February 19, 2025 • 41 mins
Spencer sits down with lifelong hunter, Jeff Barnes, to discuss the issues facing hunting and conservation along with stories from the field
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm really excited about today because one of my good
friends inside joke, his name's Jeff Barnes. He's actually gonna
join me Onlines and Times this morning. Jeff is a
lifelong hunter, somebody who's always been passionate about the outdoors,
and he's allowed that passion to not only carry through
his life, but now the life of his children, his family,
and every friend that he has. He was a Georgia
(00:21):
state chairman for Ducks Unlimited for years. He's still an
active volunteer with them. He's been an area and district
chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Youth and Education.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I just see Jeff as the type of.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Guy where I really want to dive in and kind
of dissect where you came from and why you got
into hunting, Because everybody that meets you, I don't think
they sit there and go, oh, that guy's been a
lifelong hunter.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's fair, that's very fair.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think they look at you and they're like, oh,
this guy is he's a businessman.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They know you go to Old Miss.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I mean, guy, you just told everybody that you go
to Old Miss like every time you meet him. But
where did the journey start for you with hunting.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, I was going to tell you about that too.
Is my dad refers to me as a prep neck.
He says, I'm a preppery. He says, I'm a preppery
that thinks he's a red neck. That's what my dad.
There's a lot on there. Well, what actually got you
into hunting? Well, so as a kid, I grew up Middleton,
See and deer hunting was king and uh that was
(01:21):
to me, that was all that you could hunt. And
about fifteen years old, I was up in a deer
stand reading a bass Master's Fishing magazine and I fell asleep.
And I got down now that deer stand and said,
I'm never doing this again, I said, I said, I'm
sitting here with a high power rifle, sound asleep, reading
a magazine. It's like, this is not for me. So
(01:41):
I did not hunt for twenty years after that, because
hunting to me was only deer and it wasn't until
I got involved in shot gunning and clay shooting that
I got the next level to go bird shooting. All right,
Well shooting, let's not fast forward it too. You were
fifteen years old for deer hunting. Yep, you fell asleep
after reading a bast magazine in a deer stand.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, you obviously still had a passion for shooting, hunting
the outdoors. You just didn't know kind of where to
focus that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's true. And so like, I'm an eagle scout, my
son's an eagle scout, my other son is a star scout,
sumble Bragg. I got it. Yeah, yeah, you got Our
family is something anyway, Yeah, no, no, no, no, I'm saying
scouting is a big part of our life. We know
how to tie, okay, tie some knots, but scouting is
a big part of my life. So outdoors conservation really big.
(02:34):
And that's really kind of where I got to Ducks Unlimited,
which is a weird story because you just joking about
tie knots. I taught myself how to tie a pair
of cord lanyard and I randomly sent it perfect for calls. Yeah,
and I randomly sent it to one of my dad's
friends that I knew duck hunted and said, hey, I
made this. I don't need it. I just was making
(02:55):
it for something to do and said, if you ever
have a spot in a blind, I'd love to go
with you. And that's how I got duck hunting is
it really started through boy scouts, So I learned these
not I made him a lanyard for something to do,
and he took me to my first duck hunt.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's so interesting that you bring that up, because every
duck hunter knows their lanyard for their calls is just
as important. Some guys would say in a blind, it's
more important than a rifle itself, for a shotgun itself.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I have a friend of mine where when I lived
in Saint Louis, that's where I really got into duck hunting.
I mean, why wouldn't you Mississippi Flyway, Central Flyaway like
you're on top.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And all my buddies up there were into duck hunting.
In fact, I probably didn't even share this story with you.
I got into duck hunting because on my radio show,
I went on and I said, look, I want to
go on a broad date. I'm looking for a boyfriend,
you know what I mean, Like, I'm looking for dudes
that want to be friends. And women called the show
and they were like, oh my god, you're a total
(03:54):
man's man.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
You're just like my husband. They like to drink beer.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They like to go hunt, and I was like, me up,
it's right. So I got set up with a group
of guys, Andy, Mike Bow and a handful of other
guys Robbie and we all went out dove hunting, and
it was right before the Duck season. Teal was going
to open up first, so we went out for dove
and they were like, let's.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Just see if this guy is worth the salt. And
I'm walking around with a shotgun in the middle of
the woods with these guys that I don't know. We
had a blast.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Oh yeah, I mean I think we shot three doves
all day, right like public land hunting, the whole wheel.
But then they were like, hey, we're going to go
out for Teal season in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Why don't you come?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So I was like all right, cool, And then opening
day of duck they were like, why don't you come
with us that? So it just kind of got in.
The reason I bring up the lanyards was Robbie sat
down and got a bunch of para cord and just
started making them. Yeah, and he made one for me
and it's still the one that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I used to this very day.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Because you just can't beat somebody's craftsmanship. You know, you
can go to a store and you can buy all
these things and it's great, but when you have somebody
who hand makes something for you, like the detail and
the time and I hate to say love, but like
the respect that they give that piece of craft that
they're doing is amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And I've found that in a lot of the hunting
world is you know, it's not a cheap sport, right
and there's a lot of people that can buy anything
they want, and what they most want are things that personalized,
things that you can give it. And so I've done it.
You can't buy that you can't buy. And I have
done several of lanyards for gifts to like say hey,
thank you for taking me on this hunt, thank you
(05:32):
for taking me shooting today, thank you for whatever. And
I've done several those, and I've done them in custom colors,
you know. I did them and all the SEC school
colors and gave them to people that went to different
you know, with their alma maters or their fan bases.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What was the one SEC school that you were like,
I don't really want to touch.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I knew you were going to say, that because it's
you know, again it's Mississippi city. But you don't have
to say that's right. As an old miss guy. You know,
we hate everybody, you know. So I was like, well,
everybody looks forward to you on the scout. Everybody, somebody
wants to come to Oxford. But I'm like, yeah, I
hate l SU, I hate State, I hate all about
you know. But but no, it's it's all good because
(06:11):
I think everybody. I like making someone happy there and
I like giving them that product, and I wanted to
come back to So that's where I got with Ducks Unlimited.
Is that invitation that first duck hunt. I didn't know
anything about duck hunting, so I literally went out on
DU's website and found a local banquet near me and
just went. I didn't know soul, I didn't know anything,
(06:32):
but I was like, I want to hear the linuit
over at the general admission, the Friends of the Ducks table,
you know, and I wanted I wanted to hear the lingo.
I want to hear what are people talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
What?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Because I didn't know anything about it. And that's how
I got involved in Ducks Unlimited. Is I met some
really cool guys at that first banquet, and I'm still
still hunting fish with them to this day. Yeah, you're
a super approachable guy.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean you and I met through an organization called
SCI known as Safari Club Internet National, and we had
a couple mutual friends and that's all.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It kind of came together. And I remember the first time.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I was going to meet you, one of my buddies goes, oh, hey,
we're going to meet up with Jeff Barnes and I went, Okay,
who's that. He goes, oh, he's the former president of
Duck's Unlimited. I was like, WHOA big deal. This guy
is somebody. And then I meet you and you're like
of the Georgia chapter.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, let's let's not get crazy now, let's let's let'sten.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Not everybody pumps you up like crazy, but it's it's
all deserving because you are such a friend of the
outdoors and the things that you do. But I want
to get back to your past because I feel like
the most exciting part of talking about hunting are the
stories that men to all of us together. You know,
like your first experience of hunting was sitting in that
(07:49):
deer stand reading a bass Master magazine, which you fell asleep, right,
you didn't see an animal, or you probably would have
if your eyes weren't closed. But my first deer hunt,
I didn't see it with anybody. It was just me
on an old piece of plywood in a tree with
two by fours nailed to it as the steps. And
I remember I was sitting out there. This is muzzleloader season.
(08:09):
I'd never shot a muzzle loader. I just took hunter
safety in school. And the guy who's property I was hunting,
he was like, hey, look, you're gonna have to use this.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So he cocked it halfway.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Holy and he said, when you get out there and
you have one, cock it the rest of the way.
And I said, okay, So I did just that, and
I remember this eight point came out, and to me
it was an absolute stud s right, like this is
a boone and crocket put it on the wall. My
name's in lights. This is insane. He was probably two
(08:41):
hundred yards away. I shot a mile and a half
over his head, and of course, once the smoke cleared
and I look and I'm waiting to see that brown
body down, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
He didn't even look. Where is where'd he go.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So, of course, forty five minutes later, because I learned
this like there, give them time. So I was like, all,
r forty five minutes later, I walk over to where
he was. There ain't a sign of blood anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's probably just a big hole in the side of
the pond or something. I look up in the canopy
of the trees and now there's a giant hole in
the camp.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I had to have shot, because I remember I came
back and I was then telling them the story and
they were like, well, what happened. I said, he came
walking out of the trees right here, and they were like, oh,
that's a good place where they normally walk out. They
said he had to be, you know, two hundred yards away,
and they go, oh, so he didn't shoot, And I was.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Like, well, actually I did.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Joke's on you, and I said, I shot a mile
and a half over this thing. Said I had to
have because the way that the sights were on that
gun is not what I learned in hunter safety. It
was a drop ball site, so you had to take
the circle and put it down in the bottom of
the v not notch instead of putting it on you know,
the pumpkin on the fence post thing.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So when I told them the story, they were just like, well,
that's all right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Hey, you know, try tomorrow. It's all my experiences, you know.
And I'm the same way, like I realized that get
the other parts of that story is I'm afraid of heights.
