July 17, 2024 • 30 mins
Spencer Graves sat down with Slade Johnston, Macy Watkins and Riley White. We share stories of success in the field but also "failures." Slade has a new venture that allows people the chance to hunt while trading hunts on their land.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lines and times. I'm Spencer Graves. I'm joined with several
of my good friends and a couple of people like Slade.
You and I don't really know each other that well.
I've known Macy now for a couple of years. Are
involvement ne sci and then Riley. We got to get
you out hunting.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To be honest, Yeah, I've only ever well, I've gone
hunting a bunch, but I've only ever killed one year.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Was it a dough or a buck?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It was a spike. But I was supposed to kill it.
I don't worry. I was supposed to kill it wasn't
like a.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, first year.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's good. It's good. Tell tell us that story.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So I think it was two years ago. Maybe the
guy was eight at the time. We were out hunting
on a bunch of property and it was high fence
and they had a book of all the bucks that
we were trying to kill that year, and so they
told me I could get.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
This spike, and I was like, I'm happy to be here.
So it's my first year.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
We had been going for a few days and I
just enjoyed sit in the stand and it was surprising
because I talked so much. It was gonna It was
really interesting to see how I was gonna be in
the stand, and I loved it. I enjoyed the piece
in quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Were you in a like a big box stand or
were you actually sitting.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
In a tree?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Okay, I kind of wish. I've always wanted to do that,
just sit in a tree, but I was in a box.
And then I would say, maybe day five, finally got it.
I'd never even shot his gun, so I didn't know
what to expect.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I'm like, all right, here we go, and I got it.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And at first he was like, oh no, and I'm
like what He's like, I don't know if you hit
in the right spot. I'm like, I aimed where you
told me to aim. And then we go down and
sure enough I hit perfectly.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We didn't have to go look for it for very long.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And then the other guy we were.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
With he put the blood all over my face, and
I was just enjoying it because I'm like, this is
so fun, like first time, I don't know, got a
bunch of pictures. I posted the pictures to my social media,
got torn apart, did death threats. Even it is about
my agent called me because my following went down by
a lot, and she's really have a.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Lot of dudes that follow you. Yeah, and they were
the ones that were walking away.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It was both Yeah, I mean I she called me
and told me, I need you to take down the post.
So I took it down for period of time and.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Put it back up.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, you know, all of us being in the world
that we're in with hunting and even fishing, but really hunting,
we've had to figure out the proper way to display
an animal that you just took down. And I mean, Slade,
you probably see this a lot, you know, because of
some of the big game that you go after. If
there's blood or the tongue's hanging out, that's like an
(02:43):
immediate nogo, like you can't post that.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It probably didn't help that I posted pictures of blood
all over my face.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, but it can also be done to where it
tells the story. And I've always noticed that with your stuff, Slade,
is that you're really good at having images that kind
of tell the story about what you're going on after.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Yeah, I think it's uh, it's important to kind of
you know, almost honoring it, you know, showing some respect
there too. And and like it's part of the experience,
you know. I think people can get behind that. You're
still going to get the hate, there's no doubt, you know,
but but that is part. You know, everybody that comes
to my farm and kills their first deer, we're putting
blood on the face.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, it's that you don't make them meet the heart
or anything.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
We had some guys that have have done that, but uh,
we don't. We don't make that as.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I think that's where I would have been, like,
I'm good, thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I mean, there's different ways to kind of honor that
tradition of shooting your first deer, for sure, And look,
you shot a spike. It's not that big of a deal.
Like if somebody gives you grief over that was your
first one, you know obviously did you really.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
People miss deer before they ever hit one.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What happened on your shots one for one, that makes
you feel pretty good.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I mean I was just young and jittery, nervous.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Hard gets something. It's you know, especially with a big
loving point walking up.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Eleven poison or what everybody calls spikes. Yeah, yeah, I
get it. So macy with your shots, Like were you
hunting with your old man at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yes, I mean I was I was little.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You're like six seven years old. See, but that's you know,
I've I've taken a lot of people hunting for their
first year, and it doesn't matter how old you are,
that buck fever hits you, and that is something that
is really tough to manage. Like you got to breathe
through it. It seems like Riley, you didn't have to
breathe at all. You were like, whatever, I'll just put
the your stone cold killer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I mean, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It was there, and he's like, okay, that's it. I'm like, okay,
what do I do? And he like slowly gets the
gun out, props it up for me, and I'm like okay,
and he's like do you see it. I'm like, yeah, oh,
I forgot to mention this. He didn't take safety off.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So I pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
My heart seeks and he was like, oh sorry, then
took it off, and I was like, I now I'm nervous.
I wasn't before, but now I'm like this better.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Actually like go off this time.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
The fact that that gun wasn't set up for you,
oh my goodness. Immediately gives you a better shot because
you didn't really have time to think.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, I know, you know, because I think I was
so new to everything. I'm like, yeah, okay, and I
just had heard stories about things coming back and like
the scope hitting you be strong, and that's I just aimed.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
It sounds a natural, I guess.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So, Macy, when you finally got your first deer, tell
us that story.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
It was on public lan and it was on the
Redlands actually near Madison, Georgia, south of Athens.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Was hunting with a thirty thirty and I didn't have
enough time to be nervous. That's the way I like
my hunts to go, whether it's deer or turkey. It
happened so quick they come in. You don't watch them
from a long ways away. It's like bam, they're there,
and you just have to have your instinct to make
the right decision.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's about how it went.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Dough Buck, Okay, solid seven.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Why you know it was?
Speaker 5 (06:13):
It was great because it was a wm A and
I got to go sign the board.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
My name and what I harvested.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So the slave. Do you remember your first year? Uh?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, I do. It was a dough I have. So
my family has a big farm in West Alabama, so
very fortunate there. We grew up hunting all the time,
my grandfather and me and my cousin. We would take
turns on like whose turn it was to shoot? Yeah,
and it was his turn to shoot. But this doe
walked out and my grandfather was like, uh, you know, Logan,
(06:45):
this is this is a good good dough to shoot.
We need some meat. He's like, oh, let's Slade shoot.
So I was over there like bagging, like please, you know,
I'll shoot, I'll shoot. And so anyways, that was appreciate him.
Let me take that.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What's the difference in age between you and Logan?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
He's five years older than me.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Okay, that's good, And that actually is a really valuable
lesson for anybody who's listening to the podcast, where if
you have young kids, it's great to see that another
one of the kids is like, you know what, we'll
just pause and we'll let we'll let Slade take a
shot or whatever it might be. You know, I think
that was actually really cool Logan to do.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, no doubt, so, I mean it meant a lot
to me in a special memory. And then the first
buck I shot, I think he had two or three
on one side and a little spik on the other.
But now if you look at your social media, I mean,
you're taking down some absolute giants.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It still gives me.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Great majority of the time pass that alone.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I'm not behind the gun as much anymore, but it's
all right. I just like to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Now that you're not behind the gun as much. Is
that a different feeling of excitement for you?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
It is, especially from the Turkey hunting side. I mean,
I've and I grew up with that. Like my dad,
same deal. He didn't he didn't shoot anything for probably
ten fifteen years, you know that I was growing up hunting.
