Full Transcript for Ep. 508: Render - Whitetails, Woodsmen, and The Way We Used to Hunt

they're talking about the Stanfills who live over Madison County. 00:06:30 Speaker 2: The mythical Stanfills. 00:06:31 Speaker 1: The mythical Stanfills who are deer-killing... White Oak Acre and finding deer hunters. And me and you go hunting. So one day Scott goes, we're going over to the management area. And I get to come along. And he goes, we're going to ride with Aaron. Do you remember that? 00:06:51 Speaker 2: I do. 00:06:52 Speaker 1: And I was just like a little peanut in the back of the truck, just like a little kid. And we drove to the management area. and uh and we hunted together and y'all dropped me off and then y'all went off somewhere else do you remember that. 00:07:05 Speaker 3: I'm sure he put you in a gar hole somewhere you know. 00:07:08 Speaker 1: I actually i actually could probably take you almost to the tree of where i hunted i remember it but no so you and your brother were uh we had met scott and he's got this group of guys from mina and just were big. 00:07:22 Speaker 3: Deer hunters yeah and we've reunited just the last few years uh As a matter of fact, last fall I got to go down and camp with them for a week, and it was fantastic. Had just a great time. Yeah, they were great guys. Met all of them guys in Fayetteville probably about 1997-ish. 00:07:42 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:07:42 Speaker 3: I'm just guessing. Yeah. 00:07:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:07:46 Speaker 3: Fine people. Some of my best friends in the world. 00:07:49 Speaker 1: Now, what town did you grow up in? 00:07:51 Speaker 3: Green Forest, Arkansas. 00:07:52 Speaker 1: Green Forest. 00:07:54 Speaker 3: Which is Carroll County. 00:07:55 Speaker 1: Carroll County, not Madison County. 00:07:58 Speaker 3: My dad, him and all his buddies kind of cut their teeth hunting on some public ground over there in Carroll County. There wasn't a lot of deer back then, and the only place there was any deer was over around Eureka Springs. We started hunting over there as kids, and there was a lot of deer. That's what made us good was there was a lot of deer. It wasn't because we knew anything about anything. We were just the only guys that were hunting over there, I think. So you give me a lot of credit. There wasn't a lot of pressure, and there was a deer behind every tree, it seemed like, for a few years there. Yeah. It was good times. A lot has changed since then, but we weren't trophy hunting whatsoever. We were just happy to kill a deer. Those were the best times of my life, looking back. I wish we could go back to those days. 00:08:56 Speaker 1: Did your dad bow hunt? Or did you and Andy get into it? No, dad didn't bow hunt. I think he tried a little bit, but back then it was just hard. Bows were terrible. Arrows were terrible. Broadheads were terrible. I don't think he had time to really pursue it like he needed to. They were big rifle hunters. They'd go for 10 days. I think season would open on a Monday and they had about 20 guys and they'd go over there. 00:09:22 Speaker

3: And Have a big time, you know. 00:09:25 Speaker 1: Did they run dogs? 00:09:26 Speaker 3: They did. They ran dogs. I think they outlawed the dog deal. 00:09:31 Speaker 1: In the 90s? 00:09:32 Speaker 3: Was it in the 90s? They did run dogs. 00:09:35 Speaker 1: Maybe early 2000s. 00:09:36 Speaker 3: They made drives. They would just go sit on their– they'd get up at 4 a.m. and cook a big deer meat and egg breakfast and then hunt until 9 or 10 and come back in and then run dogs and then all go to the stands of an afternoon tune. And if they didn't run dogs, they'd just make drives for each other, you know. Push them out and bark like a dog. 00:09:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:09:57 Speaker 3: Yeah, and everybody had their own bark, you know. 00:09:59 Speaker 1: So yeah. 00:10:02 Speaker 3: I kind of got in on the tail end of that we just got to run dogs a few times but it was fun. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah what's uh you've killed a bunch of big deer around here I mean I'm kind of going for the jugular vein like a throat punch What's the biggest deer you've killed? 179. 00:10:24 Speaker 3: Was it in here in Arkansas? 00:10:27 Speaker 1: No, I was in Kansas. 00:10:28 Speaker 3: In Kansas. I shot a... It's crazy. When you're young from Green Forest, Arkansas, you grow up, you watch these Realtree videos, you know? 00:10:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, just. 00:10:41 Speaker 3: All we had was cassette tapes, and you would watch these people shoot these 150, 160-inch deer. And that was an unachievable goal. Where I grew up. I had never even seen a deer like that. And I hunted 30 years. Shoot a Boone and Crockett deer. And I shot one in 2024 in Benton County. Scored 174. Holy smokes. And I hunted 30 years to kill that deer. That was the deal as a kid. 00:11:17 Speaker 1: That was in Arkansas. 00:11:19 Speaker 3: That was in Arkansas, and then 13 days later went to Kansas and shot a 179. 00:11:25 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:11:26 Speaker 3: He killed two in two sits. 00:11:31 Speaker 1: 30 years. 00:11:32 Speaker 3: After 30 years of not killing one. 00:11:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: It's just a number, but it's something to a deer hunter, you know? 00:11:40 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:11:43 Speaker 3: All you ever wanted to do was shoot a Pope and Young Whitetail for so many years, and I don't know that we had them, and if we did have them, I didn't see any. I just wasn't around them. All of those deer you're talking about that made me so famous were 90-inch eight-pointers. 00:11:59 Speaker 1: Yeah. And does. 00:12:03 Speaker 3: And lots of does. 00:12:04 Speaker 2: Button bucks. I was the king of the button bucks. 00:12:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:12:06 Speaker 3: We were not. We weren't big some trophy hunter specialty hunter. Deer hunting has progressed with technology. And the way that we pursue whitetails here now has totally changed the game. Good or bad. I don't think there's a right or wrong way. But it's whatever you enjoy doing. We went from hunting ridges and guessing, scrapes, rubs, saddles, to running cameras and cornpaws. And when you do that, um, size of your deer is going to go up period. And for lots of reasons, a lot of guys are running a lot of cameras and they see what's on their camera. And when there's 130 inch or 150 inch or they're letting the 130 inch deer walk and he's getting bigger. So although we're killing bigger deer, I think that there's a lot more there's a lot more bigger deer around because we're letting them get of age, if that makes any sense. So, um, I've killed a lot of Pope and young white tails, but most of them have been on a corn pile and it's, it's just the way it is. Um, I'm not, I'm not, not proud of it. It's just, it's just a different way. 00:13:41 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:13:42 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:13:43 Speaker 3: And it's, it's a lot of work. I was just talking to Josh about, uh, bear hunting while i go just man that's the hardest part of the whole deal yeah and you gotta understand it's a lot of work it's a lot of work yeah yeah i i. 00:13:59 Speaker 1: You know going from uh well what kids today might not have not not all kids wouldn't have it but if you were just introduced to deer hunting just on hunting a corn pile it might be different than than what you and I both grew up hunting. I mean, there were no trail cameras. 00:14:22 Speaker 2: No. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: And there was no, there was no feeding deer. 00:14:25 Speaker 2: No. 00:14:25 Speaker 1: It was actually legal for a long time, but just no one, I didn't know anybody that did it. 00:14:32 Speaker 3: It was unheard of. And I worked at a feed mill. I bagged corn all day, every day. Range cubes. And I didn't even think about dumping any on the ground. Yeah. I would have not have, I'm so glad that I was raised like I was. 00:14:48 Speaker 1: You learned about deer, and that's what I learned from hearing Scott talk about y'all. And Scott was really good at terrain features. I mean, master at terrain features deer sign using this landscape to kill deer just on natural patterns on public land. And that's what y'all were doing. 00:15:13 Speaker 3: He's the best I've ever been around. Yeah, without a doubt. 00:15:17 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:15:18 Speaker 3: But that's what we were doing. The exact same thing. 00:15:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:15:21 Speaker 3: We had to be a woodsman. Yeah. Had to figure it out. And you figured it out by trial and error. You just failed a lot. Yeah. The more you fail, the better you got. 00:15:30 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:15:31 Speaker 3: Yeah. I miss it. All of my best stories and best times were from those, you know. 00:15:36 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:15:39 Speaker 3: It's a struggle. Technology is a struggle. It's in the fishing world as well. 00:15:44 Speaker 1: You know what? I would support today if. 00:15:48 Speaker 1: It became completely illegal to bait deer. 00:15:50 Speaker 3: Without a doubt. And take forward-facing sonar away from bass fishermen. 00:15:55 Speaker 2: And what? Take