And so here I am climbing up this two by
four nail to the tree right, sitting up in this
windy thing. I'm like, what am I doing? I don't
like any part of this, Like I so I joke
as like I'm a duck hunter and a turkey hunter,
and I was like, we either dig a hole and
(10:18):
get it in a duck blind or I'm sitting at
the bottom of a tree. I was like, I don't
do heights. I get as low as I.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Can for you don't want to be like, put me
in a pit line, I'm good, put me in a pit.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah. So that's another tree, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
After you went on that duck hunt, though, explain that
first experience of going on a duck hunt. So you've
gone to du you've heard some of the lingo, you've
met some people, but now you actually get to go
out into a blind and actually get to hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So I went with. Like I said, it was one
of my dad's friends. So my dad went, and my brother.
My little brother went, and my little brother and I
we joked that we're My mom says, we're not only
different as night and day, we're like separate weeks. I
mean we look nothing like, we act nothing alike. It's
it's crazy, but the four of us went. Man, I
couldn't have told you if I was shooting at a
tweety bird or a bald eagle. Everything that was in
(11:11):
the sky, I was like, is that it is that one?
I mean I didn't shoot at them, of course, but
you know, I'm just in here going Anything that's flying
I thought was a duck, and it's it's really I
look back on that and think about how I've matured
in the duck hunting to realize, Hey, those are pentails,
those are gadwalls, those are mallards to where you can
see that that first day, man, I couldn't have told
(11:32):
you if it was a duck or an airplane.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh, the blackbirds are the worst, you know, And so
it's they come buzzing over you. You think it's a group
of teal Yeah, you're set off the shoulder.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's real interesting to see that maturation and to see
where it came from from. I didn't know what it
all was going on, just complete excitement to trying to
figure this out and try to take to the next
level and try to plan my own hunts and try
to plan my own trips and do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Share with me out the person that you hunted with,
you sent them a lanyard, yep, and you said, hey,
I made this. If you want to use it or
if you want to invite me on a hunt, both
are fine.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, the funny thing is is I sent to him
and didn't hear a word from him. And his name
is Jim, And I was like that, come Jim. I mean,
I was spending a lot of time on this. Why
did at least maybe call say things, yeah, you know something.
Well later I found out the reason he hadn't said
anything is because he was trying to put this trip
together and he wanted to be able to call me
when he called to say thanks, to say hey, I've
(12:30):
got us a trip. This is what we're doing. So
I just had to be patient, had to sit there,
and Jim called and said Hey, I'm going to take
you a stutguard, which if anybody knows anything about duck hunting,
my very first duck hunt was a Stuttgart, Arkansas, which
is like driving in the Daytona five hundred. Who is
Jim though, Yeah, Jim Jim Finn. He's a friend of
a family, been around for a long time. He teaches
(12:52):
hunter safety in Tennessee. Say's very knowledgeable, long term hunter,
and he and my dad are good friends.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Does he luck out to have any sort of the
lease or a trail or did he just go with
a guide?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So we actually hunted public land in Arkansas. He had
been hunting there for years and he loved He was
the kind of guy that loved to just drive around
a scout, I mean, And so I learned from day
one how to scout for birds, how to go look
for him. And we hunted public land for a while.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And so let's talk about that, because there's a lot
of people that they're fortunate to be able to get
with an outfitter and go.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
You and I went with an outfitter.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And it wasn't the greatest time to duck hunt because
the weather wasn't right. But there's a lot of guys
where they just go to public land and they're just
trying to figure it out. How do you find the
birds in that kind of situation.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It was interesting, and I'll be honest with you. I
got to a point where I'd hunted with Jim for
a couple of years and said, Jim, I got to
get an outfitter because I was coming from Atlanta, Georgia.
He was coming from Nashville, so he's four hours closer
than I was. And I was like, Jim, this is great,
and I'm having an awesome time. This is fun. But
(14:04):
two things. I don't consider it my vacation to drive
over here and be ready to fight somebody at four
o'clock in the morning every morning. Dude, would I get
somewhere at four o'clock in the morning. I want to
know that it's mine and that I'm not having to
find somebody else. Could we find the birds? Yeah, but
so could everybody else, right, you know? And so I've
(14:27):
paid my dues. I did the public land, but I
pretty much hunt private and with outfitters.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Now let's talk about the outfitter game. Yeah, because I'm
kind of in that weird spot right now. I just
had a good conversation with him. But Buddy and my
Mark Knight. He's an outfitter for deer in Turkey. He's
been really successful in Illinois, Kansas, and now he's got
a place in Kentucky. And he and I have gone
on other hunts with other outfitters, you know. We've chased
(14:53):
Rocky Mountain elk, and we've gone on different deer hunts
and we fished together, so we spend a lot of
time in the outdoors. And he and I were having
a conversation after our most recent outfitter Hume where I
was just like, I'm kind of over it. I'm kind
of over the outfitter thing.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I hear you, man, And it's a tough spot, you know.
And I've felt kind of a man without a country
a couple of times, you know. And I've got a
really good outfitter that I've gone with a couple of times.
But again, it's all a timing game, right, and so,
and it's no fault of the outfitters, of any outfitters
(15:28):
that you know, when you're trying to fill up and
you're booking your hunt in February for something that's not
going to be till November and December, and if you
don't book in February, all the dates are gone. But
you're really you're taking a one and sixty chance at
will the dux be there that day.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
You're going completely off a history, you know, like this
time last year, we had a hell of a hunt, right,
so we had an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean, even with deer. This is what I try
to share with the women that I've dated and that
I've gone out with.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
When you're getting ready to go on a hunt or
you have a free weekend, we are locked to our
phones trying to figure out what the temperature and what
the weather is gonna do. Because if you see that
ten degree drop in temperature and you see the wind
is going to be up fifteen twenty miles an hour,
you pack your shit and you go, yeah, you don't
(16:16):
have you don't have a choice because yeah, sure your
vacation will be X, Y and Z and you can
go have a good time when that condition is right.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
You gotta be you gotta do it. And I've really
kind of moved into it. And I think all hunters
go through different phases, you know, you go through the
I want to kill everything phase to the I want
to experience, make the experienced face, and I'm really in
the I want my kids to enjoy it phase. And
so now that's what's important to me is Yeah, I like,
(16:44):
I like shooting ducks, but I also like taking a
week in and going with my son who's going to
be graduating from high school next year. Insane and you know,
and I'm not gonna have as much time with them.
And so that's that's what the trip to me is now,
not about killing the ducks. But I don't consider it
a complete bust because I got to drive out there
(17:05):
with my son. I got to talk to him, I
got to have those conversations. I got to see him
shoot a duck. I got to see him do those things.
And that's what makes a difference for me right now.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And I witness at firsthand because we were lucky to
go to the boot heel of Missouri on a duck hunt,
and you would called me and asked me if I
wanted to go, and I was like sure, and we
worked out another spot where a buddy of mine who's
never been duck hunting, you know, I was like, Hey,
if you want to go to this, let's go to this.
He broke a cardinal rule on that. We'll talk about
that in a second.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Play.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
We go out and you and I had already had
the conversation, like we were looking at the weather, we
were looking at the trends.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
We were talking to the.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Outfitter, and the outfitter was like, look, the expectations are low.
We're just not seeing the push that we thought we would.
I want to talk a little bit more about, you know,
kind of the duck transitions. You know, they used to
get all the way down to the Gulf of America,
and now it seems like now it seems like they're
getting kind of hung up around Memphis. We'll talk about
(17:59):
that in a second. But what I witnessed on that
trip was exactly what you're talking about. You brought your son, Davis,
who I think the world of, and I took him
on his very first.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I wanted to talk about how you took him on
deer Hunt.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
He's just such a good kid, and you just watch
how you can see how you've been as a parent
has really impacted and influenced him. Thanks, and when you
get to watch that firsthand and you get to see
him have an experience it's incredible. It's it's good to
see the hunting world and family come full circle. Now,
(18:35):
I will say he's got to be a little faster
on the trigger because that one duck that came through
that passed all y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Let me tell you you don't have to worry about
that anymore. He's grown.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
He is uh, he's a quick drama gral. Let me
tell you, I loved I loved the duck hunt that
we went on. We didn't see many birds and we
had this one green had come through a mallard and
it came left to right and I was almost all
the way at the end of the pit, and everybody
was waiting, waiting, waiting. I mean, the guy, I appreciate
the outfitter, but he never said pull like he was
(19:06):
waiting yeah, And I'm like, I'm not waiting, Like we've
been sitting here for three days. We haven't seen anything.
So this one's going down and boom, pull the trigger.
And of course the conversation is like, hey, let's all
wait for somebody to say.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Shooting, and we're not waiting.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I'm sorry, boys, But the cardinal rule of that, my
buddy Broke Grant, was that he took that duck home
and then he got him mounted. Oh wow, and you know,
like he didn't shoot it. And we had that conversation
at the bit. I was like, look, you can do this.
Just know that this is an unspoken rule, like it
could be it could be bad juju.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Well, and you don't want that. And I've only got
I'm not a big mountain the ducks kind of guy
or anything. I'm not against it. It's just not my thing.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I like having a couple of species, Like I've got
one of the most beautiful pintail mounts that I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I've got one mallard because it's got a purple head,
which is really cool. Cool. Look, it's cool. And Davis
shot a widgeon this year a couple of weeks ago. Americans,
Oh my goodness, it was beautiful. I wish I wish
in retrospect now we kept it and mounted.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's so funny though, because I knew you were gonna say, like,
I wish I held onto it. You'll shoot a wigeon
and people will be like, oh, that's that's cool.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
This was this was really good.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
But then what happens is you go to places where
wigeons are really popular, and they're like, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Right, that's the same thing. You know. I've been fortunate
to travel around different places and everybody's like, man, I
really want to get a wood duck. I was like, uh,
come to Georgia's come on, that's all we got, you know,
we'll do is go down the creek bottoms, lay them out.
