00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon. This is episode number two thirteen, and today in the show, we're joined by one of my favorite writers in the outdoor world, Bill Heavy, and we're discussing lessons learned from hunting failures, native hunter gatherer cultures, outdoor media, and much much more. Hey guys, and welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. And today in the show, we are joined by Bill Heavy. Now. Bill is a writer for Field and Stream. You've probably seen his back page column. It's called a Sportsman's Life, which if you've ever read that magazine, I gotta believe you to remember that column because at least for me, it's absolute gold. In fact, it's usually one of the very first things I read in the magazine. Like I said, it's on the very last page. It's usually accompanied by kind of a wild character illustration of Bill Um, and it's always funny and um insightful lots of times too. So. Not only though, does Bill right for Field and Stream, he has also authored four books, including If You didn't bring jerky? What did I just eat? It's only slow food until you try to eat it. You're not lost if you can still see the truck, and most recently, should the tent be burning like that? Now? I gotta say Bill is one of my absolute favorite hunting and fishing writers, and and really maybe one of my very favorite writers no matter what genre. He's just one hell of a good storyteller, and a lot of other folks seem to think so too. For instance, Ted Nugent said quote, Billy Heavy is my favorite writer. When I die, I wanted him to gut me, stuff me, and deliver my eulogy for one good last laugh end quote. And Steve Roella, when describing one of Bill's books, said quote, whether he's hanging out with trendy forgers in San Francisco or butchering cariboo with indigenous hunter gatherers in Alaska, he related his experience with respect, curiosity, and well honed humor. Not only is this book perfect for anyone who loves food or the outer doors, it's also perfect for anyone who loves a good story, well told end quote. So there's lots of high praise for our guests. Today, and I'm excited for you to get to hear from him. In this conversation. I chat with Bill about all sorts of stuff, um, including his background as a hunter and angler. We talked through how he became a writer for Feeling Stream. We get into some of his thoughts about outdoor television. We hear about what he's learned from hunting with native hunter cultures. We talked about how he learned from his failures, are how he tries to learn from his failures and the outdoors, how he's tried to get his daughter into the outdoors, and a whole lot more. It's it's a it's a wide rating conversation. It was a lot of fun. I think you're really gonna enjoy it. But before all of that, I do have my good buddy Dan Johnson with us today for our weekly pregame show. We've got a few things to catch up on in regards to our own personal and hunting related adventures. So that said, if you're new to the show, though, and if you have no interest in hearing us blab on about our personal lives or our recent turkey hunts, feel free to fast forward right to the beginning of Bill's interview, which begins around twenty six minutes and thirty seconds or so. And for the rest of you, here we go. I do have Mr Nine Fingers Dan Johnson back with us, and we got to do our our intro storytime bs pregame show because we haven't done that in like two weeks, and I need to catch up with you, buddy. What uh what's new? Two things real quick. One, our schedules are becoming more complex and I feel like I my my co host responsibilities. I've slacked off in them, and I apologize for that. Well that's okay, man. You you're a you're a business owner of your own You're running like nineteen different podcasts now. I can't even keep track of all the stuff you've got going over there. So between that and my new baby life and new projects, it's just kind of a new world, a new world. But well, we're going to connect when we can connect. And uh, I'm glad I got right now. I was. I was worried the last like two or three times you've had a sick baby. Today were healthy, man, Yeah, they're all healthy now. It was crazy. For a while, it was like passing around like a hot potato. Man, they were just one got sick, then one got better, then the next one got sick, and so forth and so on and and then uh, just now we're all good. Knock on wood. I mean, I gotta tell you. You know, in the past, when you've told stories about your sick kids and everything, usually it's just about, you know, we kind of joke about how inconvenient it is, or what the pain the bone it is and everything. But now I can relate to you on a different level. Um, because Everett got sick last week or it was a week and a half ago something. I'd been sick and then he came down with a cold, and um, just like hearing him hacking away all night and struggling to breathe, being all congested, it was just so it was it was a really helpless, sad, horrible feelings like a father seeing my son like that and like not knowing what to do, not knowing how to help him. Um, that was the first time I've had that, that feeling that I'm sure You're going to have a whole lot more in the coming years. And it's it's like, man, you know, what's what's worse than almost worse than that. So now my daughter is starting to become social where you know, she's a five year old. You know, five year old girls start I don't know, acting like sixteen year old girls, and you know. And we were at dance one time and this one girl was talking about how she was gonna be having a party and and she said to my daughter, well, you can't come to my party. And my daughter just got like this look on her face, like oh my god, you know, like this is the end of the world for me. And I got piste off, like a dad shouldn't do that. But it's like that's how much you care about your kid and that you know, it's not necessarily that you want them to be accepted socially, but it's just like, I don't know, there's something about that comment that made me mad, and I almost like acted like a kid, and I was like, well, you can't come to our party, and then like grabbed her and walked out. Yeah. I get that. I mean, you don't want your you don't want your baby to hurt. You don't want them to go through pain, whether it's physical or social, or I can I can just already tell I'm going to be that dad, who is just I don't know, emotional worried. I just I can already see it's it's amazing how this flip switches and and everything that used to matter if so much, all of a sudden goes down a few notches and you just you just who. I don't know if you told me this or someone told me this, but they said like having a child is like having your heart now outside of your body and is weird or is like woo woo? Is that sounds like I'm already seeing that, Like I don't even understand how I can love this kid so much already. I was gone this weekend for four days, um, on a hunting trip, and just being gone four days, like I can now I finally relate to you, Dan, like when you talked about being gone in your trips and want to get back. Like when I got home and walked in the door and Kylie walked out holding him, I literally like teared up. I was like so happy to see him. It was such a weird, a weird, crazy thing. Um. And I think I talked to you about this last uh rut. I mean this, this last November was your last November, as you know, not having any kids, right, so this is gonna be your first hunting season where you're gonna be gone a lot. And for me, I pulled out of the driveway and I had a sense of regret come over me because I knew that I was leaving my wife with three kids and I was being selfish and I was just this feeling. But like it's I'm torn because I the same feeling that is telling me to stay home is the same passion that is telling me to go out and be a hunter. You know what I mean? Both both crazy. It's crazy. I just see that more and more it's going to be me. I'm gonna be entering these same dilemmas you've had and try and understand how to balance it and how to Um yeah, I'm just I know these years, these like early years, are gonna be tough in that way. But I'm looking forward to already, like fast forward a handful of years further on when he can start joining me for the stuff. Then hopefully things will will be really awesome then. So absolutely, absolutely have you been up to anything interesting lately? Just continuing on a serious note, just for one second, I work downtown, Okay, Um I work where I park in a parking ramp, and I take a skywalk and all these things. Now, I was raised my mom, God bless her heart. She said, don't judge people based off their looks, don't judge people based off you know, until you get to know them. All these things. You know, like everybody should be treated created equally. But dude, I don't know what it is about pigeons that I hate so much just by looking at them. I hate pigeons, Like, I don't like pigeons at all. I mean, if they were went, if they went extinct, I would be like, you know what, good. I was really confused at first, because you're talking about your mom telling you not to judge people. So I'm like, it's pigeons. It's pigeons. Like how you is that some group of people that I don't know that the label of. But you're talking about pigeons. You're talking about pigeons as the animal. Yeah, I know, like pigeons the animal. Yeah, you know, they're just gross. They're ugly, They lay a whole bunch of eggs and then they don't sit on them. Uh, they poop all over the place. They're just disgusting and you know, you know, obviously you shouldn't just look at a pigeon, because a pigeon by itself is a bird. It