Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
A Buck Tried To Rearrange My Face!
A buck fight that turned hand-finish into a hospital-worthy lesson. Dawn gobble can change everything. One electric morning led us from turkey woods to elk canyons and, eventually, to roaring Yukon moose that snap trees like twigs. Along the way we hit flooded rice fields, public land gate drags, and lots more! It’s a raw, fast-moving tour of real hunting—where timing, terrain, and judgment matter more than highlight reels.
We dig into why turkey hunting is the perfect training ground for elk, how duck leases and social clout have reshaped pressure on WMAs, and why late-morning moves can be deadly when everyone else packs up. We talk deer that live in backwater and grow long, curled hooves, the soybean-and-levee mix that builds heavy bodies, and how to read intersecting trails in waist-high grass. Then we zoom out to the strategy that unlocks dream tags: using public harvest records, filtering for Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young data, picking units that quietly produce year after year, and planning around weather, access, and safety.
Behind the tags is a blue-collar engine: sinker cypress recovery. We break down the craft—foam-filled drum rigs, quiet pulls to the ramp, live-edge milling, and rot-resistant box blinds that hold up for years. Those slabs pay for Utah elk and Alaska moose without touching the household budget, a practical model for anyone chasing big-country goals. There’s room for hard truths too: different enforcement cultures across states, the risks of close-quarters finishes, and the unpredictable heat of the rut, whether the animal wears antlers or scales.
If you love honest fieldcraft, data-driven planning, and stories that smell like mud, gun oil, and fresh-cut cypress, you’ll feel at home here. Tap follow, share this with a buddy who dreams bigger than his budget, and drop a review so more hunters who live for wild places can find us.
Check us out on Facebook Hunts On Outfitting, or myself Ken Marr. Reach out and Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!
Or you can find us on Facebook, Hunts on Outfitting, or find myself on there, Ken Meyer. Feel free to reach out. Some of you guys have been. It's been great talking with you from all over.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so it and talking about that turkey hunting is how I jumped to the the elk. But I had told the old man, I said, you know, I I kind of I kind of messed myself over or let myself down on the expectation that I was looking for a bugling elk. You know, I wanted that's what that's why you elk hunt. He said, son, he said, do you turkey hunt? I said, no, sir, I never turkey hunted. I got some turkeys on my club back home in Louisiana, but I've never turkey hunted. He said, that's the closest thing you're gonna get to a bugling elk, one of them turkeys gobbling. So I went back that spring rolling around. I went in and um I got down at the bottom, it's cracking daylight. I've done done with some YouTube videos and watched a bunch of hunts. And um I get back there and it's done got daylight. People done told me, you know, if it gets daylight, the first turkey around, he's gonna gobble. So if you don't hear no gobbles at daylight, you know, don't get back there, you're making no bunch of racket. But if you don't hear no gobbles, it ain't no turkeys wasting time. So I ain't heard none. I said, Oh, I'm gonna go and look for some sheds. You know, this time of the year they dropping antlers of the white tower. I get to walking around and I heard one hit for the first time in a while. And I heard turkeys in people's yards and stuff like that, but it's different. And he hit, and when he did, I I just froze and he hit again. When he hit again, I let out a hootal, and he went there hammering, hammering, hammering. I went all the way to him, and I thought he was on the ground in this bottom that I was in. It's a little gnole goes down to the river. And I set up on the Overcope acre tree there, and I I hit my box cough. When I did, he flew down dead in front of me and hit the ground and gobbled, and I shot him. His ten and a quarter inch beard, an inch and a half bird.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:First turkey I'd ever killed. And uh it it I guess it bit me then, you know. That was really what started it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. I mean, the old thunder chickens, uh it is amazing the first time you hear them. It's it if you're close, like just how loud it is, and it just kind of almost shakes you for you know, for a bird, it's it's really cool. But yeah, I mean, they call turkey hunting the poor man's elk hunt.
