00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three forty six, and today in the show, I am joined by Arkansas Hunter content creator in Modern mountain Man philosopher Clay Newcomb to discuss Southern deer, Canadian bucks, and bears. All Right, welcome to the wire Hunt Podcast, brought to you by on X. Today's guest is Clay Newcombe, and I'm glad to have him here with me today because I think, giving these times, these these trying times here during spring of um it's it's kind of nice to just switch it up a little bit. While there's something to be said about normalcy, there's also something to being said for taking your mind off of some of the more negative things around you, and I think our conversation today can help us do that. Um Man. I just want you all to know before we get into it, though, that I am thinking about all of you, praying for you, hoping the very best for you and your family. I hope you're healthy. I hope I hope you're able to keep the bills paid, keep food on the table. Um, you as a community mean a ton to me, and UM, you know, I just hope that we can all push through this and come out the other side, healthy, happy, and uh doing as best as we possibly can. I'm really just pulling for everyone. Stick with it. UM. I believe in you. Whatever struggle you might be going through right now. UM, if you're part of the wire hunt community, you've got you've got a lot going for you. So that said, I do hope this podcast can help you take your mind off of whatever negativity might be out there right now, whether it's just the news or whether it's some kind of challenger going through yourself. This podcast, I think can put a smile on your face because Clay Newcome is an interesting dude, a fun guy, a great person to talk to. Uh. It's probably likely you're familiar with Clay, but if you're not yet, I think you will. He's making a great name for himself within the hunting community. He's a damn good hunter. He's got his head on a swivel. He approaches his his hunting and how he shares his hunting message. I think in a thoughtful manner, and he's just a great storyteller. So from my perspective, those are good traits for human being and and maybe even better for a podcast guest. So Clay Clay lives down in the mountains, Arkansas, where he's an avid hunter of all sorts of species. He chases coons with hounds, he hunts squirrels in the back of a mule, and he's of course hunting turkeys and deer and bears all across the country. He's a very serious avid deer hunter, but maybe even more so when it comes to bears. He is the owner of Bear Hunting Magazine. He's the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. He's the creator of the Bear Horizon YouTube series. And he's also the subject of a terrific new film put together by our friends over at First Life, documenting Clay's unique hunting lifestyle and philosophies. And in that film, a friend of Clay's describes him as a cross between Robert Frost, although Leopold and Andy Griffith. So, I mean, how can you not want to chat with a guy with that kind of lead up? So that's exactly what I got to do. I enjoyed it. I think you will. It was everything I was hoping it might be. We discussed Clay's thoughts on the sacredness of hunting. We talked about the trials and tribulations of raising an outdoor family. We discussed Southern deer hunting culture, Southern deer hunting tactics, UH, trophy hunting, what that is? What that isn't all the stigma around it. We talked about chasing big bucks up in Canada, some of the trips he's done up into the Great White North. We discuss the appeal of bear hunting, Clay's pitch to all of us to why we should give bear hunting a shot. We discussed eating bears, and just a whole lot more. This one was was a fun change of pace. Like I said, I think you're gonna enjoy it. I can't wait for you to give it a listen. So, without further ado, I hope you're well, stay safe, and let's get into my chat with Clay Newcomb. All right with me on the other side of the line today, I've got Clay Newcome. Welcome to show. Clay, Hey, Mark, appreciate you making the time to do this. Um I've been kind of keeping tabs on the stuff you've been putting out there on the web for a number of years now and have enjoyed what I've seen. But we haven't really got to spend much time chatting. Uh not in person this time, but you know, getting to have a longer conversation. So I'm glad we can finally do this. Yeah, my pleasure. Man. You know, we bumped into each other at a t A. I don't know if you remember that, but just for a brief handshake. But that's uh, that's about it. And no, yeah, it's good to finally connect with you for sure. It's funny that in this kind of digital world we live in, you can almost no feel like you know someone just by watching their stuff or listening to their podcasts, or reading their things or following them on social media, and then when you bump into each other in person that one time, it's like, oh, hey, how you doing. You think you're old friends? Um, I hadn't happened at a t A. All the time you see someone and and you're chatting for a while, and then all of a sudden you realize, oh, you know what, I don't think we've ever met in person. The weird thing these days. But but you know, I got to thinking about you recently. Um, You've been on my list of folks that I should talk to for a while, but I was reminded to reach out to you recently because of that very cool film that our buddies over at First Light produced, Um talking about your story. And I think I'm right about this. It was the boys that captured creative that that did all that right. Yes, So Jordan's Riley came down along with Ford van Fawson, he for works for First Light, and they were here in Arkansas for I think four days in February of twenty nineteen, so it was over a year ago that they shot that and uh, yeah, it was. It was really fun having them here and and shooting the video was just it was it was a lot of fun. And uh, I didn't really know what to expect from that film because they they came down at kind of a time when not a lot was going on. Um, you know, late February here are deer seasons are still going on, Our squirrel seasons are our coon seasons, which that's all stuff that I'm doing. And uh, and they kind of just said, well, that's what we want to do. And um, so I was super pleased with the I mean, Jordan and those guys, they'd have a hard time not making anybody look good. So I gotta give them a lot of credit for telling the story. But but but I was in my family is what was as well my wife was that we were thrilled that they kind of captured what they did in the sense of the balance and families and you know, I talked about a lot of stuff that wasn't on the film, and so you know, and you know how these films are made, or maybe people do, maybe they don't, but I mean there's a lot of content that's captured and and really very little that's used. And so I was drilled with the way with the way it turned out, and uh yeah, I've been really fun. So, um, I gotta tell you you and I are in a similar boat. And so I know, you know, you must be not quite as eloquent and intelligent and as good of a hunter as they make you look in that film, because I say that because captured creative produced and edited my show back forty and I'm not as eloquent or good at a hunter as they make me. Look, those guys are are really good at what they do. So I do know that there's there's a little bit of movie magic there, but the the the essence, the foundation has got to be true. So that's uh, that points to you being a very interesting individual. Based off of that film, Clay was it was well done, and you obviously have have a great outdoor lifestyle that you've developed for yourself and your family. Um, and that really that really intrigued me to to learn more about that. And something I've heard you talk about, uh and in a couple of different places, is about this idea of of the sacredness of the pursuit. I think is is a way maybe you would put it. Um, can you just speak to me about why you feel that way about hunting and this this lifestyle you cultivated for yourself? Um, why do you think about it in terms like that? You know? I had a guy I was I was talking to a guy last week from East Tennessee in I was talking to him about why that I we were talking about this old man, this old Mount Tennessee mountain hunter, and we had just interviewed him and I went back so as a younger man and me and this older man. When me and the younger man came back, I said, why, why was that important that we just talked to this old guy that to us had lived in extraordinary life as a mountain hunter in East Tennessee. And he said, he said, what makes life worth living is that some things are just sacred. Some things are just set apart as things that we deeply value, and they could be nuanced things that maybe somebody else wouldn't understand. And to me, hunting has just always been that. I feel like that inside of hunters, there is this sense of sacred nous inside of of all of us. Some people it's really strong. Other people that people it might be, it might be less, but it just reflects our our value system. I was sitting with an old We interviewed an old Tennessee mountain bear hunter a couple of months ago, and I was with It was two guys. It was me and another guy interviewing this old guy. And we talked to this guy and and it really lived in extraordinary life just hunting the mountains. To him, it was just a normal life, and to his peers it was just a normal life. And but to us, you know, he was talking about the old days and the way they hunted and it was extraordinary. And I asked my buddy, I said, why after the fact, Mark, I asked him, I said, why was that valuable what we just did and what we learned from this guy? Because he didn't he didn't teach us anything. I mean, he didn't, he didn't. He didn't teach us something that we didn't know about bear hunting. But and uh, my buddy Tracy said, he said, some things are just sacred and that sacredness is what makes life worth living. And it was it was so simple, and the way that he said it, it was just like, yeah, that what that man's life and what he did in the mountains because of what I value is sacred to me to to honor that and and you know, basically, what we regard as sacred reflects our value system. And I know that ever since I was a kid. I mean, there's been nothing in my life that held the same places as hunting. And as you would know, and as we would know as as hunters, that's not just killing, but it's the lifestyle, it's the culture, it's the people. You know, Hunting is really a whole lot more about people than we give it credit for, you know, I mean, without without peers, without those deep human relationships, hunting actually loses a lot of value. And even when you go to the foundations of hunting, hunting is about provision for family. At the very core essence of what it means for a person to go out and harvest protein and bring it back is about this provision, It's about this relationship. It's about people. And that's what I keep going back to. I mean, I'm really interested in hunting culture and how