has like sometimes it can be pretty looking, but then you really look at it and then you're like, oh, man, what a pilot crap that bird is? Yeah, you know what's I guess I never had to think deeply on pigeons because I just I'm almost never in a city where you see a bunch of them. Yeah, So like out here in the old homestead here in southern Michigan, it's like I got some robbins, I've got some What what I get are the barn swallows and those summers. They are bad news. They're nesting in every nook and craney and my barn, pooping all over my deck there. I don't particularly care for them, I'll give you that. Yeah, yeah, but they're like, uh, a swallow or a sparrow for me, something you kind of just lived to accept. You deal with them. But like a pigeon, man, I don't know, Like I think I get it from my grandpa because my grandpa didn't like pigeons either. Really, that's like a thing you know about your grandpa? Yeah, he didn't. I mean, he didn't like pigeons. He told me that once. He's like, you know what, I really hate pigeons. You know, There's there's certain things I remember about my grandpa, like conversations we had, and like really powerful impactful conversation ations we have, Yeah, like about the meaning of life and ethics of hunting and stuff. I love that one of the things you remember about your grandpa's not looking pigeons. Oh yeah, my grandpa had a really like. One thing I love about my grandparents and that I that I will take to the grave with me is work ethic. Right, in order for them to survive and and feed their family, they had to work. They were they were both farmers, right, So both sets of my grandparents were farmers, so they had to work every day to make ends meet. And the fact that my one grandpa just hated pigeons. So like, I don't know, I don't know why we're talking about this, honestly, it was just something today. I don't know if you ever have those things that happened that you are you get worked up about something that's so insignificant, but it just really rubs you the wrong way. And like today I just saw that these group of pigeons sitting there looking all cocky, and they're like, hey, don't look at us, because we're gonna crap on your car and we're gonna have a whole bunch of babies, and they're gonna crap on your car. Uh, so don't look at us. And I looked at them and probably wouldn't craped in my car, but you know, and it's gotta be like this is kind of like salt on the wound, right, because maybe you're having a long day at work or you wanted to right, so it's like I gotta go to the cubicle and then I'm getting crapped on. I can. I can see how that would be. It was more it was more of right off the bat right sons coming up. Earlier today, I pulled into my parking spot. There was pigeons waiting there for me, and they were looking at me like so my day instantly started off bad. It's not good. That's not good at all. Do you do you have any any happy stories, Danner? Or should I tell my happy story? Yeah? I want you to tell your happy story, because the next story I was going to tell is about like how I respect possums. So you can go You can go ahead, you can better tell your story. Okay, we we We officially now have to have a podcast episode that's nothing but you and me talking about which animals we respect, which we don't care for, which we really dislike. Let me tell you about cockroaches. Don't even get me started, dude. Speaking of possums though, really quick. I let the dogs out of the house the other night and they just go barreling out of the door into the field and there's like a cut corn field next to my house. I just went tearing out there, and so I go running after them, and there was a big old possum and both my dogs were like all puffed up, strutting around it, and the possums hissing at him, and I thought I was about to have to break up a dog and possum fight. I understand that one of my dogs is smaller than the possum um, but we're able to end it amicably with some conversation and pull them out of there before things getting western. But possums, yeah, So so hunting though, hunting, Turkey hunting, turkey hunting, you haven't done any more Turkey hunting right since our Turkey any episode one and done. But it sounds like you have Yeah I did. I uh you know, since we last chatted, I had that weekend where it took my nephew out and try to get him a bird. Things didn't go well. There was there was very few birds on one bird gabbling um and he went the other way. We just said one evening one morning because that was a bummer. Um. And then I went out a few more days just scouting and like just trying to film some birds and record some birds. UM. That was nice. But then this weekend I went on like my real hunt. I was saving my tag for this weekend. UM. So I went and did another hunt with the crew from Meat Eater. So we met up on this new property that I've got permission to hunt in southwest Michigan that I've told you about. UM and me and Steve and Janice and one of the cameraman Dirt myth and um. Another one is to use friends Andy, who's an unbelievable cook. We all got together out there and spent I guess it was three and a half days hunting and uh Man had a really really good time. It was Yeah, it was one of those things where you see how hot and cold turkey hunting can be. Oh yeah, man, I I've had seasons where they go bananas in the tree and then they fly down and then they shut off. Or I have one day where they're they're gobbling until noon and then they shut out, you know, then they do what they typically do and then they shut off, and then the next day one gobble in the tree and then no gobbles. So I've definitely experienced that. Yeah, you know, it's just like it with deer hunting. Like you and we have talked so often about how we wish we could just get into their heads and know what they're thinking or know why they do what they do. Same thing with turkeys, Like if I could ever understand what that trigger was that causes those different kinds of days, it would be so interesting because that that first day we went out and it was just bad. There was We did see some birds, but there was hardly any gobbling at all. The turkeys would not respond to calls at all. Um Me and Steve went o the first day together and it was just we got set up sauce, birds came out, then some hands, some gobblers, came out then some hands and some jakes, and they just milled around in the middle of this field and nothing we did could get them to come to us. So then we're like, okay, there was like an island of trees in the middle of this field, and we thought if we dropped off the back side of the field, we could use a hill to sneak around them and reposition and get closer, like maybe get to within like fifty sixty yards and try calling then and using this island of trees in the middle of it's cover. So we did that, and by the time we got over there and got set up and started calling, they are weren't in sight anymore. And then we kind of kept maneuvering trying to look around, and then we finally found that the birds now where where we had been sitting earlier, right in front of that right and then uh, we kept trying to get after them and nothing would work. So later in the evening we were in a new area, same kind of deal. We saw some birds out in the distance. We tried to maneuver around them. By the time we got close they had moved. They wouldn't work in so it was just kind of a frustrating day. But the next day was like Turkey Heaven. It was just me and I went out with a cameraman that day and um, right away you heard birds on the roost. I went to that same field, but this time I decided to UM, we got in there earlier, so I was able to set up closer to where they were roosted, right off of that island of trees, got a decoy out there. Me and Dirt got set up behind this tree and did a little bit of yelping, and these two gobblers came off the roost really early. It seemed especially earlier. They came out, and I thought that they would still be up in the tree. I was just doing a couple of tree yelps, and then I happened to just be kind of glassing around, just taking in the scenery, and then all of a sudden, there's these two birds right in the edge of the field coming my way. I couldn't believe it. Um, So they start coming in there, gobbling, and everything I'm doing, they come, and they're coming, They're coming. They got to maybe sixty five yards and I'm lined up on them, but I'm just like, I'm not going to take that long with a shot um even though I was using these Uh. I don't know if you've seen those new Winchester xrs or the longer range um shells that they came out with a year or two ago. And I wanted to give him for a couple of years and never tried huntil now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, you know, supposedly they can shoot out there just sixty or more, but I just I just didn't want to risk it. So they got to like that distance and then stood looking around, and I don't know if they could see the decoys and they just didn't like them, or maybe they couldn't see the decoys because they were on a hill. The turkeys were in a low spot, the decoys were up on a hill, so I'm not sure if they ever got to the point they could see him. But but eventually they just turned and went the other way. And at this point, I'm like, okay, that was it. Like these are the same birds from yesterday. They were not receptive at all yesterday, so I thought this is probably one chance and now that there's no way they're gonna come in again to another stupid hunter calling at them, so I was kind of bummed and just kind of watched them walk away. And then these hens come out and one of the hens starts yelping, and she starts making some noise, and so