You know. They're like, what are you see in Georgia.
I was like, wood ducks and boat dock ducks is
what we call them. A love for brand and just
sit the boat dock. Those about the you know, the
(20:42):
ducks that you're gonna see. But like an American black duck,
I've killed one.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's one that has always been a pinnacle on my
list and I've always tried to find one.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I was in a hunt in Missouri and one
of my buddies who got me into this duck club
that we were in.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
This is such a great duck hunting day.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I had to do a speech for the Alzheimer's Association
at Edward Jones where the Saint Louis Blues play hockey.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Okay, so my dad was in town.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
He was getting ready to hear me speak well, I
woke up in the morning and I looked out. I
looked at the weather. It's the middle of duck season.
I was like, today's going to be a light them
up day. It's going to be awesome. So I went,
I gave my speech. I immediately jump back in the
truck and I go, Dad, I'm going to bring it
back to the house. I'm gonna go spend a couple
hours in the duck blind, and then I'll come back.
We'll go have dinner or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
He's like, okay, great.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
The wind starts swirling and I mean, it looks like
a tornado's about to pop off. Temperature drop fifteen degrees.
I was like, oh, buddy, my friend is blowing me up.
He's like, you gotta get out here.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
He's better hurry up. We've already shot a limit.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You need to get here. I said, fine, So I
get out there. My buddy is beaming ear to ear.
When I get into the blind, I said, why are
you smiling so big? He goes shot a black done.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Oh man, and I said, what, let me see that thing,
and he pulls it out.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was
a speckle belly. That's a big difference. He's like, dude,
it's such a beautiful bird. And I'm just saying quiet.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Other guys in the blind like they're not really you know,
focused on or whatever. I said, I can't wait until
we get back to the lodge and you share that
with every body. You're cold, and he goes. He goes, man,
I'm just so pumped. So we get back and this
is where you mark down how many mallads pintails?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The whole deal.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
He gets over, he marks on the board one black duck,
and everybody was like.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
No way, you shot a black duck. Let me see it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
He pulls this thing out and the one dude who
I knew was going to say it shouts from the back.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
He goes, you idiot, have a speckled mailing goose. He
looks at me and I was like, Ryan, and I
have the heart to tell you, man, I got a
great one. I don't know if I told you this
or not about marking ducks down and keeping ledgers. It's
last year. I was very fortunate to be invited out
to the Dallas Hunting Fish Club, which is I've come
(22:57):
to learn the fourth oldest Duck club in America.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And it's what makes it so unique though, Well what
we're saying it's the location or the location is what's
cool is think about it. In the eighteen hundreds, ten
miles outside of downtown Dallas was a long way away,
which was not I mean, when I talked to my
host Joe crafton Thank You Joe, I was like, Joe,
how do I do?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I just run a card whatever? He goes, take an Uber.
He's like, he's like, when you land at the airport,
just take an Uber. And I was like, to the
Duck Club, He's like, yeah, because when you drive out
of the dust shop in an economy uber.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, the guy's like, I don't want to go down
that road with all those files when you literally.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Can see the skyline of downtown Dallas in the background.
Well when you leave the club and so like it's amazing.
We're looking at some of the records like from the
Turn of the like from the eighteen hundred nineteen hundred
Turn of the Century that and it was really funny
because there's like the ledger like you talk about is
like put on the board, how many mallard you got?
How many this you got, and so I said, this
(23:59):
just shows Tom stands still. Everybody's the same, no matther
it was now or one hundred and fifty years ago.
But there was one let's just say it was Jeff Barnes, right.
I don't remember the guy's name, but it said Jeff Barnes.
Four and one eighth Mallards. I said, Man, there was
a fight in the bla in that day. Who shut
that duck? Who shot that duck? So seven other gods
claimed the eighth of it, I guess, but four and
(24:21):
one eighth Mallards.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It's it's incredible to look back at some of those
ledgers because most people are like, why ain't keeping records
all this stuff?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But that's why.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But man, it tells you how much good Old Cyrus
shot in nineteen thirty four. And you know, when the
turn of the nineteen hundreds came around and Teddy Roosevelt
was really big, I'm like wanting to make sure that
we were taking care of the animals and taking care
of the conservation side. That's when everything started to change,
like the farming of animals and the hunting of animals, right,
(24:50):
and the business of it was terrible.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I nearly wiped away a lot of species. Yeah, I mean,
and that's and that's the start of ducks on Lemos
thirty seven, coming out of the dust Bowl era. And
so there was you know, the market hunting and all that,
but also there was ducks and loon was started by
duck hunters who said, we've got to do something. This
can't be sustained what we're doing here. And so to
(25:15):
your point, you know, there it was wild West out
there for a while, and we self imposed, Hey, this
is what we need to do. This is how we
need to get a control on it. And that's duck
hunters are the only group whoever started their own federal
waterfowl stamp. I mean, we tax ourselves to benefit the
sport we love.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Has it gotten better the conservation side because the groups
like Ducks.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Unlimited, Oh yeah, I mean, and not just ducks on loaned,
but look look at the wild turkey man. I love
turkey hunting. That's probably my favorite thing. And their dar
near gone and now they've come back. Deer hunting.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Look at I mean, deer hunting is probably the wildest
number that you can see. I think the last time
they did a nationwide survey of the North American white tail,
and that discounts like mule deer and you know, the
different species. It was somewhere like thirty seven million. I
mean the population is wild.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
They've got to be like borderline pests, you know, I
mean some places. Yeah, I mean it's it's that prolific.
They're numbers now. And so I think conservation has a
great story to tell right now.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
What do you think the biggest impact was with Ducks
Unlimited and with conservation groups on the animals at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, and I think everybody has their own place, right
And I'm a big believer in just because you're in
Ducks on Lona doesn't mean you can't be an SCI.
Doesn't mean you can't be an NTF mean, can't be
in Turkey's for tomorrow. You know. I think they all
benefit in their own specific niche and we're not. I
don't consider ourselves competing. I mean we're technically competing for
that dollar. Everybody's only got so much money. But I'm
(26:52):
a member of all of them, and because I believe
in what SCI is doing to be first for hunters' rights,
because if they don't have those hunters rights, I can't
go out. But I also believe in what Ducks on
Limita is doing is we're the nation's leader in wetlands conservation.
So it's not just ducks. It's like, do you like
clean water? You know? Do you? The US Fish and
(27:13):
Wildlife Service says that that every acre the Ducks on
Limited conserves helps nine hundred species. That's amazing, And so
that's a lot more than just ducks. And when we're
talking about the little you know, parasite or amibas that
are floating in the water, now your salamanders. Yeah, we're
talking about the stuff that's floating in the water all
the way up to the moose that walks across that wetland,
(27:34):
everything in between.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Why do you think that there's such a battle with
people and memberships of different groups. Like you said, people
will claim sci people will claim Ducks Unlimited or Delta
waterfowl or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's just money. I mean, there's only so much that
it is as status thing. I don't know. I mean
there's you know, we talk about wallet share, right, there's
only so and if you open up your wallet, your
imaginary wallet, but there's an x number of dollars in
there and x number that you're going to do towards conservation,
Well you can't, or any charity for that matter, you
you just can't support everything in the world. And so
(28:12):
these groups, these NGOs are competing for that wallet share,
you know. So, and I do think there is some status.
I think there is some some groups that are that
are that go bigger than their group, that go bigger
than their their mission or the organization. It's some of
them have a very social aspect of them, some of
them have a very rural aspect to them, some of
(28:34):
them have a very local aspect, whereas others have a
very national aspect or international. And so I think it's
it's finding your right group and your right group of people.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I'm glad that you said some have this and some
have that, because I've had a lot of conversations with
people as a proud member life member of Safari Club
International and SCI just that alone tells a lot of
people a lot of different things. When you hear Safari
Club International, you immediately think, oh, this has got to
be Safaris in Africa, and they only care about the
international side. And in my conversations that I've had with
(29:06):
people in the organization and also members. Their primary focus
has shifted a little bit to the everyday domestic North
American hunter because we have the most robust amount of animals,
we have the most amount of hunting license sold in
the world.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, and we have our own model that the world interact. Yeah,
the Western model, you know, the whole North American model
of conservation is the envy of the world, you know.
I mean it's we're proving that this stuff works. We're
proving that when you put limits on there, I mean,
you do smart, ethical, legal hunting, it benefits the organization,
that benefits the life, It benefits these herds. And it's
(29:47):
not everybody thinks there's a big difference between conservation and preservation. Right,
might actually have worked too well, right, Yeah, we're probably
a victim of our own success here.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Because how many videos do you see on social media
where you see a freaking wild turkey on the top
of somebody's car in a Walmart parking lot. You're like, hey,
we probably need to really talk about some of the
numbers here. But that's been the biggest problem that I
think all of us have seen. The conservation has worked
so well, We've conserved a lot of these animal populations,
(30:18):
we've kept them healthy. You know, obviously CWD and different
diseases have run rampant in the deer population. Is that
because a lack of hunters? Is that because we're not
selling nearly as many licenses as we did twenty five
thirty years ago. That's obviously been on the decline. We
saw a slight boost in twenty twenty. Yeah, but we
(30:40):
went from like four percent to five percent.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
You know. I was at a hunt with Tennessee Wildlife
Federation at the first part of February, which I want
to give a shout to them. Those guys are amazing.