hunting has shaped our culture and really how hunting shapes people. And I think, like on a personal journey, that's what I am interested in, is how has hunting shaped my life because it has in in in deep ways that are hard to even communicate about sometimes. But but and and on the on a very practical level, like actually pursuing wild game, that challenge is so primitive, so innate to human nature, that to do that in in a modern, urbanized, civilized society is just such a rare human privilege that I think we have this window, this gateway back into really who we are as humans. And I think that makes us different. I think that makes us inside of modern society being functional, normal humans. It makes us something different, and I think it, you know, I think it makes us better humans. I think it makes me a better worker. I think it makes me a better husband. I think it makes me a better father if it's handled right. I mean, obviously, anything that we're passionate about can be blown out of proportion and actually messes up our life in anything. But if it's if it's handled right, I think that that passion and things that we value, which in our case is hunting, makes us better people. So how do you pass along this this value system, or this this sense of sacredness that you have for for wild places and wildlife and and and way that these experiences have shaped you and made you a better person. How do you personally go about trying to pass that on to your family, to your children? Because I have I've got a young family, have a two year old and a two month old. Now this is something I'm thinking about a lot these days. Um, how do you how do you how's that part of your life? Because because it seems like families are in a very important thing for you. Yeah, that's a fantastic question, and I think that's the answer. That really the whole hunting community is looking for. And you know, I think that more than we could ever teach our kids, and this would be with any kind of value system in our life. Really, they become some reflection of who we are. So to me, the best way that I have transferred, you know, a love for the outdoors hunting to my children has just been them observing the my life and and and being actively involved in it very purposefully. But I guess what I'm trying to say is more than what we teach them, it's who we are that influences them. And uh, and it has come you know, my kids, Mark, I'm I'm forty years old. We started having kids when we're pretty young. My oldest daughter is eighteen. So I've got eighteen year old, sixteen year old, fourteen year old, and twelve year old and um, all of them have been involved in hunting. My oldest is not as interested anymore, but the three younger are are are very interested in hunting, and UM and I have I have made a diligent effort over the years to include them in almost everything I possibly could. I mean, I drug them around when my other buddies weren't dragging around their kids. And I think that's to be noted, is is there is a sacrifice for anything, you know. But at the same time, I've I've always had plenty of time for hunting myself and and take it serious. You know. The idea is that if you took a kid, it would be less serious or you might be less successful. And I've I've always been very focused on success in terms of bagging game, I really have. But I've also been very focused on giving them the most possible exposure that they could. And so I think they got to see authenticity inside the parents and really see their heart and their true genuine love and passion and respect. But they also have to be given the opportunity. And it goes back to even beyond the relationship in the hunting world. If your kids don't like being around you because you're a jerk, uh, they're not gonna probably want to be around you when you're hunting and have a good time, do you know what to uh? And uh? And I think that's where some people miss it is there. You know, the kids get up twelve and fourteen and they all of a sudden realized they need to get them involved in hunting, and a lot of the groundwork hadn't been done, and so of you know, I think it's a holistic picture of provide them that opportunity and and just be an authentic just having an authentic relationship with your kids. You know, there's this this inherent catch twenty two or or or there's this this risk factor I think in taking your kids out with you for all these things, taking them along for all these adventures. I'm making assumptions here, but I'm imagining there's this there's this always potential for them to see something or experience something, or see you in a moment where hunting or you or this whole thing isn't as pretty as you want to be, you know what I mean. They're something went wrong or where you made a mistake, or where you know, it could be any number of things. But is there any moment like that, or any mistake made or regret you have when you look back at your eighteen years as a father taking your children out there with you, that you wish, man, I wish it could have taken that back, or I wish they hadn't seen that, or or is it all for a reason? Did it all work out? Okay, you know, man, I've I've certainly made some mistakes, you know, Mark, I my father and I don't. I have no problem talking about this because he's heard me say it before. But my father, I call it the Gary Newcomb School of hunting hard knocks. There were three brothers and I was the only one that passed. My My two brothers are not big hunters. They're great guys and I love them. They're not big hunters. They like to do some fish and stuff. And my dad was just a little bit too probably hard on us. And it wasn't really, it wasn't because he was a jerk. It was just because his hunting time was so limited that when he hunted, he had to be super serious about it. And so I could have been burned from hunting because I had some really negative experiences as a kid. Uh. The first time I ever deer hunted, Mark, I was actually bow hunting. I was in the fourth grade. I could pull them weight limit, and uh, my dad took me out, put me up in a tree stand, you know, hour before dark, and I was scared to death and uh and actually I mean cried. I mean as a fourth grader and uh it was a very traumatic experience for me. It's a nine year old and uh, I think a lot of and and and my dad got upset with me, and uh that could have pushed me away. And luckily just I mean I just kind of had a fire forward and it didn't quite extinguish it. But so I grew up with this idea that hey, you could you could hurt these kids if you're not careful. So it's this fine line between making it enjoyable but also not taking away the challenge. And I think the trend of parenthood right now is to take away the challenge and difficulty out of your kid's life and make them happy. And that trend is not sustainable for for making good humans. I mean, so you but but also a father, a parent has to have a sense of where that individual child is at, how much challenge they can take and they want to take for the maturity level that they have, and building a hunt for them, you know. So you know, there's been lots of times we you know, I mean, we used to buy snacks and drinks and you know, kind of make it easy. But at the same time we might have had the challenge of walking a long way or staying out in the rain, and and I I made that honorable. My my my son who's fourteen now, his name is Bear. Uh. When he was six, I believe he was six years old. I decided to take him with me on the first day of Arkansas bear season and let him sit the tree stand with me. We got in the stand and we set for six hours in a lock on tree stand. He was right beside me, had him strapped in, and it started to rain about three hours before dark, and it rained until dark, and uh, i' and he toughed it out, and he basically we made that so honorable to him that to this day he grins when my dad or James Lawrence, the guy that we were hunting with as well, UH, talks about how how he struggled through that as a little kid. And and so we we made the struggle honorable. You know, Yeah, that's great. I can definitely see see the appeal or the I see how that would work. And I've always thought about that, that same fine line you have to walk between seeing hunting is something that you want to make fun for your kids versus seeing hunting is something that is a tool for personal development and a friend of mine had had to always talk to me about how you know, an important thing for kids to learn, especially throughout door activities, is the ability to become comfortable with discomfort. And I think that's great. But at the same time, you always hear these horror stories about how someone made it too miserable for their kids and now they never want to do it. So I think your experience, your experience and example, there's helpful. Um, when you're when you're thinking about all this, we're talking about all these things, it seems like you you value history. It seems like both in our conversation already and then justin seeing some of the work you've put out there into the world, there's this awareness of the context that you're now part of both you know, in our current space today and historically. Um, what where does this increment? I'm wrong on that, But where's this come from? What? What inspired you? Whether where their books or films or people, anything that has stoked this fire within you to to live a life like this? Can you point to anything or is it just your dad and in habit stance? You know? I think to not understand where we have come from as hunters is and to just participate kind of blindly inside of this to me kind of personally felt a little bit irresponsible. And so that's kind of my curiosity and intrigue about our past and and and I'm I'm really intrigued about um. I mean, what I think is interesting in people is a deep connection to place. And so I'm really interested in in Arkansas and hunting here in the Ozarks and Washingtalls, as well as lots of other places. But just because I live here, like I go out in these mountains and hunt deer and bear and turkey, and there's just this. I mean, I just know I'm not the first one that's done this, and a lot of the ways that I think have been influenced by people that have come before me. And and so I just really enjoy learning about um learn about those are history and those are hunting and kind of where we came from, because I think what we're trying to do mark as a hunting culture really and whether people realize this or not, and and some people wouldn't care, but I know inside the hunting industry, we're trying to define our relevance in a modern time, you know, And it's easy to define the hunter's relevance in times past, and so I think we're trying to figure out, like why are we still relevant? And and maybe I have a little bit of a persecution mentality being involved in the bare world so much because it is a it's kind of the low hanging fruit for the anti hunting community. So we we received kind of a lot of uh persecution, maybe a little bit hot of a word, but probably accurate. Um. So you know, we're just trying to find define our