I think, oh, this could be my chance. If I co piss this hen off, if I can get her fired up, maybe she'll come my way. And if she comes my way, that might be the one thing that could pull these thoms in. So every time she yelped, I was yelping right back. She'd yelp, I'd yelp, she'd yelp, I'd cut her off. I'd mimic everything she did. I was getting really aggressive, and it just kept her talking. So she was going and it was it went on for like minutes. I don't know how long, but we were just yelping, yelping, yelp, and she was irritated, and lo and behold, she started coming our way with some other hens, and just like I was hoping, here come the toms, they start following those hens in. And then eventually I think that those birds got high enough on the rise they saw the decoys, and then that just kind of flipped the switch. Hammered like every five seconds, just like a dream turkey scenario came right in and U at like forty yards before, um, before they went behind another little rise. I had that opening and took the shot and enrolled the nice big gobbler. So I got my Michigan turkey. That's awesome. It was a watch man. It was fun. It was one of those mornings, like it was just the perfect morning. Cool, clear. What we're gonna saying, high pressure probably probably, yeah, yeah, I actually think that's exactly what it was. When you when you kill a turkey. How is that in comparison to how you you know, how you feel when you kill a like a buck. Is there any comparison. It's a good it's a good question. Um, it's definitely different. You know, there's there's still that feeling of like appreciation for the animal, for the experience, Like it's definitely like an exciting moment um because the hunt went the way you wanted to. You you filled your tag, you get to bring some meat home. Um. But I'd be lying if I didn't say there was like a difference in significance in some way. And I don't mean to any way like say that animals life was worth less than like a deer or something. But but it does feel different. I think maybe it's just because of the amount of time and energy probably that goes into it. You know, with turkey hunting, you can kind of show up and if you kind of have a basic idea of what you're doing and do some calling. If you if you're in the right places, you know, you can get a bird in a day or two, like this scenario second day hunting. Um. And that's great. But as you and me know, when it comes to deer hunting or elk hunting or something, just the energy and time and effort and planning and preparation. Uh. And then the inherent difficulty in seeing just seeing, let alone encountering and then getting a shot at a mature buck or something like that. Um, that's just a night and day difference. So I do feel different after that. UM. And then maybe there's just something. I mean, I don't know, a big mammal just just it's it's different walking up on a big mammal like a deer or an elk that you just killed. UM. I still like when I walked upon a deer and elk, I still get that like kind of pit in my gut at first kind of like, oh man, like there's a little bit of I don't know if it's remorse or if it's whatever it is, there's that emotional Yeah, it's this weird swamp of all these different emotions. Yeah. I love, appreciation, sadness, respect, just a lot of stuff. Um, and that I still have that to some degree with the turkey, but it's like turned up many more notches with a deer or something like that. Um, it's hard to explain that. I guess exactly how that happens or why, but yeah, man, it was. It's always a great It's always a great. Um. So it's a great day when things work out like that. You know. So your turkey season is over now, right yeah? Um sort of. Uh. As far as me trying to kill a bird, yeah, I might try to go to Ohio for like a day, but just the way my schedule is looking, it's it's kind of crazy, so I probably won't get to go hunt myself. But um, we are doing a deal here. We're like all, you know, all my buddies that come out to Iowa for the shed hunting camp. Um, we're gonna get together at Dustin's house and um try to do some turkey hunting here together. So I'm just gonna tag along for that and call for people and just be around for the Shenanigans. So hopefully, hopefully Quirky and Dusty and further and all those guys can get a bird, and um, I'll get to share in that. From from a observation standpoint, we should try to do a fun out of state turkey hunting trip next year. That would be That would be awesome. I've been thinking, you know, when we were talking about how we need to do a Western shed hunt, a Western turkey hunt would be really cool too, um, right, because i've heard a different species other than Eastern Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've heard Nebraska would be a great play to do that as well, because they've got three of the different subspecies all in the same state. Really yeah, the more you know, Yeah, So turkey season is coming up or it's wrapping up here soon, and then I don't know about you, but at that point then it's just full blown summer prep. We're almost that summer prep right now for white tails. Dude. I got my trail cameras set out, um, and all this stuff kind of got sparked because I just got my mount back from the taxidermist, and it's hanging in my man cave and I get to look at it now and it just makes me think of all the things I gotta do to get ready for the season and get trail cameras out in mineral stations out is priority numero uno. I love it. I love this time of year like this is for me, like when the white tail stoke factor like really gets gets cranked and uh, dude, summer velvet coming up hot, I cannot wait, buddy, Well, anything else we need to cover before we shut down the intro um. We're gonna have to do one of those full Mark and Dan bs about our favorite animals soon. But until that, any final thoughts, no, sir, I think we're good to go here. Man, All right, well then would that be in the case. Let's take a quick break to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties and then we'll get to our interview with Bill kav This week with White Tailed Properties, we are joined by Neil Hugger, a land specialist out of Wisconsin, and Neil is going to be telling us about what habitat improvements can be made in northern properties like that in Minnesota and Wisconsin, well in northern Wisconsin in particular where I live. What's you deal with is monoculture of force for the most part, especially in the upper third of the state, and as such, the most important thing you do revolves around food. The deer are gonna go where the food is, and without monoculture you can have a biological desert in the in the timber. So if you can create food plot, that's fantastic, But if you really want to make it special, you want to recreate what I calls a trifecta. Try to create a food plot near a structure such as a creek or perhaps a ridge point that the deer must navigate around. And now you've created a pinch point. And uh, if you want to really spice it up, you can maybe put in a a watering hole or um you can maybe do a blocking hinge cut and then you've created maybe a trifecta or a quad sector. But the goal here is to give the deer a reason to be on the spot and make sure your tree stand is in that spot. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Neil currently has listed for sale, visit White Tail properties dot com backslash Hogger. That's h A U G E R. All right here with me now is Bill Hev. Welcome to the show. Bill, Thanks good to be here, man, and I got us say I want to I want to start off here by shamelessly buttering you up and saying that you are one of my absolute favorite writers. Um. Your your ability to weave humor and a story with real motion and themes, it is just it is impressive and I am never left wanting after reading one of your stories or books. So so thanks for being here and doing this, Bill, because I've been looking forward to for quite a long time. That's it. You're not gonna butter me up any further. No, that was it. I'm gonna be quick and never dive into things. I'm just thank you very much for the very kind words. I appreciate them. Yeah. Yeah, and um, you know we're just talking a little a little while ago before we started to record how no one really, you know, wants to hear about our backgrounds are careers and everything. They just want to get into the good stuff. But I want to still talk a little bit about Bill, how you got to this point. But before we start diving into some of your experiences out in the woods and the waters, and would that be the case something I don't know a whole lot about, even though I've read most of your I've read most of your books and articles. It's kind of your background is a hundred angler. You know. How did you get into these things? How did this all start for you? Um? I always tell people that I got into this sort of bass acword because I was I was sent to summer camp in uh North Carolina and New Hampshire as a kid for about three years, and I became obsessed with watching that little red and white bobber about twelve feet from shore, just convinced that there was a monster swimming around down there with my name stenciled on its side. Um. And that turned out not to be the case, but that didn't really deter me. I kept trying, and then know as I stopped going to summer camp, I more or less forgot about it. And then some friends gave me an ultra light four ft six in ugly stick and a spinning reel for my twenty one birthday, and I rediscovered it and turned into kind of a maniac small mouth fisherman on the Potomac, And so what happened was I was doing at the time. I was a generalist and travel writer, and I was doing a piece for the Washington