LiveScope away? 00:15:57 Speaker 3: Absolutely. It's the same thing. 00:16:01 Speaker 1: That I wouldn't have as much insight into, but I hear people say that. 00:16:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:16:07 Speaker 1: It's kind of the same thing. 00:16:08 Speaker 2: LiveScope is the corn pile of the bass fishing world. Is that what you're saying? 00:16:13 Speaker 3: LiveScope's the cell camera. 00:16:16 Speaker 2: Cell camera. 00:16:16 Speaker 3: Live camera, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't belong at the top end of our sport, for sure. In competitive fishing, it doesn't belong. 00:16:28 Speaker 1: Now, can you use it in competitive fishing? 00:16:32 Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Locally, for sure. 00:16:36 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:16:37 Speaker 3: It's such a big controversy right now. They're going back and forth in the professional levels, whether you can or can't. Some you can, some you can't. Some do half the tournaments with and half without. 00:16:47 Speaker 2: It's just. 00:16:49 Speaker 1: The worst part of all these debates and talk about the ethics of technology or the legality of all these things is really someone's perception of what someone else thinks about it. I've killed plenty of deer over a corn pile. I mean, And it's ridiculous for someone from some other place that can't bait deer to look at people wherever you can bait deer and be like, oh, those guys don't know how to deer hunt. Trust me, we know how to deer hunt. And if you want to kill a big deer, it's a very good way to do it. And it's also very hard. And I mean, there's all these trolls that would have no experience with it. 00:17:41 Speaker 2: But.... 00:17:46 Speaker 1: If we didn't know any different, I mean, it's still an experience with a wild animal in a wild place. And Daniel Boone was probably having similar arguments with people about technology back in the day. I mean, I think it's a never-ending cycle that's kind of increased with technology. I mean, when it went to When we went from single-shot muzzleloading rifles to automatic repeater, a gun that would shoot multiple bullets without you having to reload, guys were sitting around going, man, these young guys, they don't even know. Yeah, I think it ought to be illegal to use an automatic rifle that will shoot a bullet one after another quickly. I mean, there's this unending. But at the same time, there's got to be a limit to it. Or maybe there's not. 00:18:48 Speaker 3: I don't know what the limit is, and I don't know if it's right or if it's wrong. I think you just have to, I think it's just up to each individual guy. If you're enjoying what you're doing, keep doing it. 00:19:01 Speaker 1: But doesn't that give me the right to ridicule and berate you to make me feel better about the way that I hunt? 00:19:09 Speaker 3: There's no doubt that if you're not baiting white-tailed deer, and you're killing giant white-tailed deer, even if you're not killing it, who cares about the horns? If

you're not baiting, I think it's more rewarding. Here's the problem, Clay. If you went out today and just sat out there on a persimmon tree and a 100-inch six-point walked up, and you have your compound bow, are you going to shoot him? 00:19:45 Speaker 1: Probably not. Why? I'm not going to. 00:19:49 Speaker 3: Why? 00:19:49 Speaker 1: Because i'm trying to kill a bigger deer. 00:19:52 Speaker 3: I would i would that's great. 00:19:58 Speaker 2: Great we need more of that because i don't have a wall like this but. 00:20:02 Speaker 3: In saying what i just said i wouldn't either because i want a wall like that I get it. And I hate to admit it, but I will. I don't, I don't think I can go out there and kill 150 inch deer in the woods right now. Just sitting on a persimmon tree or scrape. And if I can, it's going to take me all season. 00:20:27 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. 00:20:28 Speaker 3: And I think our time today seems more important and more restricted than it's ever has been. And people seem busier. Um, Maybe it's because we were 18 and all we had to do was go to a class, maybe or maybe not, and then go hunt. But it seemed like we have a lot of obligations now. 00:20:47 Speaker 1: A lot of that depends on, too, where you're from. So much of our whitetail, our understanding of the whitetail world comes from media produced in the best places in the world to hunt a whitetail. 00:21:00 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:21:00 Speaker 1: Which we don't live in the best place in the world to kill a whitetail, to kill a big whitetail. I mean, like if we were... Own 400 acres in Iowa. Sure. I mean, I'm not saying that's easy. I'm not taking anything away from people in prime country in the Midwest. But without a doubt, just as certain as you saying it's more rewarding to kill a deer out in the woods than on a corn pile, it is easier to kill a big deer in incredible big deer country. 00:21:32 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:21:33 Speaker 1: So you could go to someplace like that and kill a big one. I know for a fact you could. 00:21:38 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:21:38 Speaker 1: They're there. 00:21:39 Speaker 3: Absolutely. It's different here. The guys that are, the guys that are killing big deer here in the woods, your buddy, Mo, these guys, man, hats off to them. 00:21:52 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:21:52 Speaker 3: There's just a few of them. 00:21:54 Speaker 2: It's hard. 00:21:56 Speaker 3: Thermals, the mountains, the whole deal is it's hard, real hard. So it just makes it easier. Technology makes it easier. 00:22:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:22:07 Speaker 3: And, Corn Piles makes it easier, and I think that we're all about making it easier, good or bad. 00:22:21 Speaker 2: Yep. Well, if we haven't said it yet, it's whitetail week. 00:22:25 Speaker 1: Yes. It's whitetail week at Meat Eater. My best radio voice. Yeah, they're doing the big ultimate whitetail giveaway. which has a huge prize package including a hunt with Mark Kenyon and Jordan Budd on her Nebraska farm. 00:22:45 Speaker