I love what they're doing, and they're all about getting
that next generation in there. Say all that to back
it up to say, this was their quote. This is
their number. I don't I don't know, but they said
for every ten hunters they're out there today, there's only
(31:03):
seven to fill their shoes. So I actually thought that
was a pretty high number. I would have not thought
it was as high as seven. Yeah, but if ten
is five percent, yeah, And so it's on the decline,
there's no doubt about. It's on the clon and I
think we're spoiled to living in the South, where it's
so much part of our culture. It's accepted that we
(31:26):
don't see the decline in numbers that are really there.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think we see it, but I think most people
they hunt with their group, right, Like you and I
have hunted together. We're friends, and I've hunted with your son,
so it's kind of like an extended family thing.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
But the majority of.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
People that hunt in the Southeast, they hunt with their
family and it goes out with his boys or his
daughter and they hunt.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And it's a very normal part of conversation, a normal
part of culture. You just accept it. You just know
people are gonna hunt. Well, well, I think that's becoming
less and less in other parts of the country. And
what have we done.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
We've kind of outpriced ourselves too, you know, like you
don't have for the family that goes out and hunts,
they have family land. Let's say they've got eighty acres
and they can go and they can hunt deer in
Turkey whenever they want. Maybe they have a small pond
where they get some puddle ducks and stuff like that.
But it's almost like going to some outfitters because you
don't have access to land. Has gotten so outrageously expensive
(32:28):
leases for deer land have gotten so outrageously expensive it has.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And that's really why I love people I just talked
about Tennessee Wildlife Federation. I love groups like them because
they are all about taking the next generation. Whether when
I say next generation, I don't necessarily mean age wise,
I mean just the next group. So they take adults,
they do education for groats. But one of the things
they do is they leverage both private land and public land.
(32:56):
They show you I've been on two rabbit hunts with
them with my son and and they take us to
a wa and so they show you, hey, there's it's
there's access, it's out there. And because I think that's
a lot of the learning curve too, is the education
of knowing where can I even go? Because if you
just take somebody who's a typical non hunter today right
(33:18):
and said do you want to go hunting? Man, that's
an expensive bite to you to say. So you go
through these groups like that where they can take you
on and give you an opportunity to go out to
show you where to go, as opposed to well go
spend a couple thousand dollars go to drive nine hours
to an outfitter and hope for the best. That's why
I love groups like them.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I'm glad that you brought up the age thing because
with Georgia Sci which is the organization the chapter that
I got involved with right off the bat, they did
a first time hunters where it didn't matter. I mean,
we had a guy that was sixty seven years old
and we had a woman who was twenty eight years old,
and they wanted to hunt for the very first time.
And success in the field is a big deal. That's
(34:03):
a big way to hook somebody back, and deer hunting
it can be a little difficult. You know, not everybody
is going to see that giant one point fifty eight
pointer come walking out of the woods and have the success.
But that's also a fallacy that we've kind of put
in the hunting world. Sometimes you just need to knock
a dough down, yoh man. Sometimes you just need the
(34:24):
opportunity to know what it's like and then have that
connection with an animal that you just took that would
give you a chance to then see hunting in a
much different way. You know, when I took Davis hunting,
he had an opportunity at two domes and the first
one he rushed his shot.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
He was nervous, shot over top.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Second one he said he was comfortable and he squeezed
the trigger and he missed. And when we had a conversation,
part of me I never explained this to him, but
part of me felt terrible because I'm like, did I
not get him in a right situation to pull that trigger?
And as much as you can do as a parent,
as much as you can do as a friend or
a mentor or somebody that you're hunt with, you can
(35:07):
only do so much when they pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's different.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
But he and I had a conversation where I just
shared with him, like what happened?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Are you? Are you good?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
And he told me straight up, I was nervous, but
he had the excitement to want to go back out
the next time. And then once the season was over,
you know, you called me the next year and you're like, hey,
I'm going to send you a picture, and you send
me a picture of Davis with a dode out And
I was so ecstatic for him because I know that
he's stuck with something, even though he faced some adversity
(35:38):
the first couple times out.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
And that's good. I mean, and that's what I tell
people when I take him hunting, it's it's missing. It's
all part of it, not seeing, and he's all part
of it. It's like that, you know, sword sharpening. You
gotta keep doing it. You've got to understand that it's
not just going out. You know. The joke is it's
not called shooting, just called hunting, you know. So I mean,
it's it's one of those things where he could he
(36:02):
may not have hit that though that I sent you
the picture of had he not gone out with you
before and gotten those nerves out and gotten to see
what it's like. And so don't lose any sleep over it.
He's a if it had a mother, he wants to
hunt it now. So let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I know that he's going to be a lifelong runner,
and he's exactly who people need. I just wish that
we were, you know, organizations and people were a little
more focused on we just need to get people out
in the woods, right because access is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Access is a huge deal, and I've kind of adopted
a thing where I like to take as many people
as I can. However, I've you know, I know you
and I objeked about this several times and talked about it.
But I mean, turkey is my thing, that's what I love.
But I don't I don't ask people to go turkey
hunt with me because I know, well, because well, I
(36:51):
take people if they ask me, but I don't take.
I don't say, hey, let's go turkey hunting because turkey
hunt is special? Can we go turkey hunt? I knew,
I knew it was gonna come up. I told my
wife coming over, He's like, he's gonna, he's gonna, he's
gonna corner me. He's gonna put me on the air
and say you gotta take me. But but that's the thing.
It's my point to that is I want people to
(37:12):
have success, and turkeyn is not successful all the time.
And turkey ning is sitting under a tree and hoping
to hear a sound and and you don't always hear it.
And that's what I could see how people if that's
the first opportunity they have out in the woods, I
may not want to do it. But don't you think
your definition of success is off? Okay harvest? Yeah I
(37:32):
would say that, Yeah, I used to.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I think there's so much I think there's so much
success that you get from just being out in the woods.
Like if you increase a friendship with somebody and you
really start to understand their patterns when they hunt. If
you were blowing a duck call and you were practicing
the whole way out to the lodge and you couldn't
get it, and then all of a sudden one has like, hey,
do tukatuka and look like you're spinning into a bottle,
(37:57):
and then all of a sudden you start to get it.
Like there is a level of success that everybody obtains,
but you're right harvest and being able to take something.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's not easy even in close shots right right. You know.
I had a turkey hunt last year where.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
We got out in the woods forty five minutes before
and we're sitting there and we're waiting to hear these birds,
and all of a sudden, a torrential downpour comes and
we're getting soaked, and I looked at my buddy that
I was hunting with, and I go, look, we.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Got two choices.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
We can either sit here and get soaked and hope
that this rain lets up, or we can walk back
to the truck. We can sit in the truck and
we can try to wait out the rain and then
come back in. And he was like, what do you
want to do? And I said, I think it's going
to let up, and I don't want to walk all
the way back to the truck. And then we get
there and the sun peeks out and it's beautiful. I said,
so I'd rather stay and get soaked. Literally, I was
(38:52):
happy I made that choice. Five minutes later, the rain stops.
It's almost like God turned off the faucet, you know
what I mean. Yeah, sun comes out, and then I
hear just and I'm like, oh, one's coming. I call,
but I don't hear anything. A couple of minutes later,
out of the corner of my eye, I see the decoys.
I see this tom come rushing in and I'm looking
(39:15):
kind of the other way. So I swing my gun
over and I put it up. I'm using a red
dot for the very first time. I'm shooting TSS out
of a short barrel Mossberg. I'm like, hm, I'm not
one hundred percent confident because it's not it's gonna be
my first trigger pull on any animal with this new gun.
I pulled the trigger. I shot over his head fifteen yards,
(39:36):
he goes up in the air, it automatically reloads. I
pull again, miss pull again. I mean it was a disaster,
but I learned in that minute. The success for me
was don't second guess yourself. Yeah, stay put, wait to
see what develops.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And then go from there. I think you know the
guy that I turkey hunt with at my mentor, and
we've hund together every year for the last eleven years
open the weekend, Gary, and I've learned a lot from him,
And probably the biggest thing I've learned from him is
to just sit five more minutes. Is whenever you think
you've said as long as you possibly can sit five
(40:15):
more minutes, sit fifteen more minutes. And you'll be amazed
at what happens in those fifteen minutes, because I've had
several stories like that where you know, if I'd gotten
up and left, they were probably just right around the corner.
And now, just because you just can't be dependent on
your senses, You've got to be dependent on your scouting
and your knowledge and your experiences, not just what you
(40:37):
see or hear.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
That's such a valid thing to say about life in general. Anyway,
you know less about hunting, and it's more about, hey,
just give it some time. You know, people are always
trying to rush to success as fast as they can,
and sometimes the best thing that you learn and the
most success that you learn is through the actual story
of waiting.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well, and what's the point. That's what you're there for?
Where you go? Where are you going to rush to leave?
Like you built this up. You spent the whole time
to block off your morning to go, well, be there,
be present, take part of that hunt, Be in that moment.
Don't be thinking well I should get up and go
and go somewhere else. Why where are you gonna go?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
One of my favorite things whenever you and I get
to talk is we get to relive some of these
incredible stories, and you know, they're the fabric that kind
of binds us all together. But you've been a lifelong conservationist,
definitely a friend of the outdoors, and I just I
love your vantage point on what hunting is like and
how that always kind of ties back to life. But
Jeff Barnes, who's a part of Ducks Unlimited numerous other groups,
(41:38):
thanks so much for being here.