Post. They wanted something about close to home vacations, and I suggested, well, what about canoeing and fishing the rivers around Washington, the Potomac, the James and the Rappahannock for a small mouth And I said okay. So I did a story for them, um. And then after it was published in the manner of freelancers everywhere who were kind that we seeking bigger markets, I thought, what, what the heck, I'll send this up to Field and Stream UM, and I was very surprised when they said, yeah, we think we could use use this if you tweaked it a little bit. And I said, sure, what do you wants? And it kind of turned into a defense of spinning. After about the time that everybody else was moving to fly fishing, and a river runs through it had just come out, um, and fly fishermen were everywhere, and they seemed to think that they owned the river. You know, that any water they can cast over was automatically there their water. And so pretty soon I was writing about fishing regularly for field and stream, which was great, and then I thought, you know you could for completely mercenary reasons. I thought, you know, you could double your market if you if you tried hunting, which absolutely horrified my mother, you know, like one of those how could you do that to these poor little animals? Would you like some more veheable UM? And I took up bow hunting for deer and was just hooked almost from the get go. And the first time that I killed a deer, which was a which was a little five point buck on a friend's farm, this kind of neural circuitry went off in me, this mix of like an explosion of pride and humility and triumphs and sorrow and all these emotions. And I thought, this can't just be me. You know, we've got to be hard as at the name of your show, UH points out, this has got to in our wiring. You just couldn't you just couldn't create all this about it nothing. And I started to realize, you know, we're all descended from master hunters, or we wouldn't be here. So it's like we have this neural pathway that most people never hook up. Plug in UM and when you do, it's pretty it's pretty amazing and pretty compelling. Yeah. So I started writing about hunting. In that piece You're in that hunt, you mentioned your first bow hunt. Um. I've been rereading some of my favorite stories of yours, and there was that story where you talked about this bow hunting obsession how that began, and I loved how you described your addiction. You said that hooked would be an understatement. I was filayed battered in deep Fried. I thought that was It's pretty good. I think a lot of us can relate to that for sure. I'm right there with you. Um. So you you had your first bow hunt, killed a deer. How is your hunting journeys grown from there? What? What was next? Did you kind of start trying every different experience you get your hands on? I did, but you know I never got nothing ever got to me like bow hunting for dear dead. You know, I will try anything. Um. I'm not a particularly good wing shot. UM. I'm a lousy wild turkey hunter. And actually one of the things I discovered in um Um in Arkansas on this last trip is I don't really like turkey hunting that much. You know, you know you don't get up, but you don't get up at crack of dawn. You gotta be in the woods and set up in the crack at the crack of dawn, and you hunt until you know almost almost you know the end of light, and then you have dinner and go back to where you're sleeping, and you know five hours later it's time to get up again. So it really wears you down. And actually, I've never gotten me on the what I call the baby in a car seat uh level of turkey hunting, which you could say, I've never called in a turkey and myself and killed it. You know, I've shot turkeys that other people have called in for me. But you know that's anymore on can do that. I've seen that you've turkey hunter with some pretty exceptional uh turkey hunters too, like Jeff Buds and Ray I. Uh so you've learned from some of the best, though, well you don't. You learn in a way. But you know, when you hunt with Jeff Buds, you're just running to keep up with the guys, like it's uh, it's humbling because he sees he hears the turkey and he takes off at a at a jog straight towards it, and then he sees the birds somehow, you know, a distance through his binoculars and then figures out a way to get close. So some of the places we were hunting, we were going down these you know culverts that were you know, like twenty ft deep out on an Indian reservation and then belly crawling up to these birds and and trying to shoot them. Um and he. I mean that that guy was just driven. I mean he would hunt all day and then drive four hours to another state because he wanted to get birds. And you know, we'd beat in South Dakota and he'd want to get to Kansas or something. Am I right? Then, Jeff Buds holds the most Turkey Grand slams of anyone in the world. Is that is that accurate? Yeah? I think he's got twice as many as his nearest rival, h more. You know, it might even be more than that, or we're less than that, but he's got a substantial lead on anybody else being around someone like that. I heard someone who knows him or encountered him mentioned that he kind of reminded him of like a Lance Armstrong type, just like so driven, so so um, just so elite. I gotta believe that given what you're what you do, you get to be around a lot of hunters like that kind of at the very very top of their top of their game or whatever you call it. Yeah, but I mean it's hard to you know, it's all you know, Jeff is a wonderful guy. Um and I really I really love him, but you know, it's it's uh, it's it's almost like somebody told him when he was a kid that he wasn't good enough. He's spending his life proving them wrong, you know, and and and he's doing it. Um, but I just you know, it's a it's a different mentality to me. To me, that mentality of being first or you know, ah, I don't know. To me, that's not what hunting is really about. And you know, I don't even want I can't watch the I can't watch hunting shows. They're just so you know, we're led to think that this is how hunting is and and it's not. You know, when those guys go and see this huge deer coming out of the woods, you know you can be pretty sure that they aren't the ones who scouted it. Um and in their own way there babies in a car seat, right. Um, so I read that, Yeah, I read that you once went on a shoot like that where you're going to be filmed for TV, and then it was it sounded like it wasn't a great experience. Can't tell us about what it's like to be on the other side. This was my first You know what in the industry is called the writer hunt, which is when you're invited on a trip and your expenses are going to be paid and all you gotta do is show up, and you're just thinking, man, I am, I am the man. You know, I am here, I am all you all you poor slobs are out there. You gotta buy your own plane ticket and then all this is being done for me. Uh you get a little puffed up. And then I'm up there and they said, you know, we just want to ask you one favorite. Would it be okay if we put a cameraman out there with you and he won't bother you. You know, he'll be in a tree stand. He'll be in a ladder tree stand just a few feet above your head, you know, usually on the same tree or on a you know, a limb where he's got a view of you, and I said sure, sure, and I got out to him within an hour or two. I was profoundly uncomfortable, and I felt like I felt like I was doing porn. You know, this was dear, this was hunter porn. It's like, you know, if you're making love to your you know, to your wife or your girlfriend in the privacy of your of your bedroom, that's one thing. If you're making a movie of it to sell, that's something else. And I didn't want to be that guy, so I said, look, I'm sorry, you know, I can't do this. It's really it's a really interesting way of looking at it. If you could take if you could be like the god of all hunting television, hunting and fishing television and enact some set of changes to make it how you would find it appealing? Again, what would you do to change hunting or fishing television or media in that way? I don't I'm not sure it could be done. You know, to me, hunting is a kind of sacred thing, and as soon as you put it, as soon as you're trying to make money off it, it's it's something else. Um, you know, it's a you've kind of corrupted it. Hm, you know that that's my personal feeling about it. So I doubt that I will over haveo that that anybody will ever offer me now playing playing Devil's Advocate, though, why is why is writing about a hunting experience and making money off of it different than filming a hunting experience and making money from it. Uh, well, that's a very impertinent question. Um, I don't know. I don't know, because it's it's your reflections on it in you know, and in private, and then you're sharing your experience. I mean, my my take, my take on the things I write is is sort of that is that I'm arrogant enough to believe there's nothing particularly special about me, and so if I'm writing how I feel, if I'm honestly writing about my impressions of an experience, it's kind of you weren't there, but this is kind of what it would be like if you were. And that seems quite different to me somehow, And maybe maybe I'm just maybe in a completely self serving way, but um, it seems almost like a a service to people. Whereas TV shows loaded down with you know, well it was really that nose jam or spray that then able to me to take this buck and my you know, my on my osonics thing and my you know my this company's arrows and this company's bow and Um, they're just like you know, they're kind of selling everything they touch. And I'm