2: Yeah, it's a pretty incredible list of gear. 00:22:47 Speaker 1: What kind of gear have they got? 00:22:49 Speaker 2: Packs and rifle and, I mean, just anything you could ever want. Clothes from First Light. I mean, everything. 00:22:57 Speaker 3: Everything. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: I mean, you could be a non-hunter and all of a sudden have the gear of Clay Newcomb, basically. 00:23:05 Speaker 3: I don't have that great a gear, Josh. 00:23:07 Speaker 2: Compared to some. 00:23:08 Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. Yeah, Whitetail Week at Meat Eater. 00:23:12 Speaker 2: Check it out. The ultimate whitetail giveaway. You can go to the Meat Eater store and sign up. You don't have to make a purchase. 00:23:19 Speaker 1: We're adding to that package a hunt with Aaron. 00:23:23 Speaker 2: In crappy woods that you can't kill a big deer in. 00:23:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, Clay's backyard. 00:23:30 Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, man. So Aaron and his brother told a story. Or maybe it was just your brother. I can't remember if it was both of y'all. But your brother killed a 212-inch deer. Holy smokes. 00:23:46 Speaker 3: How big was it? 00:23:48 Speaker 1: 203, I think. 00:23:48 Speaker 2: 203. 00:23:48 Speaker 1: Up in Kansas. Yeah. Giant deer. It wasn't very wide. 00:23:51 Speaker 3: Maybe 14 inches. No way. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: It was like this wide. 00:23:55 Speaker 3: Monster. 00:23:56 Speaker 1: But it had bases as big as Coke cans. That's right. 00:23:59 Speaker 3: Coke, you hear the rumors, stories about it had bases like Coke cans. It really did. 00:24:04 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:24:05 Speaker 2: That's unbelievable. 00:24:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:24:08 Speaker 3: Year of a lifetime. Yeah. 00:24:10 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:24:11 Speaker 2: Was it over a corn pile? 00:24:13 Speaker 3: It was. 00:24:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can hunt them over corn in Kansas. A lot of deer in Kansas get killed over corn. Missouri, you can't bait. 00:24:21 Speaker 2: At all? Even on private land? 00:24:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't bait at all in Missouri. 00:24:29 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:24:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:24:31 Speaker 1: But Kansas, you can. Kansas, you can for sure. 00:24:35 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:24:40 Speaker 1: Well, shoot. Tell us your favorite story, Aaron. I remember. 00:24:50 Speaker 2: Pretend like we're in the truck with you, and we're 21 years old. 00:24:53 Speaker 1: Listen, he's already told this story, but one of the funniest stories, and it has a touch of crassness to it, but the kind of crassness that would be acceptable on the Bear Grease podcast. 00:25:03 Speaker 2: Okay, okay. 00:25:04 Speaker 1: And this story probably was funnier coming through Scott Brown about Aaron. 00:25:12 Speaker 2: Do you know what story he's talking about? 00:25:14 Speaker 3: There's so many. 00:25:17 Speaker 1: Well, this story was Aaron was sitting in a tree. I mean, I think he's literally told this on this podcast, sitting in a tree. And he was watching a deer, a doe deer, feeding on acorns. And an acorn would fall out of the tree and hit the ground and make a noise, and that doe would just go right to those acorns. And you started noticing when acorns fell, she was following the sound of the acorns. And so what did you do? 00:25:47 Speaker 3: It was actually a buttonbuck. 00:25:52 Speaker 1: Even better. 00:25:53 Speaker 2: A mature buttonbuck, right? 00:25:54 Speaker 1: 50-pounder. 00:25:56 Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know. I can't believe we're even talking about this again. 00:26:03 Speaker 1: You want me to finish the story and you can just correct me? 00:26:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead. 00:26:06 Speaker 1: Okay, so Aaron's watching this button buck, and it's hearing acorns drop and going to acorn after acorn, and all of a sudden, and the deer's out of bow range, and Aaron needs to pee. Okay, now this is where– it's not crass, but you don't talk about urination often in mixed company. And so Aaron's like, man, I got to pee. And so he was like, I bet if I just kind of let a little bit out. And kind of pinch it, squeeze it off. 00:26:42 Speaker 3: Well, the thought was it wouldn't spook the deer. I don't think at first. 00:26:46 Speaker 2: You weren't trying to call a deer in with a pee call? 00:26:50 Speaker 3: No, that's not. Looking back, I was just trying to go to the bathroom. And I went a little bit. But I didn't want to go, you know, the whole street. I thought it might scare the deer. So I just went a little bit. And he just threw his ears up and just started coming to me. 00:27:04 Speaker 1: He thought it was like a rain of acorns. 00:27:06 Speaker 3: A bunch of them fell off that limb, you know? 00:27:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:27:08 Speaker 2: So. 00:27:09 Speaker 3: I just kept doing it a little bit. Just. 00:27:13 Speaker 1: And here he comes. 00:27:18 Speaker 3: Yeah. I called him right underneath the tree and shot him. So. 00:27:24 Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm sure that's been done before, but.... 00:27:28 Speaker 2: I'm trying it. 00:27:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, it worked. I mean, look. Just try to find a real smart button box somewhere and it'll work. Well. 00:27:36 Speaker 1: You know, I mean, the strategy of carrying a handful of acorns up in a tree and dropping them out of the tree. 00:27:42 Speaker 3: See, I wasn't even smart enough to think about that. 00:27:44 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm not saying I would have been either, but I've done stuff like that before. 00:27:49 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:27:49 Speaker 1: And I mean, if you're in an area with limited acorns. 00:27:53 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:27:54 Speaker 1: When they're hunting them like they're doing that, which they do. I mean, you can hear an acorn fall for a long ways. 00:28:00 Speaker 3: They're doing it right now. 00:28:01 Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, deer just out of bow range or something and. Drop an acorn. 00:28:07 Speaker 2: Man, I was out on Saturday. 00:28:08 Speaker 1: Piece of gravel. 00:28:09 Speaker 2: Take a piece of gravel. 00:28:09 Speaker 1: And I

sat up right beside. 00:28:10 Speaker 2: A gigantic white oak. And it just rained acorns the whole evening. And I didn't see jack nothing. 00:28:17 Speaker 1: Well, it's probably because there were every white oak in the country. Was there any deer sign under your white oak tree? 00:28:24 Speaker 2: Well, it looked beat down. But I didn't see any scat or anything. 00:28:30 Speaker 3: I was. 00:28:31 Speaker 2: kind of in a hurry to get in the stand so i didn't go to my ideal spot that i grew. 00:28:36 Speaker 1: Up gary believer newcomb taught himself to bow hunt in the 1970s when archery equipment came out became kind of commercialized and people started buying compound bows and everybody i mean just without fail everybody before that time period they were gun hunters and now obviously fred bear and There was some elite group of people that were using traditional archery, but it was very few. So few people. And so in the 1970s, I believe it was a Jennings compound bow that was one of the first that was kind of mainstream and hit the market, and guys started shooting compound. And compounds were easier enough that it was accessible to the world. 00:29:21 Speaker 3: Technology. 00:29:23 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:29:24 Speaker 1: And so Dad grew up. bird hunting quail with my grandfather and had one time went hunting with some buddy of his and killed a forked horn with a shotgun I think in front of a dog like in the early 70s late 60s so he had killed one deer but he started bow hunting and he said he started going and asking people you know like how do you kill a deer and he basically found out quickly that nobody knew how Like these gun hunters had just kind of, he said they just kind of went out in the woods and did drives and all this stuff. 00:30:07 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:30:07 Speaker 1: And there was one guy in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and I've forgotten his name. He had a nickname. Might have been Bear. I can't remember. But this guy took him out and taught him about just the simplicity of just what deer sign was. And dad didn't even know what a deer track looked like. He saw a calf track out on public land where there are free-ranging cattle, and he called the guy over and said, I got a deer track, and it was a track of a calf. And the guy was like, that's not a deer. Anyway, he told Dad about deer tracks and about deer droppings, and he showed him a pile of deer droppings. And it took some time, but Dad was like, well, I guess deer every day... are going to leave droppings. And wherever they leave droppings, that's where they're standing when they do it. I bet if I found a place that had a lot of droppings, that that would mean that that deer was spending a lot of time there. And it was just like this monumental equation. He'd never read about it. He'd never seen a video of And he just starts going through the woods just looking for deer droppings. And he finds a white oak tree that was raining acorns in the midst of an ecosystem that was basically a

pine plantation regrowth ecosystem with hardwoods left in the creek bottoms. So there was limited amounts of oaks. And he talks about, you know, he could tell the story to you, but he talks about finding this big old beautiful white oak tree that was just raining acorns. And he said, He starts looking and he says, I mean, there's so many piles of deer droppings, he can't even count them. And he goes and gets his ladder stand, which was a aluminum ladder, like that you buy at the store, that he had built a platform that went up against a tree and carries it in there, sets it up like 10 feet off the ground in this pine tree out in the middle of all this, no cover, and He goes, and it was in a place in Arkansas called Hollywood. He talks about going down to Hollywood. And so he climbs up in this ladder stand for the first afternoon hunt. He's found it this morning. He's like, I mean, I guess there's a lot of deer here. There's deer droppings, and they're fresh. And he sits in that tree, and he talks about just deer after deer after deer after deer comes to this white oak tree, and he misses. I can't remember the details, but I think he missed one And then he finally ends up killing one. And it just clicked. And then Gary Newcomb, credit to him for being a survivalist. If he was a species of animal that was on the landscape that just had to figure out a niche to survive in, he would have done it. Because that's all he did for the rest of his hunting career to this day. He doesn't look for buck sign. He doesn't look for tracks. He doesn't care about seeing a deer. He could be driving down the road and see 30 deer jump the road, and he'd drive right past that spot and go where there's acorns and deer droppings. And my whole life as a kid, we walked around the woods looking for deer droppings and acorns. Acorns and deer droppings, that's all we wanted to do. And that's how I grew up hunting. 00:33:48 Speaker 3: It works. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Yeah. 00:33:53 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:33:54 Speaker 3: I think somewhere in the progress of deer hunting, guys went from trying to kill deer meat, put food on the table, to it being a sport. There's a major difference. You know, when you're making deer drives, you care less what deer are doing or where they're at. You just want to see one and you want to shoot it. When you start archery hunting, like your dad. 00:34:22 Speaker 3: You're making things more difficult because it's a sport. It's a challenge. And when you start doing that, you've got to try to figure it out. It's much harder. Yeah, credit to him. Yep. 00:34:34 Speaker 1: Well, times have changed. Times have changed, but there's still a lot of young people learning about deer and doing it the right way. Maybe not a lot. 00:34:49 Speaker 2: I got a story for you. I was in Wal-Mart. on Saturday and I was standing in the hunting section and I had this 15 year old boy come up to me clearly had kind of grown up in town and never hunted and he