SPEAKER_03:And that's that I would I would agree with that, you know. Um yeah, so uh the the the big deer that got me in the face, um, so I was hunting in a duck hunting area, and I don't know how y'all is down here. When you get in a duck hunting area, especially on the WMAs, uh there's a lot of shooting goes on, and there, you know, it's taught between a bunch of us, and and we kind of know you'll get a second shot on the deer because there's so much shooting, and you're in there deer hunting in these weed patches that's kind of in between the flooded fields, and um it's it's been normal to get several rifle shots at them, you know, and they'd be out in these weed patches. Well, I had seen two bucks running a dove, and in this duck hunting area, there's big planted used to be rice fields that uh that they fluid, and then there's always like dry ends of it until we get like a lot of water.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So there's these dried weed patches, and the grass is about three and a half, four feet tall, and the trees in it are probably about twelve, fourteen foot tall, and they're kind of scattered. They're planted oak trees, but they are. Most of them is overcup acres and uh striped oak, big oak, big acres. And uh anyway, I was in this in top of this uh tripod, and I kept seeing and hearing these deer grunting and running and just back and forth, back and forth. And I stood up on top of my tripod in my chair, and I shoot a 35-wheeler, and that's our our primitive weapon here.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um and I hollered, woo! And he he he froze boy, he throwed his old head up, and I can see the top of his back, his neck, and his antlers. I dropped down on him, like I said, I'm standing on top of a 12-foot tripod on the seat, and I pulled a trigger. And he breaks and takes off after that dough. I didn't touch him. He runs out there and I can hear him in that backwater running. About 15, 20 minutes later, here he comes back again. She came through, he came through. Oh, little buck running, I was four or six points running with him. And I seen a gap coming, and I hollered at him again. Well, this time I was sitting down and I was able to prop up. And I could only see the top of his backbone in the grass and his neck. And I dropped down where I figured was his vitals, and I touched the trigger, and he's about 150 yards. And that bullet is such a big bullet that you could hear that thud when it hit. And I knew I knew that I hit him the way he took off. And he runs about 125 yards, kind of gets out of sight, and got over and got quiet. So I sit there about 25, 30 minutes. It's getting dust dark. You know, I'm gonna get down, I'm gonna use that way and uh see if I can see over where he was last seen at. And I get over there and I bump him, and he takes off. And I my heart sank. I back back out of there and I called a buddy that's got a dog, and I told him, I said, look, what I just told you happened. And he's like, Well, I'm tracking one right now. He said, Give me a little while, we'll go over there. So about three, three and a half hours later, we make it over there. And I got my daughter with me, she wanted to come, she's a big hunter with me also. And uh we get to slip in in there where that deer, I jumped him at, and his dog has done struck. And uh he's pulling on the Legion Bark. He's he's a good track dog. He's taking us through this weed patch, and we come up on that deer, and he's bedded down like a dog sitting there looking at us. Well, that next morning is the opening morning of rifle season. And we got we got the south end of our state comes up here. I know most of them wear white boots. I don't know if you know what wears white boots in the state of Louisiana, but them Coonies, when they come up here, they ain't sitting down once it gets daylight and they shoot anything that moves. That's why they don't have no deer down in their area because it's brown as darkness. I I told him, I said, I'm not going to uh leave this deer. I mean, I'm finna I'm gonna try to cut his throat to see it in the state of Louisiana. If it's dark on WMAs, you can't track with a gun at all. Handgun, rifle, you cannot, a weapon at all. You can't, even a bow, you can't track with it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So uh dog has got a bell on, and he's running in front of this this deer, and he's got a bright flashlight in front of his face shining at that dog, and that deer's staying with that dog. He's just bedded down watching him. So I get around behind him, and when I got behind him, I was gonna grab the side of his antlers and pull his neck down, try to cut his throat. But once I went to do that, he went to stand up while I bulldogged him just like a cast deer. You know, I just rolled his head and flipped him when I did. I stabbed him in his neck twice, and I went to the underside and he started goring me from the top of my head. And this is one on. He's done, he's getting me, you know, and I finally get my feet around in the side and up underneath his front legs and I pushed him off of me. And he broke out, took out running through the woods and bushes. I jumped on my neck. Yeah, twice. Yeah. And shot with a 35 horror and a low breast shot and one leg is tore up.
SPEAKER_02:Tough. So tough.
SPEAKER_03:So I jump up, I grabbed my headlight, and I throw my phone to my daughter. I said, Call your mama. My wife's a surgical nurse. And uh I I rely on her for a lot of yeah. I rely on her for a lot of crazy stuff I do, you know. And uh so she called her mama and I break and take off running the direction that deer went, and I run about 100, 125 yards, and I run back up on him. And I'm finding blood like a lot of it now. I mean, way more than what we come up on when I tracked him first. Yeah. And uh I got up there to him and and he was eh, eh, eh, and I just I seen that blood just profusely coming out of his neck, and I backed off of him, and uh I went back to my daughter, and I I could hear her, I could hear her when I took off running from her crying on the phone. She was scared, and I was got, you know, when she she looked my looked me in my face, she knew I mean it was blood pouring out my face, top of my head.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the picture you had, it looked nasty.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we've done things up twice trying to get back home. Jesus. So I get back to her, and we don't live two miles from this entrance of the game reserve where I've come from, and my wife, she is coming down the Four Wheeler Trail and a brand new Camaro. When I tell you a muddy Louisiana gumbo four-wheeler trail, I don't know how she got down in, I dang sure don't know how we got her out. But um we got out of there, went back, calmed her down. We went back and got the four-wheeler. By the time we got back up there to him, he done, he done diffused out. It was a good feeling, but then the reality set in on just how bad it was, you know, because it cut the fire out of the top of my head, and he got me, he got me in my sinus duck, kind of right above my teeth, is kind of what stopped the bone, and stopped that bone of that deer's antlers going into my face.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, it's lucky you didn't lose an eye, because I mean the picture looking at it, it it looks like he was damn close and taking out your eye.