I guess I don't feel like I'm doing that. I'm I'm selling what the I'm selling. I'm trying to sell, you know, and convey what the what the experience was like. Yeah, I understand what you're understand what you're getting at there. And I've had those same feelings too. I Mean, there's there's a lot of outdoor television that that kind of makes you uncomfortable to the stomach when when you watch it, and I know when you describe it compared to compared to pornography, there's there's definitely a correlation there that that it rings true. UM. Now, speaking of your writing and how you express or share your own experience, UM, did you. I mean, if if anyone hasn't written or excuse me, read your stories or your books, your column and field and stream anything that they may not be familiar. But you have a very UM I don't know if it's satire, but it's Um, you do a great job of bringing humor into the piece, and you kind of represent yourself as this kind of bumbling every man who's making all these mistakes, and you kind of you kind of make fun of yourself a lot. And A. UM, did you know from the get go that you always wanted to write in this style and present yourself like that? Or was this like a thought through decision as you as you started going through it. I think, I mean, I think I was writing that way before Shield and Stream, and I realized, you know, when I got to Field and Stream. The first thing that I noticed was everybody was an expert. You know, there were everybody was writing from the view of you know, everybody. The guy writing about you know, hunting could shoot the eyes out of a running chipmunk at three hundred yards, and the guy writing about fly fishing could take his naval lint and tied up into a tarp and fly and catch a two hundred pounds fish. And I realized, you know, A, I can't compete with these guys and be I don't really want to. UM, So I struck. And then I realized there's nobody writing for the kind of the average guy. And the average guy I'm based on my extners experiences failure far more often than success, and so I think in a lot of ways, failures are more universal experience then success. And I remember my editors were kind of surprised when that resonated with a lot of readers, and I said, really, I'm you know, I'm not. They're They're kind of like, you're just you're just a dufist man, And I was like, yeah, so most of the rest of us, Yeah, yeah, And I really, you know, I just couldn't. I couldn't fake. Um, you know, I couldn't fake pretending to be competent at something that wasn't. So so that begs the question. Then, even though you've given all given that your work is going and hunting and fishing all over the world in some cases and then sharing those experiences, you get to hunt and fish a lot more than maybe the average guy or girl does. So even though that's the case, do you really struggle? Do you really struggle as much in real life as it seems on the page, or have you achieved some level of competence now that you've done it for so long. I mean, I've got some level of competence, you know it? It uh you know, I realized that one of one of the pleasures now for me. I mean I live, you know, less than ten miles from the White House, and everybody goes, oh, you you know, with your your your fame as a field and stream writer, you must get you know, places that hunt offers with places to hunt all the time going Actually I don't, and I haven't figured out how to leverage that some kind of access maybe for the people that would be able to do that, but I've never been able to you know, get turned that into more hunting access. So I I have to go pretty far away to the hunt. I mean there's almost no public hunting grounds around here. I mean, you know, there's sixty miles away, and those ones get hammered. Um. But I have learned one of the things I love now is just going out in the woods and and following a deer trail and looking for sign. And you know, if you just do that long enough, you got you get an eye for it. You know what a deer trail looks like, even though you can't really explain how you know, um that it's a deer trail and not you know, some some smaller animal. Uh, But you just get a sense of it, and you get a sense of you know, where deer like to bed and um, you know, if you find it. If you if you find a bed and you find a hair of the deer that bedded there, that's that's that's really cool. That's kind of like finding a narrowhead, you know. And uh, and I love I love that kind of stuff and I love going out with I was perch fishing the other day with my friends Paula Smith and Gordon Leash out on the Potomas and Paula, uh heard a bird conscious that's the first story a lot I've heard this this year. So she knows the bird by its call. And then they see another bird. Know, they've had a uh, you know, a purple breasted growth speak or something in their backyard at their feet or and they were really excited about that. And they were talking to another guy who has seen some particular bird at his feet or and they all got real excited about that. So it's you know, people that can take it beyond just being good good hunters and start to gain an appreciation for the larger picture of what's out there. Ah. I have enormous respect for those people. Yeah, that that transition from just a hunter to also a naturalist and a woodsman, that that's the whole experience. Yeah, I mean, that's those are people to me, those are people who really get it. And I've seen Paula h you know, Paula Paula. Paula has done all kinds of things that that I can't talk about to get to get geese and stuff. At the same time we were drying, we were rowing back in the time before this, and she spotted a a Canada that was tangled up in some fishing line in a little creek that runs behind the boat house, and she went, damn. And she got back in the boat and rowed herself up to it. And she'd forgotten to take a Nike. So Gordon said, don't Bill, don't run down there and take her at night. So I did. And she spent twenty minutes, you know, calming this bird down, picking it up, talking to it and cutting the line free, and then let it go, and then came back the next day and said, I, you know, I didn't see each others. I think he's gonna make it. So, you know, it reminds me kind of the the Indians, who, you know, would hunt all kinds of animals, but then they would also have pets, pet animals, often of the same species that they they hunted. Yeah, and I love that. A lot of you know, a lot of non hunters just can't wrap their heads around that. Um, how you can love the same animal that you're that you're killing. But in fact, in fact, once you really understand it, it doesn't seem strange at all. Yeah, I'm I'm going to make an assumption here. But my assumption is that living so close to, you know, just outside of d C, you're around a lot of people that you know, don't have this context. They don't have this connection to the natural world that you do as a hunter or an angler. Um. So, when you're at a when you're at a dinner party or grabbing a drink or whatever it might be, and someone approaches you or or wants to hear about what you do, when you talk about hunting and whatnot, and you try to convey that point you just made, that being that hunting is an act of love, not an act of war or or anger or anything like that. Malus, how do you go about trying to communicate that to someone? How do you get that idea across um. Well, first of all, most people in Washington are much more concerned about telling you what they do and curious about what you do. You know, Washington is a town where the first question people ask is, you know, what do you do when they're assessing each other's relative, you know, importance in the world. But I don't get asked that question very much. I've been confronted several times by people who knew I hunted and said, you know, I just think hunting is awful and ought to be outlawed. And you guys are you know, you're just in it for the thrill of the kill. And I do a kind of jiu jitsu, you know, where you use the person's own momentum against them. And and and I say, you know, I kind of agree with you. You know, the more I hunt, uh, the harder it is for me to kill stuff. And you know, there are times when I'm not so sure it shouldn't be outlawed. Um, except for you know, um, you know that government is best, which governs least people out to have the opportunity to make up their own minds about it. And you know a lot of people have no clue of how deer are just denuding the forests, especially around here. I think Rock Creek Park has one of the highest deer densities in the country because there's no predators UM, and they just eat everything that grows, and so you don't have songbirds and wild turkey and off kinds of stuff that should be there. And they're eating up the native plants. You know, they're speeding the growth of invasives UM. You know, there's a very high incidence of Lyme disease UM because the places where the white mice that are one of the carriers from which deer get the ticks UM because you know it's the larval and um nymph stage ticks that feed on white mice and then get picked up by the deer. You know, there are a host of UM still effects whenever any you know, whenever any species gets out of balance, and deer are just way out of balance but UM and you know, if if if it seems like they're open uh, and it's very disarming because when they UH way too often in my view, hunters just wanna you know, when that when that conversation and tell these people that they're you know, they're they're full of it and they don't know what they're talking about, and that you know, that doesn't change anybody's mind. Um, that just digs a hole deeper. So you know, if you