you kill too many deer. Stuff like that. And it, that's the thing with our community is it's not.
About one person's success versus other. Everybody's rooting for everybody. Everybody's pumped if somebody kills something, and that's something that I have not been around. And it's something that's been introduced to me through y'all and it's gotten me, I feel just as much. As a beneficiary, as anything in this.
And that's what, gets me excited for the fire to be welcomed to the fire. Not just a place where you stand and side eye people. It's a place to talk, place to share your stories, and a place to just, come together with people from multiple states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Oregon, all over the place, is where this platform is built from.
So we, we welcome everybody. That's good point. Matt. You answered a lot of what I was about to tee up there for you [00:22:00] as a point of pride. The Patreon community that I've built, I feel like is very robust. And I had a big heavy hand in creating that. Matt, when I added you back during Turkey season we hadn't told everybody we were doing this.
We kept this real quiet. We knew we were doing this like right before Turkey season, right? Pat pat Parker. We're super tight. We've known each other a real long time. Yeah,
that is correct. Will yeah we've been talking about
No, we kept it under wraps. Big time. Big time. But to throw that to, to Matt, when I threw you in that group, did you expect what you found? No, I did not. And that's, that's something I was able to, I wanted expressed to you is what a good job y'all did to build that form.
But my phone like it's used to been pretty dry because I get work calls or a couple of my good friends call me, but my phone [00:23:00] was blowing up. And the other night I was laying in bed and it was in the morning, it was like four 30 in the morning and Discord was just blowing up and my wife's over there just like slapping me, trying to get me to cut my phone off.
Because everybody's, messaging in there and I'll check my phone sometimes and there'll be a hundred polos and I'm behind. Do you wanna know more about saddle hunting? You can go to tethered nation.com for all your saddle hunting heats, tethered is for saddle hunters, buy saddle hunters and the redefining ultralight hunting.
If you know me, you know that I love to have a system for all of my hunting equipment where everything works together. And we preach about it a lot on this podcast. When you buy from tethered, you can rest easy knowing that all your gear is designed to work together as a system, saddles, platforms, ropes, climbing sticks, and a ton of other great gear just for saddle hunting can be found by visiting tethered nation.com today.
That's tethered nation.com. Check them out.[00:24:00]
Whether you are looking for a new knife for the field or the perfect everyday carry, you've gotta check out, join or Die. Knives from Richmond, Virginia join or Die is a small shop and a custom knife maker dedicated to creating handmade knives that are cut above the rest. That make custom handmade knives to fit any need from the field to kitchen or just an everyday carry, and they come in several different steel and finish options.
They've also got a ton of options for the handle as well. Plus, if you don't see something you like, you can always order a completely custom knife forged to your exact specs. I highly recommend you Check 'em out. Get yours at join or die knives.com. And use the code SG hunt to save 10%. That's all uppercase, all one word.
S g h u n t, with what to expect from Patreon. I didn't expect it. A lot of times you hear, and we've been guilty of it, that we're gonna, Produce this or do that. But when you get [00:25:00] in the Patreon account, it is constant, it may not be in, a YouTube video form, but it's knowledge that these guys from experience have, they're not create content creators.
They're not, filming in the woods. They're just hunters. They're raw hunters that know what they're doing. And like y'all said earlier, it's not just a bunch of people who are trying to learn how to hunt. Yeah, we do have some people like that are year one or year two in it, and everybody is so welcoming.
It's not Hey, here's a click over here, or that this person gets singled out. It's not it's like we said, it's a community of folks that want to help people out, and. We talk about name dropping, everybody has their spots. They're not gonna be like, Hey, I'm gonna send you this pen where I got this big 10 point.
We, you still keep your cards to your chest, but you share your knowledge and what you know, and that's been a great help for me, with, I hunted some in Florida and saw some things and I'm learning some things, for the future when I go back to Florida, I don't know [00:26:00] when that may be, but it's really cool.
It's really awesome place. Yeah, Matt, when you're talking about knowledge, the knowledge that's in there like it is and specifically about like people naming their areas. So we've talked a lot about that. We've talked about Hotspotting, some, on social media and on a few podcasts too.