relevance. And I think that comes from our history, and you know, from a practical sense, like me liking traditional bows and mules and stuff. I think that's just a maybe a result of um just growing up in rural Arkansas. What's funny is that my dad hates traditional boats. I mean he's just like, why would you do that? Why would you go backwards? Why would you limit yourself so much? So I didn't really get that from him, but it may be kind of one of the old father's son pendulum swing bills, you know, um where where he likes something. So not to spite him, but just because traditional archery was something new and U and you know, we didn't grow up with mules and stuff. But my dad always kind of thought mules were cool and and and because I've looked deep and decide why I like mules and this kind of stuff so much. Anyway, I think he really honored that kind of stuff in the in the culture he saw around him. But he he was never into that kind of stuff really. Um, he was in the back country hunting. He hunted a lot in the back country in Arkansas. And UM, I don't I hope that answers your question, mark, Yeah, it does, But it gives me another question, which is is how do you answer that existential issue that you just described that we're all facing within the hunting world, which is which is our relevance? If if someone were to walk up to you today and say, the stuff that you're doing, the stuff that your whole world now revolves around, that you're teaching your kids, that you make a living from, how is that still relevant today? Wake up, man, look at the world around you. You're a relic of the past. How do you how do you respond to that? Well? I think there's two two answers right off the bat, is that historical precedents does matter in human cultures. I mean, in in biological precedence. I mean, we are predators. I mean that's a strong argument. We eat meat to stay healthy. That's a massively strong argument. And then you get into the ethics of using animal confinement protein versus a wild animal protein, and you know, you can go down that trail. But to me, the the lynch pin and I like that word. I've kind of been uh I used it just the other day. I've used it before, but I actually looked it up to make sure it meant what I thought it meant. I've been there for I've done that. The A lynch pin is is something that is vital to an enterprise or an organization. And in the literal sense, a lynch pen is a is a pen that's put through the end of an axle to keep the wheel on an axle. The lynchpin to meet of our relevance is an understanding of the North American male of wildlife conservation and how because of hunting, not in spite of hunting, that we have the most robust big game populations in the world here in North America, despite urban sprawl, despite uh, modern civilization. I mean, so to me, that is our relevance is that, Hey, what we've been doing for the last hundred years, has worked to preserve wild places and to uh and to preserve wildlife. And man, that's why we're relevant. And and then and then because that's a real functional relevance. I mean, like, really, really, if somebody understood that. Now, people most of the time that aren't interested won't listen long enough to truly understand it because it's complex. I mean, it's it's weird to say we are killing animals in order to save them. You know, that's kind of an odd shaped pill. But you know, sometimes the truth is hard to swallow. That's what I like to say, is that it is an odd shaped pill. But if you listen long enough, it's I mean North American model. And I've been reading this book by Vlarious Geist and Shane Mahoney. Uh. Ben O'Brien did a podcast with Larious Guist. Incredible, incredible book and as far as I know, it's the first and most robust piece of literature that specs out all the all the parts of the North American model. And and uh so that's kind of fresh on my mind. But that's our relevance, is that it's working to say wild places and animals and to feed people healthy organic protein like we've been eating for the last bazillion years. Yeah, so so I'm to keep on throwing on some devil's advocate or a typical response you might hear from someone who has an ever serial position to this um might be, well, you can say that, but all you guys really care about is this stuff that you can shoot. Or you say that, but then you look at another it is a wildlife like a wolf or a coyote, and all you want to do is shoot, shovel and shut up and get rid of them because they're killing your deer. Uh, how do you respond to that? You know, that's one of the criticisms of the North American model is that it has not taken into account non game species. And but to me, that actually proves our point even more. You know, I mean, where animals are hunted, they're valued, and that value produces protection and management and those animals doing well in modern times. And so for someone to say, well, yeah, but what about you know, the songbird that's you know, being endangered right now and this habitat that's being tore up, Uh, I mean I would say, well, maybe we should start a hunting season for that songbird because then they probably do better. That's a joke, uh, but really that's the that's the lad um And you know, I would just say, that's really the depth that I could go into that mark is that I would say, you have just proven my point. So yeah, sure, we've not dedicated our lives to saving this animal or that animal, but we have dedicated our lives to save in these you know, these twenty nine big game species and all the small game species rabbit, squirrels, quail, turkey, and and look how they're thriving, you know. So yeah, it's a strong it's a strong foundation to stand on. And I think you can always point to the fact that most of those species are you know what, what's often referred to as keystone species. So as long as if those are protected, then you have this trickle down effect that positively influences so many others. So but yeah, that's these these are the questions that we're getting asked all the time now and probably even more so every decade from here forward. Right, So it's it's good that there's people like you thinking about this stuff, and I'm glad you've got a platform to to share your perspective because I think it's a good one. It's a helpful one. Um. I think we need, you know, the broader hunting community. I mean, Mark, think about it. You know, back in the well, I mean, it would have been kind of before our time. But like back in the seventies, nobody would have known a thing about white tail deer in terms of the level of knowledge that we have today about their biology and their needs and how they're managed and all these different aspects of white tail deer hunting. But today, the average white tail hunter probably could take a test, a written test and get more answers right about deer, every aspect of deer then even the experts could in the seventies, you know. And and what happened was there was a cultural shift. Media started focusing on white tails and this this is a great thing. And and then all of a sudden, thirty years later, we have this general based knowledge that's really high. I think that's what's got to happen for in the general hunting community. For the stuff that we're talking about right here, the North American model. I mean, I didn't grow up knowing any of that stuff. I doubt you did either. Um, and it's like that's got to be on the tip of our tongue, not in a defensive position. But most people aren't defend Most people aren't out to get hunting. Most people just don't know. You know, So your friends and family and people you come into if these things are on your mind and kind of part of what how you think about hunting, they'll come out in the way that you talk and communicate act, and people respond to that when when they see that there has been some reasonable and intelligent thought that's gone into this and it's not just barbarians out trying to kill stuff, you know. Yeah, that's that's exactly been my experience too. It's just generally curiosity and then typically surprised encouragement once they start to learn more about it. So speaking of curiosity, then I want to hear a little bit more about something you alluded to a second ago, which was this this culture that you grew up with in uh specifically maybe on the deer hunting side, because this is one area that I have not spent enough time and myself, so I just you know, you see it a little bit in the media here, a little bit about it, but you don't know anything until you've lived it. Tell me about just what that hunting and deer hunting cultures like in Arkansas or you're part of the country there. Yeah, so Arkansas would be a heavily forested area. I mean, you know, naturally would have been almost a forested Um. I grew up in the Washtall Mountains in some in an area national forest. I mean the town I lived in just about any direction that you drove, once you got out of town, you were in national forest. And uh so it was it was kind of, uh, what we would call mountain hunters. You know, a lot of guys hunted big national forests, hunted the mountains, and uh it was. It was tough hunting. Um it's it's way better today. There's more deer than there were when I was growing up, but but there weren't many deer and uh guys, So there were two ways that people hunted. I mean, they were just kind of the standard you know, still hunter, tree stand hunter that was hunting signed in the mountains. But there were a lot of guys that ran dogs too. It's one of the few places in the country where you can still run dogs for deer. And so that was a kind of a big part of the hunting culture. And I wasn't big into running deer with dogs, even though I did and had, you know, as a kid, we did that. Um. But yeah, So my dad started hunting in the early nineteen seventies, got a bow and and he describes it like he grew up in a fairly I mean a town of maybe thirty thousand in western Arkansas, and to his knowledge, there was just nobody consistently killing white tail deer with a bow in the early seventies around there. You know, a few guys had done it, and they kind of became the go to knowledge base, but they really didn't do it consistently. And uh, And my dad's kind of personal hunting story and and claim to fame, which ultimately impacted me, was he wasn't a deer hunter. His father wasn't a deer hunter. His father was a hunter quail hunter, but not a deer hunter. Is he just went out in the woods and just started pounding around and found out that deer eight white oak acorns, And found out that if you found a white oak acorn tree that had about ten piles of deer droppings under it, you could hang up a stand and kill a deer, and uh, he started consistently killing deer with his bow, and uh, he just he just loved it. He just loved it, and he still does to this day. My dad camps and hunts public land in Arkansas and there's nothing that gets him more excited than a white oak tree dropping acorns with deer droppings under it and the good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, And so I grew up just bow hunting. Dad wouldn't let us hunt with a gun. Um, he