just listen to people, they'll find that very disarming, especially in somebody that they expect not to be listened to. Buy. Yeah, it's a great point. Lots of times it becomes this. So many times I think hunters become really defensive and go into attack mode. And as you said, that's that if if you're looking at simply from what's going to be the most effective tact, that is not going to achieve the goal, as you said, trying to change minds or win over hearts, UM, and you just you just confirm all the worst aspects of the under stereotypes that people have. UM. You talked about you talked about how some people from the outside might think we're in it just for the thrill of the kill, UM getting the trophy, whatever it might be. UM. I one of the things I've respected about you the most is the way you're able to convey, um, the emotion around the moments of the kill and the respect for the animal that I think if if someone who had questions about hunting. Read some of your pieces. I think they would. They come away from them with a with a new found understanding and respect for for what we do. UM and I want to read. I want to read a quick um bit of something you wrote and then kind of gets you to expand on it if you don't mind. Um it's it's a favorite of mine, the piece you titled worthy. And in this piece, I'm just gonna quote here a couple of a couple of segments you said, shaking, I clipped my bow, release to the string, and rise. Taking the life of a deer is many things, but if you think trivial is among them, it's time to put down your bow and take up badminton. Come to your feet. Aren't the animal whose life you seek? And later you say, after you have shot and killed a deer and walked up on her, you say, I lay a hand on her flank and stroke her hair. Wisps of steam from her body curl upward in the flashlight beam. I've read how native hunters believe that an animal doesn't die at once, but slowly it's spirit finding its way out of the body and onto the next world. I stay there another five minutes stroking her coat, feeling the interlocking elation and regret, the gratitude and sorrow the only hunters know. With every stroke I discover I'm mouthing thank you, thank you, thank you. End quote. Can you can you expand on what those types of moments are like for you, having having taken an animal's life? Um, why is that a powerful moment for you? Um? Well, you know, taking taking life, an innocent life of of another animal is almost to me, is by definition, you know, momentous. I mean you one of the things you realize when you kill a deer, and especially when you're cleaning a deer, is that you're not that different, and you're gonna die just as truly as this animal dies, and to the earth. It's not going to make a whole lot of difference whose body the Earth is working on is it? You know, returns it to the earth. And also think of the you know, the Indians thought of hunting as um. The Indians used to take uh priests on hunting because they were terrified of displeasing the gods. And if you displease the gods, all kinds of you know, misfortune might come to your to your tribe, you know, sickness, um, not being able to find any more gang and that if you didn't show proper respect um that was that was really rash and um, you know, stupid. And so they were more worried about displeasing you know, the animal spirits and the gods that took an interest in that stuff. Then they were about, um, you know, their own their own glory. I remember I hunted uh Cariboo with this tribe I've never heard of in Alaska, maybe because they were interior tribe called the Glitchen, and the Glitchen believe and archaeologists are finding increasing evidence for this that they actually have been following the Porcupine River herd of Caribou for at least five thousand years and they consider themselves people of the Cariboo. And the Cariboo do this uh circular migration every year. That's you know, it's five thousand miles. It's one of the longest of any mammals. And each year they go to give birth near the shore because the offshore winds blow the bugs away that that spread diseases. And sometimes you really prey on the take a toll on the deer, and the grass is good air and there aren't many predators. And the Glitchen has some name for this that translates roughly as you know, sacred place where the caribou are born. And none, no Glitchen has ever seen it, much less set foot in it, because it's it's off limits. It's a sacred place. And to violate this. And then even when they were starving, um, as far back as as anybody knows, um, they would never go there because if they went there to kill caribou to get to save themselves, they would be you know, um, gamming the tribe, um you know, henceforth. Um. It just that's an amazing concept and turns out to be this is where we're it's the anwar. Uh. It's exactly where drilling will start soon right the coastal plain that recently yep. And you know these people are just they feel totally you know, ignored, and um, it's quite sad. Yeah, not to mention the impacts, the ecological impacts on the animals themselves. As I understand it, that's going to be very significant as well. Yeah, I mean you have I mean, it's a it's a it's a very small area relatively. It wouldn't take much to completely screw it up. And you know, the oil companies are saying, well, you know, we're not gonna screw it up. And I don't believe they have any intention to screw it up, but they've certainly screwed up a lot of places where they had no intentions grew it up. M M. Yeah. I hunted caribou in Alaska for the first time this past year in interior Alaska, hunting the forty mile herd Um and that was just an incredible powerful experience, just just seeing the migration, seeing that the so many thousands of animals moving through the scale of everything, the landscape, the wildlife. Um, what was the experience like for you? I have to imagine being in that area must have been quite the being in that area after a while. I mean I was the only uh non Indian in the village of about twenty people, and you pretty quickly come to feel like you're in their world and their rules are the ones that applied. Um. You know, I asked my uh my host while while all these uh Cariboo antlers were We're lying around basically just slowly decomposing into the moss, and he said, we we don't pick him up. We never have. And a few years ago there was a white woman who came, Um. I mean, she was a photographer and she was picking him up and we kept telling her that's that's really not a good idea, and she wasn't, wouldn't listen to us, and she left. And a few years later later that that lady got sick and she died. And I said, don't you worry. I'm not going to touch the cariboo. But what really amazed me but the head hunter of the village, uh, and you know, a successful hunter up there is still expected to share meet with the whole village. Um. He just had this sort of psychic connection to the caribou. And so he said, we're gonna go out hunting, you know, tomorrow, And then we didn't go. And I'm going, you know, Charlie, what's the deal And he goes, appear when you hurry is when you make mistakes, um, And you know, there's no room for mistakes, and that kind of an environment up on the tunder And then he wakes up the next day and he goes, Yep, it's today. Their antlers have hardened up and they'll go anywhere now. And he just knew this, you know, and I don't. I don't know how he knew it. And then we went up glassing for caribou and these guys are hand holding you know, forty and sixty power spotting scopes and they're seeing caribou and saying, oh, that's a nice bunch over there, um, especially that one in the front, and try and go how how far away those us? Oh? Those thirty miles? And he was looking at him and from the way they were traveling and there, you know, they're posture and attitude. He seemed to know where they were going to be in twenty four hours. And so we went to that place and we camped, and we got up the next morning and shot through those caribou. It's got to be an incredible experience to be not only just being in a place like that, but then, like you just described, getting to be around and learn from Native hunters and get to experience that culture. It seems like that's something you had a few opportunities to do. Um. I remember reading a piece where you were snowshoeing with the cree. I think I remember in Canada somewhere. Um, is there anything else that you've taken those experiences that you've applied back to your own hunting when you're back on your own doing your own thing. Any whether it's a culture or a level of respect or so how l it's a level of respect and a knowledge that we are we were all like this, Um. You know, a thousand years ago we were we all believed, or two thousand years ago we all knew um the world about us much more intimately because that's all there was. You know. Um. One of the one of the Gwitchen Indians the sky, he was like Oscar the Grouch. She never spoke unless he wanted to do. I asked him once, uh about his grandparents, and he said, my grandmother used to say that in the old days, people were like an, I'm because that's all what was in their minds. And you know they were they were kind of studying the natural world all the time because that was their TV. That was that's all there was. And you know, when you start living like that, you get in touch with all kinds of things and you know, so these are people who I didn't think there was anything at all extraordinary about having a dream about shooting a moose in a certain place, going there the next day and having a moose show up in that place and shooting it. They just thought, you know, that's just the way the world works. M