SPEAKER_03:He was about an inch and a quarter from under from the eyeball.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And that ain't the first time that I've had encounters with cutting a deer's throat. I've I've done it. Man, we've done it. I mean, it's just cheaper than an extra bullet, you know. Most of the time it's those or a a younger buck, you know, something like that, and that and there it it's it's not uncommon to cut one's throat instead of shooting him again, you know, putting him on out his mirror.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I mean normally it's uh it's really fast too, just you know, cutting the throat just bleeds out in seconds. I mean, I've I butchered cows and do it that way, right? They're you know, done. But this uh this buck had some fighting. He was a good size buck, too. It's an eight-point, was he?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was eight point, weighed uh 171 pounds.
SPEAKER_02:That's uh sized deer.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's he's one of them in them duck hutting areas like that, they don't get hunted much. It's only just a couple of weeks without a year that you can go in there and hunt. They hold a lot of deer, and they're used to people in their shooting guns, you know, so they don't they're not as spooky, you know. You it I mean, you could even get downwind from some of them or them be downwind from you and watch them and they'll they'll posture up, you know, especially, you know, does um younger bucks, they'll posture up and trying to get on the random because it ain't nothing for them to smell people in there, you know. Um it's it's pretty effective getting in them tripods and getting in them weed past. You find a bunch of them trails that intersect together and um try to get just opposite of where they come and where they go with them. You see some pretty good deer down here doing that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't imagine too some of that marsh grass and everything. I mean, I know some deer here that live in like bogs and marshes. I don't know if it's there's better minerals in there or what, but I mean they grow hefty.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a fact. Uh you know, it's what's what's flooded over there is uh a lot of rice fields and and soybean fields. So that that really them soybeans, it really helps them, you know. It it's and then everything around it, this private, you know, them guys are all big duck leases in there and they don't hardly even deer hunt. And when they do, followed a five-year plan. They try to do a five-year-old buck or older. So they have really big deer in them. They don't have very much land whatsoever in them, but there's just uh there's dry, a lot of dry levees in there.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And them deer don't mind the fatwater. They they I mean they'll their feet are growing deformed because they stay in that backwater so much there. So, like a deer that's on a lot of hard ground, his his hooves are kind of manicure self. Well, in them swampy areas, you'll see them like they'll grow long like a mule does. I don't know if you pay attention to donks, but they'll and a goat also, and they'll boy, they'll grow real long and start turning up. But them deer out there do that.
SPEAKER_02:Huh. Really? That's interesting. That makes sense though, yeah. Just they're not out running around wearing them down. It'd be like a dog, just you know, running around on soft grass all the time versus one that's tearing it up in the mountains of rocks and stuff.
unknown:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Uh so what were you saying again too about the white boots?
SPEAKER_03:Well, we got well So the Coonies live down south.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We call it the white white boot army, the white boot population.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um I live in the in north central Louisiana and in our area we're rednecks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Just below us a central Louisiana at Alexander, anything below that are coonads. And um you know, if some something that's not a truly in that nationality, you know, they'll take offense to that word, you know what I'm saying? But a true cooney, he'll tell you he's born and bread, and that's what he is, you know. I mean, yeah. It's just, you know, some people you you're gonna hurt feelings all the way around, you know, some won't make a problem out of a feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But the when the southern guys come up, you know, they they ain't they ain't calling nothing. They ain't looking for no good. Well, they'll shoot you a good rack butt, don't get me wrong. But now when I tell you they come in there to shoot whatever moves, I mean I've seen them dragging something much bigger than we dogs out of there. And it's like, man, what in the hell do you shoot that deer for?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we got we got uh townies that do that here too. They come out, yeah, this area come deer season, and kind of the same thing. They're you know, they're dropping fawns and everything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, yeah, that's funny. Yeah, it happens everywhere, yeah. Um so in Louisiana, I mean, you guys are w world renowned, known for your duck hunting. But what is deer hunting bigger than duck hunting there, or vice versa, you in your opinion?