was like, if you're gonna be a hunter, you're gonna be a bow hunter. And it wasn't anything against guns, that's just what he did, you know. And so that's what he wanted us to do. And yeah, so that that was kind of the other side of the Gary Newcome school of hard knocks, was that we we had to learn to bow hunt. And it was years before I killed the deer. I mean, my friends were killing deer with guns and it just eat me up, you know, and I hadn't killed one. And but finally I did kill one. And after I killed one, I the you know, the the string of success started to happen more regularly. And yeah, so really I started off as a deer hunter. I really did and still love deer hunting just as most of the day as I ever have. You know, So, what's what's the deer hunting like in that neck of the woods now today you said it's better, Um, what is that? How you still hunt? Do you look for a for a white oak, find some droppings and set up underneath it, or how do you go about it now after you've been doing this for so many years and growing yourself as a hunter? Um, how do you approach it? So there's there's three ways that we're hunting, Dad. We're hunting in in deeper southwest Arkansas. You start getting into the Gulf coastal playing of our Arkansas and it's a lot of timberland, so there'll be these massive clear cuts and pine plantations and they'll leave hardwoods along the creeks. And when you're hunting down there, really the only place to target deer is along those creek bottoms where they're wide oak acorns fallen or whatever kind of ocus bearing fruit. Um, and so down in that part of the country, and that's where my dad hunts. Man. We would we we wouldn't really hunt funnels necessarily. We wouldn't hunt saddles. We would hunt individual white oak trees that were dropping that day and had fresh deer sign. And but I don't hunt down there with him as much. In that setting. You move up forty miles and you get into the big national forest, and there's less deer in the big national forests. There's more deer down in the clear cuts and pine plants atitions a little bit further south, um less deer and kind of the mature o kickory pine climax forests of the Ozark and Washtaw Mountains and uh much much. The deer population is way lower just because of the habitat They the last twenty years they hadn't logged as much. And when I hunt there, Mark, I'm hunting terrain features. UM food. Food is usually pretty broadly dispersed because you've got these massive contiguous stands of hardwoods and stuff. The acorn is made, then there's acorns everywhere. Or if let's say the acron is just made on tops of the ridges for whatever reason, well there's acrons on every ridge top. And so what I would be looking for is for buck sign, you know, certain ridge tops, saddles, fingers, heads of hollows that had buck sign in in wherever that buck sign would be. You know, typically they're making that sign there because they're traveling there, because there are does there. And so we're hunting a lot more travel corridor type areas in the mountains. Um, and our mountains down there close to three thousand feet and can be really rugged and steep, and wind is really difficult. Uh in the mountains, the wind just swirls. I mean, it's just so hard to get a predictable wind. That's what makes it so difficult. Um. So that's kind of my national forest hunting. And then the best deer that I've killed in Arkansas, I've come off private land, um and up here close to where I live now. So I'm talking about three different spots here where I live in northwest Arkansas now, and half of the last twenty years I've hunted pretty extensively on private land. And here we've got cattle pastures and hardwood timber, and these cattle pastures, you know, sculpt the land in such a way that travel corridors are much easier to identify, just because it's not all woods, you know. And uh so I'm hunting pinch points you know, just like funnels in between cattle pastures. You know, I've done some food plot stuff. Uh. We can, we can bait deer in Arkansas and uh and I'm not above uh baiting some deer at different times and uh and even using that as a way to take inventory on a property and then hunting the deer somewhere else. Um. So, but we have some good deer in Arkansas, Um, we really do. Uh. Every year they're taking boone and crocket animals out of Arkansas. Not it's not common. Um yeah, what what kind of what kind of goals do you have when it comes to deer hunting there? Because I know, I know I've seen you some hunting up much further north in Canada with a pretty discerning eye as to what you're gonna shoot. What do you what's your mindset down at home? Are you just filling the freezer with the first thing you see or do you hold out for for something else? What's what's that for you? So in about two thousand and five, now I was two thousand four, h started I had a goal to just kill a three and a half year old buck or older in the Ozarks with my bow every year that was my goal. I didn't care if it what it looked like, just if I judged it to be three and a half. And you know, the buzzword these days is four and a half, as we all know, all good deer hunters know now. Um, but back then, of course a half and and uh. I maintained that goal for ten years, and did that probably seven or eight of the ten years. And uh, and now I might even be I don't know if I'm more picky or less picky, because I'm a cherry pick where I want stuff to happen down in the National forest where I've targeted the last five years. I am just after a mature animal and and sometimes those deer don't have big racks. And uh, I'm trying to kill a deer down the national forest up here at home, I mean, I'm probably looking for a pope and young class type deer that that that would get me pretty excited. I mean I would. I would spend my season and hunt him like he was a Boon and Crockett if he had a dred of antler. Every every couple of years, I get a really nice deer on camera. Um, a couple of years I've had, you know, in twenty years. One time, well once I killed I killed a hundred and sixty nine inch deer here close to my house in two thousand seven. Um, and uh, one time I was hunt thing a deer that my neighbor ended up killing. That ended up scoring in the one eighties. But in twenty years, those are the two big ones. Most years I'm hunting hundred deer. Yeah, it sounds like it sounds like here in Michigan, that's your typical deer that that might reach maturity is going to be somewhere in that ballpark. So how do you go about, like what's the switch you make when shifting from shooting anything to then trying to kill that three and a half year old or now the truly mature deer, whatever that is for you down in the national forest. Um, what are the things that you started doing differently when you made that that you graduated to whatever that to that new challenge for you? What what has to be done different That's a good question. Um, you know, I guess you just have to be okay with not being successful. I mean I haven't killed a buck in Arkansas and at two years maybe even three, and that to me would have been totally unacceptable, you know, ten fifteen years ago. Um and and and I don't ever want to lose that drive to to be successful, and even defining success is taking an animal. I mean, I I think that's okay to do that. It's not all of what success is. But but I think the older I have gotten, the easier it has become too, you know, short term sacrifice for long term gain. So rather than shoot that lesser, dear, I'm okay with I'm okay with waiting, and I'm okay with committing my season to a really difficult place on purpose, by choice, for the purpose of personal limitation, hoping that when I do kill an animal, there's gonna be really awesome. Mark this is I almost had this revelation. I think it was two years ago, and it it like startled me and made me laugh too at the same time. But so I live in northwest Arkansas. I drive two hours south to probably some of the most difficult white tail hunting there is. I mean there's probably I know there are places that are as hard and probably harder, but not many. I mean, it's just not great hunting. And I could drive two hours north and be in Southeast Kansas. What are you doing? Could be in southeast Kansas in an hour and a half from my house, maybe our forty five and uh we drove up to Kansas on a family trip and I was just I just realized how short of a drive it was to get into really some of the premier white tail honey in the country. And I turned to my wife and I said, I drive two hours the wrong direction deer hunt, and but I love it, man, I do. I would and see. And this is where media doesn't translate. Like one day and I have not killed that big national forest buck. That's really become a goal that's hit me pretty hard. In the last three or four years. I've dedicated most of my white tail hunting kind of since i've been an adult um to where I lived up here, which my access points up here are private land, and I've taken a lot of nice deer on private land up here, So now I'm kind of focusing on public like that's that's just where I want to kill it. And one of these days you'll see some video of me mark killing a hue buck, and I will you will have thought that I killed the boon and Crockett by the way I was acting, and it's because of where I killed it and just a personal connection I have to that place. And that's valuable. Man, That's valuable. And I think that's sort of what some of the hunting media sometimes takes away from us or certainly has, is that you see, you know, we all know the narrative. You know, you see these guys killing big deer on TV and in the heck, I go to Canada and shoot big deer and it's awesome. I love it. But you see that and that devalues you know, what you have access to. So I think everybody's got to take inventory of really what they have access to and challenge themselves on that however they see fit that makes them a better hunter and just satisfies them, you know. Yeah, relate to what you're saying. There. Something I'm kind of curious though about just better understanding how you think about this stuff. Is this whole idea of of quote unquote trophy hunting. Because this is something that I think about a lot for myself too, because I self impose different goals on my hunting and I am quite particular about what dare I'm gonna choose to shoot or not, and you'll sometimes get these accusations, you know, your trophy hunter or why you trophy hunter, or something like that. And I don't like that word, I think because it has all these very negative connotations. Now. I feel like especially non hunters, when they see that, they assume something much different than what is experienced by someone like me who might be a selective deer hunter or whatever. It might be a goal oriented deer hunter or whatever. Um, I'm just kind of curious how you how you put words to that that choice you've made well and Mark, you may have heard this before, but but maybe maybe others wouldn't have. But I'm not afraid of that word trophy hunting because if we get down really to the the original definition, you know, trophy hunting is what