He was just helping us do it. So like I
get that from him. I love seeing other people be
successful and help him do it, you know. So as
long as I'm part of the strategy and help them
get it done, that's rewarding for me. So you know,
(08:15):
it's also frustrated when one gets away, but you know
that happens.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Speaking of one getting away. So this Turkey season was
my first full season in Alabama, and I'm a big
fan of some of these records that people go for
and it's some of the personal ones, like yeah, I
got the Grand Slam. When it comes to turkeys, you
want to get all the species of turkeys, and there
aren't really that many, but it's it's cool to check
them off the board. And then you've got guys that
(08:39):
are like, I want to harvest a turkey in every
available state where turkeys are. I mean they have them
all the way out in Hawaii, which is pretty wild.
So I'm kind of in that world where I want
to harvest a turkey in every state where it's available.
So this year I was like, I'll get one in Alabama,
no problem. Every time I went out there, something wasn't right.
Like the first time I went out, the birds kind
(09:01):
of hung up at like seventy yards. They wouldn't give
me a proper shot, Like I had some trees kind
of blocking me, and I don't want to just shoot
to shoot. Well, with like two days to go in
the season, I go out to the same property, I
sit down, I literally get set up, and it pours
for two and a half hours, I mean dump and rain.
(09:24):
So I could either get up and go back and
sit in the truck and wait, or I can be
out there when the turkeys are probably gonna get up
off the roost and come down, and then be ready
when they do. Because most of the time it's rain.
I don't know if you've noticed this, but most of
the time it's raining, they're not really that active, Like
they kind of get where they want to be and
they hunker down because they can't hear what else is
(09:47):
going on in the woods, like coyotes and all that
kind of stuff. So I was close to walking back
to the truck, but something was like, don't do it,
because you're gonna miss an opportunity. You don't want to
do that. So literally, the rain stops, and I just
hear a couple purrs and clucks and they're within fifty yards,
and I'm like, ooh, this is good. So I'm sitting down.
(10:09):
I make a couple of little calls on my slate
call and I don't hear a thing. Literally, I turn
and I look to my right and this tom is
bum rushing the decoys, I mean full speed, and I
was looking all the way over to the left, so
I gotta swing my gun all the way around. He
sees me and he immediately starts to bugger off. I
(10:31):
pulled the trigger too quick. It's my first time shooting
a red dot, because I grew up shooting a Mossburg
pump five hundred, like none of that fancy stuff. And
because I got this new red dot, I didn't even
look for the red dot. I probably shot like a
foot over this bird's head. And my buddy that was
with me, he was like, damn, man, you just missed. Well.
Of course I got two other shells, and I'm like,
(10:54):
I gotta knock this thing down. It sounded like the
Civil War bag and that burden.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You can go head right off the second shot. It's
just you're just throwing it out there, trying to aim
on the third one. But by that point he's probably
too far go exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So all of a sudden, I felt terrible because you know,
I've been hunting since I was twelve years old, and
for the first sixteen birds that I was a part of,
it was other people making the shot. I'd call them
in for friends of mine or you know, they'd have
a better shot than I did. And it wasn't until Georgia,
when I lived there a couple of years ago that
I got my first legit bird on my own. So
(11:31):
this one when I missed, I was so upset with myself.
But it's kind of like going back to my sports
world where I was like, you know what, it was
an error. I can't think about it because I got
to wait for the next one. I had two days
left in the season. I couldn't get out there the
next couple of days because of work, so it was
officially my last day. So now this year, I gotta
(11:52):
get Alabama. I'm looking for Tennessee. Y'all made me so
jealous of you and Macy because Slade and Macy were
posting on their social media they were basically following the
ends of the season. They were going from Alabama to
Tennessee and even further. How far did you guys get
this year?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
We killed in Hawaii, We did uh, Pennsylvania, It was
probably in Montana, and then Florida. So we hid about
every every part of the country. We did twelve states.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I think, sou'd you get in Aiciola this year? In Florida?
Isn't that cool?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
They're they're gorgeous looking. These these species a turkey are
really good looking.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I killed that one in a watermelon field.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Yeah, that was probably one of my favorite hunts of
the year. It was when they came in. It was awesome.
We got to tell them that on the topic of
missing you tell that story. Sure, She's like, not really,
but it's hey, this is part of turkey hunting. If
you hadn't if you hadn't done it, you hadn't hunted
long enough. But she got it done. I was impressed.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So what happened, Masie?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You're doing all right?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So we're set up on the long story short, we've
been hunting all morning. There's several birds on this property.
It's actually through my con with their trips for trade.
Of buddy, we made out out there and he came
hunting my farm and so he kind of owed me
a hunt. Well, we went out there and.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Finally should say we had been there for like eleven
days at that point.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yeah, we hunted public land.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Wow, y'all moved in eleven driver's license lay there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
We stayed with some other friends and hunted public super hard.
We're doing ten mile days in the swamp, you know,
upturned knees, wading in water and alligators of snakes and
uh so that got old pretty quick. So I called
my buddy up and I was like, hey, man, you
know we're starting to private would be nice at this point.
He's like, yeah, I got a farm, come on, and
so we went over there, and uh, long story short,
we got on these birds. They're coming in. I've got
(13:40):
a way better vanished point than Macy. She's tucked in hidden,
but she's she's shooting. And it's actually last minute. There's
two birds coming in. I've got a gun, she's got
a gun, and they're we're calling their running down this
road to us. And my buddy's behind me and he
sees me lift my gun. He's like, hey, wait, hold up, Slater,
you shooting too, And I was like, yeah, there's two
(14:01):
of them and he's he's like, no, we only kill
one on this farm. And I'm like, okay, So I
put my gun down. We should have had a little
better communication on the front end, but thankfully I had
my gun, so we put it down. Well, they come
running in just I mean full sprint like you were
talking about, and we'd stuck it. It happened so quick.
We just stuck a dkoy out arms length in the
(14:22):
road beside us. We didn't have time to like do
a full set up, and so they were running to
that decoy that's literally two yards from us, and so
they get to five and I tell her to wait.
I was like, I'm gonna try to call and make
him stick his head up and give you a better
shot and gobble. Well, when I called instead of goblin,
he sprinted faster to the decos. She tries to take
(14:43):
the shot. At this point, you know, you're shooting TSS
and type full choke the birds at five yard and
she's trying to hit it like like throwing a ping
pong ball at it. And so the first shot was
a miss. At that point, he flies, so you know
that second shot is just a you're just yeah, you're shooting. Well,
he's Neil is trying to he's so mad at this decoy.