SPEAKER_03:Well, about 10 years ago, man, this this trend, this wanting to be a TikTok sensation, uh YouTuber, it's kicked off, man, and that's really what's made a lot of duck hunting or duck hunters, duck hunters. Also, this big thing going now, you see on Facebook, public land hunters. Not everybody can be successful public land hunters, especially ones that don't get out and do their work. They want somebody else to do their work. Uh our duck hunting's went way down uh because everything right above us, South Arkansas, that big fly zone coming through there. You know, it used to be, you know, it was rice fields, and you know, you had a couple of duck hunters, but now it's all leases above us, you know. Okay. And that's where all the water is. So a lot of until it gets really, really cold, we don't have duck. That's like this split that they just ran. They run a two-week split. And uh boys just ain't even kill they're killing a few wood ducks, but they the ducks ain't down yet. We got this front that's come across the United States right now, and we're gonna have some. So it's about to close this coming Saturday, it'll close for two weeks. And then uh it'll open back up for two weeks. So, but then it'll uh there'll be some ducks down. And it it is a big duck hunting area, especially uh where we live, it's all a lot of the rivers all come down and come together. Um a lot of the big WMAs all run that that waterway. And it's when it is ducks, it's phenomenal, you know. But I like I said, once everybody started doing these uh TikTok YouTube videos and started getting all these likes and shares, and everybody else tried to want to do the exact same thing. Um you go out there with these kids, and we call it daddy's money kids. And they they're they're out there at one or two o'clock sitting at the gate. You can't release until 4:30. And uh that it's just a big uh fight to get to the holes, who can get there first. Well, myself, I quit duck hunting because it's too easy for the game wardens. That either you're blowing a duck collar, you're shooting a shotgun, and they can come right to you. And as a deer hunter, my object is flat out hide from everybody, including game wardens. Because one encounter, I mean, it's not how you how you're doing in a lot of states. I hunt a lot of other states, and I come across DNR guys, wild fishery guys, state troopers in Alaska, they're grateful you're there. They want to talk to you, they they want to check you out, and and they want to hear your side of the story, what you do and how you come there, and grateful you're there and go on. Well, in the state of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas. It is, if you come across them and if They cannot give you a ticket for something. If you hold your breath, they're gonna find something. It's bad. I mean it's literally man, it's horrible. Um it's not just everybody's a bad guy until you can prove them that they they can't find nothing on you, so go on. You know, so my all in all, I just hide from everybody.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, anything you're successful in, and I tell people I use this before, it's just like you see a man that's wearing uh brand new clothes, brand new knock shoes, big gold chains, diamond earrings, diamond rings, cadillacs, ta hose. Well, automatically he's a drug dealer, no matter if he's white, black, whatever he is. Same way with a person that hunts and casicularly kills lots of ducks, big deer, many deer, moose, whatever. Oh, he's an outlaw. I have been caught for doing something wrong. I shot a deer a couple of, I don't know, probably about three and a half weeks too early in my backyard. And um, I paid deer before, almost$10,000.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Uh took the deer, took two rifles. Um it was a it was a big ordeal. I'm not saying that I'm a I wouldn't break the law, but I mean, most people do. I mean, you know, I don't I don't go out intentionally looking to break the law, but they got so many laws now you damn near can't walk across grass without breaking a law. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you know, something you don't even know about that they put in and and they changed so dang much here, you know.
SPEAKER_03:And that's their that's their strategy. You know, if if you don't stay on that book, stay read up on that book, yeah. You're breaking laws that they done changed, you know. Oh, they like to swap hunting areas, dates back and forth, back and forth. And this weekend they got a big hunt coming up. It's always been uh it's a muzzle ogre hunt on the federal, and anybody can go in there, you know, it's just a two-day hunt. It's why they swapped it to a one-day hunt that now it's a draw, and it's never been a draw. They're going to knock people's butts off over there that don't know that that hunt was a draw this year. And they're gonna rack them up. And they'll be over full fourth. But I mean, anyway, you you can label somebody an outlaw, I mean, however you want to. I mean, sometimes I even live up to it. I I ain't above it, you know. But it just it is what it is. It's just hunting to me. Um, but I I I quit that duck hunting. Like when I figured out, you know, and when I did, my strategy was all them other guys going there four o'clock in the morning. Well, 8 30, 9 o'clock, they're all gone. They starving to death. They hungry, cold, and I would show up at 8:30, 9 o'clock and find out where they're coming out of, be walk up on top of the levee and watch where the ducks are circling and going in and land, and go slip in there and infiltrate them thickets, and you know, it's planted trees, it's flooded, and you get in there about knee deep to waist deep, you can get up amongst some ducks and kill all of them you want. And uh I figured out real quick, the game boarders love them guys, so I quit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Just uh sit and duck literally for them, right?