I'm really excited about today because one of my good
friends inside joke, his name's Jeff Barnes. He's actually gonna
join me Onlines and Times this morning. Jeff is a
lifelong hunter, somebody who's always been passionate about the outdoors,
and he's allowed that passion to not only carry through
his life, but now the life of his children, his family,
and every friend that he has. He was a Georgia
(00:21):
state chairman for Ducks Unlimited for years. He's still an
active volunteer with them. He's been an area and district
chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Youth and Education.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I just see Jeff as the type of.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Guy where I really want to dive in and kind
of dissect where you came from and why you got
into hunting, Because everybody that meets you, I don't think
they sit there and go, oh, that guy's been a
lifelong hunter.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's fair, that's very fair.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think they look at you and they're like, oh,
this guy is he's a businessman.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
They know you go to Old Miss.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I mean, guy, you just told everybody that you go
to Old Miss like every time you meet him. But
where did the journey start for you with hunting.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, I was going to tell you about that too.
Is my dad refers to me as a prep neck.
He says, I'm a preppery. He says, I'm a preppery
that thinks he's a red neck. That's what my dad.
There's a lot on there. Well, what actually got you
into hunting? Well, so as a kid, I grew up Middleton,
See and deer hunting was king and uh that was
(01:21):
to me, that was all that you could hunt. And
about fifteen years old, I was up in a deer
stand reading a bass Master's Fishing magazine and I fell asleep.
And I got down now that deer stand and said,
I'm never doing this again, I said, I said, I'm
sitting here with a high power rifle, sound asleep, reading
a magazine. It's like, this is not for me. So
(01:41):
I did not hunt for twenty years after that, because
hunting to me was only deer and it wasn't until
I got involved in shot gunning and clay shooting that
I got the next level to go bird shooting. All right,
Well shooting, let's not fast forward it too. You were
fifteen years old for deer hunting. Yep, you fell asleep
after reading a bast magazine in a deer stand.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, you obviously still had a passion for shooting, hunting
the outdoors. You just didn't know kind of where to
focus that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's true. And so like, I'm an eagle scout, my
son's an eagle scout, my other son is a star scout,
sumble Bragg. I got it. Yeah, yeah, you got Our
family is something anyway, Yeah, no, no, no, no, I'm saying
scouting is a big part of our life. We know
how to tie, okay, tie some knots, but scouting is
a big part of my life. So outdoors conservation really big.
(02:34):
And that's really kind of where I got to Ducks Unlimited,
which is a weird story because you just joking about
tie knots. I taught myself how to tie a pair
of cord lanyard and I randomly sent it perfect for calls. Yeah,
and I randomly sent it to one of my dad's
friends that I knew duck hunted and said, hey, I
made this. I don't need it. I just was making
(02:55):
it for something to do and said, if you ever
have a spot in a blind, I'd love to go
with you. And that's how I got duck hunting is
it really started through boy scouts, So I learned these
not I made him a lanyard for something to do,
and he took me to my first duck hunt.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's so interesting that you bring that up, because every
duck hunter knows their lanyard for their calls is just
as important. Some guys would say in a blind, it's
more important than a rifle itself, for a shotgun itself.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I have a friend of mine where when I lived
in Saint Louis, that's where I really got into duck hunting.
I mean, why wouldn't you Mississippi Flyway, Central Flyaway like
you're on top.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And all my buddies up there were into duck hunting.
In fact, I probably didn't even share this story with you.
I got into duck hunting because on my radio show,
I went on and I said, look, I want to
go on a broad date. I'm looking for a boyfriend,
you know what I mean, Like, I'm looking for dudes
that want to be friends. And women called the show
and they were like, oh my god, you're a total
(03:54):
man's man.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
You're just like my husband. They like to drink beer.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They like to go hunt, and I was like, me up,
it's right. So I got set up with a group
of guys, Andy, Mike Bow and a handful of other
guys Robbie and we all went out dove hunting, and
it was right before the Duck season. Teal was going
to open up first, so we went out for dove
and they were like, let's.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Just see if this guy is worth the salt. And
I'm walking around with a shotgun in the middle of
the woods with these guys that I don't know. We
had a blast.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Oh yeah, I mean I think we shot three doves
all day, right like public land hunting, the whole wheel.
But then they were like, hey, we're going to go
out for Teal season in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Why don't you come?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So I was like all right, cool, And then opening
day of duck they were like, why don't you come
with us that? So it just kind of got in.
The reason I bring up the lanyards was Robbie sat
down and got a bunch of para cord and just
started making them. Yeah, and he made one for me
and it's still the one that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I used to this very day.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Because you just can't beat somebody's craftsmanship. You know, you
can go to a store and you can buy all
these things and it's great, but when you have somebody
who hand makes something for you, like the detail and
the time and I hate to say love, but like
the respect that they give that piece of craft that
they're doing is amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And I've found that in a lot of the hunting
world is you know, it's not a cheap sport, right
and there's a lot of people that can buy anything
they want, and what they most want are things that personalized,
things that you can give it. And so I've done it.
You can't buy that you can't buy. And I have
done several of lanyards for gifts to like say hey,
thank you for taking me on this hunt, thank you
(05:32):
for taking me shooting today, thank you for whatever. And
I've done several those, and I've done them in custom colors,
you know. I did them and all the SEC school
colors and gave them to people that went to different
you know, with their alma maters or their fan bases.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
What was the one SEC school that you were like,
I don't really want to touch.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I knew you were going to say, that because it's
you know, again it's Mississippi city. But you don't have
to say that's right. As an old miss guy. You know,
we hate everybody, you know. So I was like, well,
everybody looks forward to you on the scout. Everybody, somebody
wants to come to Oxford. But I'm like, yeah, I
hate l SU, I hate State, I hate all about
you know. But but no, it's it's all good because
(06:11):
I think everybody. I like making someone happy there and
I like giving them that product, and I wanted to
come back to So that's where I got with Ducks Unlimited.
Is that invitation that first duck hunt. I didn't know
anything about duck hunting, so I literally went out on
DU's website and found a local banquet near me and
just went. I didn't know soul, I didn't know anything,
(06:32):
but I was like, I want to hear the linuit
over at the general admission, the Friends of the Ducks table,
you know, and I wanted I wanted to hear the lingo.
I want to hear what are people talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
What?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Because I didn't know anything about it. And that's how
I got involved in Ducks Unlimited. Is I met some
really cool guys at that first banquet, and I'm still
still hunting fish with them to this day. Yeah, you're
a super approachable guy.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean you and I met through an organization called
SCI known as Safari Club Internet National, and we had
a couple mutual friends and that's all.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It kind of came together. And I remember the first time.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
I was going to meet you, one of my buddies goes, oh, hey,
we're going to meet up with Jeff Barnes and I went, Okay,
who's that. He goes, oh, he's the former president of
Duck's Unlimited. I was like, WHOA big deal. This guy
is somebody. And then I meet you and you're like
of the Georgia chapter.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, let's let's not get crazy now, let's let's let'sten.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Not everybody pumps you up like crazy, but it's it's
all deserving because you are such a friend of the
outdoors and the things that you do. But I want
to get back to your past because I feel like
the most exciting part of talking about hunting are the
stories that men to all of us together. You know,
like your first experience of hunting was sitting in that
(07:49):
deer stand reading a bass Master magazine, which you fell asleep, right,
you didn't see an animal, or you probably would have
if your eyes weren't closed. But my first deer hunt,
I didn't see it with anybody. It was just me
on an old piece of plywood in a tree with
two by fours nailed to it as the steps. And
I remember I was sitting out there. This is muzzleloader season.
(08:09):
I'd never shot a muzzle loader. I just took hunter
safety in school. And the guy who's property I was hunting,
he was like, hey, look, you're gonna have to use this.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So he cocked it halfway.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Holy and he said, when you get out there and
you have one, cock it the rest of the way.
And I said, okay, So I did just that, and
I remember this eight point came out, and to me
it was an absolute stud s right, like this is
a boone and crocket put it on the wall. My
name's in lights. This is insane. He was probably two
(08:41):
hundred yards away. I shot a mile and a half
over his head, and of course, once the smoke cleared
and I look and I'm waiting to see that brown
body down, I'm like.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
He didn't even look. Where is where'd he go.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So, of course, forty five minutes later, because I learned
this like there, give them time. So I was like, all,
r forty five minutes later, I walk over to where
he was. There ain't a sign of blood anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It's probably just a big hole in the side of
the pond or something. I look up in the canopy
of the trees and now there's a giant hole in
the camp.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I had to have shot, because I remember I came
back and I was then telling them the story and
they were like, well, what happened. I said, he came
walking out of the trees right here, and they were like, oh,
that's a good place where they normally walk out. They
said he had to be, you know, two hundred yards away,
and they go, oh, so he didn't shoot, And I was.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Like, well, actually I did.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Joke's on you, and I said, I shot a mile
and a half over this thing. Said I had to
have because the way that the sights were on that
gun is not what I learned in hunter safety. It
was a drop ball site, so you had to take
the circle and put it down in the bottom of
the v not notch instead of putting it on you know,
the pumpkin on the fence post thing.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So when I told them the story, they were just like, well,
that's all right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Hey, you know, try tomorrow. It's all my experiences, you know.
And I'm the same way, like I realized that get
the other parts of that story is I'm afraid of heights.