saved North American wildlife. I mean this idea of in the scriminate killing of the eighteen hundreds in this market hunting culture where if it's brown, it's down females, juveniles, whatever was killed. You know, the Boone and Crockett Club was formed in seven and they they basically quantified what a mature male species of all the animals that we hunt were and they assigned value to the attributes of antlers and skull size that were that of a mature male species of that animal. And so they were the first guys that said, hey, it's officially cool to kill the big ones and let the juveniles and females go. I mean, they were the ones that did that, and we now reap that inside of our culture. And obviously that has been taken out of context and has been the pendulum has been swung really far in certain scenarios and hunting. And it's real easy to smear somebody that goes someplace and takes big animals. Um. So I guess what I say when if somebody were to say, Clay, you're a trophy hunter, I would say, if I was being facetious and trying to pick out him, I would say, you bet you I am. And that's why and that's what saved North American wildlife. And again my spiel, Um, But I think there's honor and being selective, and you know, I mean, what are you gonna do? Are you're gonna be selective for the small ones? You know what I mean? Uh? And I and Mark, I know I'm talking. I'm preaching to the choir talking to you. But I would point people back to to be selective is self imposed limitation, which is good for everything involved. It's good for all the animals that we pass. It's also good for a human too to have self restraint, purposeful self restraint. So I you know, I just have no problem being selective and trying to target the old ones, you know, and and and obviously you give back even to the biology that an older, mature male has already contributed to the gene pool. His extraction from the population results in really very little loss from the overall population. You know, you take out a female, you've taken out a lot of possible production for generations to come. And and uh, you know, and I know we're not talking about shooting bucks or does and and the most deer numbers were trying to reduce herd numbers. That's irrelevant, But with bears that's really relevant. People are like, well, why are you shooting the old one? And uh and and it's it really makes sense if you can talk someone through it, you know, without kind of like a jerk. Yeah, I heard you see something in one of your videos where you said something on the lines of someone will call it trophy hunting. I'm gonna call it being a conservation informed hunter, and I like to that. I think that that speaks to that context that is important to understand when it comes to these decisions. And many times people don't see it, but there's there is thought, and there is regulation, and there is conservation and science behind a lot of this that that leads to a greater good in the long run, to let alone the individual um accomplishment or growth that you can take from that experience too. So I hear you on all fronts speaking of trophy hunting though or big deer. I know you also head up to Canada. You do this. I don't know how long you've been doing it, but it seems like for some number of years now you've been heading up to Canada. I know Manitoba for sure, maybe Saskatchewan. UM tell me about that a little bit, because I've I've always a lot of people dream of of doing the Canadian deer hunting thing, but you've you've lived it. Is that everything that we imagine it might be, you know. Okay, So I've been I've hunted Manitoba for white tails the last three years. So that's been my that's been my experience with it there. It's kind of complex question. Manitoba about ten years ago experienced a pretty dramatic uh loss and deer numbers just because of multiple really tough winters. So their population is in recovery right now and it's really just now getting back up to really good numbers. Uh. Manitoba is has not been the target place for big white tails, typically Saskatchewan and albert are That's what you hear about, um. And that is primarily because you can hunt deer over bait in Alberta and Saskatchewan and you cannot in Manitoba, which I actually like. So Manitoba has never been totally on the radar of the big game hunts, the big game, you know, the big white tell hunters. Um. But Mark Man, we're gonna release all our secrets and all these camps are just gonna fill. Because of that, Manitoba hunts are are are pretty dern cheap. Uh you know where the Saskatchewan and Alberta hunts are in demand more because higher success rates because you can hunt over bait and uh, so the hunts are more expensive. UM. I have taken three incredible deer the last three years and in Canada. One with a bow u two with a muzzloader, and oh man, it's one of the favorite, my favorite things that I do. And it's partly because of the guy we go with. So Tom Ainsworth is a he was a longtime bear hunting magazine advertiser, so he was a bear outfitter. He retired and sold his bear business but still had these white tail tags and he has access to thousands of acres in southern Manitoba of private land just agg country. Um. I've never hunted Iowa, but I mean for all general purposes. I mean it kind of be like hat in Iowa. I mean, you know, big crop country. Um not they don't have the funnels quite like it's either it's it's kind of this big bush country as they call it, which would be big blocks of contiguous timber and then these big blocks of agg you know. And uh, but to go up there and think you're gonna kill a boondoo crocket animal is probably pretty far fetched at least where we're hunting. That being said, last year I killed a deer that was just under one sixty Uh. I say it was one sixty just for just because it's easier. I mean it's scored one fifty nine and seven eights something like that. Uh, always round up in favor of that. Yeah, so you know, hundred sixty inch deer. Um. I've taken several people up there with me, just friends, and they always are disappointed and I want to just kick him in the shin because they're like, Okay, so we're gonna be hunting like hight hundred seventy inch deer and I'm just like, no, we're not that. They're they're just probably not there. You could kill one that big, but probably won't. Um. And the truth is, those guys that are a little bit disappointed that we're not hunting hundred and seventy inch deer go up to Manitoba and flip out when they see a hundred and forty inch deer with that's just massive and chocolate horned and a beast, you know, two d fifty pound animal. Um. Most guys are way happier with a quote unquote lesser scoring deer than they realize, especially when it has mass, you know. Um. But now I killed a hundred sixty inch deer and then a hundred and fifty two inch deer with my bow and then and I killed a deer that I don't even want to say the score. But if you saw this deer standing beside either one of the deer that I killed, you wouldn't have known which one to shoot. But the deer only scored in the one thirties, a big Harley Old eight point um. Like really, if if the one sixty, one fifty and the one thirty were standing in the field, you would have to really look at them to know which one to shoot. Uh, they were that big, Yeah, seen them on They all are jumbo. I mean they're dandy bucks, all three of them. So I certainly can understand what you're saying. But people that don't just think about score, you know, wouldn't really understand that. But but now it's it's a lot. It's a lot of We see a lot of deer up there. I mean when I first started hunting Canada, I thought I would sit all day and see two or three deer. Um that's not been my experience. We're seeing a lot of deer every time we go. You know, tend to deer a sit. Uh, we're not always sitting all day. Um, Tom guy we hunt with, he likes to just hunt three or four hours in the morning, three or four hours in the evening, and I end up usually sitting all day every time I've been up there for whatever reason. And you know, you can do pretty good when you do that as well. Um, but you know, it's kind of classic stuff sitting in a box stand if you're rifle hunting. Uh, I killed the bow buck out of a tree stand. Obscure places to hunt. Man, if you're if you're a pretty proficient deer hunter, you know down in this part of the world, and you go up there, it'll blow your mind where you can kill deer up there, I mean when you know, and it's an outfitted hunt. But Tom is really good about letting you just kind of do what you want and kind of collaborating with you. But the second the first year I went up there, Mark Tom had seen a big buck in the field. He was just like Clay, this morning, I saw a big one right out there. He said, I think we ought to go ahead and hang to stand out there. And I was like, okay, and you know, I was thinking this isn't gonna work. And uh. We went to the back corner of this field. You could see a half a mile in front of me, and it wasn't a deer sign to speak of. And we just threw up a ladder stand, drove the truck up to the corner of this field, drew up a ladder stand, I climbed up in the tree, and he drives off. And I'm just sitting there thinking, there is no way a white tailed deer is about to walk past me. Number one and not see me sitting in this tree twelve feet off the ground in a popular with no leaves. And number two, that a mature buck is gonna walk by within forty yards of this tree. And man, in an hour and a half, I've killed that hundred fifty deer. He never even looked at me. I mean, if that deer in Arkansas would have spotted me in a flash. I mean, those deer are just they're just different. I don't understand it fully, but they are not nearly is aware. Is our deer nice to go to a place where they're not quite as pressured and constant on edge, that's for sure. Yeah, I know it's like that where you hunt mark super edgy, pressured dear big time. Yeah, it's it's nice to enjoy the other side of things every once in a while. Um, you mentioned that this this place that you went. Uh. Tom Ainsworth used to be an advertiser on the bear hunting side of things, which which we have to talk about. Two. Given everything you're doing with bear hunting, and this is typically a deer hunting podcast, but I know that there's a lot of folks with aspirations of branching out and trying new things, and and I too, and bear hunting has been one of those deals that has been on my radar for a long time. UM. I've only bear hunted once and it was just for a couple of days out in Montana. UM have wanted to spend more time doing it, had plans to possibly do it this year, but that's now in the can because of everything going on with a travel lockdowns. But bear uning has been one of those deals that has kind of lingered in the back of my mind. Is something that I say I want to do, and I want to do the activity, but I have questions around if I want to pull the trigger once I finally get to that point. Because I find bears, I mean I find every animal fascinating, beautiful. I love dear these animals. That I hunt and kill all the time, but for some reason, there seems