I think we talked about it maybe more even on limb hanger. Than we have here. But that's been a thing, with the development of Facebook groups and just stuff like that. I think that's probably the worst spot is Facebook groups and YouTube comments. That is the worst hotspotting areas that I've seen.
And I think the reason so many people do that is because, They feel a sense of community and belonging in these groups, forgetting that there's 20,000 people in a group like that, you know that when you post something about w a they're gonna, people see that 20,000 people that jump potentially could [00:27:00] see that.
Well, Parker, we had an instance, where we were talking to a guy and, we didn't name drop anything or anything like that, but they didn't say anything because they knew, they'll tell you all the details of what happened, but location is disclosed and that's, I've been burned on it.
I get too comfortable with people and I'm like, yeah, I was blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it's crap, there's 10 people over here now. Yeah. And it's just, it can be tough and it's a touchy subject sometimes because people then come to the census, oh, it's. It's public land. Any anybody can do that.
Yeah. But you didn't sweat and go out there and put in the work and yeah that's what I tell, like Andrew Hunt's with me. You met him last year in Kentucky. Walt, you'll probably get to meet him soon. Andrew's my hunting buddy. That's who I hunt with. I was very.
Weary of it at first, because I've ne I've never had anybody that hunted with me besides my dad. And, to talk to people and then be able to trust guys [00:28:00] that they're not gonna say anything. That's huge. And so when you can find that in an individual, that's great. But when you can find that in a community that's even bigger, and I'm not saying we're like, like I said, we're not dropping pins for people, but it's like, Hey, if you look at this area, I'm not gonna be able to hunt here.
This was good to me. This time or something like that, something so simple. And I'm still new, I'm still new with the Patreon group, so I haven't been through a whole hunting season with these guys, so I don't know the full details about, a little more about that. So I'm, that's what I'm looking forward to is seeing how these guys seasons goes and how we share through the seasons.
Here's one thing I can tell you about these guys, is they are active during hunting season. It is very active. But it is really fun because for example I wasn't a part of this conversation, but I know that it happened when Jbo, who we had on the show a month or so ago, talking about the day he shot two bucks in one day.
That [00:29:00] story unfolded on the Patreon group. And from what I hear, Walt, it was like, it was just one of those days where people felt like they were in camp with Jbo. It was just amazing. Yeah, it really was. It was one of those things where the worst part and this, this both tongue in cheek, but seriously, like the worst part about this is you will be doing something unfun while someone is hunting in that group.
And it is it's like drinking saltwater when you're dehydrated because you are desperate to be out there. And so you're like I'll just jump on there and see who's doing what. And then you have jbo having this freaking existential crisis having shot a. Watching that whole thing unfold, and I didn't, and you're, we are waiting on the next polo.
So you got the app like pulled up, you're like, oh God, he had this near encounter and bam, he got the big one. I'm just gonna sit here a few minutes later. And you're like, yeah, man, you send him all encouraging messages. He is in the stand like on low listening to it, and he's and he was right here and this is what he's doing.
And you're just listening to everything. All of a sudden you hear. Why God, the big one gave back. And here you're like, no, [00:30:00] there's no way this is happening while I'm at work. And it's like a Tuesday, and you're like, why am I not in the woods? Dude, Saturdays are like a year away every Monday in that group because chicken bucks, somebody is hunting and you are dying to be out there with him.
And it is always just, everybody does such a great job of taking you along for the ride. It's not like they just pop in. They're like, Hey guys, here I am. At 5:00 AM you've got, it's not tail chasers anymore, but it was gray beard, good morning tail chasers. And he's I'm off to the woods to go do such and split shots.
Yeah I'm creeping into this funnel right here. I'm about 200 yards away, I tell everybody early season activity, this is what I'm looking for. And he's got his headlamp on the ground and he's showing you like fresh grape on a food source. He's I'm gonna climb this tree.
And I think by nine o'clock deer are gonna come around. Then nine o'clock comes around, there's split shot with his 13th. Deer of the season killed and he's here and this is how I did it. And so it's it's a live stream of constant information. And Parker, you talked about the new guys in that group, I feel like the new guys keep us fresh because they ask the questions that we just take for [00:31:00] granted having already had the answers to, and it gets all the veterans to chip, chime in and you just continue to learn.