And so here I am climbing up this two by
four nail to the tree right, sitting up in this
windy thing. I'm like, what am I doing? I don't
like any part of this, Like I so I joke
as like I'm a duck hunter and a turkey hunter,
and I was like, we either dig a hole and
(10:18):
get it in a duck blind or I'm sitting at
the bottom of a tree. I was like, I don't
do heights. I get as low as I.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Can for you don't want to be like, put me
in a pit line, I'm good, put me in a pit.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah. So that's another tree, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
After you went on that duck hunt, though, explain that
first experience of going on a duck hunt. So you've
gone to du you've heard some of the lingo, you've
met some people, but now you actually get to go
out into a blind and actually get to hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So I went with. Like I said, it was one
of my dad's friends. So my dad went, and my brother.
My little brother went, and my little brother and I
we joked that we're My mom says, we're not only
different as night and day, we're like separate weeks. I
mean we look nothing like, we act nothing alike. It's
it's crazy, but the four of us went. Man, I
couldn't have told you if I was shooting at a
tweety bird or a bald eagle. Everything that was in
(11:11):
the sky, I was like, is that it is that one?
I mean I didn't shoot at them, of course, but
you know, I'm just in here going Anything that's flying
I thought was a duck, and it's it's really I
look back on that and think about how I've matured
in the duck hunting to realize, Hey, those are pentails,
those are gadwalls, those are mallards to where you can
see that that first day, man, I couldn't have told
(11:32):
you if it was a duck or an airplane.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Oh, the blackbirds are the worst, you know, And so
it's they come buzzing over you. You think it's a group
of teal Yeah, you're set off the shoulder.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's real interesting to see that maturation and to see
where it came from from. I didn't know what it
all was going on, just complete excitement to trying to
figure this out and try to take to the next
level and try to plan my own hunts and try
to plan my own trips and do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Share with me out the person that you hunted with,
you sent them a lanyard, yep, and you said, hey,
I made this. If you want to use it or
if you want to invite me on a hunt, both
are fine.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, the funny thing is is I sent to him
and didn't hear a word from him. And his name
is Jim, And I was like that, come Jim. I mean,
I was spending a lot of time on this. Why
did at least maybe call say things, yeah, you know something.
Well later I found out the reason he hadn't said
anything is because he was trying to put this trip
together and he wanted to be able to call me
when he called to say thanks, to say hey, I've
(12:30):
got us a trip. This is what we're doing. So
I just had to be patient, had to sit there,
and Jim called and said Hey, I'm going to take
you a stutguard, which if anybody knows anything about duck hunting,
my very first duck hunt was a Stuttgart, Arkansas, which
is like driving in the Daytona five hundred. Who is
Jim though, Yeah, Jim Jim Finn. He's a friend of
a family, been around for a long time. He teaches
(12:52):
hunter safety in Tennessee. Say's very knowledgeable, long term hunter,
and he and my dad are good friends.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Does he luck out to have any sort of the
lease or a trail or did he just go with
a guide?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
So we actually hunted public land in Arkansas. He had
been hunting there for years and he loved He was
the kind of guy that loved to just drive around
a scout, I mean, And so I learned from day
one how to scout for birds, how to go look
for him. And we hunted public land for a while.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And so let's talk about that, because there's a lot
of people that they're fortunate to be able to get
with an outfitter and go.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
You and I went with an outfitter.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And it wasn't the greatest time to duck hunt because
the weather wasn't right. But there's a lot of guys
where they just go to public land and they're just
trying to figure it out. How do you find the
birds in that kind of situation.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It was interesting, and I'll be honest with you. I
got to a point where I'd hunted with Jim for
a couple of years and said, Jim, I got to
get an outfitter because I was coming from Atlanta, Georgia.
He was coming from Nashville, so he's four hours closer
than I was. And I was like, Jim, this is great,
and I'm having an awesome time. This is fun. But
(14:04):
two things. I don't consider it my vacation to drive
over here and be ready to fight somebody at four
o'clock in the morning every morning. Dude, would I get
somewhere at four o'clock in the morning. I want to
know that it's mine and that I'm not having to
find somebody else. Could we find the birds? Yeah, but
so could everybody else, right, you know? And so I've
(14:27):
paid my dues. I did the public land, but I
pretty much hunt private and with outfitters.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Now let's talk about the outfitter game. Yeah, because I'm
kind of in that weird spot right now. I just
had a good conversation with him. But Buddy and my
Mark Knight. He's an outfitter for deer in Turkey. He's
been really successful in Illinois, Kansas, and now he's got
a place in Kentucky. And he and I have gone
on other hunts with other outfitters, you know. We've chased
(14:53):
Rocky Mountain elk, and we've gone on different deer hunts
and we fished together, so we spend a lot of
time in the outdoors. And he and I were having
a conversation after our most recent outfitter Hume where I
was just like, I'm kind of over it. I'm kind
of over the outfitter thing.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I hear you, man, And it's a tough spot, you know.
And I've felt kind of a man without a country
a couple of times, you know. And I've got a
really good outfitter that I've gone with a couple of times.
But again, it's all a timing game, right, and so,
and it's no fault of the outfitters, of any outfitters
(15:28):
that you know, when you're trying to fill up and
you're booking your hunt in February for something that's not
going to be till November and December, and if you
don't book in February, all the dates are gone. But
you're really you're taking a one and sixty chance at
will the dux be there that day.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
You're going completely off a history, you know, like this
time last year, we had a hell of a hunt, right,
so we had an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean, even with deer. This is what I try
to share with the women that I've dated and that
I've gone out with.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
When you're getting ready to go on a hunt or
you have a free weekend, we are locked to our
phones trying to figure out what the temperature and what
the weather is gonna do. Because if you see that
ten degree drop in temperature and you see the wind
is going to be up fifteen twenty miles an hour,
you pack your shit and you go, yeah, you don't
(16:16):
have you don't have a choice because yeah, sure your
vacation will be X, Y and Z and you can
go have a good time when that condition is right.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
You gotta be you gotta do it. And I've really
kind of moved into it. And I think all hunters
go through different phases, you know, you go through the
I want to kill everything phase to the I want
to experience, make the experienced face, and I'm really in
the I want my kids to enjoy it phase. And
so now that's what's important to me is Yeah, I like,
(16:44):
I like shooting ducks, but I also like taking a
week in and going with my son who's going to
be graduating from high school next year. Insane and you know,
and I'm not gonna have as much time with them.
And so that's that's what the trip to me is now,
not about killing the ducks. But I don't consider it
a complete bust because I got to drive out there
(17:05):
with my son. I got to talk to him, I
got to have those conversations. I got to see him
shoot a duck. I got to see him do those things.
And that's what makes a difference for me right now.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And I witness at firsthand because we were lucky to
go to the boot heel of Missouri on a duck hunt,
and you would called me and asked me if I
wanted to go, and I was like sure, and we
worked out another spot where a buddy of mine who's
never been duck hunting, you know, I was like, Hey,
if you want to go to this, let's go to this.
He broke a cardinal rule on that. We'll talk about
that in a second.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Play.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
We go out and you and I had already had
the conversation, like we were looking at the weather, we
were looking at the trends.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
We were talking to the.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Outfitter, and the outfitter was like, look, the expectations are low.
We're just not seeing the push that we thought we would.
I want to talk a little bit more about, you know,
kind of the duck transitions. You know, they used to
get all the way down to the Gulf of America,
and now it seems like now it seems like they're
getting kind of hung up around Memphis. We'll talk about
(17:59):
that in a second. But what I witnessed on that
trip was exactly what you're talking about. You brought your son, Davis,
who I think the world of, and I took him
on his very first.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I wanted to talk about how you took him on
deer Hunt.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
He's just such a good kid, and you just watch
how you can see how you've been as a parent
has really impacted and influenced him. Thanks, and when you
get to watch that firsthand and you get to see
him have an experience it's incredible. It's it's good to
see the hunting world and family come full circle. Now,
(18:35):
I will say he's got to be a little faster
on the trigger because that one duck that came through
that passed all y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Let me tell you you don't have to worry about
that anymore. He's grown.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
He is uh, he's a quick drama gral. Let me
tell you, I loved I loved the duck hunt that
we went on. We didn't see many birds and we
had this one green had come through a mallard and
it came left to right and I was almost all
the way at the end of the pit, and everybody
was waiting, waiting, waiting. I mean, the guy, I appreciate
the outfitter, but he never said pull like he was
(19:06):
waiting yeah, And I'm like, I'm not waiting, Like we've
been sitting here for three days. We haven't seen anything.
So this one's going down and boom, pull the trigger.
And of course the conversation is like, hey, let's all
wait for somebody to say.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Shooting, and we're not waiting.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I'm sorry, boys, But the cardinal rule of that, my
buddy Broke Grant, was that he took that duck home
and then he got him mounted. Oh wow, and you know,
like he didn't shoot it. And we had that conversation
at the bit. I was like, look, you can do this.
Just know that this is an unspoken rule, like it
could be it could be bad juju.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Well, and you don't want that. And I've only got
I'm not a big mountain the ducks kind of guy
or anything. I'm not against it. It's just not my thing.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I like having a couple of species, Like I've got
one of the most beautiful pintail mounts that I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I've got one mallard because it's got a purple head,
which is really cool. Cool. Look, it's cool. And Davis
shot a widgeon this year a couple of weeks ago. Americans,
Oh my goodness, it was beautiful. I wish I wish
in retrospect now we kept it and mounted.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
It's so funny though, because I knew you were gonna say, like,
I wish I held onto it. You'll shoot a wigeon
and people will be like, oh, that's that's cool.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
This was this was really good.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
But then what happens is you go to places where
wigeons are really popular, and they're like, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Right, that's the same thing. You know. I've been fortunate
to travel around different places and everybody's like, man, I
really want to get a wood duck. I was like, uh,
come to Georgia's come on, that's all we got, you know,
we'll do is go down the creek bottoms, lay them out.