came over to me and he goes what do I do for killing a deer and I was like and I kind of like what do you mean and he goes He goes, what do I do to kill a deer? 00:35:24 Speaker 1: Are you speaking in dialect? 00:35:25 Speaker 2: He was a Hispanic kid. And I was like, first of all, I was proud of the kid for coming up to me and asking. You know what I mean? He saw that mustache. 00:35:36 Speaker 1: He's like, this guy knows how to. 00:35:37 Speaker 2: Kill a deer. Well, the funny thing was I had just worked out, so I was just in my workout clothes. I didn't look like a hunter per se. And I said, well, I said, do you have a hunting license and a hunter education card? And he goes, no. And I said, well. that's what you need first. So let me tell you how to do it. And so we, I told him that he's like, okay. And then, and then I said, then you got to get some kind of way, some kind of weapon to hunt it with, you know, a crossbow or a bow or a rifle. And then you got to find yourself a piece of land. But I was just proud of him that he, he kind of put himself out there to say, Hey, I'm going to, this guy's standing in the hunting section. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: He must know something. 00:36:14 Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know what would be in this kid's world that would make him want to hunt, but I was just excited to see this. 00:36:23 Speaker 1: Did he, did you get any information from him? I mean, did he, did he have any connection to it? 00:36:29 Speaker 2: I should have, I should have asked him more questions. I was in a little bit of a hurry, but I wanted to like give him the resources that he needed to get at least get started. You know, I told him he could do his hunter education card online and, and, uh, but I was, yeah, it was, I was excited to see an interest like Something must have piqued his interest about it for him to stand in Walmart and ask some stranger how to do it. And I loved the innocence of his question, too. Like, how do I kill a deer? You know what I mean? Not like, what do I need or what kind of bow should I get? But he's just like, I don't know anything. How do I kill a deer? 00:37:02 Speaker 1: How do I kill a deer? 00:37:04 Speaker 2: So it was a neat interaction with this kid, Ben Legrone. I'd ran into Ben Legrone, who's been on the render. And we both kind of educated him as quick as we could. 00:37:12 Speaker 1: Oh, Ben was standing there too? 00:37:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd run into Ben in the hunting section because his daughter Journey was getting ready to go hunt and she killed a deer. But, uh, we both talked to this kid for 10, 15 minutes and just kind of helped him out. But that, that was like encouraging to me to see interest that from a kid who clearly didn't grow up in a hunting family, you know? 00:37:32 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:33 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Instant gratification has changed humans. Um, entirely and i think now when you take a young kid hunting hunting their their opportunity for success

is so much better than it's ever been so big difference in hunting and killing i mean kids have got an excellent opportunity now to go get in the woods and kill a deer and that's what they're after is instant gratification so the technology's made it that way and i hope that there's a lot of kids out there now that are hunting i don't I don't know the numbers, but I do know you could take a young kid that's never hunted before and in one afternoon probably get them to harvest a deer of some kind. And that was just unheard of when we were kids. 00:38:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:38:21 Speaker 3: Absolutely unheard of. 00:38:22 Speaker 1: It's probably hard for people to understand, but when I was in high school, I was the only kid in my grade who had killed a deer with a bow when I was 15. 00:38:36 Speaker 3: Sure. 00:38:37 Speaker 1: And it was a big deal. 00:38:38 Speaker 3: Big deal. 00:38:39 Speaker 1: I mean, I was kind of a big deal. I felt like a big deal. 00:38:42 Speaker 3: Absolutely. 00:38:43 Speaker 1: You know, that I'd killed a button buck with a bow when I was 15. 00:38:49 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:38:51 Speaker 1: And I think today, I mean, you know, there are more kids hunting, I think. 00:38:56 Speaker 2: That would have been like mid-90s? 00:38:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, 94. 00:39:00 Speaker 2: 94. That's pretty wild to think that you would have been the only kid. 00:39:03 Speaker 1: Now, there were other kids that had killed deer with rifles. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: Right. 00:39:08 Speaker 1: But I was the only kid in our grade that had killed a. 00:39:11 Speaker 3: Deer with a bow. 00:39:11 Speaker 2: Was there a bow shop then? Oh, yeah. In Mena? 00:39:15 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:39:16 Speaker 2: But just young people weren't out there bow hunting. 00:39:19 Speaker 1: Well, people were bow hunting, but it was just hard to kill one. you know I mean nobody was hunting over a corn pile we were just hunting public land just hunting them and I mean I would hunt all season with dad you know hunting every weekend from October until gun season and I mean maybe have one interaction with a deer within bow range that's pretty much the way our hunting was Absolutely. Hunting, hunting. And, you know, we weren't hunting during the week. We were hunting just the weekends. We didn't hunt on Sunday because we went to church. Not that we thought it was bad to hunt on Sunday, but we just didn't very much. So, you know, Friday and Saturday, Friday afternoon, Saturday, maybe one afternoon during the week we'd go. Yeah. And if I had one interaction with a whitetail deer in bow range during the entire season, you know, from the time I started hunting, which, you know, I was pretty young when I started hunting, but it took several years. 00:40:24 Speaker 2: How old were you the first time you hunted with a bow? 00:40:27 Speaker 1: Fourth grade. 00:40:28 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:40:28 Speaker 1: So I was 11 years old. I could pull 40 pounds in fourth grade. 00:40:33 Speaker 3: See, I

don't think I hunted with a bow until I was 16 or 17. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:40:41 Speaker 1: And then you were already a legend by the time you were 21. 00:40:44 Speaker 3: Well, that's what I was getting at. I mean, you shoot four 80-inch deer, and then you're a legend. 240-inch buck. 00:40:52 Speaker 2: That's a 240-inch buck when you had them all together. 00:40:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, they were making me a. 00:40:57 Speaker 2: Lot bigger deal than I was. 320-inch buck. 00:41:04 Speaker 3: But we did get on a roll. We did get on a roll over there for several years. It was a lot of fun. And when we finally got climbing tree stands, it really changed the game. They were good. 00:41:13 Speaker 1: And you could move around. 00:41:15 Speaker 3: Oh, that really changed it. Yeah. We had climbing tree stands before, but they weren't very good. They were the more metal ones and loud. 00:41:22 Speaker 2: That first deer you killed with a bow, was it on the ground? 00:41:26 Speaker 3: Shot it off the ground. 00:41:27 Speaker 1: You too? 00:41:28 Speaker 2: Or was it from a tree stand? 00:41:29 Speaker 1: Tree stand. 00:41:30 Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Shot mine off the ground. Had a Carroll Intruder. PSE Carroll Intruder. 00:41:39 Speaker 1: Really? I've never heard of a Carroll Intruder. 00:41:41 Speaker 3: Yeah. That's what it was. 00:41:43 Speaker 1: What did the Carroll stand for? 00:41:45 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:41:46 Speaker 1: Was it a girl's bow, Aaron? 00:41:48 Speaker 3: I mean, it may have been. 00:41:49 Speaker 1: Not that there would be anything wrong with a girl's bow. 00:41:52 Speaker 3: It was a Carroll Intruder, and I shot a Papes yellow and pink-fletching 24-13 camouflage arrow with a terminator 125 broadhead he bought walmart had serrated blades on. 00:42:06 Speaker 4: It oh yeah yeah yep oh yeah yeah deer killing machine oh it was yeah yeah good times good times bow was a bear white tail two yeah aluminum riser fiberglass limbs. 00:42:24 Speaker 2: Never killed anything with a squirrel i think i killed a squirrel with. 00:42:27 Speaker 3: It my first bow i got it for christmas i got it on christmas morning uh And I'll never forget, I got it on Christmas. We had a video cassette playing there. My mom was recording us, and I went over and got that bow, you know. I pulled an arrow out of the quiver, and I have no idea why. It had an old washed three-blade broadhead in it. I took it out of the quiver, and for some reason, I wanted to take the broadhead off. It just come loose, and I still got a scar out there. Oh, do you really? Yeah, gashed me wide open, went to the emergency room Christmas morning, got like eight stitches put in my thumb. 00:43:00 Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. 00:43:05 Speaker 1: That's funny yeah speaking of I thought you were going to say you drew it back and something happened I have a story so my brother when he got a he got a piercing bow I remember what it looked like it was gray I don't remember what it