something a little different. I don't know how to quite put a finger on it. But with a bear, um, a black bear, or grizzly, I think I'd probably feel even more so with grizzly. Um, something something speakable, I don't know. That just would give me pause about doing that. At the same time, I still want to go out and try so. I'm I don't know where I stand there on this. I don't know why how I would react to the moment, but I'm just kind of curious if any of that resonates with you. Have you ever struggled with something like that? Do you do you ever find yourself thinking do I really want to in that moment? Because you're obviously, uh, you care about these animals a whole lot, You're fascinated by these animals. Does any of this make sense? Or do I sound like a wacko? Well, if I hadn't heard it before, Mark, I would think you were a wacko. But because I've heard it before, I don't. Um laugh man, you're supposed to. I'm laughing, okay, Um, Now you know I never I never had that feeling I just haven't. And I found that some percentage of people describe bear hunting just like you did, Mark, And I don't think there's anything wrong of that. I mean, not everybody has to want to kill a deer or kill a bear, excuse me to you know, if they're a hunter. I get it, you know, I get it, But but I don't get it in the sense of I've never had any trouble with the idea or the action of killing a bear. I mean every time I've ever seen a bear, from the first one I ever saw, I mean, there was this deep respect, but there was also this predatory thing inside of me, just like I would like to kill that bear and eat it. Um that And I think that's just that spectrum inside of all of us that everybody's just built a little bit different. But but it's also what we've been we've grown up around. You know, I think if you were around some bear hunting and some bear hunters like it would probably quick pretty quickly begin to make sense. And then when you finally had some bear, you know, you you harvested a bear, you butchered it, you you had some of that meat, really saw how good it was. Maybe maybe understanding some of the history of bear hunting in North America puts into context as well. Um, all of a sudden, I think the things would start to line up, and it would become in your mind just like killing a deer, just like killing a squirrel, just like killing a turkey. And really it's no different. I mean, and and here's the thing. I guess that it's not the danger. It's just the challenge of bear hunting that we have to work with. From a kind of a philosophical standpoint, is that, for whatever reason, bears are easier to do with what you're talking about than something else. I mean, if you were taking you squirrel hunting mark and you never squirrel hunted, uh, you know, you wouldn't be like I mean, most likely you wouldn't have any trouble squirrel. But for whatever reason, people do have a little bit of trepidation with killing a bear. It might be genetics and part of us that you know, tip, I mean, we were designed to hunt, you know, the bigger populations of animal. We're not designed. But I mean human cultures have lived off ungulates more than they lived off carnivores and omnivores. I mean, so even like from a evolutionary standpoint, it's almost like, you know, like we lean towards that being a game animal. But inside the current context of black bear populations thriving in North America, um, inside of us now knowing how to handle bear meat so that it's safe to eat. Uh. You know, there's like all these cards that fall into place, and it's like, oh, yeah, this is this is this is the perfect animal to hunt and to kill and uh and Mark I I say this a lot too from a if we're talking philosophy, really, there's not another big game animal that we utilize from a wildlife commodity standpoint more than a bear. I mean, and here's my argument with that. We use the meat, we can render down the fat, and granted not everybody does that, but more and more people are rendering bear fat and finding all kinds of great uses for it. So we're using the fat. And then probably of the bears that are killed are their hides are tanned. And so you you back that back into white tail deer. And nothing against white tail deer, but probably four two percent five percent of white tailed deer hides are tanned. Nobody's rendering fat off a deer. You're pretty much taking horns and meat, you know, so from a wildlife usage standpoint, we use more of a bear than just about anything else on a big broad scope. You know. Yeah, it's a it's a great point. Um. But also then bring to mind one of the perplexing things I've found about the regulation of bear hunting in America, and that revolves around salvage requirements, and that most and I'm no expert on this, so I'm just taking this from things I've heard in conversation. So I know you'll you'll understand it's better than I do, so correct me in all this. But as I understand it, some states do not require you salvage meat from a black bear kill, and in Alaska at least most places, I think this is right. I've heard the same thing applies that if you kill grizzly you don't need to take the meat, and many people do not. Um, tell me if I'm right on that first off? And then secondly, uh, why is that the case? How is that the case? How is that defensible? Yeah, well, you're right. I believe there's just a handful of states in the lower forty eight where you don't wear want and waste laws do not apply to black bears and it on sleep. That's got to change. I mean, I am a massive proponent and I would imagine that in the next ten years we will see all that change. We we it needs to be regulated just like any other game animals. So that is kind of an antiquated thing of the depredation vermin mentality past of you know, I mean, not that long ago, there were bounties on bears in a lot of states and mountain lions and stuff, you know, so they just weren't viewed as a as a game animal. So Mark, you're exactly, You're a hundred percent right, um, And and ultimately that's just got to change. And you know, from a again kind of going back this idea of a persecution mentality kind of shaping our worldview in the bear world, is that um the well, shucks, I lost my train of thought. Mark, I got distracted looking out the window here. That's okay, you're you're, you're, You're making a good point though about the fact that that does need to change, because because obviously, and I want to talk, I want to hear a little bit more from you on this note. But there is this old myth that bear meats no good and people are seemingly finding more and more often that's not the case in most cases. Um So I'm glad to hear that. You think that will change it. It seems that's hard to defend our hunting of an animal if we're not taking its meat in that kind of situation. So, uh so, yeah, that makes less sense. No what what I regained my tray and fire. Well, I was gonna say, Mark, is that persecute mentality of bear hunters. There was a fairly recent study done that said, like in the high seventieth percentile of Americans were okay with modern hunting if it if if we use the meat for food. So that's a big challenge in the narrative of bear hunting, which we're trying to change, is hey, we're eating these animals, and so that's where the laws have to catch up with what we're doing in modern times. And and you know, in the last i mean really the last five eight years, ten years, you know, eating bear meat has become a lot more popularized. People have started to experiment with it more, and uh the narratives totally changing around bear meat, and it's really good, you know, Yeah, so talk talk to me about the next step of that, because definitely it seems like there's been a lot more momentum around eating black bears, but you hear much much less about grizzly And now with whole debate raging around the endangered species listing and delisting of grizzly is this is something now that's going to become you know, it's going to continue being an issue. Is that debate continues as folks say, well, if we're opening up a grizzly bear season but you're not, you know, you're just doing it for a hide in a skull and all that. Um, talk to me, what's your experience of that. I know, you've killed the grizzly, you've killed a brown bear. Um, have you eaten brown and grizzly bear? What's a taste like is that? What do you think? Honestly, the brown bear is a different story to me because they are highly carnivorous and so you know, it's kind of like it goes back to even like predator hunting, Well, it goes back to why we're hunting them from a conservation standpoint. Um, you know, like where I killed the brown bear in Alaska that was a two bear area. Uh I could have killed two brown bears as a non resident because it was a moose. It was a targeted area where they were trying to get moose to come back. So many brown bears they were hammering the moose calves and there's tons of research on that, tons of research. They they put video cameras on brown bears, have captured individual brown bears killing up to seventeen moose calves in a single season. Um. Like, So it goes back to you know, we in the in the one of the tenants of the North American model is non frivolous use of wildlife. Well, there's some wildlife that we take and the primary purpose is not meat. And I think that's okay. Like if I go out and shoot coyotes off my property, um, you know, I'm not shooting that animal for meat and and and I'm just kind of okay with that. You know, when we coon hunt, now, we do eat coons some, but we are primarily not harvesting that coon for meat. Where he's a fur bearing animal, you know, we're harvesting him for his fur and his absence from the landscape. Benefits all these other species. So grizzly are a little bit different, and it's man, it's a hot button, and I don't have my narrative really polished. Again, back to the idea, why are we hunting brown bears? They will they will shoot brown bears out of helicopters if hunters don't go in and kill brown bears. So if brown bear meat in some cases is almost inedible because that animals been eating fish and different things, then does that mean that we shouldn't hunt them and that we should let somebody shoot it out of a helicopter because we're not eating the meat. You see where I'm going and so so there, the brown bear is a different story. Now, if they opened up a season in the lower forty eight for grizz I'd be the first one they're starting to fire, roasting a grizzly bear ham over the fire and eating it. I mean like there are places where, yes, that needs to be done. Um, so yeah, it seems like those sounds like those interior interior grizzlies taste better than those coastal bears eating the rotten fish and everything. So at least if it if it does get opened again, hopefully those will be some some tastier critters then what you might get elsewhere. Yeah, but it's a doozy. It's definitely something that I've read a lot about and wondered about, and and I don't know exactly how how we're gonna figure that out in the future, but I do think that to your point here in the lower forty eight especially, that's such a sticking point