He's still trying to get to the decoy. So now
(15:03):
he's literally like two to three yards, and of course,
so that shot was a miss. She's out of sales
at this point. Well, now they take off, so I
literally toss her my gun and at forty yards she
lays him down on the Wow the other one.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So that one felt like, man, my tail feathers are
getting roughed up, and the other one's like tell me
about it, and then it.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Was all, yeah, the one I shot at lives on.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah he's still fine. He's great shot.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But that's the thing like when it comes to hunting,
everybody always says like, oh my god, you're out in
the woods all the time, you must just have tons
of animals. You hunt. Ninety eight percent of the time,
you're not successful. Like, there's plenty of times where you
go out there and honestly, it's just watching the world
wake up. It's watching the sun come up. You hear
noises that you'd never hear. You have time to just
(15:56):
think about your life and what you have in front
of you and what you've gone through to get to
that point. And then all of a sudden, if an
animal comes out and you're trying to really search for
this animal and you find one, it's it's almost like
the culmination of all those days of either missus or
not seeing anything. You have an opportunity right in front
(16:17):
of you, and a lot of people just don't realize
that about hunting is it's not always about the kill.
It's about the time that you get to spend.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Thank you appreciate it. I appreciate it. Try not to
miss the day. It's uh, it means, it means a
lot to us. Those mornings are pretty cool, so we
try not to take it. We take advantage of. We
did over seventy mornings this year hunting. Uh, you know,
from like I said, started in Florida to Hawaii, across
the country. I've seen her go through every element of
(16:47):
turkey huntings out there, and she did it, would smile
her face so and usually walk and usually walked out
with a turkey. So it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Now, one of my most memorable hunts was in Missouri
with my buddy Chip, and Chip's got a family farm
and I go up there quite a bit. We do
a lot of duck hunting together and turkey hunting and
deer hunting. And we went up. I was living in
Georgia at the time. He was like, dude, just come
up for turkey season because I got a lot of tomes.
I was like, all right, So I go up and
the same exact thing, like, we're in every condition known
(17:17):
to man. And we were walking back down this little
gravel road and he was just messing around on his
mouth call and all of a sudden I heard him
like faint way off in the distance. I mean he
was probably like two hundred yards. And I said to him,
I go, did you hear that? And he was like
here what And I said, hit your mouth? Call again.
He hits it again. Now they sound like they're in
the kitchen, I mean like right in front. And he goes,
(17:39):
he goes, oh my god, he like runs over. He
takes the decoy. He tries sticking in the road. The
road is packed solid with old gravel. So this bird,
like this decoy is sitting in the road. We got
toms coming in. They look at that decoy, they go
running for it. What happens that they falls over. So
it falls over. These toms lock up like, hey, she's
(18:01):
not supposed to do that. What's happening here? They start
to get all gunshot. They wouldn't come down any closer.
So the next day we were like, we'll set up
in the same exact spot. So we went out to
the same exact spot, and for whatever reason, they flew
one hundred and fifty yards in the other direction. So
we ended up walking all the way around. We got
into this field. We sat in the field. Within thirty
(18:23):
seconds of being in the field, we had a hand
walking in, I was like, this is a good sign.
We ended up having two times come in at the
same exact time, so we ended up getting a double.
It was my first double, it was his first double.
And it was one of the coolest huts because every
time I had a shot, he didn't have a shot,
and we're trying to orchestrate, like three two one, you
got to pull it. Finally, I just said to him, Man,
(18:44):
I'm shooting. I don't care if he's behind it tough
to grass or not. I'm taking him down. But it's
that whole storyline of like you travel to a place
you want to be successful, but you got to spend
great time with somebody and you get to see everything
kind of play out in front, and then ultimately if
you do get one, everybody goes nuts. I mean, it's
like a team effort.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So that's cool that you guys have had that experience
and plush. You're doing this within a year of dating
each other. I mean, how long you guys.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Been together now a little over a year, So.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Your entire first year, you guys have checked off some
crazy buckets.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Yeah, we're fortunate and very flexible and.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Willing what's happening, Uh, what's happening now? Since it's not
really hunting season.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Well, we're I mean, we do a lot of off
season prep for deer season, so it takes a lot
to with chasing some big deer. So it takes a
lot to try to get in the game on.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Those So you got the family farm going with your
circling out food plots, or you change the crops.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Over coincidently, I really don't deer hunt a lot at
our farm. We've because you know the you know, you
go to different parts of the country and find bigger deer. Oh,
deffective changes a little bit o. Our farm got awesome farm,
but it's not uh you know, genetics for big deer
aren't really.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
This the Midwest.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, So we we're headed to Tennessee today and we'll
start getting cameras out at several spots we got up there,
and so you're running the lease up there, door knocking
just permission. Yeah, So we do a lot of door knocking.
And then we did a Ohio two weeks ago and
got our spots ready up there. Got a really big
deal on camera already in Ohio. So we're we're just
waiting for season to come in there.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So explain to me the door knocking thing, Like if
you go and you're on either on X or hunt
stand or whatever it is, and it tells you the
owners of the property, you go up and knock on
the door. The properties that you're hunting this year are
those people that you met last year and then they
kind of appreciated the way that you guys handled their property.
Because that's got to be a tough proposition.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah, you lose properties all the time. But uh, for
the most part, if they give you permission once unless
something changes there, you know, they'll let you hunt here
after year as long as you don't you know, make
them mad about something. But a lot of times you'll
have a neighbor get upset that you're hunting and they'll
make you lose permission or something. But yeah, it's uh,
it just depends.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
We try to keep spots year after year and build
a good relationships for our landowners and then year like,
we'll also do a lot of riding around in the
evenings this week, checking fields, trying to find big deer,
and you know, we find a new deer, then we'll
try to get permission on that deer and so we'll
we'll door knocks on this week too.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Are they growing out in Tennessee right now?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Yeah, it's about the point right now where you can
see if it's gonna be a big deer or not. Yeah,
you know, you can kind of tell if they they're
already should there's you know, the one I'm after, know
how it is probably already one hundred and thirty inches,
but you can tell he's got already a lot more
growing to do. Yeah, another two months of growing, three
year old, four year old, he's he's probably a five plus.
I mean, it's probably gonna be my main deer this year.
(21:37):
We'll see, though. I had a two just really big
deer in my life last year, one in Tennessee, one
at that same spot and Ohio that uh put the
slip on me. But you know it's that's part of
the chase.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That's what's wild when it comes down to deer hunting.
Literally you can see a picture of a deer, you
get a couple of them early season, and you start
to try to track where they are at what time.
I mean, it really gets super scientific. And then what
happens They go into the wall. You don't see him
for a couple get shut or.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
That or the one to know how it gets it
by car and now he's dead in a dish.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
See, And that's what's wild. Like there's a lot of time,
there's a lot of effort that goes into chasing these
absolutely beautiful animals and you get to you get to
create a bond with an animal that you've never actually
seen in real life and.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
It doesn't care about you.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It doesn't. I mean, it's and that's really what the
chase is like. Honestly, you're just looking at it like
I would like to have this bond. And I mean
I was fortunate enough to travel to South Africa and
do some hunting out there. It's completely different than Western
or americanized hunting. But even there, like when you are
(22:50):
on a spot in stalk or you're trying to track
these animals down, like you do create a short term
relationship where when you take that animal there is a
reaction kind of like what you were talking about where
they put blood on your face and all that kind
of stuff. You want to really honor that animal because
that animal just did something for not only you but
(23:10):
everybody else. That's going to be a part of harvesting
and eating that animal that you know, most people just
they don't know that. They just see one picture and
they go, I can't believe you would do right.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I always make sure to do a few cooking videos
during seasons.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So smart, that is smart, whether.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
It's something like really tasty and like unique.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Or just like a simple crop pot meal that you know,
average American family might not easy to make.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And I'll tell you what, I love duck poppers, but honestly,
I'm getting tired of everybody taking wild game and wrapping
it and bacon. We can do a lot of different things,
and I think that I think Steve Ranella was kind
of the guy that broke the mold on that, which
allows people when you do those cooking videos, you do
different things to highlight what actually happens with that meat.