I am a thousand percent better to your hunter because of that group. Yep. It's a low bar still, but yeah, you're still pretty bad. But I'm just kidding. I'm messing with you. No, I here's the thing, Wal let's look at this. I remember when you killed a dough with your bow two, three seasons ago.
It was like the first one you had killed with a bow in a while, I think. And you got it on film. That's what it was. You got, it was first year you got on film. Yep. And you were so excited of that from that point till now. Very soon after that is when you started your Patreon group.
Group. And now last year you had a heck of a season. It. It was a great season. I think you shot, what, three bucks? Couple Ds or something like that? Three bucks and a dough. Or three bucks and a dough. Yep. [00:32:00] Something. And you look at that, it's the conversations that you're having with people.
In this group that's making you I've seen it cause I've been your friend that whole time. Like you're having those conversations with those people in this group and it's. It has made you better a hundred percent. This episode is brought to you by bowtech, the industry leader in cutting edge archery technology.
Now, I've gotta tell you about the new line of bows for this year, especially the new carbon one, which is what I'm gonna be taking in the woods this fall. The carbon one is equipped with BowTech's game changing technology. The deadlock cam system designed to be the quickest. An easiest way to achieve perfect air flight without the use of a bow.
Press the strategically engineered carbon riser paired with the orbit dampeners will have this bow feeling completely dead in your hands. And if the carbon one is in your style, Bowtech has a solid line of other new bows for 2023. Like the SS 34, the CP 30, and the SX 80. You can see bot's full selection by visiting [00:33:00] bowtech archery.com today.
Oh, absolutely. It's an undeniable, first off, let's talk about one of our, one of our partners here. So Brett, he's not on the podcast cuz he's got a day job and I don't blame him. But, it's one of those things where Brett was a patron. He offered to come help me scout. He taught me things.
I taught him things. We were in an area one time, I can't remember what it was. Oh, I remember what it was. He's and this is why I like big buck habitat, because of such and such. This is the kind of place we're gonna get big bucks on camera. Sure enough, he was right. Several months later, we pulled the camera.
They're there as we're walking in. I saw things he didn't see. I'm like, Hey man, look at all this browse on these shrubs and whatnot. And he goes, what? And he starts looking around and they have just knocked the tops off of every bush around us. And the reason why it's such good habitat largely is because they've just been hammering this in the off season or whatever year it was.
You could just see all the nips as they've come through this area. And it got him thinking about stuff. And last year I passed six deer, never passed deer in my life. It about killed me. I about had to go start a therapy [00:34:00] group for the life of sleep. But that was because I was in a spot where I could afford to pass deer.
And it was because Brett had mentored me and other people in that group had helped equip me to find a, find areas. Parker, yourself included. Water access. You're like, dude, you need to leverage water access, buy a boat, start killing deer. It, they basically just show up in the driveway.
I don't know, man I'm really happy with that group cuz I feel like because we have that little paywall there, because you have to contribute a few bucks to support the show. I feel like it weeds out all the crap. And to date, we have never had a fight in that group in three years, go on into our fourth year.
We've never had a fight. Ever. Yeah. That's a great transition. You hinted at it, it's a few bucks, right? It's not much, it's not a whole lot of money. We try to make it a lot of benefits for a very little investment and what the investment does is just go into making Patreon better most of the time.
Giveaways and things like that. But [00:35:00] it's, you're talking about was it $10 and $15 tiers, Walter? Yeah, so we got the meat buck category, which is five bucks a month. Five bucks. That's right. And I just wanna say Parker and I and the team are all working on ways to even throw more value in here.
There's a lot of people who have Patreons that I don't feel like they really throw the value in there. And in reality, Parker, you and I both have this like overwhelming pulse to make sure that The patrons who are financially contributing to the show are getting their money's worth out of this.
And so we've got a lot of stuff coming down the pipe for them that is going to be insider access only. Everybody's gonna have access to it, regardless of their tier. But we're gonna start really driving some content home there for you guys. That's gonna be exclusive, that's gonna be geared just for you, for your consumption.