was the name of the model but we were in the house and you know it's like dad's like here son here's your bow and he was like well can I draw it back and dad was like yeah just put an arrow in it you know because you don't want to dry fire it I mean it's kind of a catch 22 but we're in the house and he didn't want him to dry fire it and so that we put an arrow in it and. 00:43:41 Speaker 3: Uh which was a good idea well i i'm gonna. 00:43:44 Speaker 1: I'm gonna draw this back i don't think my dad was there yes yeah now that i'm telling the story i'm like dad wasn't there it was me and zach but the bow was new the bow was in fact new And we were just checking it out. And he was like, I'm going to draw it back. And maybe it was me that said, well, you better put air in it because you don't want to dry fire it. Just in case you let the string go. We're in a room that has three sheetrock walls, and there's one window in the room. One single window. And he draws it back. And I don't know if it was his idea or mine, but it just felt like the right thing to do to point it towards the window. Yeah. Because we sure didn't want to shoot the wall on accident. God forbid that there be a hole punched in the piece of sheetrock. And he draws it back, just to feel of it, and is pointing right at that window and releases the arrow. And the arrow just shatters that window. 00:44:46 Speaker 2: I've never heard that story. 00:44:48 Speaker 1: That's great. It almost seems like a dream. But you need to ask my brother about that next time you see him. 00:44:53 Speaker 3: Did that just happen? 00:44:54 Speaker 1: I mean, it almost seems unreal, but yes. 00:44:57 Speaker 2: How was that received by the upper management? By the landlords? 00:45:01 Speaker 1: I don't remember Dad being too worked up about it. I mean, it wasn't unusual. Having boys. I mean, he was upset, but I honestly don't recall, so that must mean he handled it pretty well. 00:45:16 Speaker 2: That is funny. 00:45:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, it shot right through the door. 00:45:19 Speaker 2: Like in the living room? 00:45:20 Speaker 1: Or in your bedroom? In our bedroom. Just shot right through the window. 00:45:27 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:45:28 Speaker 2: Who had to tell him? 00:45:30 Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even remember. I'm sure Zach did. Because if he was the one that released the arrow, I'm like, hey, brother, this is all on you, man. 00:45:38 Speaker 2: Better a broken window than a shattered bow. Gary would probably be more upset about the shattered bow. 00:45:43 Speaker 1: A dry-fired bow. Maybe. Maybe. Well, hey, we probably don't do a great job of telling what the Bear Grylls podcast is all about and the structure of it. People that follow along every week probably understand we produce a documentary-style, hard-hitting, history, audio-journalism podcast every other week. This is the Bear Grylls Render. On the Bear Grylls Render, we talk about, the idea is that we talk about the podcast that happened before. And so for the last two weeks, well, two Bear Greases, we went back to a series that we did in 2023, April of 2023, called the Con Man Series on a guy named Asa Carter. 00:46:36 Speaker 2: Phenomenal series. 00:46:38 Speaker 1: And yeah, I just, I wanted, you know, I was in Alaska, but also, sometimes when you move so fast... producing content, some of your good stuff kind of gets left behind and we played it. 00:46:57 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:46:57 Speaker 1: And I, I listened to it for the first time in a couple of years and it was almost like I'd never heard it before. Fascinating story though. 00:47:04 Speaker 3: Very, very complex. What a, what a, what a interesting individual. 00:47:10 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:47:11 Speaker 3: It's so complicated. I don't even know. I don't know if he was a madman, if he was just crazy, if he was a genius. Um, I don't know. Very interesting man. 00:47:26 Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember what stood out to me about the production of the Con Man series is that I remember being hesitant to play the clip of George Wallace. Like to actually play it when he said segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Some version of that. I mean, just like that being such a the rhetoric of that and the history of that and the ripple of that through America. I actually called Steve Rinella. And at the time, Bear Grease was, I mean, we'd been going for a couple of years, but we're still kind of like finding our place and voice. And I was like, hey, man, would it be like, I mean, this is a hunting. 00:48:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:48:12 Speaker 1: We're a hunting conservation company. And Bear Grease is kind of, we're just kind of trying to figure. 00:48:19 Speaker 3: Out what we are. 00:48:21 Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, can we play a clip of George Wallace saying the most wild racist stuff in American history? And Rinella was like, I don't know why you wouldn't. I mean, essentially it was like, you're a journalist. If it's relevant. And so we played that. And I think it was powerful in the story to hear this guy after you've Learned about this book. And I stand behind that the book is phenomenal. 00:48:56 Speaker 3: It really is. I haven't read the book. 00:48:58 Speaker 2: I haven't either. I need to. 00:49:01 Speaker 1: Well, his writing stood out. You know, I read several excerpts from the book, especially in the first episode. In the first episode, I started off by reading an excerpt from the book that described him and his grandfather, this boy, Little Tree, and his grandfather setting up a tent. turkey pit trap. Basically, they dug a hole in the ground, put corn in the trap, and were trying to catch turkeys. And he describes how they built it, and then he describes the they were out there before daylight and he describes the sun rising over the Appalachian mountains and melting off a frost. It's as good a piece of writing about the natural world as there is. 00:49:53 Speaker 2: Period. 00:49:54 Speaker 1: Like

it was brilliant the way he described it and the way he described how his grandfather interacted with this moment in time and you can just feel time elapse and he talks about how As the sun rose, the shadow of the valley crept down and the armor of the frost lifted. It was just like this really timed, you just feel it. The reason I read that was just to show what a powerful writer this guy was and how he didn't watch that happen on a movie. Asa Carter, the real Asa Carter, whoever he was, knew what it was like to stand on a ridge in the Appalachians and watch the sun come up. 00:50:36 Speaker 3: He was very talented as a writer. 00:50:41 Speaker 1: And so to know that he wrote this and how deeply empathetic it was towards all these different groups of people. Do you remember in the section where Grandpa is talking about Coon Jack? I read this section. And Coon Jack was a Civil War veteran, Native American Civil War veteran. And Coon Jack had the key to the lockbox that held the songs for the church. And someone tried to take away that from him. And Coon Jack got incredibly angry and threw a fit. And Grandpa came to the defense of Coon Jack and said, hey, just let Coon Jack be in charge of that. Little Tree sees this and is like, wait a minute, Grandpa. Everybody knows Coon Jack's crazy. And you're defending Coon Jack. And Grandpa goes, hey, let me tell you something. 00:51:43 Speaker 3: You're right. 00:51:44 Speaker 1: Coon Jack's kind of crazy. But Coon Jack, you know, he's had a rough life. Fought in the Civil War. He lost that battle. And then his people had to move to Oklahoma. And he didn't go. And he had to fight the people here to stay. All Coon Jack's known is fighting. The only thing that he's got is the song box and the key to it. That's all he's got. So I'm on Kunjak's side. I mean, it was deeply empathetic, deeply, deeply empathetic towards a flawed person. And just so many things go on in this book. It's just pretty masterful. And then again, the whole question that we keep bringing up, with Steve Rinella and then Dan T. Carter, who is a really interesting guy to talk with, is somebody can't talk about that stuff unless they've experienced it. Yeah, it was a fictitious novel. It wasn't real. It didn't happen. But that's why novels and fiction are interesting. It's because the author, the person that created this would have gone through these things he understood it at like a very deep level and so then it raises the question well who if this guy was a vehement white supremacist which it's not we don't speculate about that we know that based upon his long-standing radio program and his literature the stuff he wrote as asa carter speechwriter for george wallace and then but undercover Under this pen name, Forrest Carter, he's writing this book that's deeply empathetic, very insightful into human nature. It is a wild story. 00:53:41 Speaker 3: It was really good. You did a great job. It was very interesting. Very interesting. I don't even know how to describe the podcast. I don't know if I liked the guy or didn't like the guy. 00:53:52 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:53:55 Speaker 3: I don't know. 00:53:57 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah it's it's just you you end it and you'd have no more answers than when you started because a lot of times in these well one one story that is interesting to me just in in life is somebody that changes like someone that maybe started off really bad and then changed and we have so many examples of that um One of the examples we did on the podcast, and we don't have a ton of information about it, but the author of Where the Red Fern Grows, he... What's his name? 00:54:33 Speaker 3: Oh, gosh. 00:54:34 Speaker 1: Wales, was it. 00:54:37 Speaker 1: Look it up, Josh. You got it? He basically wrote this incredible children's book full of moral principles of life and integrity and this coming-of-age book that really... Wilson Rawls. Wilson Rawls. Wilson Rawls. And, you know, back before the internet and you could get quick access to someone's life, like Wilson Rawls was a convicted, he'd been to prison. 00:55:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:55:04 Speaker 1: And then wrote all these children's books later in life. And he had this really rough life and all this. And so the question was, was he a changed man? And this book was him kind of writing his childhood, you know, like re, you know, scripting his childhood and kind of making up for some of the mistakes? Or is that looking too deep into it? You know, he went to prison for, like, stealing chickens. 00:55:32 Speaker 3: Right. 00:55:33 Speaker 1: Which sounds pretty crazy, but that was what he went to prison for. And it's like, you know, you just wonder, where was this guy at the end of his life? 00:55:44 Speaker 2: Right. 00:55:45 Speaker 1: So, yeah, when you see Forrest Carter, you wonder where he was at at the end of his life. And also. 00:55:52 Speaker 1: George Wallace, the face of racism in the South in the 60s, segregation, the voice of it. Later in his life, he went on a reconciliation tour across the South and was like, I'm so sorry. I was wrong. And does that count? 00:56:14 Speaker 2: I mean, it has to count for something. You know what I mean? It doesn't necessarily absolve someone of all their misgivings, but I mean, if we're looking at scripture, I mean, if we look at the life of Paul, he was basically a racist. I mean, attacking Christians, you know what I mean? Maybe not a racist, but a. 00:56:38 Speaker 1: Sure he was. 00:56:39 Speaker 2: I mean, and he was killing people and had a massive transformation in his life. 00:56:44 Speaker 1: And God counted it. 00:56:46 Speaker 2: And God counted it. So I think there is, I think there is a, you have to, You can't just discount that. You know what I mean? Only God knows the heart. You know what I mean? So I can't vouch for the heart of George Wallace. But, I mean, the fact that the man decided to go on a reconciliation tour, I mean, does that mean you have to become a