(23:59):
It almost seems like hunting becomes a little more acceptable
to people because they're like, oh, they're actually doing something
and look how good that looks?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Right?
Speaker 5 (24:10):
You know?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Yeah, No, I mean that food is a great channel
to get kind of the people that are on the
fence about it. You know, that that converts them pretty well.
So I think that's a big thing behind Meat Eater.
You know that's a big push for them.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
You talked about Trips for Trade. Is this something you
came up with or is this a group that you
jumped in with.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
No, So I started this in college. It was a
you know what you mentioned goals earlier on about turkey
hunting when I was growing up. Kind of the backstory.
My grandfather, as mentioned, best friend hunting buddy, one of
the best turkey hunters around. He's kind of one of
the early turkey hunters in Alabama. But we'd always planned
to do my grand Slam and go to other states
(24:47):
and hunt for these other subspecies. Well, he passed away
my freshman year of college, and he'd always said once
I got to college, we'd start the traveling. So we
never got to do any of those trips. So I
started looking at trips with my dad to just kind
of in memory of my grandfather, go go after these
other turkeys. And didn't want to pay for outfitters, so
we leveraged our farm and swapped some trips to do it.
(25:09):
And so, going through business school at the time, we
started Trips for Trade with really just a platform to
swap trips and we broaden it outside of just hunting,
whether that's fishing, beach condos, lake houses, just swapping what
you have access to to go on other trips.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So it's kind of like it it feels like a
little bit like a timeshare type it is.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, it's kind of similar, except for you know, your
relationship baseure. You might come stay in my guest room
at my house for a week and hunting me, you know,
and in six months I might come deer hunt with you.
And so, you know, we built it to we've got
trips in all fifty states, in about fifteen different countries.
Now we got people swapping trips a lot, and it's
it's cool just to kind of see the relationships and.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
What are some of the international trips.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
A lot of a lot of big game in South Africa, Yeah,
a lot of that, Argentina and New Zealand. We just
add one in Bulgaria. I forgot. I would only know
what it was that he'd put on there, but some
kind of bird that they hunt over there.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
We linked up with a guy in Hawaii. When we
went fishing.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
In Hawaii with a guy, he had a guy this on.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
His platform that took us fishing.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
They call it on a So yeah, it's been neat
and you know, for example, I go to elk hunting
in Colorado every year. Guy comes hog hunting here in
Alabama at my farm. So you know, it's uh pretty crazy.
It's a good trade and.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
That one you're walking a lot more than the other.
There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And it's cool. I mean the like interest there, you know,
values and getting access something you don't already have access to.
So a lot of people are swapping across the country.
And you know that example, that guy in Colorado swaps
with a guy in Texas every year that does offshore fishing.
He loves offshore fish. Guy in Texas loved a big
game bow hunt, and so they swap every season. They
became best friends and now business partners. Now they own
(26:51):
a roofing company together, and they just bought some real
estate together to hunt. So you no, it was in Colorado.
Is actually the arm that we do hunt out there
that they had My guy had a lease. Now they
own it, so they went in on it together. So
it's kind of cool to see some of those relationships
that have been built through the company.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I'm getting ready to do a elk hunt in Montana
this year. It's the first Western hunt that I've done.
What are some things that I probably need to think
about in preparation for that trip?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah, I mean we did we did Montana turkey this year.
I've never done elk. We've just done turkey.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Put in.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I just hadn't drawn, and you know, getting drawn pretty
tough sometimes. But but yeah, I mean, your conditioning is different,
you know, your you're different elevation. I would definitely recommend,
you know, carrying a backpack, little heavy backpack up some
hills around here, you know, maybe go to Oak Mountain
and do a couple.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Of trails thing. I started thinking about that because man,
I've been drinking a lot of mountain dew and not
sponsored by them, but I absolutely love it. And I've
realized that I've put on some serious weight and I know,
going into this hunting season, like I've got to get
into shape. And you don't think that hunters have to
be in good shape. The amount of miles that you
put in when I was in South Africa and we
were chasing birds, that's all we were hunting down there,
(28:06):
we put in fifteen miles that day. Wow, you just
know real throw an.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Elevation and it will kill you.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
And the thing about elk too is, you know, I
don't know if you probably see some campaign stuff. You know,
he's one of the one of the biggest guys out
there on like endurance and training for hunting. But uh,
you know, it comes down to moments, you know, and
you're for an elk hunt, Like I spent ten days
out in Colorado last this past season, and there was
(28:33):
three moments in ten days to get it done. And
you know, if you're not in shape and can't get
ahead of a herd of elk that move really fast
and getting positioned on them, you know, there goes your opportunity.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And they're so methodical. Yeah, like they know every little
passageway they want to go.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And thermals is a whole different game. We don't have
that here in Alabama. So learning thermals and how they
use those to get up and down these you'll be
in Montana, so you'll probably be around like what they
call coolies, these kind of ditches and on the bottom.
But yeah, those thermals will screw you up in a heartbeat.
I've I've had several elk hunts get busted because of that.
(29:09):
It's like it's not the same as when you had
to learn how to play them. But it's uh, it's fun, man.
But yeah, definitely getting a condition I two seasons ago.
One quick story, biggest elk I've been on and you know,
hunting out there for four or five years, biggest one
they've actually ever seen on the farm. And I was
telling her I was having to scale this mountain to
try to get in front of them and beat the
(29:29):
herd to the top. And you know, after doing I
went up and down, up and down trying to get
in front of them, and it gets to a point
where you just get so fatigued and it's like I
stopped to catch my break and my breath. I'm so
out of breath trying to get there, and I'm bow hunting,
so you need to kind of be maintain composure to
make the shot. But if I'd have been in better
shape at that point and could have not had that
(29:51):
five minute catch my breath, you know, would have been
in position on that bull. But I wasn't, you know,
because I took that five minutes, and that five minute
break in the difference between killing a bull of a
lifetime that's wild and so yeah, definitely get condition.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
So that's going to be my game plan going forward,
is just making sure that my body is up for it,
because I'll tell you what, it's a different world when
you hit forty. Maintaining and just being in shape. But
thank you so much for jumping in, Slade Johnson, Macy Watkins,
Riley White. Appreciate all you guys and hopefully you guys
learn something off this podcast. I want to put a
(30:27):
link for Trips for Trade in case anybody listens to
it and says, hey, sladehy don't you come out. I
got a hunt out here and I'd like to come
to Alabama and do some hunting over there, So absolutely
we'll make that happen.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Go trips on there. Check it out.