You know. They're like, what are you see in Georgia.
I was like, wood ducks and boat dock ducks is
what we call them. A love for brand and just
sit the boat dock. Those about the you know, the
(20:42):
ducks that you're gonna see. But like an American black duck,
I've killed one.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That's one that has always been a pinnacle on my
list and I've always tried to find one.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I was in a hunt in Missouri and one
of my buddies who got me into this duck club
that we were in.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
This is such a great duck hunting day.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I had to do a speech for the Alzheimer's Association
at Edward Jones where the Saint Louis Blues play hockey.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Okay, so my dad was in town.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
He was getting ready to hear me speak well, I
woke up in the morning and I looked out. I
looked at the weather. It's the middle of duck season.
I was like, today's going to be a light them
up day. It's going to be awesome. So I went,
I gave my speech. I immediately jump back in the
truck and I go, Dad, I'm going to bring it
back to the house. I'm gonna go spend a couple
hours in the duck blind, and then I'll come back.
We'll go have dinner or whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
He's like, okay, great.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
The wind starts swirling and I mean, it looks like
a tornado's about to pop off. Temperature drop fifteen degrees.
I was like, oh, buddy, my friend is blowing me up.
He's like, you gotta get out here.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
He's better hurry up. We've already shot a limit.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You need to get here. I said, fine, So I
get out there. My buddy is beaming ear to ear.
When I get into the blind, I said, why are
you smiling so big? He goes shot a black done.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Oh man, and I said, what, let me see that thing,
and he pulls it out.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was
a speckle belly. That's a big difference. He's like, dude,
it's such a beautiful bird. And I'm just saying quiet.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Other guys in the blind like they're not really you know,
focused on or whatever. I said, I can't wait until
we get back to the lodge and you share that
with every body. You're cold, and he goes. He goes, man,
I'm just so pumped. So we get back and this
is where you mark down how many mallads pintails?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The whole deal.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
He gets over, he marks on the board one black duck,
and everybody was like.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
No way, you shot a black duck. Let me see it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
He pulls this thing out and the one dude who
I knew was going to say it shouts from the back.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
He goes, you idiot, have a speckled mailing goose. He
looks at me and I was like, Ryan, and I
have the heart to tell you, man, I got a
great one. I don't know if I told you this
or not about marking ducks down and keeping ledgers. It's
last year. I was very fortunate to be invited out
to the Dallas Hunting Fish Club, which is I've come
(22:57):
to learn the fourth oldest Duck club in America.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And it's what makes it so unique though, Well what
we're saying it's the location or the location is what's
cool is think about it. In the eighteen hundreds, ten
miles outside of downtown Dallas was a long way away,
which was not I mean, when I talked to my
host Joe crafton Thank You Joe, I was like, Joe,
how do I do?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I just run a card whatever? He goes, take an Uber.
He's like, he's like, when you land at the airport,
just take an Uber. And I was like, to the
Duck Club, He's like, yeah, because when you drive out
of the dust shop in an economy uber.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yeah, the guy's like, I don't want to go down
that road with all those files when you literally.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Can see the skyline of downtown Dallas in the background.
Well when you leave the club and so like it's amazing.
We're looking at some of the records like from the
Turn of the like from the eighteen hundred nineteen hundred
Turn of the Century that and it was really funny
because there's like the ledger like you talk about is
like put on the board, how many mallard you got?
How many this you got, and so I said, this
(23:59):
just shows Tom stands still. Everybody's the same, no matther
it was now or one hundred and fifty years ago.
But there was one let's just say it was Jeff Barnes, right.
I don't remember the guy's name, but it said Jeff Barnes.
Four and one eighth Mallards. I said, Man, there was
a fight in the bla in that day. Who shut
that duck? Who shot that duck? So seven other gods
claimed the eighth of it, I guess, but four and
(24:21):
one eighth Mallards.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
It's it's incredible to look back at some of those
ledgers because most people are like, why ain't keeping records
all this stuff?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But that's why.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
But man, it tells you how much good Old Cyrus
shot in nineteen thirty four. And you know, when the
turn of the nineteen hundreds came around and Teddy Roosevelt
was really big, I'm like wanting to make sure that
we were taking care of the animals and taking care
of the conservation side. That's when everything started to change,
like the farming of animals and the hunting of animals, right,
(24:50):
and the business of it was terrible.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I nearly wiped away a lot of species. Yeah, I mean,
and that's and that's the start of ducks on Lemos
thirty seven, coming out of the dust Bowl era. And
so there was you know, the market hunting and all that,
but also there was ducks and loon was started by
duck hunters who said, we've got to do something. This
can't be sustained what we're doing here. And so to
(25:15):
your point, you know, there it was wild West out
there for a while, and we self imposed, Hey, this
is what we need to do. This is how we
need to get a control on it. And that's duck
hunters are the only group whoever started their own federal
waterfowl stamp. I mean, we tax ourselves to benefit the
sport we love.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Has it gotten better the conservation side because the groups
like Ducks.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Unlimited, Oh yeah, I mean, and not just ducks on loaned,
but look look at the wild turkey man. I love
turkey hunting. That's probably my favorite thing. And their dar
near gone and now they've come back. Deer hunting.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Look at I mean, deer hunting is probably the wildest
number that you can see. I think the last time
they did a nationwide survey of the North American white tail,
and that discounts like mule deer and you know, the
different species. It was somewhere like thirty seven million. I
mean the population is wild.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
They've got to be like borderline pests, you know, I
mean some places. Yeah, I mean it's it's that prolific.
They're numbers now. And so I think conservation has a
great story to tell right now.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
What do you think the biggest impact was with Ducks
Unlimited and with conservation groups on the animals at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, and I think everybody has their own place, right
And I'm a big believer in just because you're in
Ducks on Lona doesn't mean you can't be an SCI.
Doesn't mean you can't be an NTF mean, can't be
in Turkey's for tomorrow. You know. I think they all
benefit in their own specific niche and we're not. I
don't consider ourselves competing. I mean we're technically competing for
that dollar. Everybody's only got so much money. But I'm
(26:52):
a member of all of them, and because I believe
in what SCI is doing to be first for hunters' rights,
because if they don't have those hunters rights, I can't
go out. But I also believe in what Ducks on
Limita is doing is we're the nation's leader in wetlands conservation.
So it's not just ducks. It's like, do you like
clean water? You know? Do you? The US Fish and
(27:13):
Wildlife Service says that that every acre the Ducks on
Limited conserves helps nine hundred species. That's amazing, And so
that's a lot more than just ducks. And when we're
talking about the little you know, parasite or amibas that
are floating in the water, now your salamanders. Yeah, we're
talking about the stuff that's floating in the water all
the way up to the moose that walks across that wetland,
(27:34):
everything in between.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Why do you think that there's such a battle with
people and memberships of different groups. Like you said, people
will claim sci people will claim Ducks Unlimited or Delta
waterfowl or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
It's just money. I mean, there's only so much that
it is as status thing. I don't know. I mean
there's you know, we talk about wallet share, right, there's
only so and if you open up your wallet, your
imaginary wallet, but there's an x number of dollars in
there and x number that you're going to do towards conservation,
Well you can't, or any charity for that matter, you
you just can't support everything in the world. And so
(28:12):
these groups, these NGOs are competing for that wallet share,
you know. So, and I do think there is some status.
I think there is some some groups that are that
are that go bigger than their group, that go bigger
than their their mission or the organization. It's some of
them have a very social aspect of them, some of
them have a very rural aspect to them, some of
(28:34):
them have a very local aspect, whereas others have a
very national aspect or international. And so I think it's
it's finding your right group and your right group of people.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I'm glad that you said some have this and some
have that, because I've had a lot of conversations with
people as a proud member life member of Safari Club
International and SCI just that alone tells a lot of
people a lot of different things. When you hear Safari
Club International, you immediately think, oh, this has got to
be Safaris in Africa, and they only care about the
international side. And in my conversations that I've had with
(29:06):
people in the organization and also members. Their primary focus
has shifted a little bit to the everyday domestic North
American hunter because we have the most robust amount of animals,
we have the most amount of hunting license sold in
the world.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, and we have our own model that the world interact. Yeah,
the Western model, you know, the whole North American model
of conservation is the envy of the world, you know.
I mean it's we're proving that this stuff works. We're
proving that when you put limits on there, I mean,
you do smart, ethical, legal hunting, it benefits the organization,
that benefits the life, It benefits these herds. And it's
(29:47):
not everybody thinks there's a big difference between conservation and preservation. Right,
might actually have worked too well, right, Yeah, we're probably
a victim of our own success here.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Because how many videos do you see on social media
where you see a freaking wild turkey on the top
of somebody's car in a Walmart parking lot. You're like, hey,
we probably need to really talk about some of the
numbers here. But that's been the biggest problem that I
think all of us have seen. The conservation has worked
so well, We've conserved a lot of these animal populations,
(30:18):
we've kept them healthy. You know, obviously CWD and different
diseases have run rampant in the deer population. Is that
because a lack of hunters? Is that because we're not
selling nearly as many licenses as we did twenty five
thirty years ago. That's obviously been on the decline. We
saw a slight boost in twenty twenty. Yeah, but we
(30:40):
went from like four percent to five percent.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
You know. I was at a hunt with Tennessee Wildlife
Federation at the first part of February, which I want
to give a shout to them. Those guys are amazing.