George Wallace fan? 00:57:11 Speaker 3: No. 00:57:12 Speaker 2: But I think it's the right thing to do. You know what I mean? If you have a change of heart, it's the right thing to do. You know what I mean? Be vocal about it. Be public about it. And so I think in a sense that's commendable. But looking at Asa Carter, I mean, it's hard to know whether he was... I don't get the impression that he was just doing it for the money or the recognition. I mean, there has to be an aspect that there's something deep inside of there that that flowed out of. And whether or not he could reconcile that in his own mind and in his own heart, we may never know. But I think that it had to come... It's too genuine in his writing for it to not come from a position of understanding that deep inside. I also think that we don't know what his life was like growing up. You know what I mean? I think there are things that were probably maybe traumatic, maybe. 00:58:22 Speaker 2: There were things that people did to him. And, you know, I think that, that there, there is a position where, you know, if he had been wronged, if he had been cheated, if something traumatic had happened and there was a deep position, you know, hate comes from unforgiveness and unforgiveness will fester in your life and, and destroy you. And maybe, maybe later on in his life, there was something that he was able to deal with that allowed him to, to get beyond that. And the only way he knew to, kind of change who he was, was to basically do a complete identity swap. You know what I mean? Who knows? It's, it's, it's hard to know for sure. Um, I also do think there's some clear mental illness issues there that plagued the man, Because he was hateful and vile and the things that he talked about, the positions that he stood were hate speech. But you see something totally different later in his life. But then the reports of him toward the end of his life of being hateful and Yeah, yeah. 00:59:28 Speaker 3: Seems like he went the other direction. 00:59:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a swing there, which would probably point to him being bipolar, you know? Who knows? 00:59:37 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. You know, I've got something to say about IQ. I don't know a lot about IQ, about actually what it tests, but, I mean, clearly... it's designed to test human intelligence, but IQ, you know, doesn't necessarily mean that you're like good at math or understand history, but it's about your ability to assimilate information and knowledge and use it in functional, practical ways. Y'all may know more about it than me and, and basically triangulate knowledge and information and, and make sense of it like quickly. Misty was talking to me the other day about IQ, and she was saying she was actually with a young kid. She's in education, and they, in their class, would listen to newscasts or podcasts, like high-level stuff from mainstream media. And she would have discussions with the kids. And one particular kid

just like stood out. She said she just was amazed at their ability to assimilate this information and ask really intelligent questions. And she was like, that kid has a really high IQ. Let's go to Forrest Carter. He did have an incredibly high IQ. 138 is what Dan T. Carter said. And he. 01:01:15 Speaker 2: Isn't it like 120 is genius? Genius level? 01:01:17 Speaker 1: I think so. 01:01:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:01:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean like The guy was exceptionally smart. So his ability to do all these things that we've been talking about in this book, like show the steps of this empathy and just like get deep into human nature and come to all these like really beautiful conclusions may have been a masterful display of IQ. You understand? Absolutely. I mean like he had seen these things his whole life, understood them, could articulate them, could write about them. but never really lived them because IQ wouldn't equate to the status of a human heart. Like really what you wanted for people or for your family. You can spit out a bunch of words that are smart. I hadn't really thought about that until I listened to it the second time. 01:02:10 Speaker 2: I also, the question of do we read this to our kids? And I really liked what I think it was Steve Rinella that talked about a song, like listening to a song. The song means what it means to you, not necessarily what the artist wrote it to mean. Because I can write a song that means something deep to me that you'll never understand. So why would I expect you to take it the same way that I would? I think that you could read this book and have not necessarily your own interpretation of it, but it could mean something to you that's valuable for your life. And I think I think as mature, responsible adults and people who care about being good citizens and good people can access and extract things out of stuff like that that would be beneficial. And so, I mean, I think read it to your kids. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't have a problem with that. 01:03:10 Speaker 1: I was actually surprised, like listening to myself three years ago. I was surprised how hesitant we were to say, read it to your kids. I was like, yeah, of course you'd read this to your kids. That's what I thought. What did you think? 01:03:24 Speaker 3: You don't have to tell them. Yeah. Just read it to your kids. It's a great book. You don't have to tell them that he was a con man or anything else. 01:03:31 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:03:31 Speaker 3: They would never even ask about the author probably. Yeah. 01:03:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:03:36 Speaker 3: So just let it be what it is to them. 01:03:38 Speaker 1: And then maybe when they're older... This story comes out and it informs them about life in a unique way. 01:03:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. And then, you know. 01:03:48 Speaker 1: I've got so many books I need to read. I may not do it, but I wanted to go back and read it again. Because it has been three years since I read it. It really is good. It's not very long either. I mean, it's kind of... It's... Yeah, I'd say it's an easy read in the sense of it's just written in kind of plain prose that you kind of can just flow through. Kind of like Where the Red Fern Grows. But has some... Yeah, I wouldn't have been trained in the ways of understanding political rhetoric. Like when Steve was like, hey, this book is chock full of anti-government. You know, which is... was so masterfully put in there you know because you just you just implicitly trust grandpa like in this book grandpa is just like the most reasonable person you've ever met in your entire life kind of naive about the wider world and then when he starts talking about you know the whiskey tax and and you know the government gonna come and take this kid and put him in a public education because he's not getting an education and I mean, you just see the. 01:05:04 Speaker 3: Right. 01:05:05 Speaker 1: You're just torn. I mean, it's really cool. Old Asa Carter. He died at 54 in 1979. Wow, I didn't realize he was that young. Yeah, 54. 01:05:19 Speaker 2: Interesting. 01:05:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, young. 01:05:20 Speaker 2: Complications from choking. 01:05:22 Speaker 3: Asphyxiation. 01:05:25 Speaker 1: I don't know how he died. I actually... I regret to say I. 01:05:30 Speaker 2: The. 01:05:31 Speaker 1: The details of his death is in Dan T. Carter's book, The Unmasking of a Klansman. 01:05:36 Speaker 3: And he said something about, imagine Cain and Abel. Correct? 01:05:41 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:05:42 Speaker 3: Whatever. I don't know if his brother... I don't know. 01:05:47 Speaker 1: We should look it up, Josh. See if now... See here, talk about corn pile. You know what the corn pile of the intellect is? 01:05:55 Speaker 2: The internet. 01:05:56 Speaker 3: Chat GPT? Yes. 01:05:58 Speaker 2: So. 01:06:00 Speaker 1: You should go buy Dan Carter's book. 01:06:03 Speaker 3: Do you think that we'll ever be able just to kill big bucks off a chat GPT? 01:06:08 Speaker 1: Just order them? 01:06:10 Speaker 3: No, just be like, hey, you think there'll be a big buck over behind that tree this afternoon? 01:06:15 Speaker 2: Be there at 3.38. Type in the coordinates. 01:06:19 Speaker 3: Don't laugh. It's probably coming. 01:06:21 Speaker 1: Man, what if there was a foreign satellite company that had... detailed enough video surveillance from space that they could spot a big buck, score it, find the landowners, send notifications to the landowners. There is a big buck at this GPS location on your land. If you would like to sell this deer or if you would like to kill it yourself or you pay for a subscription. 01:06:53 Speaker 3: It's probably going on already, Clay. 01:06:58 Speaker 2: Okay, here's what I've found out in a quick search. He died in 1979 at Abilene, Texas. But he's buried in Alabama, so they took him back to Alabama. 01:07:09 Speaker 1: Yes, Anderson. 01:07:10 Speaker 2: Said Carter was living in Texas, was working on another book