But we have the meat buck tier, which is five bucks. And with that, you get a shout out on the podcast. You get a shout out. On YouTube videos, you get a free sticker and you get access to our Discord group. That's the entry right now. I think we got about two or three [00:36:00] different things that are gonna get added to each of these tiers.
Then we have the shooter, but category, and if you wanna be part of the video chat group, that's Marco Polo, then. The $10 tiers for you. You also get access to Discord and you're gonna get a hat or a shirt. Parker and I are still working out the details on that. I think we're leaning towards shirt right now, if I'm being honest.
Pat? Parker, did you call me Pat again? I did Pat app. It doesn't look like Pat. You guys do Look, pat looks like a pat. Pat does look like a pat. Yeah. Pat looks like a pat. Yeah. He looks like he, he just wakes up with a Guinness in his hand. I think he probably does. Yeah. So I don't even remember.
You called me patting it threw me off. We were on the $10 tier. Yeah. We what I think we're gonna end up doing is an exclusive shirt just for patrons. That is gonna be a really, thought out, cool shirt. And it's gonna be exclusive for patients, so that's gonna be one of the [00:37:00] benefits.
But then also a free shirt that's gonna be a like a logo t-shirt with that's also a pretty freaking sweet design. But we're hashing it all out. We're trying to figure out what's the best, what. And I think the main thing that we're trying to figure out is what is the most beneficial thing?
To spend money on so that we feel like each patron is taken care of, right? Sure. We want it to be cool. We want it to be awesome. We want it to be worth it. We're not trying to take your money so that we can get paid. We're trying to take your money so that we can make it better.
Make this whole thing better. Yep. And these shirts, they're banging. While you can attest we're getting like a new logo every. Every three days from Parker. He's so pumped about it. And they are, they got some pizzazz to him. They're legit. So that's what I'm excited about is get some merch going and get our paston decked out to where, we continue to grow our community and get more and more people in it.
And that leads me to my next [00:38:00] point. There's another cool benefit of being Aon member, and that is that you get to. Have, I can't even remember what it was, Walter, as far as the entries for giveaways. Yeah so three times and five times is I think what we settled on. Okay. So when we do these giveaways which we're about to tell y'all about when we do these giveaways, if you're a Patreon member and you're on the $5 tier, you get three time, three times your name gets put into the virtual hat.
And if you're on the $10, is it 10 or 15? Walt? I can't remember. 10. $10 tier. Yep. You get five times your hat gets put into the, or your name gets put in the hat for these giveaways, which is really cool. And a lot of the giveaways that we do are gonna be Patreon exclusive giveaways. So the only way that you're gonna have be able to win these things is gonna be through being a part of the Patreon group.
And we've got some pretty cool stuff that we can't announce those quite yet, but we've got some cool ones that we're gonna be doing [00:39:00] soon. But one thing that we can announce is another giveaway that if you're a Patreon member, you're gonna get, three times into the virtual hat and five times in the virtual hat is we're gonna give away a brand new bow.
But you don't have to be a Patreon member to win this boat. But it is gonna help your chances of success if you are. Greatly. But it's gonna be a bowtech CP 28. That's the bow that I used last year and I was trying to figure out if I wanted to get rid of it, keep it as a backup or sell it, make some money to fund my fall.
But at the end of the day, we just decided to give it away to somebody, which is pretty cool. So Matt, you shot the CP 28 last year some yeah, I did it. It's a cool compact little bow. Yeah. That's what I liked about it with Axle to axle. And you proved that it can kill animals. It is, it has been through the ringer, of killing animals.
And that's the great thing. They're a good performing bow. A long standing bow. And it's not the bare bow either, Parker, [00:40:00] right? No, don't leave that out. It's deck out. No, they're gonna get, they're gonna get a Pro Hunter hd. Site from black Gold is gonna be on it with a ripcord rest and a the tight spot shift lock quiver.
It's a pretty hefty little package right there. And we're gonna try to do that for a couple of things with YouTube and also with the podcast. So stay tuned next week and we're gonna tell you all about how you can win this bow, but we want to tell people about it.
Make sure that you are subscribed on YouTube to the Southern Collective and on to the Southern Collective podcast feed, which is gonna be a different feed from this one. And if you'll do that, then you're gonna be entered to win. So we'll tell you more about it next week, but I think it's gonna be a cool package.