I love what they're doing, and they're all about getting
that next generation in there. Say all that to back
it up to say, this was their quote. This is
their number. I don't I don't know, but they said
for every ten hunters they're out there today, there's only
(31:03):
seven to fill their shoes. So I actually thought that
was a pretty high number. I would have not thought
it was as high as seven. Yeah, but if ten
is five percent, yeah, And so it's on the decline,
there's no doubt about. It's on the clon and I
think we're spoiled to living in the South, where it's
so much part of our culture. It's accepted that we
(31:26):
don't see the decline in numbers that are really there.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I think we see it, but I think most people
they hunt with their group, right, Like you and I
have hunted together. We're friends, and I've hunted with your son,
so it's kind of like an extended family thing.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
But the majority of.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
People that hunt in the Southeast, they hunt with their
family and it goes out with his boys or his
daughter and they hunt.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And it's a very normal part of conversation, a normal
part of culture. You just accept it. You just know
people are gonna hunt. Well, well, I think that's becoming
less and less in other parts of the country. And
what have we done.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
We've kind of outpriced ourselves too, you know, like you
don't have for the family that goes out and hunts,
they have family land. Let's say they've got eighty acres
and they can go and they can hunt deer in
Turkey whenever they want. Maybe they have a small pond
where they get some puddle ducks and stuff like that.
But it's almost like going to some outfitters because you
don't have access to land. Has gotten so outrageously expensive
(32:28):
leases for deer land have gotten so outrageously expensive it has.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And that's really why I love people I just talked
about Tennessee Wildlife Federation. I love groups like them because
they are all about taking the next generation. Whether when
I say next generation, I don't necessarily mean age wise,
I mean just the next group. So they take adults,
they do education for groats. But one of the things
they do is they leverage both private land and public land.
(32:56):
They show you I've been on two rabbit hunts with
them with my son and and they take us to
a wa and so they show you, hey, there's it's
there's access, it's out there. And because I think that's
a lot of the learning curve too, is the education
of knowing where can I even go? Because if you
just take somebody who's a typical non hunter today right
(33:18):
and said do you want to go hunting? Man, that's
an expensive bite to you to say. So you go
through these groups like that where they can take you
on and give you an opportunity to go out to
show you where to go, as opposed to well go
spend a couple thousand dollars go to drive nine hours
to an outfitter and hope for the best. That's why
I love groups like them.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
I'm glad that you brought up the age thing because
with Georgia Sci which is the organization the chapter that
I got involved with right off the bat, they did
a first time hunters where it didn't matter. I mean,
we had a guy that was sixty seven years old
and we had a woman who was twenty eight years old,
and they wanted to hunt for the very first time.
And success in the field is a big deal. That's
(34:03):
a big way to hook somebody back, and deer hunting
it can be a little difficult. You know, not everybody
is going to see that giant one point fifty eight
pointer come walking out of the woods and have the success.
But that's also a fallacy that we've kind of put
in the hunting world. Sometimes you just need to knock
a dough down, yoh man. Sometimes you just need the
(34:24):
opportunity to know what it's like and then have that
connection with an animal that you just took that would
give you a chance to then see hunting in a
much different way. You know, when I took Davis hunting,
he had an opportunity at two domes and the first
one he rushed his shot.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
He was nervous, shot over top.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Second one he said he was comfortable and he squeezed
the trigger and he missed. And when we had a conversation,
part of me I never explained this to him, but
part of me felt terrible because I'm like, did I
not get him in a right situation to pull that trigger?
And as much as you can do as a parent,
as much as you can do as a friend or
a mentor or somebody that you're hunt with, you can
(35:07):
only do so much when they pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's different.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
But he and I had a conversation where I just
shared with him, like what happened?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Are you? Are you good?
Speaker 1 (35:15):
And he told me straight up, I was nervous, but
he had the excitement to want to go back out
the next time. And then once the season was over,
you know, you called me the next year and you're like, hey,
I'm going to send you a picture, and you send
me a picture of Davis with a dode out And
I was so ecstatic for him because I know that
he's stuck with something, even though he faced some adversity
(35:38):
the first couple times out.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
And that's good. I mean, and that's what I tell
people when I take him hunting, it's it's missing. It's
all part of it, not seeing, and he's all part
of it. It's like that, you know, sword sharpening. You
gotta keep doing it. You've got to understand that it's
not just going out. You know. The joke is it's
not called shooting, just called hunting, you know. So I mean,
it's it's one of those things where he could he
(36:02):
may not have hit that though that I sent you
the picture of had he not gone out with you
before and gotten those nerves out and gotten to see
what it's like. And so don't lose any sleep over it.
He's a if it had a mother, he wants to
hunt it now. So let me tell you.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
I know that he's going to be a lifelong runner,
and he's exactly who people need. I just wish that
we were, you know, organizations and people were a little
more focused on we just need to get people out
in the woods, right because access is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Access is a huge deal, and I've kind of adopted
a thing where I like to take as many people
as I can. However, I've you know, I know you
and I objeked about this several times and talked about it.
But I mean, turkey is my thing, that's what I love.
But I don't I don't ask people to go turkey
hunt with me because I know, well, because well, I
(36:51):
take people if they ask me, but I don't take.
I don't say, hey, let's go turkey hunting because turkey
hunt is special? Can we go turkey hunt? I knew,
I knew it was gonna come up. I told my
wife coming over, He's like, he's gonna, he's gonna, he's
gonna corner me. He's gonna put me on the air
and say you gotta take me. But but that's the thing.
It's my point to that is I want people to
(37:12):
have success, and turkeyn is not successful all the time.
And turkey ning is sitting under a tree and hoping
to hear a sound and and you don't always hear it.
And that's what I could see how people if that's
the first opportunity they have out in the woods, I
may not want to do it. But don't you think
your definition of success is off? Okay harvest? Yeah I
(37:32):
would say that, Yeah, I used to.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
I think there's so much I think there's so much
success that you get from just being out in the woods.
Like if you increase a friendship with somebody and you
really start to understand their patterns when they hunt. If
you were blowing a duck call and you were practicing
the whole way out to the lodge and you couldn't
get it, and then all of a sudden one has like, hey,
do tukatuka and look like you're spinning into a bottle,
(37:57):
and then all of a sudden you start to get it.
Like there is a level of success that everybody obtains,
but you're right harvest and being able to take something.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's not easy even in close shots right right. You know.
I had a turkey hunt last year where.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
We got out in the woods forty five minutes before
and we're sitting there and we're waiting to hear these birds,
and all of a sudden, a torrential downpour comes and
we're getting soaked, and I looked at my buddy that
I was hunting with, and I go, look, we.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Got two choices.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
We can either sit here and get soaked and hope
that this rain lets up, or we can walk back
to the truck. We can sit in the truck and
we can try to wait out the rain and then
come back in. And he was like, what do you
want to do? And I said, I think it's going
to let up, and I don't want to walk all
the way back to the truck. And then we get
there and the sun peeks out and it's beautiful. I said,
so I'd rather stay and get soaked. Literally, I was
(38:52):
happy I made that choice. Five minutes later, the rain stops.
It's almost like God turned off the faucet, you know
what I mean. Yeah, sun comes out, and then I
hear just and I'm like, oh, one's coming. I call,
but I don't hear anything. A couple of minutes later,
out of the corner of my eye, I see the decoys.
I see this tom come rushing in and I'm looking
(39:15):
kind of the other way. So I swing my gun
over and I put it up. I'm using a red
dot for the very first time. I'm shooting TSS out
of a short barrel Mossberg. I'm like, hm, I'm not
one hundred percent confident because it's not it's gonna be
my first trigger pull on any animal with this new gun.
I pulled the trigger. I shot over his head fifteen yards,
(39:36):
he goes up in the air, it automatically reloads. I
pull again, miss pull again. I mean it was a disaster,
but I learned in that minute. The success for me
was don't second guess yourself. Yeah, stay put, wait to
see what develops.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And then go from there. I think you know the
guy that I turkey hunt with at my mentor, and
we've hund together every year for the last eleven years
open the weekend, Gary, and I've learned a lot from him,
And probably the biggest thing I've learned from him is
to just sit five more minutes. Is whenever you think
you've said as long as you possibly can sit five
(40:15):
more minutes, sit fifteen more minutes. And you'll be amazed
at what happens in those fifteen minutes, because I've had
several stories like that where you know, if I'd gotten
up and left, they were probably just right around the corner.
And now, just because you just can't be dependent on
your senses, You've got to be dependent on your scouting
and your knowledge and your experiences, not just what you
(40:37):
see or hear.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
That's such a valid thing to say about life in general. Anyway,
you know less about hunting, and it's more about, hey,
just give it some time. You know, people are always
trying to rush to success as fast as they can,
and sometimes the best thing that you learn and the
most success that you learn is through the actual story
of waiting.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well, and what's the point. That's what you're there for?
Where you go? Where are you going to rush to leave?
Like you built this up. You spent the whole time
to block off your morning to go, well, be there,
be present, take part of that hunt, Be in that moment.
Don't be thinking well I should get up and go
and go somewhere else. Why where are you gonna go?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
One of my favorite things whenever you and I get
to talk is we get to relive some of these
incredible stories, and you know, they're the fabric that kind
of binds us all together. But you've been a lifelong conservationist,
definitely a friend of the outdoors, and I just I
love your vantage point on what hunting is like and
how that always kind of ties back to life. But
Jeff Barnes, who's a part of Ducks Unlimited numerous other groups,
(41:38):
thanks so much for being here.
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