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly right. And uh so the duck commander organization, they're right straight across the river from where I'm at. So I'm cool. I literally sit and listen to them every morning. If if if I'm outside or even in inside my house early in the morning and I don't go hunting, I saw you hear is the rumble from them shooting. Um good group of guys, yeah, true at heart. Um some of the younger ones know them, been knowing them, you know, all kind of went to school together, and not necessarily went to the same school together, but you know, neighboring schools.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um they they truly are a good group of guys all the way around. Um some you need something from them, they have been over backwards to help you.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's good to hear because sometimes you know you see this persona of people and you you always wonder, are they really like that in you know in real life? So I mean that's that's good to hear.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you got a you you got a lot of um to make video and and you're gonna know this exactly, it takes a lot of clips to make a story to play out on video.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I do alligator news something. Well did up until two years ago. I give it up. Um I've done the alligator new something. And I know what it takes to try to get in there and get them killed and try to get some video of it. And you get to clipping and clipping and clipping and clipping, and you know a lot of people say, oh, it's fake. Uh he was trying to shoot that alligator, the water was muddy, and now it's clear. Well, it's because they had to clip and clip and clip, and they take all these different videos that they've been doing, and then they sit down and they edit it and they clip everything together and try to put narration with it. And so a lot, all they change guns. Well, it just, I mean, it's all in making video. But it, I mean, it's just it they're true at heart. I mean, I I could I can bounce through that side of it, but I've been trying to do a little YouTube videos of I pull these cypress logs out of the bayoues and build entertainment centers and gun cabinets and dressers and whatever, whatever somebody orders. I try not to pre-build anything. I got into these fireplace and fireplace mantles. They they do good at this time of the year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um I do that to go hunt Alaska each year. I've been going up the last five years. Before that was going um Utah elk hunting, uh mule deer hunting, various states going white-tail hunting on public land. Um everywhere I go, I it's all public land, even up, you know, going up moose hunting. Um I make decent money. Um, but me and the wife together, my wife, she she's a nurse, she makes good money. But we we owe to anything that we want to do as far as extra, we don't take no money out of the house. So on our 40s, and mine's 40 to 80 sometimes during the uh fertilizer season when I'm putting out fertilizer, um we don't we don't take no no money whatsoever out of our work week money. So every time we go beach vacations in Florida or we go to I go to Utah or I go to Alaska, whatever, I solely make it off extra money. Um I got to making these box bands. Um I sell a lot of box blinds. I probably do 25, 30 each year.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_03:So what I started doing is uh some of the guys that I use their sawmills that cut my my logs, I pull out of the bayous. Um some of them logs have been down the late 1800s. They was they went in and cut them and some of them sink. Well, I go in there and find them, get them out, mill them. Well, the guys that that uh that I use their sawmill, I also do like uh front porch posts and shutters, um, custom cabinets. When I when I sell a job to do, I sell their wood for them on my job. So in return of that, they let me come cut my logs for free on their sawmill. Um so it's kind of a win-win situation for me. Um then I get their scraps uh off the cypress, it's got the wood on the outside. Uh it's like bark, and I build box lines out of them. And a cypress is resistant to a to uh rot.
SPEAKER_02:It it kind of cures and uh so whether it's it's got its own weather resistance, it's got its own lensing or but so I build these box lines and and uh you know that's just kind of what uh funds are going out of state and stuff on the Yeah, well yeah, it's a smart way to do it, you know, just be able to do your extra the extra fun stuff. But those logs, so those logs in the water and stuff, the cypress, they they you said they don't really rot, they they're just preserved?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so they actually um they they'll preserve and they'll also pull the minerals out of the water. Like in our area, we got like dark gumbo mud, and uh some of the black swamps, them logs are actually pull that color, and they'll have like big black veins, streaks. Um people I build stuff and people come to me like, man, that's the beautiful stain on that wood. What color did you stain that? And I tell them, I actually didn't. God stained it. That log went down under the water and sunk, you know, in that area in 1930, they banned cutting. So everything that I pulled is from 1930 backwards. And late 1800s, they started building town of Munroad, Monroe, West Monroe area. And they well, when they started building it, they was cutting the cypress trees down, and that that's the lumber they use because it wouldn't rot. And uh a lot of these logs, so the trees actually hold a lot of water, and they would go right around the edge of the water, you know, a couple feet up, and they would chop into them, and it would start dehydrating that tree. It'll it'll lose its water. And when they when they'll come in there in the summertime, they'll cut them down and they'll cut them in the sections they want when the water comes up in the wintertime, they'll get ready to float them out. Well, they'll suck up that water and sink. And uh that's a big thing. I don't know if you've ever seen the axe man use when they were gas ship.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. He was uh he was doing that. Uh that's kind of the same thing. I just don't cuss quite as much as him. I I I kind of had a boy right there, he knows he can cuss. But uh kind of the same thing. I I had seen it, you know, him doing it on there for years and other guys doing it, and uh I had been running this uh alligator nooses hunting and seeing these logs everywhere, the bayous and swamps. I bought me a house and I started remodeling it, started putting that wood inside my house instead of buying wood so it would be a little cheaper in my pocket.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I I found a market for it, and uh that's kind of where that started from and took off pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's uh that's really cool. I know I remember watching that Joe Axman, the guy with his boat there, he he didn't have any mercy on that. But I mean, imagine those logs, you staying the way they soak up water, they would be heavy, wouldn't they?