I'm really excited about it. Fellas. You got any, Walter, you got anything to add to that? Yeah, I just wanna reiterate [00:41:00] A couple small things that have crept up and the first is why we're doing this. We're doing this because the four of us are stronger together than we would be if we tried to continue down the path we were going on.
Parker and I are both creative mindsets in different ways. And a lot of the ideas that I would have, I'd be sharing to Parker and Parker's already creating a logo for I've already implemented. And it was one of these things like we were both. On the end of the separate ends of the same rope, and there was no point in us continuing to do that.
And so if you're asking the question at this point in the podcast why you're gonna get more content, More, it's gonna have fewer disruptions. In my podcast, it's no secret. Sometimes I'd Ms. Weeks because I didn't have that built in redundancy. I didn't have that team every week to just p you know, jump in and crank the episode out.
And also the four of us, between all of our skillsets and all of our propensities we are always keeping that, that thought process going. One of us is looking forward to Turkey. The other one's looking forward to postseason scouting. While us, while we're focusing on the [00:42:00] important things, Matt's thinking about bass fishing.
And so there there's gonna be a constant rotation of stuff that you're gonna get more of with a higher quality because Parker's gonna be able to focus on the things he's good at. I'm gonna be able to focus on the things that I'm good at. Same goes for Matt and Brett, and I think it's gonna really improve the experience for everybody.
I, I, frankly, I think I've already seen the improvement in the short time that we've been. Like truly public on this. The other thing I wanna say is Southern ground and Chase tales are going away. Those brands are done. And that's something we've gotten a lot of confusion, a lot of questions about, there's only gonna be the one brand.
I'm not saying you won't see more projects coming from us in the future because we are treating this with a longer term vision and we have different stages of what we're gonna roll out and how we're gonna implement it. But SoCo represents all of us now. And so if there's any confusion about that if you're thinking, how do I stay involved with this?
At the time you're listening to this podcast, the YouTube channel and the podcast feed and all the socials are live. So just find the Southern collective, find that fire logo [00:43:00] and you will be all set. Yeah. And also Walter, you reminded me this, like the stuff that we do currently is not changing, like we're still gonna produce.
We got a crap ton of videos to put out this fall. We're all gonna be producing videos the same as you've seen on the Southern Ground Channel. And it's, and it is actually the same channel. So if you're subscribed on Southern Ground Channel, then you're probably already subscribed to the Southern Collective.
But it's gonna be a lot of that same kind of stuff. And same goes for podcasting. You're gonna hear a lot of tactical. Podcasts from really solid guests. The stuff that we've had in the past. You're gonna hear stuff from a group of us who are gonna continue podcasting together especially through the season, keeping you updated on all that kind of stuff.
So nothing as far as the content that we're creating is actually changing. We've just, we've decided to make it more about the community. And those things that we do are gonna drive that community aspect so much more [00:44:00] that it just seems like the Patreon is the thing to talk about.
It's the right thing to talk about. But those things are still gonna be happening. We're still doing all that stuff. Yep. That's all I got. I just wanted to throw that out there just to make sure we were, everybody was like completely on the same page. Fantastic. Matthew. Hey, we're good to go, man. Ready to get this thing started.
You're going outta state scouting this week, aren't you? Yeah, I'm leaving. Leaving Friday for Kentucky. Sell in hand. That's right. And hey tell everybody when we're gonna be releasing our website and everything so they can put that on their calendar. Yeah. August the first. We're gonna have a heck of a deer hunt is gonna come out from.
From one of us. I'm, I guess I can share who that is, Brett. You should cuz I already said it on Instagram, so Yeah, it was on Instagram. Yeah. Brett shot a stud in Missouri last year and got the whole thing on film and it's a coolest crap video. Hey, I ju I saw the kill shot footage last night.
I watched it and [00:45:00] God, that got me excited. Yeah, it's good man. Brett crushed it. So that video's gonna drop. Then we're gonna start dropping, weekly stuff after that onto that channel. But it's all gonna start on August 1st, and plan for the website to be live, all of it. It's gonna be a big day.
Won't be lit, za. I don't get to do this a whole lot more, but thank you guys for listening to the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast. We'll talk at you next week.