where. To us, it seems like you know, um, you know magic. Yeah, and and so much of our success quote unquote success in our minds, we we assume has to be attributed to skill and all these other things we've done, or the technology or our gear or whatever. But it's got to be so interesting to to be around someone who who's thinking about things much more deeply. Yeah, so I sort of, you know, every every bit of technology you use, you know, a scent, a scent you know, as on its or something or um whatever, in a way distances you from the experience. I mean, I know what. It makes it easier, of course, but it also starts to hollow out, you know what it's all about. Mhm. Yeah, So take rewinding a little bit. In our conversation, I want to shift to something here. We talked a lot about how you've focused a lot of your your your storytelling, your writing around the average person's experiences in the wild, those mistakes and fumbles along the way, and um, you certainly talked about those mistakes you've made plenty, But you also I found a really a really nice job of of showing in a in a kind of honest, real way, what you've learned from those experiences or how you grew. Um, there's always kind of that kind of moment. It seems like most of your pieces. So so for someone right now or for someone here six months from now or whatever, who is feeling that the fresh pain of some kind of failure in the field. Maybe it was a miss, maybe they just spooked the deer of a lifetime. Maybe they lost the biggest fish I've ever had in the line. Um, what is your advice or what would you tell someone to be thinking about in those moments or those moments post that quote unquote failure? Um, well, failures how you learned? Um? You know if you aren't, if you were successful every time you went out, and you know this, this wouldn't have any any pull for you and the other you know, it really bothers me when when people get caught up on you know, I've shot a bigger deer, you caught a bigger fish than you have. Um. You know a lot of times that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I mean it may mean, you know, in some cases the guy is clearly a better angler. Um. But you know it's about it's about you having uh and enjoyable experience. It's not about you know, and I don't have to you know, I can go out and sail and still have a good time. You know. If you know, if you're out shed hunting, hunting for shed antlers and you have to find one for it to be a good day, you know you should you shouldn't be out there, um. And you know, to just get close to a big deer is an aspiring thing. Um. You know, we put so much emphasis on this notion of success and failure. And you know, if you were somebody out there where hunting for food where success and failure was the difference between life and death, you know, would you care that much if the deer was you know, a big deer or the biggest dear. I don't think you would. I think you'd be happy to have some food. Um. And that's what you know, that's what hunting derives from, so the whole Yeah, you know, all over the place, and uh, there're guys who go to you know, take canned hunts to have a big put big rack of antlers to hang over there desk in their office, and it's not about the deer, and it's not about them, it's about trying to impress somebody else. Um. And if that's your motivation, once again, I think you should be doing something else because it's supposed to be about it's supposed to be a private thing and what you what you get out of it, what you enjoy about it, not competition with anybody else but yourself. Yeah. That that focus on the experience. UM. Yeah, I think is so horton. And it is easy to get caught up in all the hullabaloo around big deer antlers or the filling that tag. But but of course, as you said, I think you lose sight of the You're losing something really special if that's what you get caught up in. Um. And something that in my life that has forced me to start rethinking some of the things that I appreciate about a hunting experience. UM, that I realized I'm gonna have to continue changing. Moving forward to the fact that we just had our first baby, my wife and I. I've got a three month old son, and I'm already thinking thank you, thank you, I'm already thinking about how that's going to change everything for me and us in the future, and the excitement I have for introducing him to the outdoors. I'm already out there and I already took him out behind the house, calling turkeys and holding him and hearing gobblers coming in. Yeah, it was it was so cool. But I've read some of your stories, we've we've talked about your daughter, and I'm curious what you've learned from your experiences introducing your daughter to the outdoors. Selfishly, if you have any advice for me as as a as a father hoping to introduce my son to hunting and fishing, anything you've learned there or you've experienced that would be worth passing on. Um. I think getting your kids playing with little bows and arrows and you know, push button fishing reels and taking them out someplace where they can have a success, especially near the beginnings, is a big deal. Um. There's you know, the movie Nanook of the North is has been called, you know, actually the first documentary film ever made, and I think it was like in the ninety twenties or something, and I know that parts of it were staged, but a lot of it is true. And you see that nook with his infant son, and the kid's got a bow about sixteen inches long and is shooting little sticks and the nook hasn't sit in his lap and just you know, release shoot stick after stick. And I'm starting to wish that I've done that with with Emma. My My. My buddy down in Arkansas has three kids and they are all just hunting and fishing maniacs because he's passionate about it, and he takes them, you know, every chance he gets. And now his kids are, you know, fighting about who gets to go out when he can't take all three of them. It was his nine year old son's birthday and he goes, I gotta be home, man, I gotta take give about um to get his turkey um. And that you know that when I was at the house, the kids were showing me their turkeys and their mounted deer and you know, they were just they were really psyched. And you know, if your kids have to have, you know, it has to be their choice. If if they you know, if you're feeling like they have to love what I love, it's probably not gonna happen, you know. And uh so you got to give them space to to make it their own and at the same time give them opport, you know, encourage them and give them opportunities. And I think, you know, Emma, Emma's like me. You know, my father tried to get me interested in golf and sailing, and he'd even bought me some golf clubs. And I think if he really wanted me to get interest it, and then he would have forbidden me to play golf or to sail, and I would have been all over that, you know, because I was just as that rebellion where anything my father was trying to get me to do, we were already in this you know, edible power struggle. Um. If he said you can't do this, I'd go, oh yeah, watch me. Hu. Speaking of speaking of kids, introducing kids to hunting, UM, I think that that feeds into a larger um quandry we find ourselves as hunters in America today, that being the the loss of hunters in America and continuing decline. And you recently wrote a short piece about this title, the next Endangered species is the American Hunter. UM. Can you speak to that a little bit? What what you're noticing there? What your thoughts on how how we can maybe try to plug the plug the damn up and stop the bleeding. It's it's a real challenge because you know, the kids are raised on video games and indoor you know, all their connections. You know, when I was a kid, the day you turned sixteen, you went and got your driver's license. That was that was the rite of passage. Kids don't need to do that anymore. They can just go in their bedroom and shut the door and have access to their whole social world, their social lives. And you know, parents, you know, usually don't know anything about it, and it's hard to compete with the you know, the pleasures of video games are pretty instant. UM and hunting, you know, hunting rewards patients and study, and you know, it's it's stiff competition. And then you have, you know, the divorce rate where you have a lot of times it's it's the mom who has the kids, and the mom doesn't have any experience hunting UM, and some moms get you know, unless a mom sort of makes a decision that she wants her kids to get involved in hunting and fishing UM and she has no experience, she has to seek somebody out for that. Um. So first of all, she has to be open to that possibility, and then second of all, she has to be able to find somebody to do that. Um, both of which are you know, getting increasingly difficult. UM. I wish you know, I wish I had an answer for it. Um. You know, I really don't know. I really don't know what it is. It's a challenge. It's a challenge that I think, and a lot of people are talking about this these days and have been for a while now, and for good reason. UM, you know, it's it's something we need to take seriously. There's always that that one buddy who says, well, good, I don't want more hunters in the woods. Have a hard enough time finding a little place too as it is. But as long as it's okay for me, there's no problem. Right. But that just isn't gonna work out in the long run. If if if he is, hunters aren't out there, UM able to speak up for ourselves in our way of life, if there's no one, if there's no one practicing it. Not to mention that economic impacts we have as far as our our tax dollars going to pay for conservation and wildlife