that I think will be will be ill served if we don't require salvage, because it's gonna be hard to stand on. It's gonna be hard to keep that stool standing up right when we talk about the conservation of the species, if we're just letting that sit in the landscape. So so so I want to I don't think I did a good enough job of setting up the y to us talking about bears, or maybe us rephrase it allowing you to set up the y. I want to hear your pitch. Why should a deer hunter start to bear hunt? Um? Why should I go bear hunt? I was gonna go. I was hoping to go this may it's not happen anymore. But if I wasn't, if I was reserved about ever trying it, convinced me the black bear hunting is something worth trying. Okay, well, to me, the the spring season is very alluring should be for a white tail hunter, and that you can go hunt a big game animal in the spring. And there's nothing else that you can hunt in terms of big game that you can turkey hunt. But this idea that we could have this gather some protein, have a wild adventure in a wild place at a time where you are not stealing your days away in the fall. Uh. And you know, I'm a white tail hunter. I know how precious those days in late October and early November are. And so you can hunt a you can hunt a bear in the spring. Number two, the world is looking for bear hunters. I mean, whatever is happening ecologically, it's been highly beneficial to black bear. And it's there's more opportunity then there's been in a long time. I mean, new states are adopting bear seasons. Oklahoma, Kentucky, now Florida had a bear see a new bear season, but it's been knocked back for now. Uh. New Jersey like bear opportunity is expanding. Um. Additionally, you know this idea that that the meat is good A lot of people I talked to that our first time bear hunters say, I'm literally to kill a bear because I don't know if I like the meat. And you know, there's a solution to that problem is is that you're just gonna have to try some good bear meat and see if you like it. And I get it that if you don't want if you don't like it, then you you may not want to hunt a bear, but you don't who's to say that you can't give the meat away? Or people want bear meat, people like it, and the truth is that if it's handled correctly, you most likely will like it. If you like dear ag um and to me, mark bears are iconic of North American wilderness. Bears live in wild places and kind of be in a white tail hunter. A lot of times we're hunting pretty pretty uh Man influenced places and landscapes, and and that's okay. I mean we're hunting farm country and we're hunting close to town. You know, best of tier I've ever killed have been close to my house. Well, when you're hunting bears, you you typically are getting back into some of North America's real wilderness and real wild places, and that is a lurian. That's what makes it fun. That's what makes the challenge because your challenge you're pitted against uh or you're not pitted against it, but I mean, you know, you're you're in a wild place, and that's different than deer. The whole idea of hunting a animal that could hurt you is adds a new twang to hunting. Um. Guys that have done it a long time aren't as enamored by that. It's kind of it kind of just becomes normal. But you know, I find new bear hunters oftentimes if they're on the ground and close to a bear, I mean, they're just you know, it's it's it's really an exhilarating experience. Um. And then bears are just incredible animals. I mean, the biology of bears is just incredible. Um. They're resilient animal there, they're they're generalists, so they can live in so many different landscapes. There's four different colored way actually up to six different color phases of black bear. Um there. There there's just all these unique little nuances inside of hunting, the different techniques. You know, if you're in if you're in the Southern Appalachians, you know, there's one way to hunt a bear out there, and that's would be intrigued by hounds. Uh. If you're out where, there's one way to kill abart out there, that's to go on a classic spot and stalk glassing hunt. And that's awesome. Um, if you're hearing the ozarks. Our bear hunting culture is relatively new, to be honest with you, because our bears just in the last forty years have come back and so you know, we can hunt bears over bait, but we're kind of grinding out this idea of hunting bears in national forest without bait on the ground with boats. We call it the sheep hunt of the South because it's a low percentage hunt. It's a difficult hunt. Uh. You don't see a lot of game, super challenge. Um, so you know you can hunt them that way. So there's diversity, there's good meat, there's challenge, and then there's just a the historical precedice of the North American hunter man. A lot of the patriarchs of our of our hunting culture, we're bear hunters. They identified themselves as bear hunters. Daniel Boone, Teddy Roosevelt, Davy Crockett, I, mean, these guys, they didn't they I mean they were deer hunters for sure, but that's not what they went home and told their wives and kids about. They went home and told them that, hey, we're bear hunters. And I think that's what we're seeing revived inside of the times right now, is that there's kind of this revival of the bear hunter, you know, kind of conservation minded, intelligent, uh you know, bear hunter. That's that's really filling a space in that bears need. You know, bear habitat. You know, there's only so much really good bare habitat, and so beare numbers have to manage to fit that habitat. Bears increased by ten percent per year. There they get in trouble. You know, you can have ten deer out in your front yard and not be that big of a deal. You have one bear on your porch eating your bird seed, You've got a big deal on your hands. Um. So, you know, there is a more of a need to really manage these populations so that they stay in wild places. And that's a real threat, a real issue. You know, it sounds like a spin or a narrative just so that we can go out and hunt bears. But but it's actually not. I mean, it's just the truth. Bear numbers have to be managed or they will end up causing trouble and getting getting killed. There's places out in California where, well there's placed all over the country, but some real specific, unique places in California where these bears aren't hunted and they're just reaking havoc. Um. So, anyway, that's my spield mark. So you convinced me. You convinced me, Clay, And uh, now what I need you to tell me? I'm speaking as a listener of this podcast. You've convinced me. Now I want to know I've got I've got a decent budget. You know, I don't have a lot of money, but I've got an average amount of money to go on an out of state bear hunt. I want this is gonna be my first bear hunt. I want the quintessential bear hunting experience. Um layout for me, what you recommend as that best first bear hunting experience that you think is gonna hook someone you know for life. Yeah, Well, because of the diversity of ways we hunt bears, there's really not a quintessential experience. Because there are two things that I would that I would say is that you could go on and do it yourself western spot in stock hunt in Idaho or Montana. That would be a classic spot and stock western hunt. Um, odds would be fairly low that you'd be successful. Um. I'm not saying you couldn't go out there and do it. But the first two years I hunted Montana, I did not kill a bear, and I was trying to do it with a rifle, you know, and felt like I was going in pretty informed and it's challenging to kill one. But it's a fantastic hunt. Uh, buying over the counter tag go out there, do a little bit of research on on x ON, go hunt, find some good regions, just talk to people. People will tell you where bears are. They really will. They may not tell you where their white tails are, but they'll tell you where bears are. And UH do that. So that that's category one. Category two is to go on a on an outfitted baited hunt in Canada and uh, you know, all I gotta say is don't knock it till you tried it. Man. Some of the best times I've ever had hunting have been in Canadian bear camps. Um. Some of these hunts are really affordable. I mean there's places in Quebec where you can go on a six day hunt and stay on some beautiful cottage on the lake and fish for under a thousand dollars. It's ridiculous. Uh. Now, the bear hunting is probably not gonna be as as good as some of the Western provinces Manitoba, uh, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia. Those are kind of the el primo black bear destinations of Canada. And you're gonna be paying in those in the more like three thousand to four thousand dollar range for a hunt more in British Columbia. But those are world class bear destinations um man. And you know abated bear hunt. I have yet to find a hunt where you get to interact with an animal in a more and I use the word intimate and I because I can't find another way to describe it. But you know what other hunt are you gonna go on where you're gonna see tons of animals every day at close range? Um? You know, uh, not very I mean super close can be if you wanted to be. But you know, abated black bear hunt in Canada is pretty cool. Yeah, It's one of those things that I've seen and like. The bear hunt that seems to appeal to me the most is the first that you describe going to Idaho, Montana, way up in the mountains, seeking them out, glassing them up, sneaking in on foot. That really appeals to me. Um. But I do see while I'm not naturally predisposed to be interested in baiting, I do see your point and that it would be fun just simply to see the animals so often so up close. Um. Just that experience itself, I think that's got a certain of lure and and I've seen I think I've seen you do it, and many other people doing that on the ground even um, and bear is coming very very close. Um, that's got to be an unbelievable experience. Have a bear touching your arrow almost Yeah, yeah, well, the there there is something really unique about about that kind of hunt. You know, in one week of Canadian bear hunting, you will interact with bears and see more bear activity than you will in a lifetime of hunting out West, Spot and stock and I on a good bear hunt, that's the truth. I mean, last I was in Saskatchewan, I did not kill a bear, and uh it was because I was breaking on. I was being really selective, and we were at this wilderness bait that literally you would run bears off when you got there, and you would run bears off when you left. And we hunted about eight hours a day, and we figured in in in in six full days of hunting, the longest period of time that we were not looking at a bear was about a two hour stretch. So I mean you go looking at I never did the math, but I mean, you know, uh, forty eight hours of bear hunting and uh, every day we'd have about a two hour stretch where there was not a bear within ten yards of us. I mean we saw bear fights, bear breeding, three legs, bears, bears with Maine, bears climbing trees, bears you know coming up to your blind. I mean we saw more bear stuff than you would in a