when he died. The initial public reports described his death as a heart attack. A later account from the Texas Handbook, however, gives a substantially different version. Carter had been involved in a fist fight, suffered an injury, and choked on blood and food afterward. The Encyclopedia of Alabama provides an even more specific account. According to that account, Carter had been drinking, stopped at his son's home near Abilene on the night of June 7th, got into a fight, fell and struck his head on a counter, and was subsequently found dead. Emergency personnel reportedly concluded that he had choked on his own vomit. 01:07:50 Speaker 1: Ace of Carter. 01:07:51 Speaker 2: Brutal end to his life. 01:07:53 Speaker 3: Wow. Wow. Wow. 01:07:58 Speaker 1: Well, we've been going for a while, hadn't we? Yeah. Well, this has been good. Aaron, thanks so much for coming, man. 01:08:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't know how much I had to offer, but I really had a good time. I appreciate you all having me in here. 01:08:12 Speaker 1: Hey, just you being here is all we needed, man. And, man, you're going to look good in a pair of Tacotas. 01:08:19 Speaker 3: I can't wait. I'm so excited about that. Thank you very much. 01:08:21 Speaker 1: Do you ever wear cowboy boots? 01:08:23 Speaker 3: Yes, I do. My back's so bad, I have to be careful how much I wear. Oh, really? 01:08:29 Speaker 1: You don't like them? I mean, it hurts your back? 01:08:31 Speaker 3: I love to wear them, but they hurt my back. Oh, really? 01:08:34 Speaker 2: Well, like I said, they've got some work boots on. They're super comfortable. They will have a sole that I can wear that will be fantastic. 01:08:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, they have some of the shorter soles. And they have some work boots that don't have big heels at all. 01:08:45 Speaker 2: And they are comfortable cowboy boots. They're really comfortable cowboy boots. Or I would love to have a pair. 01:08:50 Speaker 1: You could get that red dress, red denim dress for your wife. From Tacobas. 01:08:55 Speaker 2: How long have you been married? 01:08:59 Speaker 3: 26 years. 01:09:01 Speaker 1: 26 years. Got married in 2001? 2000? 01:09:05 Speaker 2: 2000. 01:09:05 Speaker 1: What day in 2000? 01:09:08 Speaker 3: October the 14th. 01:09:10 Speaker 1: You've been married exactly one month and four days longer than me. 01:09:13 Speaker 3: It'll be 26 years here in a couple weeks. 01:09:19 Speaker 2: My anniversary is October 10th. I'll be there 28 years. 01:09:22 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:09:25 Speaker 2: The finest woman I know. 01:09:27 Speaker 3: Oh, I have no idea why mine has stuck with me this long. She's let me play a lot. I've never did grow up. So I sure did good with that. I do have a deer hunting story that I want to tell, but we can edit that out. 01:09:42 Speaker 2: I want to hear the deer story. Hmm. 01:09:45 Speaker 1: Okay, if the video just cuts off right now. 01:09:49 Speaker 3: The video cuts off right now, and then we can edit this out, okay? Our mutual friend Scott Brown, him and his buddies, they camp down in southern Arkansas every year. They've been asking me to come to deer camp forever. And I never had the time. It's just volleyball, lacrosse, whatever we had going on. Last fall, I finally made my way down there. And I'll give credit to Scott. Scott, he took his whole week and just basically catered to me like he was a guide. I mean, just waited on me hand and foot, you know. So the first night before our first hunt the next morning, they're all sitting around, you know, the campfire. They're like, where do you reckon we ought to put Stanfield? You know, and they're all talking, this and that. Scott goes, I think I'm going to put him over at Corn Dog. 01:10:43 Speaker 2: Corn Dog. 01:10:44 Speaker 3: Yeah. Another old guy, Tim Clark, he's like, yeah, yeah, the wind ought to be perfect for corndog in the morning, you know. We ain't been in there in a while, you know. That would be good. I was excited about corndog. So we get up double early. Those guys, we got up, I don't even know what time. It felt like it was 3 o'clock in the morning. We get up. Of course, Scott has to drive me in there, and then he has to go on. So we wanted to be sure we was in there early enough, so. He says, all right. He stopped the truck and said, all right, you're going to walk right out there in the dark. He said, you'll see my tags. He said, just keep walking. He said, when you get out there, you'll see the tree. He said, skipping that tree. He tried to explain what I was going to see. 01:11:27 Speaker 2: Dark. 01:11:29 Speaker 3: No moon. I walk out there, my old climber. I get in the tree. I start climbing this tree. I'm climbing and I'm climbing and I'm climbing. I'm like, I wonder how high I am. There's no limbs. It's like, You know, am I 10 feet? Am I 30 feet? Right. I just kept going, kept going. I was like, gosh, you know, I turn my little headlight on. I barely see the ground. I've got to be high enough, you know. So I'm sitting there in outer space. It's just stars, and it's just pitch black. I don't know. I don't know what's below me. I don't know if there's a bluff, if there's a field. I just, I'm trying to imagine what, you know, what's going to happen when I can start seeing, what it's going to look like. 01:12:12 Speaker 2: And you're in there an hour before daylight, probably. 01:12:15 Speaker 3: Oh, just felt like eternity. So I'm sitting there, sitting there, and it starts breaking daylight. And I'm just trying to see, you know, and it's, I realize that I'm up above the canopy. Like I'm, I'm so high in this tree that, I mean, I'm 30 foot. I'm like, yo, I've got to come down, you know. So I go down and I feel like I'm in a good spot, you know, and it's perfect. Anyway, I'm sitting there, and Scott texts me. He says, let's sit in here at 11 o'clock. I said, I'll meet you out the road at 11. I thought, okay, I can sit in here at 11. So about 10, 15, I hadn't seen