Lines and times. I'm Spencer Graves. I'm joined with several
of my good friends and a couple of people like Slade.
You and I don't really know each other that well.
I've known Macy now for a couple of years. Are
involvement ne sci and then Riley. We got to get
you out hunting.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To be honest, Yeah, I've only ever well, I've gone
hunting a bunch, but I've only ever killed one year.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Was it a dough or a buck?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It was a spike. But I was supposed to kill it.
I don't worry. I was supposed to kill it wasn't
like a.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Yeah, yeah, first year.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's good. It's good. Tell tell us that story.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So I think it was two years ago. Maybe the
guy was eight at the time. We were out hunting
on a bunch of property and it was high fence
and they had a book of all the bucks that
we were trying to kill that year, and so they
told me I could get.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
This spike, and I was like, I'm happy to be here.
So it's my first year.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
We had been going for a few days and I
just enjoyed sit in the stand and it was surprising
because I talked so much. It was gonna It was
really interesting to see how I was gonna be in
the stand, and I loved it. I enjoyed the piece
in quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Were you in a like a big box stand or
were you actually sitting.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
In a tree?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Okay, I kind of wish. I've always wanted to do that,
just sit in a tree, but I was in a box.
And then I would say, maybe day five, finally got it.
I'd never even shot his gun, so I didn't know
what to expect.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I'm like, all right, here we go, and I got it.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And at first he was like, oh no, and I'm
like what He's like, I don't know if you hit
in the right spot. I'm like, I aimed where you
told me to aim. And then we go down and
sure enough I hit perfectly.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
We didn't have to go look for it for very long.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And then the other guy we were.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
With he put the blood all over my face, and
I was just enjoying it because I'm like, this is
so fun, like first time, I don't know, got a
bunch of pictures. I posted the pictures to my social media,
got torn apart, did death threats. Even it is about
my agent called me because my following went down by
a lot, and she's really have a.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Lot of dudes that follow you. Yeah, and they were
the ones that were walking away.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It was both Yeah, I mean I she called me
and told me, I need you to take down the post.
So I took it down for period of time and.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Put it back up.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, you know, all of us being in the world
that we're in with hunting and even fishing, but really hunting,
we've had to figure out the proper way to display
an animal that you just took down. And I mean, Slade,
you probably see this a lot, you know, because of
some of the big game that you go after. If
there's blood or the tongue's hanging out, that's like an
(02:43):
immediate nogo, like you can't post that.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It probably didn't help that I posted pictures of blood
all over my face.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, but it can also be done to where it
tells the story. And I've always noticed that with your stuff, Slade,
is that you're really good at having images that kind
of tell the story about what you're going on after.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Yeah, I think it's uh, it's important to kind of
you know, almost honoring it, you know, showing some respect
there too. And and like it's part of the experience,
you know. I think people can get behind that. You're
still going to get the hate, there's no doubt, you know,
but but that is part. You know, everybody that comes
to my farm and kills their first deer, we're putting
blood on the face.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, it's that you don't make them meet the heart
or anything.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
We had some guys that have have done that, but uh,
we don't. We don't make that as.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I think that's where I would have been, like,
I'm good, thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
I mean, there's different ways to kind of honor that
tradition of shooting your first deer, for sure, And look,
you shot a spike. It's not that big of a deal.
Like if somebody gives you grief over that was your
first one, you know obviously did you really.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
People miss deer before they ever hit one.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
What happened on your shots one for one, that makes
you feel pretty good.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I mean I was just young and jittery, nervous.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Hard gets something. It's you know, especially with a big
loving point walking up.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Eleven poison or what everybody calls spikes. Yeah, yeah, I
get it. So macy with your shots, Like were you
hunting with your old man at the time.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yes, I mean I was I was little.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You're like six seven years old. See, but that's you know,
I've I've taken a lot of people hunting for their
first year, and it doesn't matter how old you are,
that buck fever hits you, and that is something that
is really tough to manage. Like you got to breathe
through it. It seems like Riley, you didn't have to
breathe at all. You were like, whatever, I'll just put
the your stone cold killer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I mean, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It was there, and he's like, okay, that's it. I'm like, okay,
what do I do? And he like slowly gets the
gun out, props it up for me, and I'm like okay,
and he's like do you see it. I'm like, yeah, oh,
I forgot to mention this. He didn't take safety off.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So I pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
My heart seeks and he was like, oh sorry, then
took it off, and I was like, I now I'm nervous.
I wasn't before, but now I'm like this better.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Actually like go off this time.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
The fact that that gun wasn't set up for you,
oh my goodness. Immediately gives you a better shot because
you didn't really have time to think.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, I know, you know, because I think I was
so new to everything. I'm like, yeah, okay, and I
just had heard stories about things coming back and like
the scope hitting you be strong, and that's I just aimed.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
It sounds a natural, I guess.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So, Macy, when you finally got your first deer, tell
us that story.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
It was on public lan and it was on the
Redlands actually near Madison, Georgia, south of Athens.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
And yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Was hunting with a thirty thirty and I didn't have
enough time to be nervous. That's the way I like
my hunts to go, whether it's deer or turkey. It
happened so quick they come in. You don't watch them
from a long ways away. It's like bam, they're there,
and you just have to have your instinct to make
the right decision.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's about how it went.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Dough Buck, Okay, solid seven.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Why you know it was?
Speaker 5 (06:13):
It was great because it was a wm A and
I got to go sign the board.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
My name and what I harvested.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So the slave. Do you remember your first year? Uh?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, I do. It was a dough I have. So
my family has a big farm in West Alabama, so
very fortunate there. We grew up hunting all the time,
my grandfather and me and my cousin. We would take
turns on like whose turn it was to shoot? Yeah,
and it was his turn to shoot. But this doe
walked out and my grandfather was like, uh, you know, Logan,
(06:45):
this is this is a good good dough to shoot.
We need some meat. He's like, oh, let's Slade shoot.
So I was over there like bagging, like please, you know,
I'll shoot, I'll shoot. And so anyways, that was appreciate him.
Let me take that.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
What's the difference in age between you and Logan?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
He's five years older than me.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Okay, that's good, And that actually is a really valuable
lesson for anybody who's listening to the podcast, where if
you have young kids, it's great to see that another
one of the kids is like, you know what, we'll
just pause and we'll let we'll let Slade take a
shot or whatever it might be. You know, I think
that was actually really cool Logan to do.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah, no doubt, so, I mean it meant a lot
to me in a special memory. And then the first
buck I shot, I think he had two or three
on one side and a little spik on the other.
But now if you look at your social media, I mean,
you're taking down some absolute giants.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It still gives me.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Great majority of the time pass that alone.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I'm not behind the gun as much anymore, but it's
all right. I just like to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Now that you're not behind the gun as much. Is
that a different feeling of excitement for you?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
It is, especially from the Turkey hunting side. I mean,
I've and I grew up with that. Like my dad,
same deal. He didn't he didn't shoot anything for probably
ten fifteen years, you know that I was growing up hunting.