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so in the water, the hit the weight's not a factor.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um and so it I built me a barge, you know, and you see some of my other guys do it, and they'll boy, they'll suck that whole log up out of there, and they gotta have this big old barge and crane and everything else to get these logs up out of the water. Yeah. Well, what that done is it raised, like, hey, what are you doing? And you somebody's seen me doing that, what are you doing? They want to know why you're doing it. Well, then if you tell them why you're doing it for money value, you know, you're trying to make a living out of it, well, they didn't want their money too. So they want to try to do it. So I come up with, I know I have to get that log up out of that water until it's time to get that log out of the water, so to say. So I I built me a pulley system on some 55-gallon drones filled with styrofoam.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And I just I just need to get it up off the bottom a little bit to where I can take it downriver to the next boat launch. And um, I'll take them drums and I'll dive down there and latch them tones onto it, and I'll use that pulley system and get it up off the bottom just a little bit. And they'll see me, they'll see me pulling them drums down the water, but hell, they don't know what's going on, and kind of go in one ear and out the other. They ain't thinking nothing else about it. But whenever they can see me pulling that bar through there and see that whole big log, I had copycats trying to do the same thing. But so anyway, I I built me a pulley system with them uh them drums, and I just get them down to the next boat launch, and I'll I got a flatbed trailer, I'll back it down in the water just like a boat trailer. Yeah, I got a witch on front of that trailer and I'll suck that log up on it, pull it up, all I can pull up and cut it. I'll pull it to the side and I'll do it again. And uh so then once you pull out, the weight is a factor. Um so far that log down inside that water, it could be thousands of pounds. I couldn't even tell you close to what some of them weigh. But I can literally get down in that water once I done got it up there by the bank, and I can get down there and pick that log up. Oh wow. I can literally get in the middle of that log. I'm talking about a 20-foot log that's 24 to 36 inches in diameter, and I can get with that log in the middle of that log and get my arms up on the kit and pick it up. I ain't coming out of that water with it, but I can pick that log up in that water.
SPEAKER_00:That's very cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it is it's the buoyancy's a lot lighter down inside that water. Um But it's it's just a it's just a way of life. I mean, that's just what some of us do to make a living to be able to do extras, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that makes sense completely. Um what a smart what a perfect wood to use, though, too. And smart for like you said, box blinds, because how it's our you know, it's what's basically weather resistant. So you can have that out there and not have to worry about it rotting and falling in in, you know, 10, 15 years.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well then what I build the deer stands out of, um, so they them guys with the with the big mills, they uh they'll buy from loggers standing green cypress tree that's still got the bark on it. Now, what I pull out of value, it's lost its bark hundreds of years ago. Um, you know, several years back. Let's just say it that way. And uh so whenever I get it on a mill, you know, and I don't know if you know anything about milling, but most guys little they'll drop six, eight inches down into that log and they'll start cutting it. And that'll be scrap. Well, them guys is cutting that bark cypress, the green cypress trees, that's what I build the deer stands out of.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:The sinker logs that I pull, there's no scrap whatsoever. I level it up where I want to start cutting it, I start cutting slice, one inch slice, one inch slice, and then I get down into the meat and I start two inch because that's where your money's at. Two inches thick, 10, 12 foot long, 14, 16 foot long, but then about 18, 24, 36 inches wide, you know, bar tops, tabletops, coffee tabletops, um, that's vanity tops, that's kind of where your money's at. Um, that live edge. But um so I have no scrap. A lot of guys, you know, I I got some some guys that does uh school hobby shop crafts up there at the school, and they'll come out and get my so-to-say scrap bin. I kind of don't throw none of it away because I never know what uh what I'm gonna build. So and there is just small pieces, you know. I I'll I'll keep stacking them to the side and uh I'll let them come and get uh clean a lot of it up and they'll take it back and they'll let the kids build different stuff out of it. So that's kind of unique the way you get back.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh yeah, exactly. Um that's that's really neat. Yeah, we don't flick that around here. Uh we've got feeder and stuff, that'll last a while, but um, it takes a lot longer to rot, but uh the other stuff that we thought would be rotten. But uh you punked it all around and stuff, you've hunted in quite a few places. What would be your favorite animal that you have for food?
SPEAKER_03:It'd be it's also up between alligators and moose.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Wow, those are quite different, the two of them, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, from the top of the earth to the bottom of the earth. Yeah. Um so alligators is one one of the more um, like I said, I've done noose alligator hun. So uh you never knew what the scenario was gonna be. Somebody called in, hey, you may have one in somebody's pond, you may have someone in somebody's swimming pool, you may have one up underneath somebody's car in their carport. Um state police call you that somebody's gonna run over one of the interstate, 11 o'clock at night, and you gotta go get him out of the road. Um but you you gotta be creative to catch them big it big alligators. You know, when they move in, it was just high water, they'll move. They'll get out of areas because they got they gotta get somewhere they can get out of the water, you know. Yeah. Um but also during the rut season, they rut just like deer do. And they'll travel for miles uh on a water stream because that water is breaking her fragrance, if that makes sense. Okay.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Um and he's very territorial. He he he got no problem coming over trying to um eat you, you know. It's um but that's one of my I guess I guess knowing that he can eat you, yeah, it's kind of um one of the adds to the thrill. Yeah, that'd be correct on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um I've had them moose in a rut, man, come, I mean, literally try to mount you. I mean, they they come in to tear something up one way. They coming to breed it or they coming to fight one of the two.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And uh I tell you, that that moose in a rut, it's a it's a different ball game.