lifetime of any other kind of Huney. That's the appeal of it, Mark, Yeah, I can see that being pretty interesting. Um yeah, I'm I am bummed that I can't do it this year. I really was hoping this would be the year to make it happen. Unfortunately I can't get a tag here in Michigan. But next year, I think, uh, I think it's in the cards. So what what I wanna end with is just a little bit I'd love to hear from you on why all hunters or why I think I think you would say this. Tell me if you think otherwise. But I think you would make the argument that all hunters have a steak in bear hunting because the attack hacks on bear hunting, as I've heard to describe it, are often a gateway to the larger enterprise of hunting. I've heard you say that we need to guard the gate. Um. Can you tell me about that, man, Mark, You've really done your research, man, this is I appreciate that. Um. Yeah. So when I came into the bear hunting world kind of in a professional sense, just through Bear Hunting magazine, Uh, you know my per seven and really seven years ago when I acquired this business was really kind of my first step onto the national bear hunting stage, and so my eyes just kind of popped wide open when I saw what was happening in the bear world and how much true persecution even in Michigan. Mark, Michigan Bear Hunters Association is a very well run organization and there. I mean, there wouldn't be bear hunting in Michigan if it wasn't four of these guys up there that are just truly fighters. Man, They're smart, they're they're working with legislation, legislators on a monthly basis, year round. Uh, fighting for the rights of bear hunters in Michigan. Um. But but just what you know, if you had told me that fifteen years ago, I told you were a conspiracy theorist. Nobody's gonna mess with our bear hunting. I mean, I live in rural Arkansas. We we are not really persecuted here, but boy, and lots of lots of parts of the work of the country they are. And so the kind of world view that I developed, or kind of solid developed around me, is that, uh, well, let me back up. What I then perceived was that most of the hunting community that was not interested in bears. It was kind of almost like the red headed step child of hunting was this bear hunting because it was persecuted. People were afraid that they to say that they killed the bear of our dogs. People were ashamed to say they killed the bear of per bait because they thought it was controversial, or they thought they would be persecuted for it in some way. And it was almost like people had this idea that Man, I just wish that would go away. I just wish the controversial stuff would go away. But what I think is the case is that in we have nothing left to give the anti hunting community. Um, we we really have nothing left to give them. The chief has been blown away. Maybe a nineteen hundred we had stuff that needed to be chopped off of the North American hunting block. But in science and all these things have honed us down to a pretty tight, little working mechanism that has worked, and it's caused wildlife to thrive, wild places to be preserved. So we got nothing left to give them. And um, and bears are the low hanging fruit for the anti hunting agenda, and so we are essentially the gate for the anti hunting community to come into the hunting world. And so even if you aren't a bear hunter, you should care about the preservation of bear hunting because we're the lowest rung on the ladder. And if that rung is taken out, then all of a sudden, something else is the lowest rung. So what And and we know that the anti hunting communities, uh, Peter Humane Society the United States. They are very vocal that their goal is to end modern sport hunting. I mean they're not We're not making that up like they are organizations. I did a little research to other day for something I was right. And I want to say that the Human Society of America on their twenty seventeen tax return, reported that they had two hundred and fifty eight million dollars in the bank at the end of the year. Uh. These are massive organizations with massive amounts of money, and they are using that. They're very strategically and incrementally trying to stamp out modern hunting. It's financially beneficial for them. I mean, we're kind of their cash cow. We're easy to portray in a certain ways so as to elicit generosity from the uninformed. Um. And so we have because we don't have two fifty million dollars in our bank account to build ad campaigns and do stuff people like you and me, Mark, I mean, we gotta work our tails off if we want this thing to survive generation. You know. And uh, and and again I would have said this was a conspiracy theory fifteen years ago, I really would have I mean I just would have been like mad, never gonna happen. Our hunting is safe. Um, I don't see that way anymore. And if bear hunting is gone, which I'm learly to say that it's on a trajectory of that, but it absolutely is, and I'll put a caveat it is on that trajectory unless we do something, which we are doing something so that is changing the trajectory, but left undone twenty years from now, Basically the legs would be taken out of bear hunting. You would probably just be able to spot in stock bears. And that's it. If you do that, you take the legs out of bear hunting, no one will be bear hunters. Would be so difficult to just would crush bear hunting. And then what's the next thing on the agenda? And this may seem far fetched, but I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I mean, you know, what are they gonna what what will be the thing that they come after? You know, calling elk, you know, kind of sounds unfair to me that, you know, these guys use those those bugles sound just like a real elk, and they go out in the woods in the breeding season, in the breeding season and blow that call and those help just come running up and they shoot them. An't doesn't sound fair to me. Uh, you know, I'm playing devils that I mean, Like the point is is that the preservation of bear hunting is really relevant to all of us if we value hunting in general. And uh, and that's what I'm trying to do, Mark is just trying to uh bring that awareness to people. And uh. And really, if we're any any group of people that is a minority big time, which we are. I think we're four point five of the population. As hunters, we're four point five percent of the American population. The only way that will persist through time is to unify. And I think we can do it. I think there's a lot of voices right now that are calling out for unification. And uh, I mean even inside the white tail community, you know, it's like, hey, don't dog that guy for the way that he hunts. Um. You know, he you don't know the shoes that he walks in, you don't know how much time he has to hunt, you don't know the difficulty of where he lives. If he kills a hundred and ten inch deer. It's awesome. You know, don't dog, don't dog? You know, Mark Kenyon for being selective in Michigan. That's what he wants to do, you know. Unific Mark Kenyon alone. Uh, you know, just unification. Unification. We and so that means we have to look outside of our own self interests, you know. I mean, because there's some people that just don't care about bear hunting. But if they're informed, if they understand the macro picture, they'll be like, you know what, maybe I should. And I think it starts right, it's really practical. I mean, the solution to changing the hunting culture to a position of unity is is that inside your hunting camps you don't talk disparaging about somebody that hunts in a certain way or a guy that killed a bear with dogs. You you venerate these things, even if you don't want to do it, you know. Um. And I've seen a lot of people kind of turned the corner and kind of go okay, now I see why it's valuable that there are seventeen states that have hound seasons. I mean, this is America, man, and it's working. Bears are thriving. Let the guys run their dogs, um, you know, be handing over bait. It's like, yeah, I see the benefits of that, to be selective, um, to to set an animal up for an ethical shot, to be able to have a good opportunity if you don't have a lot of time to hunt. It's like all these benefits and and and I think us talking about it helps people see that. And and uh, we'll bring unity, which unity produces strength. And uh, that's what we've got to have to calm about the challenges that we have. You know. So, yeah, you make a you make a lot of strong, strong points. I I'm right there with you. I'm glad that there's someone who's speaking to this stuff in particular on the on the front with bears, because, as you've alluded to, sometimes that that side of our hunting community doesn't get as much of that positive advocacy as it probably needs. And um, and you make an interesting point with the guard the gate kind of metaphor for the situation. You're right, I think what's next if we start losing things there? So I hope that coming out of this conversation, there's gonna be a lot of people that are that are maybe a little bit more interested in exploring this whole idea of bear hunting and if nothing else, at least being an ally to the bear hunting community. If people listening are intrigued, want to learn more about this, and they want to check out all of the many different types of content that you're putting out there into the world, where can they go to find all that, Clay, You know, most of what we're doing right now is just branded as Bear Hunting Magazine, so they can check out our YouTube channel, which we've got a lot of videos up, so that's Barning Magazine YouTube. We have a podcast, Burning Magazine podcast um, and then our print magazine, Bear Hunting Magazine. We're the only print bear Huney magazine in the world and uh produce a cool magazine. UM. So yeah, that's where people can find us. We're on all the social social networks, you know, we're Burning Magazine and then I'm I'm on you know, Instagram, just as Clay newcome as well. But perfect it's good stuff. I've I've enjoyed everything you've put out and uh i am I'm a consumer myself and enjoy it. So I highly recommended to anyone else out there and Clay, Uh, I appreciate taking the time to do this is fun. Yeah, thank you, Mark, really thank you for having me on man. One of these days, I'd love to meet one of your mews or learn a little bear hunting from you someday. So watch out, I might be might be seeking you out. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it all right, And that is episode three. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I enjoyed recording it. Um as I've been letting me know. Make sure to head over to the meat eater dot com check out all of our turkey content. We're just pumping out an insane number of turkey hunting articles, really good stuff. I'm actually publishing five new articles this week talking to all sorts of different expert turkey hunters. So if you are getting out there after some thunder chickens, you gotta check this stuff out. It will help you. So with that out of the way, I'm wishing you well, keeping you all in mind until next time. Stay wired to hard