He was just helping us do it. So like I
get that from him. I love seeing other people be
successful and help him do it, you know. So as
long as I'm part of the strategy and help them
get it done, that's rewarding for me. So you know,
(08:15):
it's also frustrated when one gets away, but you know
that happens.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Speaking of one getting away. So this Turkey season was
my first full season in Alabama, and I'm a big
fan of some of these records that people go for
and it's some of the personal ones, like yeah, I
got the Grand Slam. When it comes to turkeys, you
want to get all the species of turkeys, and there
aren't really that many, but it's it's cool to check
them off the board. And then you've got guys that
(08:39):
are like, I want to harvest a turkey in every
available state where turkeys are. I mean they have them
all the way out in Hawaii, which is pretty wild.
So I'm kind of in that world where I want
to harvest a turkey in every state where it's available.
So this year I was like, I'll get one in Alabama,
no problem. Every time I went out there, something wasn't right.
Like the first time I went out, the birds kind
(09:01):
of hung up at like seventy yards. They wouldn't give
me a proper shot, Like I had some trees kind
of blocking me, and I don't want to just shoot
to shoot. Well, with like two days to go in
the season, I go out to the same property, I
sit down, I literally get set up, and it pours
for two and a half hours, I mean dump and rain.
(09:24):
So I could either get up and go back and
sit in the truck and wait, or I can be
out there when the turkeys are probably gonna get up
off the roost and come down, and then be ready
when they do. Because most of the time it's rain.
I don't know if you've noticed this, but most of
the time it's raining, they're not really that active, Like
they kind of get where they want to be and
they hunker down because they can't hear what else is
(09:47):
going on in the woods, like coyotes and all that
kind of stuff. So I was close to walking back
to the truck, but something was like, don't do it,
because you're gonna miss an opportunity. You don't want to
do that. So literally, the rain stops, and I just
hear a couple purrs and clucks and they're within fifty yards,
and I'm like, ooh, this is good. So I'm sitting down.
(10:09):
I make a couple of little calls on my slate
call and I don't hear a thing. Literally, I turn
and I look to my right and this tom is
bum rushing the decoys, I mean full speed, and I
was looking all the way over to the left, so
I gotta swing my gun all the way around. He
sees me and he immediately starts to bugger off. I
(10:31):
pulled the trigger too quick. It's my first time shooting
a red dot, because I grew up shooting a Mossburg
pump five hundred, like none of that fancy stuff. And
because I got this new red dot, I didn't even
look for the red dot. I probably shot like a
foot over this bird's head. And my buddy that was
with me, he was like, damn, man, you just missed. Well.
Of course I got two other shells, and I'm like,
(10:54):
I gotta knock this thing down. It sounded like the
Civil War bag and that burden.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You can go head right off the second shot. It's
just you're just throwing it out there, trying to aim
on the third one. But by that point he's probably
too far go exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
So all of a sudden, I felt terrible because you know,
I've been hunting since I was twelve years old, and
for the first sixteen birds that I was a part of,
it was other people making the shot. I'd call them
in for friends of mine or you know, they'd have
a better shot than I did. And it wasn't until Georgia,
when I lived there a couple of years ago that
I got my first legit bird on my own. So
(11:31):
this one when I missed, I was so upset with myself.
But it's kind of like going back to my sports
world where I was like, you know what, it was
an error. I can't think about it because I got
to wait for the next one. I had two days
left in the season. I couldn't get out there the
next couple of days because of work, so it was
officially my last day. So now this year, I gotta
(11:52):
get Alabama. I'm looking for Tennessee. Y'all made me so
jealous of you and Macy because Slade and Macy were
posting on their social media they were basically following the
ends of the season. They were going from Alabama to
Tennessee and even further. How far did you guys get
this year?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
We killed in Hawaii, We did uh, Pennsylvania, It was
probably in Montana, and then Florida. So we hid about
every every part of the country. We did twelve states.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I think, sou'd you get in Aiciola this year? In Florida?
Isn't that cool?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
They're they're gorgeous looking. These these species a turkey are
really good looking.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I killed that one in a watermelon field.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Yeah, that was probably one of my favorite hunts of
the year. It was when they came in. It was awesome.
We got to tell them that on the topic of
missing you tell that story. Sure, She's like, not really,
but it's hey, this is part of turkey hunting. If
you hadn't if you hadn't done it, you hadn't hunted
long enough. But she got it done. I was impressed.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So what happened, Masie?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You're doing all right?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
So we're set up on the long story short, we've
been hunting all morning. There's several birds on this property.
It's actually through my con with their trips for trade.
Of buddy, we made out out there and he came
hunting my farm and so he kind of owed me
a hunt. Well, we went out there and.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Finally should say we had been there for like eleven
days at that point.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Yeah, we hunted public land.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Wow, y'all moved in eleven driver's license lay there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
We stayed with some other friends and hunted public super hard.
We're doing ten mile days in the swamp, you know,
upturned knees, wading in water and alligators of snakes and
uh so that got old pretty quick. So I called
my buddy up and I was like, hey, man, you
know we're starting to private would be nice at this point.
He's like, yeah, I got a farm, come on, and
so we went over there, and uh, long story short,
we got on these birds. They're coming in. I've got
(13:40):
a way better vanished point than Macy. She's tucked in hidden,
but she's she's shooting. And it's actually last minute. There's
two birds coming in. I've got a gun, she's got
a gun, and they're we're calling their running down this
road to us. And my buddy's behind me and he
sees me lift my gun. He's like, hey, wait, hold up, Slater,
you shooting too, And I was like, yeah, there's two
(14:01):
of them and he's he's like, no, we only kill
one on this farm. And I'm like, okay, So I
put my gun down. We should have had a little
better communication on the front end, but thankfully I had
my gun, so we put it down. Well, they come
running in just I mean full sprint like you were
talking about, and we'd stuck it. It happened so quick.
We just stuck a dkoy out arms length in the
(14:22):
road beside us. We didn't have time to like do
a full set up, and so they were running to
that decoy that's literally two yards from us, and so
they get to five and I tell her to wait.
I was like, I'm gonna try to call and make
him stick his head up and give you a better
shot and gobble. Well, when I called instead of goblin,
he sprinted faster to the decos. She tries to take
(14:43):
the shot. At this point, you know, you're shooting TSS
and type full choke the birds at five yard and
she's trying to hit it like like throwing a ping
pong ball at it. And so the first shot was
a miss. At that point, he flies, so you know
that second shot is just a you're just yeah, you're shooting. Well,
he's Neil is trying to he's so mad at this decoy.