SPEAKER_02:So where where have you hunted moose? What species?
SPEAKER_03:Uh Alaska.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Uh so the the true giants.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the Yukon. I've been hunting. I've been hunting the Yukon the last five years.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Uh the first year of when I got a uh 64-inch moose. Uh huge. 60, I think 65. I got a 67 was my biggest. Uh this year I went back and uh I I guess a drop time whitetail is my biggest on my bucket list. Yeah. Dad or dope thing beam either one. So this moose comes out and uh it's it's five uh in there, and they're all nice moose. And it's a cow and they're hot and they're in there fighting, tearing up. I'm telling you, just running straight over trees. I'm telling my trees as big as your leg. They just run right through them, fighting each other and pushing each other. And I got in there and I noticed this one had a drop time, and I said, man, he wasn't quite as big as well, he was a 58-inch, uh, which is still a good moose, don't get me wrong. But when you kill 64, 65, 67, you kind of want to stay in that, you know. There's been some 72s and a little bigger killed in the area, so that's what I had on my mind. So I see this moose as a drop time. Well, right off the bat, I'm in love with him. He's got big fronts, drop. Then he turns and he has a matching on the other side.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, right off the bat, I'm He was coming to Louisiana with me. Um I went to cutting down on him and uh it I mean it it was it was really a trip. Uh I've been blessed on that. Um you know, just a poor redneck like me, man. I never I never dreamed of going to Alaska. Yeah, wow. Um let me so let me say I I thought it was away from my you know my reach being able to do I mean it was always a dream. Um but I just um I found a way, just like going elk hunting. I I never thought I'd be able to go kill an elk, you know? Yeah. Me and the wife got talking, me and her started doing anniversary hunts. And um every year on my anniversary, we'd go Kansas or Alabama or Mississippi, we'd just go on hunts. Well, I'd done killed a couple really big deer, and 175 was my biggest one. I got several 55s, 163. Um and I I told myself I wanted to help. Well, me, I do a lot of research, public research, that you can get on the DNR department and you can go into an area just so this, okay, we said we want to go to Utah. She had a friend that uh she went to college with and lived there. Wanted to go see her. So I started researching Utah on what counties harvested the biggest boon and crock at Popin Young on the list. And and and that's public records. You can look that up. So I found this area and it was a draw, and you can go in there and you can see how many of these big bulls are being harvested. So I applied for a TAD. Um then we wanted to figure out where we were gonna go in the state, and I love the old um classic rock group called CCR, Cleanest Clear Water Revival, where they had this song, the Green River. Well, lo and behold, they got flaming gorge with the Green River where all this had took place. Well, I want to go there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And that's kind of I took off. I we went blind. I went over there 11 days to hunt, ended up fourth day, shot one heck of a bull. Um same way I wanted to go to uh Ohio. Everybody dreams, you know, Ohio, Kansas, Illinois got all these great big old deer that are killing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's public records. You can get on there and figure out where these booney crockets deer being horsed at, you know, what counties. It'll show you color code, darker green for the most, and then it gets lighter up to a blue. So I I was looking and well, my middle name is Wayne, and they had Wayne National Forest in Ohio. Well, holy crap, let's go there.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So she rented us a cabin. I would get up in the morning time and go hunt, and she worked surgery, so she was always up, you know, waiting for the chickens. So that was a place for her to go and take it easy. So in the morning time, I'd get up and go hunt, she'd sleep in. I'd come in, you know, 11:30, 12 o'clock. We'd go to town, go do some window shopping, go see, you know, go see Utah or go see Ohio. And then evening time, she'd take me and drop me off, and she'd she'd go shop, come back, pick me up. So that's kind of the way we started doing that. And she had a main Alaska hunt with me. Um up there in the back country in the bush. Uh they say if you're gonna have a problem out of any of the locals, it's gonna be behind a woman. Um the number one crime up there is uh rape. Really? Oh yeah, domestic violence. I actually hit a guy Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00:I believe you.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I hit with I hit with a guy up there two years ago, and he was there doing a uh a story about the the the murders and the missing people, females mostly, is what what's happening in this in this remote area that I actually hunt in. And uh it's not that they come up missing, they but they did. It's it's there's no there's no law. There's only one state trooper per so many hundreds of square miles.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And when you walk through this village, you especially Fridays, Fridays and Saturdays, it seems like it's worse. First of the month kind of Fridays, they're out there fist fighting, drunk, can't stand up, just trying to beat each other to death. Now, the men are fighting the women and the women's fighting the men just as much. You know, it ain't just they're just beating them up. But why I come from, you know, a man don't put his hands on a woman or a man says something to what double air, you don't open your mind.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because that's their way of life, and automatically you're a white boy and they don't like you.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, maybe better off taking her to uh Ohio and Kansas and United States.