anything, and I'm sitting there, and let me back up. I'm in my climber, API Grand Slam Supreme that my brother bought for me for my wedding gift in 2000. I've had it 25 years. I don't know how many deer I've killed out of that thing. But anyway, it's got a rail in the front. You just lay your bow across it. I always take a screw-in peg, and I hang my backpack up to my right shoulder. So everything is right here. So my backpack is mounted. It's right here. I'm sitting there. Here's something coming to my left. And I look, and it's a doe, and she's running. This is the 20th of October-ish. No, I don't. Somewhere in there. She's running for no reason, coming right behind me. I'm like, she comes right behind me, just keeps going. 01:13:49 Speaker 1: Not flying, but just moving. 01:13:54 Speaker 3: So I just stood up, turned around, put my release on my bowstring, and I just had the feeling. Anyway, I look and I see a buck coming. He just got his nose down, just coming. So I turn around, so now I'm facing the tree. I'm facing the tree and you've kind of got to make your mind up if you want your arrow on the right side of the tree or on the left side of the tree. Well, she was going right to left. I picked the right side of the tree. So here he comes. And he kind of gets in there behind some stuff and I can't really shoot him. And I'm just thinking, man, I need to shoot that deer right there, but I'm just going to wait and let him get on this left side of the tree. So he comes to the left side of the tree, and he kind of gets right in behind the tree, and I don't know what he's doing, just sniffing, sniffing around. So I pull my bow, my arrow over the left side of the tree, and so now my cam and my bottom limb is wedged into my backpack, and I have it just resting against my backpack. He just steps out right there at, I mean, point-blank range, five yards, tops, four, straight down. I just pull my bow back and settle in and just let it go. And I don't know what happened, but my bow just smokes my backpack. I mean, just, and the arrow just sticks in the ground. I don't know if I shot under it, over it, just sticks in the ground and the deer just kind of hops and just moseys on out through there. Am I? There's no way I missed that deer. There's no possible way that I missed that deer. I was so sure of it. And I watched him walk off. He didn't know he was hit, you know. So I have a carabiner on my pull-up rope. Let my bow down. 01:15:47 Speaker 1: So you think you've killed it? 01:15:49 Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I missed, but I had to go. I had to know. 01:15:53 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:15:54 Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. I mean, it's by far the easiest shot I've ever had that I missed. I climbed down. Go grab my arrow. My bow's hanging over there or laying over on the ground with a carabiner on it. And I pull the arrow out of the mud. And I'm like, I missed it. Reality set in. I missed this deer. I'm just standing there. I'm like, gosh, it's 1025. Scott's going to be here at 11. I'm sitting there thinking all these things. I mean, I just need to load up and walk out to the road. I'm over this. I messed this whole deal up. I'm standing there holding that arrow. And I hear something behind me. And I turn around and look, and here he comes back. And he's just got his nose to the ground. And when I see him, he's 17 yards and closing. He's coming right at me. And he's not even paying attention. And I'm standing there with an arrow. He gets in there about 10 feet. And he just locks it up, and we just have this stare. And I'm like, he's a big old. Big old wide 8-pointer. 01:17:04 Speaker 1: Oh, it was a good buck? 01:17:06 Speaker 3: Oh, 120-incher. Big old wide public land 8-pointer. 01:17:09 Speaker 1: Bad gum. 01:17:10 Speaker 3: We were just staring at each other, and I'm like, oh, I can't believe this is happening. He just, instead of just bolting, he just kind of put his head down and just kept going. Just like, I don't know what you are, but I'm after this doe. Really? Just on down through there. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. And I see him go down there, and he's going in circles, just looking, just trying to find her, just everywhere. I thought, you know, I think I can get back up in this tree and kill this deer. I'm not sure he's going to come. So I just start going back up the tree. And as I'm climbing the tree, I can hear him. He's just down there like 30, 40 yards. I'm like, this is going to happen. So I get back up the tree, and I don't know how. I didn't get as high as I did the first time. And I look, and I'll be darned if he ain't coming back. And I'm just looking at him, and I'm trying to pull my bow. I grab my rope, and I'm like, and I'm pulling, and I can't pull my bow up. I'm like, what is going on? And I look down there, and I had let my bow down in a greenbrier bush. Oh, no. Now the arrows are turned like this, and I'm just trying to pull my arrows up through the greenbriers, and it's just not happening. And here he's coming. He's coming back. He's closing the gap. I'm hearing, brr, brr, brr. I'm just yanking my bow rope as hard as I can. And finally, I'm like, all right, one last, I'm just going to, I'm going to break this rope in half. So I just, and when I do, my whole quiver just goes, I quivered. flips sideways. But it broke free. So now my quiver's just hanging sideways, and I'm pulling my bow up, pulling my bow up. I can hear him walking, you know. I get my bow all the way to the top, and I grab the cam to pull it over my rail... And my quiver falls to the ground. My quiver just falls to the ground. It goes ding, ding, ding. And he's just standing there like 20 yards, you know, just looking around. And I'm standing there with a bow in my hand. And I just watch him walk off. I sent Brian a text, said, get me out of here. Come get me. I'm ready to go to the house. 01:19:34 Speaker 2: Oh, man. So you can hunt your whole life. 01:19:39 Speaker 3: And uh then

you have a morning like that where it's just like i've never been hunting before my whole life you know everything in the world went wrong uh anyway. 01:19:49 Speaker 1: I bet you had a good time telling all those guys that too oh it was great yeah they loved it i bet. 01:19:55 Speaker 3: And i loved it i mean at the time you're just you just can't believe that that's really happening but looking back man that's what it's all about it's so much fun so So. 01:20:04 Speaker 1: Was there, like, a sanctioned moment that night when you, like, told the whole group the story, or did it just kind of filter through as you, like, talked about it? 01:20:12 Speaker 3: I don't even remember, Clay. I don't even remember. 01:20:14 Speaker 2: You blacked it out. 01:20:16 Speaker 3: I've kind of blacked that out. I have a lot of unsuccessful hunting trips. 01:20:21 Speaker 2: I have a lot of. 01:20:23 Speaker 1: Now, this wasn't in the original legend. The original legend was there's not a deer that's ever walked past Aaron Stanfield that he didn't kill with a bow and arrow. 01:20:32 Speaker 3: Back then, I was just too proud to admit that I'd messed up 10 times that morning before the 11th deer walked by. 01:20:41 Speaker 1: That was good. 01:20:42 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:20:44 Speaker 1: That actually is a great intro to our deer stories episodes, which are coming out next week. The next episodes are our deer stories episodes where we travel across the country to get the best deer stories we can find. Stack them all into one place. So that'll be what you hear next is deer stories. Episode gazillion and 10. 01:21:12 Speaker 2: Yep. 01:21:14 Speaker 3: Some of the best stories are unsuccessful. It's true. 01:21:17 Speaker 1: Absolutely true. 01:21:19 Speaker 2: I do a lot of those interviews and that's what I tell people all the time. I'm not here to just get your big buck story. I'm here to get a good story. And most of the really good stories about the ones that got away. 01:21:28 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. 01:21:30 Speaker 2: Mm hmm. 01:21:32 Speaker 1: Well, thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed the Asa Carter Con Man series. And, man, we've got a bunch of good stuff coming up. 01:21:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. 01:21:43 Speaker 1: We actually do. I'm really excited about the lineup of Bear Grease, which is going to start with Deer Stories, which is always some of my favorite. It's just fun. It's fun to... It's pretty cool to cherry pick from someone's life history, like, the best they've got. It's... it's pretty cool to just be like, tell me your best story. And usually it's the second or third one that's the best. 01:22:08 Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely. 01:22:10 Speaker 1: Many times somebody, they might think that the best is maybe the biggest buck or for whatever reason. And maybe it's my or our perception of what's interesting that's different. 01:22:26 Speaker 3: Sure. 01:22:26 Speaker 1: So maybe to them, the story that they say is the best is their best. But often I find it's the one that so many times, I've said this so many times, there's something to be learned here when you're trying to extract information from people, which is a big part of what human existence is, really. You think about concrete sales or landscaping or if you work as a banker or if you're in the IT industry, you're dealing with people and you engage with people usually trying to get something from them. I mean, it may be friendship that you're trying to get from them. It's not necessarily bad, what I'm saying, but you're trying to extract something from people. But in this world, a lot of times, so many times, people have told me stories and it's been like, all right, man, that's great. All right, thanks. Shut the recorder off. Take the headsets off. And they go, man, one time, and they start telling me a story and I'm like, that was the best story of the whole day. Why didn't you tell me that when it was going on? Well, I didn't think. 01:23:26 Speaker 3: That You need to get down there to that camp. The stories that I heard last year at that camp were absolutely irreplaceable. You wouldn't believe it. Between Andy, Scott, Tim, Luke, those guys, Kevin, I mean, they had just the best stories. Great camp. 01:23:48 Speaker 1: I have wanted to go to that camp for the last 20 years. 01:23:52 Speaker 3: It's phenomenal. One of these days you can do it. 01:23:56 Speaker 1: Are you going back this year? 01:23:57 Speaker 3: I'm not this year. I've got a Kansas bow tag bearing a hole in my pocket as we speak. I'm going to try to go to Kansas and hunt up there. I will not get drawn for Kansas next year. Or at least in the past. I only get drawn every other year. My plan right now is to go down there every other year. Maybe next year. 01:24:22 Speaker 1: I owe Scott and not that Well, I owe him two favors if I go to his camp. But, you know, Scott helps River, my daughter, track a bear one night. Y'all may not have talked about that the other day. 01:24:38 Speaker 3: She killed one the other day. Yeah, she did. 01:24:41 Speaker 1: She did. Incredible. Yeah, they had a good hunt. They had a good hunt. So, anyway. Oh, Scott. Thanks, Aaron. 01:24:52 Speaker 2: Thanks, Josh. 01:24:53 Speaker 1: Keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live.