He's still trying to get to the decoy. So now
(15:03):
he's literally like two to three yards, and of course,
so that shot was a miss. She's out of sales
at this point. Well, now they take off, so I
literally toss her my gun and at forty yards she
lays him down on the Wow the other one.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So that one felt like, man, my tail feathers are
getting roughed up, and the other one's like tell me
about it, and then it.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Was all, yeah, the one I shot at lives on.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah he's still fine. He's great shot.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
But that's the thing like when it comes to hunting,
everybody always says like, oh my god, you're out in
the woods all the time, you must just have tons
of animals. You hunt. Ninety eight percent of the time,
you're not successful. Like, there's plenty of times where you
go out there and honestly, it's just watching the world
wake up. It's watching the sun come up. You hear
noises that you'd never hear. You have time to just
(15:56):
think about your life and what you have in front
of you and what you've gone through to get to
that point. And then all of a sudden, if an
animal comes out and you're trying to really search for
this animal and you find one, it's it's almost like
the culmination of all those days of either missus or
not seeing anything. You have an opportunity right in front
(16:17):
of you, and a lot of people just don't realize
that about hunting is it's not always about the kill.
It's about the time that you get to spend.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Thank you appreciate it. I appreciate it. Try not to
miss the day. It's uh, it means, it means a
lot to us. Those mornings are pretty cool, so we
try not to take it. We take advantage of. We
did over seventy mornings this year hunting. Uh, you know,
from like I said, started in Florida to Hawaii, across
the country. I've seen her go through every element of
(16:47):
turkey huntings out there, and she did it, would smile
her face so and usually walk and usually walked out
with a turkey. So it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Now, one of my most memorable hunts was in Missouri
with my buddy Chip, and Chip's got a family farm
and I go up there quite a bit. We do
a lot of duck hunting together and turkey hunting and
deer hunting. And we went up. I was living in
Georgia at the time. He was like, dude, just come
up for turkey season because I got a lot of tomes.
I was like, all right, So I go up and
the same exact thing, like, we're in every condition known
(17:17):
to man. And we were walking back down this little
gravel road and he was just messing around on his
mouth call and all of a sudden I heard him
like faint way off in the distance. I mean he
was probably like two hundred yards. And I said to him,
I go, did you hear that? And he was like
here what And I said, hit your mouth? Call again.
He hits it again. Now they sound like they're in
the kitchen, I mean like right in front. And he goes,
(17:39):
he goes, oh my god, he like runs over. He
takes the decoy. He tries sticking in the road. The
road is packed solid with old gravel. So this bird,
like this decoy is sitting in the road. We got
toms coming in. They look at that decoy, they go
running for it. What happens that they falls over. So
it falls over. These toms lock up like, hey, she's
(18:01):
not supposed to do that. What's happening here? They start
to get all gunshot. They wouldn't come down any closer.
So the next day we were like, we'll set up
in the same exact spot. So we went out to
the same exact spot, and for whatever reason, they flew
one hundred and fifty yards in the other direction. So
we ended up walking all the way around. We got
into this field. We sat in the field. Within thirty
(18:23):
seconds of being in the field, we had a hand
walking in, I was like, this is a good sign.
We ended up having two times come in at the
same exact time, so we ended up getting a double.
It was my first double, it was his first double.
And it was one of the coolest huts because every
time I had a shot, he didn't have a shot,
and we're trying to orchestrate, like three two one, you
got to pull it. Finally, I just said to him, Man,
(18:44):
I'm shooting. I don't care if he's behind it tough
to grass or not. I'm taking him down. But it's
that whole storyline of like you travel to a place
you want to be successful, but you got to spend
great time with somebody and you get to see everything
kind of play out in front, and then ultimately if
you do get one, everybody goes nuts. I mean, it's
like a team effort.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
So that's cool that you guys have had that experience
and plush. You're doing this within a year of dating
each other. I mean, how long you guys.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Been together now a little over a year, So.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Your entire first year, you guys have checked off some
crazy buckets.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
Yeah, we're fortunate and very flexible and.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Willing what's happening, Uh, what's happening now? Since it's not
really hunting season.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Well, we're I mean, we do a lot of off
season prep for deer season, so it takes a lot
to with chasing some big deer. So it takes a
lot to try to get in the game on.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Those So you got the family farm going with your
circling out food plots, or you change the crops.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Over coincidently, I really don't deer hunt a lot at
our farm. We've because you know the you know, you
go to different parts of the country and find bigger deer. Oh,
deffective changes a little bit o. Our farm got awesome farm,
but it's not uh you know, genetics for big deer
aren't really.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
This the Midwest.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, So we we're headed to Tennessee today and we'll
start getting cameras out at several spots we got up there,
and so you're running the lease up there, door knocking
just permission. Yeah, So we do a lot of door knocking.
And then we did a Ohio two weeks ago and
got our spots ready up there. Got a really big
deal on camera already in Ohio. So we're we're just
waiting for season to come in there.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So explain to me the door knocking thing, Like if
you go and you're on either on X or hunt
stand or whatever it is, and it tells you the
owners of the property, you go up and knock on
the door. The properties that you're hunting this year are
those people that you met last year and then they
kind of appreciated the way that you guys handled their property.
Because that's got to be a tough proposition.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah, you lose properties all the time. But uh, for
the most part, if they give you permission once unless
something changes there, you know, they'll let you hunt here
after year as long as you don't you know, make
them mad about something. But a lot of times you'll
have a neighbor get upset that you're hunting and they'll
make you lose permission or something. But yeah, it's uh,
it just depends.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
We try to keep spots year after year and build
a good relationships for our landowners and then year like,
we'll also do a lot of riding around in the
evenings this week, checking fields, trying to find big deer,
and you know, we find a new deer, then we'll
try to get permission on that deer and so we'll
we'll door knocks on this week too.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Are they growing out in Tennessee right now?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Yeah, it's about the point right now where you can
see if it's gonna be a big deer or not. Yeah,
you know, you can kind of tell if they they're
already should there's you know, the one I'm after, know
how it is probably already one hundred and thirty inches,
but you can tell he's got already a lot more
growing to do. Yeah, another two months of growing, three
year old, four year old, he's he's probably a five plus.
I mean, it's probably gonna be my main deer this year.
(21:37):
We'll see, though. I had a two just really big
deer in my life last year, one in Tennessee, one
at that same spot and Ohio that uh put the
slip on me. But you know it's that's part of
the chase.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
That's what's wild when it comes down to deer hunting.
Literally you can see a picture of a deer, you
get a couple of them early season, and you start
to try to track where they are at what time.
I mean, it really gets super scientific. And then what
happens They go into the wall. You don't see him
for a couple get shut or.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
That or the one to know how it gets it
by car and now he's dead in a dish.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
See, And that's what's wild. Like there's a lot of time,
there's a lot of effort that goes into chasing these
absolutely beautiful animals and you get to you get to
create a bond with an animal that you've never actually
seen in real life and.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
It doesn't care about you.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It doesn't. I mean, it's and that's really what the
chase is like. Honestly, you're just looking at it like
I would like to have this bond. And I mean
I was fortunate enough to travel to South Africa and
do some hunting out there. It's completely different than Western
or americanized hunting. But even there, like when you are
(22:50):
on a spot in stalk or you're trying to track
these animals down, like you do create a short term
relationship where when you take that animal there is a
reaction kind of like what you were talking about where
they put blood on your face and all that kind
of stuff. You want to really honor that animal because
that animal just did something for not only you but
(23:10):
everybody else. That's going to be a part of harvesting
and eating that animal that you know, most people just
they don't know that. They just see one picture and
they go, I can't believe you would do right.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I always make sure to do a few cooking videos
during seasons.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So smart, that is smart, whether.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
It's something like really tasty and like unique.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Or just like a simple crop pot meal that you know,
average American family might not easy to make.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
And I'll tell you what, I love duck poppers, but honestly,
I'm getting tired of everybody taking wild game and wrapping
it and bacon. We can do a lot of different things,
and I think that I think Steve Ranella was kind
of the guy that broke the mold on that, which
allows people when you do those cooking videos, you do
different things to highlight what actually happens with that meat.