SPEAKER_03:That is correct. She's uh she don't like it, you know, because you know that was our mind, her thing, you know. And and so most hunting is in September, and that's that's for my birthday.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um so this year we went to uh Brooklyn, Oklahoma for our anniversary, but uh we're about to go to Mississippi in between the levees. Um so you got anything along in between on either side of the Mississippi River, um, you got a levee system.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um and anything inside that levee system to that river, a lot of times it's thousands of acres, and it's some of the most prime duck hunting, deer hunting, biggest bucks you could ever dream of back there.
SPEAKER_00:It's that big.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's some it's some nice beer.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_03:And uh I took a veteran on a alligator hunt. I let him come down and alligator hunt with me, and he owns some land inside the levee over there uh in Mississippi. So I'm gonna take her over there, let her harvest my buck over there. So let's kind of come back around for letting me go to Alaska, I'm gonna let her go over and shoot my my white tail.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Well, that's that's fair. Um yeah, no, that's uh it's been interesting, Roy, talking to you. You've got a lot of great stories, and you can tell a story really well too. And uh it's uh it's been interesting. Um again, I I really appreciate you coming on. And uh if if you're up for it, I'd I'd love to have you back on again uh sometime this winter that soon to uh to tell maybe some more some alligator stories.
SPEAKER_03:I will anytime and just kind of uh just like this, or just give me a day or so notice ahead of time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And usually usually h um I'm home just about every night. You know, it's supposed to so uh a big area of our public land opens up this Saturday, so I'll be uh living in the woods for about two and a half weeks. Um I'll come out then, but yeah, just touch basic with me. We'll we'll get together. I love talking. Um I love meeting new people. That's kind of I've been to a lot of different states. Uh you never know what somebody else has to offer that they would love to do what you do every day that you think really ain't nothing to it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's a hundred things.
SPEAKER_03:They do, they got a way of life that they live that is cool to me, you know, and I would love to do it, you know.
SPEAKER_02:So Yeah, no, that's uh that's no a hundred percent correct. Yeah, no, you're uh yeah, you're really great to talk to, really, really interesting. So um yeah, I'll yeah, I'll absolutely give you a heads up and stuff. And uh yeah, later this winter, uh definitely have you on again and and uh I'd love to hear some more stories from you.
SPEAKER_03:All right, man. Well, I'll keep up with you and I'll keep following you. Be careful out there. If you need anything, you ever get down to Louisiana, you come down here and usually right after Christmas, we'll start getting crawfish, usually martyrgrass of February, first weekend of February. That's like prime time. If you're gonna come to Louisiana other than hunting, if you're coming for hunting, you know you won't come a little before that. But if you're gonna come down in the Louisiana area, you come down in February, and the crawfish is gonna be on the tables everywhere you look. It's gonna be some good food to eat, and you you'll meet a lot of good people. Uh they tell you the southern hospitality, it's still it's still here. Yeah. It's a lot to hear. The younger generation, they don't they don't stand at hand anymore. And uh I've brought up old school and be nice to everybody unless they they try to double cross you, and then you know, you try to get across that bridge before they get there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, but uh that's good to hear because Louisiana's always been on my bucket list just to get that, like you said, the whole southern experience, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, anytime you want to come down, come down, man. I'll uh I got I'm standing in the extra bedroom right now, big nice twin-size bed. I I let a lot of guys come down and experience it. You know, a lot of times I do a lot of frog hunting. We got big bullfrog. Yep. And uh everybody tastes it says it tastes like chicken, and it does, in a in a sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And uh it ain't nothing like going out chasing bullfrogs or or wild hog hunting. We do a lot of when the crops start getting put in in February, we do a lot of wild hog um running dogs. And I let guys that's never been able to do it before. I'll you know, some of them fly in. If I can't be there to pick them up, I'll drop one of my extra vehicles off. And uh you can go gather van around until I get off work. But anytime you're welcome, come down this way.
SPEAKER_02:Well, thanks. I uh I think I'd I'll take you up on that sometime, actually. Thanks, Roy.
SPEAKER_03:Anytime.
SPEAKER_02:All right, we'll take you.
SPEAKER_03:I'll I'll be back every next time.
SPEAKER_02:All right, thanks. Take care. Good luck hunting. Hey, so if you're still listening and you made it this far, uh rating or review on Apple and Spotify would be much uh appreciated.