management. UM. There's a whole lot of implications there, that's for sure. Yeah. You know, I think one thing Honors can do is look for those opportunities. You know, if you know a single mom with kids, it's you can approach her and say, you know, if you ever have any interest that you know, I'd be happy to take your your kids fishing or show them where I hunt. UM. I volunteered for some of these. UM there's a local you know, take your take your kids fishing day where a parent who doesn't have any experience can take their kids down to the river and um, you know, they're supplied with rod and real and bait UM and an adult who who takes an interest is you know, it's a powerful thing for any kids. Mm hmm. Yeah absolutely, Bill. I feel like I would love to just like sit down with you with a coffee or a beer and talk to you for like three hours. I feel like I enjoy your perspective and your story so much. But because I actually have a hard stop because I'm going to be put on babysitting duty here with the little guy soon, I have to wrap this out much sooner than i'd like. UM, But I've I have two more selfish questions, UM, that I want to run buy your here real quick. One of those, I am an absolute book worm addict. I I read and read and read. I'm just kind of curious. Being a writer and an outdoorsman, do you have any favorite books related to hunting or fishing, or wildlife or nature or anything like that that you'd recommend? Um, I've written about this. UM. William Faulkner's short story or sometimes it's been called a noveltt or whatever the word is for short novel called The Bear is one of the and it's actually been called the best short story in in English. Is is just a fantastic read. And it's about this kid's um. Then in Mississippi going to the big Bottom these you know, this swamp area to hunt to chase this big bear called Old Ben each year. And this group of hunters has been following Old Ben for so long that they he writes, at one point, he writes that they they don't really they no longer expect to catch him. It's just kind of a ritual. Let's say, go through. And he has his hunting mentor is a former slave named Sam Fathers who takes him under his wings and teaches him what he knows, and you know, by the time he's ten, this kid is sort of a master woodsman. But it's it's just it's just an amazing read. I reread it almost every year. Wow. So that's one. Yeah, that's one that's been on my list. I've heard a lot of people mentioned that anything anything else that jumps to mind, um not knocked out much hunting specific Uh. Cormac McCarthy really has a feel for the natural world and is a great writer to boot, So anything of his I really enjoy. Yeah, I've never I've never read such interesting, interesting descriptions of a landscape as he does. He has just infinite ways to describe a view or um a setting. It's it's very impressive, Yeah, and very totally original. Mm hmm. So so then I think that brings me to my my last question, which ties into that a little bit of what you talked about there with the bear. I'm just curious selfishly as a writer myself. And then also I think an important part of hunting and fishing culture is the story, right, the big fish story or the hunting story, and sitting around the campfire back at the lodge or whatever it might be, recounting your experience and reliving those moments, and you are a master of that craft. So Bill, from your perspective, what makes a good story? Uh? Damn, I wish I knew um good story? Uh wow, that is really hard say, because you you know, there's some different kinds of stories structuring in very different different ways. Um, I just feel totally inequick to give advice about that. Is there any consistent element between the stories that you enjoy the most or anything like that? Well, I guess the consistent element is that I like them all. But there you go. This is known as a weekending. Um. I wish I wish I could. I wish I could come up with something more interesting. Unexpected things. You know, every story should have some element of unexpected, unforeseeable things, should have some humor in it and some um you know, some pathos, something that really gets you at the heart heart level. Yeah. Well, to your earlier point that most kids stories are written by you, Bill, Um, where where can where can folks find your books? Could you? Could you kind of tell us? In my introduction I mentioned a bit of your work, But if if there's anything you'd like to say about your books, your articles, or where people can connect with you or find your work online. I'd love for you to share that with us now. Uh, well, you can find there's a lot of more on the Steel in the Stream website. Uh. My latest book, which came out in December is should the Attempt Be Burning Like that? Professionals, Professional Amateurs Guide to the Outdoors? Um, and you can find you know, you can search with my books on Amazon or any uh, you know, any of the online retailers and just type them by Bill Heavy and UM, they should come up. I gotta I gotta tell you a story, Bill before I let you go here, because because I picked a picked up a copy of your book, should the Tend to Be Burning like that? Um? I don't know. Maybe it was around Christmas time I had it, and my wife went into labor in late January, and that was the book I was currently reading. So I brought that with me to the hospital because her water broke. But it didn't seem like it was going to be a quick thing. So I knew, Okay, it's gonna be a long kind of night. So I brought exactly So I brought your book along and I had that sitting on like the window sill. Now things escalated throughout the morning, and now we've gotten to the point where she's about to give birth. And it had been this horribly intense, you know, eight hour process. I was so stressed my wife was going through all this. I couldn't do anything to help her. Um it just was was traumatizing. And finally it had gotten to the point where the doctor was going to come in. Because the doctor wasn't involved very much, had been like the nurses who have been helping us through all this. But now finally it was like that moment, it's okay, it's happening, let's go get the doctor. And I'm thinking, okay, like I'm all amped up. We've been running on adrenaline for like a day. And it was this very very intense moment, and I was scared and excited and just full with emotion. And the doctor comes in, and I'm imagining he's going to run in and and get ready and tell my wife to start pushing more and the baby is gonna come out and it's gonna be this huge thing. And he comes in and he looks at the window sill and he sees this book, and he says, a professional amateurs guide to the outdoors. He's a professional amateur. How can you be a professional and an amateur, isn't that isn't an oxymoron? And he's like, whose book is this? And I'm like, it's mine, but about my wife And he's like, well, I just don't get that. What is this book about? And for for several minutes he tries to talk to me about your book while my wife's screaming in agony right next to me. It was the most bizarre experience. It's weird. Yeah, So, so thank you for that. Bill. You've given me a story I will never forget because of your book title. So yeah, I'm glad he was born without complicating as soon as as soon as I cleared the air on what the book was about, and he got back to work. Um, it all went very smoothly, and we've got a very healthy baby boy now, so it's a happy ending. Yeah. So so, Bill, thank you, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed our conversation. And as I've said already to anyone listening, I cannot recommend Bill's books enough and read everything he writes for Field and stream it's it's absolutely top notch, So thank you Bill. You're bet I enjoyed it and that is a rap. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did. And if you dig it, kick out that please go on over to iTunes and leave us a rating or review. It's a huge help keeps the lights on, it keeps his podcast going, So thank you in advance for your help there. Also, if I can have you do a few more things, make sure you subscribe to the Wired Hunt YouTube channel, putting more and more videos out there. I would love you guys to catch shows. And finally, make sure you're following wired Hunt on Facebook and Instagram. I'm sharing lots about my day to day adventures there as well and other news. Want to give you another reminder that I am going to be at the back Country Hunters and Anglers camp Fire story Night next week May in Detroit, Michigan. If you're telling a story there, the story time is from seven to nine pm at the Detroit Bus Company. I would love to see you guys there. I will be there saying hi, shaking some hands, spinning some yarns and it should be an absolute blast. Would love to see you in Detroit next Tuesday. And then if that doesn't work out, if you fast forward to June one, Steve Ronella and the Meat Eater crew are going to be having a live podcast in Columbus, Ohio, like I said on June one, and I'm gonna be there as one of their guests. I would love to see you there too. I think that most of the tickets are sold already, but there might be a few left if you hurry, so head on over to meat Eater dot live to get tickets for that. Again, that's Columbus, Ohio June. Would love to see you there. It would love to see you at the b h A Story night on May. Finally, want to thank our partners who make all this possible. Big thanks to Yeddie Cooler's, Matthews Archery, May Haven Optics, White Tailed Properties and hunt Terra Maps. And finally, of course, thank you all for listening, thanks for being a part of the wire hunt community, and until next time, I hope you'll stay wired to Hunt.