(23:59):
It almost seems like hunting becomes a little more acceptable
to people because they're like, oh, they're actually doing something
and look how good that looks?
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Right?
Speaker 5 (24:10):
You know?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Yeah, No, I mean that food is a great channel
to get kind of the people that are on the
fence about it. You know, that that converts them pretty well.
So I think that's a big thing behind Meat Eater.
You know that's a big push for them.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
You talked about Trips for Trade. Is this something you
came up with or is this a group that you
jumped in with.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
No, So I started this in college. It was a
you know what you mentioned goals earlier on about turkey
hunting when I was growing up. Kind of the backstory.
My grandfather, as mentioned, best friend hunting buddy, one of
the best turkey hunters around. He's kind of one of
the early turkey hunters in Alabama. But we'd always planned
to do my grand Slam and go to other states
(24:47):
and hunt for these other subspecies. Well, he passed away
my freshman year of college, and he'd always said once
I got to college, we'd start the traveling. So we
never got to do any of those trips. So I
started looking at trips with my dad to just kind
of in memory of my grandfather, go go after these
other turkeys. And didn't want to pay for outfitters, so
we leveraged our farm and swapped some trips to do it.
(25:09):
And so, going through business school at the time, we
started Trips for Trade with really just a platform to
swap trips and we broaden it outside of just hunting,
whether that's fishing, beach condos, lake houses, just swapping what
you have access to to go on other trips.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So it's kind of like it it feels like a
little bit like a timeshare type it is.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, it's kind of similar, except for you know, your
relationship baseure. You might come stay in my guest room
at my house for a week and hunting me, you know,
and in six months I might come deer hunt with you.
And so, you know, we built it to we've got
trips in all fifty states, in about fifteen different countries.
Now we got people swapping trips a lot, and it's
it's cool just to kind of see the relationships and.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
What are some of the international trips.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
A lot of a lot of big game in South Africa, Yeah,
a lot of that, Argentina and New Zealand. We just
add one in Bulgaria. I forgot. I would only know
what it was that he'd put on there, but some
kind of bird that they hunt over there.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
We linked up with a guy in Hawaii. When we
went fishing.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
In Hawaii with a guy, he had a guy this on.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
His platform that took us fishing.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
They call it on a So yeah, it's been neat
and you know, for example, I go to elk hunting
in Colorado every year. Guy comes hog hunting here in
Alabama at my farm. So you know, it's uh pretty crazy.
It's a good trade and.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
That one you're walking a lot more than the other.
There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And it's cool. I mean the like interest there, you know,
values and getting access something you don't already have access to.
So a lot of people are swapping across the country.
And you know that example, that guy in Colorado swaps
with a guy in Texas every year that does offshore fishing.
He loves offshore fish. Guy in Texas loved a big
game bow hunt, and so they swap every season. They
became best friends and now business partners. Now they own
(26:51):
a roofing company together, and they just bought some real
estate together to hunt. So you no, it was in Colorado.
Is actually the arm that we do hunt out there
that they had My guy had a lease. Now they
own it, so they went in on it together. So
it's kind of cool to see some of those relationships
that have been built through the company.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I'm getting ready to do a elk hunt in Montana
this year. It's the first Western hunt that I've done.
What are some things that I probably need to think
about in preparation for that trip?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah, I mean we did we did Montana turkey this year.
I've never done elk. We've just done turkey.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Put in.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I just hadn't drawn, and you know, getting drawn pretty
tough sometimes. But but yeah, I mean, your conditioning is different,
you know, your you're different elevation. I would definitely recommend,
you know, carrying a backpack, little heavy backpack up some
hills around here, you know, maybe go to Oak Mountain
and do a couple.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Of trails thing. I started thinking about that because man,
I've been drinking a lot of mountain dew and not
sponsored by them, but I absolutely love it. And I've
realized that I've put on some serious weight and I know,
going into this hunting season, like I've got to get
into shape. And you don't think that hunters have to
be in good shape. The amount of miles that you
put in when I was in South Africa and we
were chasing birds, that's all we were hunting down there,
(28:06):
we put in fifteen miles that day. Wow, you just
know real throw an.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Elevation and it will kill you.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
And the thing about elk too is, you know, I
don't know if you probably see some campaign stuff. You know,
he's one of the one of the biggest guys out
there on like endurance and training for hunting. But uh,
you know, it comes down to moments, you know, and
you're for an elk hunt, Like I spent ten days
out in Colorado last this past season, and there was
(28:33):
three moments in ten days to get it done. And
you know, if you're not in shape and can't get
ahead of a herd of elk that move really fast
and getting positioned on them, you know, there goes your opportunity.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
And they're so methodical. Yeah, like they know every little
passageway they want to go.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
And thermals is a whole different game. We don't have
that here in Alabama. So learning thermals and how they
use those to get up and down these you'll be
in Montana, so you'll probably be around like what they
call coolies, these kind of ditches and on the bottom.
But yeah, those thermals will screw you up in a heartbeat.
I've I've had several elk hunts get busted because of that.
(29:09):
It's like it's not the same as when you had
to learn how to play them. But it's uh, it's fun, man.
But yeah, definitely getting a condition I two seasons ago.
One quick story, biggest elk I've been on and you know,
hunting out there for four or five years, biggest one
they've actually ever seen on the farm. And I was
telling her I was having to scale this mountain to
try to get in front of them and beat the
(29:29):
herd to the top. And you know, after doing I
went up and down, up and down trying to get
in front of them, and it gets to a point
where you just get so fatigued and it's like I
stopped to catch my break and my breath. I'm so
out of breath trying to get there, and I'm bow hunting,
so you need to kind of be maintain composure to
make the shot. But if I'd have been in better
shape at that point and could have not had that
(29:51):
five minute catch my breath, you know, would have been
in position on that bull. But I wasn't, you know,
because I took that five minutes, and that five minute
break in the difference between killing a bull of a
lifetime that's wild and so yeah, definitely get condition.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
So that's going to be my game plan going forward,
is just making sure that my body is up for it,
because I'll tell you what, it's a different world when
you hit forty. Maintaining and just being in shape. But
thank you so much for jumping in, Slade Johnson, Macy Watkins,
Riley White. Appreciate all you guys and hopefully you guys
learn something off this podcast. I want to put a
(30:27):
link for Trips for Trade in case anybody listens to
it and says, hey, sladehy don't you come out. I
got a hunt out here and I'd like to come
to Alabama and do some hunting over there, So absolutely
we'll make that happen.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Go trips on there. Check it out.
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