The Outdoor Industry: Chatting With Clay Bond From Bonded Outdoors

What if your mount could tell the whole story every time someone walked past it? We sit down with Clay Bond from Bonded Outdoors to talk about turning memories into heirlooms with personalized leather tags and shoulder-mount patches that hold dates, places, spent brass, and even the state-issued tag. It’s a simple idea with real weight: a clean, handsome way to “hang on to the hunt” and keep the people, the work, and the moment alive.

Clay opens up about launching Bonded Outdoors in late 2023 while juggling full-time jobs and opposite schedules. We get candid about the realities of the outdoor industry—hidden fees, website builds, insurance, shipping, and the discipline it takes to limit product options so quality stays high. There’s no gloss here, just field-tested advice: grow slow, master a few pieces first, and let your systems and customer feedback guide what comes next.

We also compare marketing paths that work and those that don’t. Print ads in regulations books and magazines felt promising but delivered little, even with promo codes. Short-form social video did the opposite, driving authentic reach and orders by showing process, first-harvest celebrations, and real mounts. We dig into why consistent branding beats chasing trends, how apparel should support recognition rather than distract, and why “serve first, then hunt” is the culture filter for partnerships and pro staff.

At the center of it all is Duke, the blacktail whose antlers became the “U” in the Bonded Outdoors logo. Clay’s story of a rainy day, a daughter scrambling through laurels, and a family-first harvest brings the brand to life—and proves that meaning beats measurement. If you’re building an outdoor brand, or simply want a better way to honor your own hunts, this conversation is a guidepost.

Subscribe for more honest conversations about hunting, gear, and building a life around the outdoors—and share this episode with a friend who’s sitting on a great idea.

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Bonded Outdoors
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Meet Clay Bond And Bonded Outdoors

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome back to the Black Tell Coach podcast. I'm Aaron. And I'm Dave. So today we're here with Clay Bond from Bonded Outdoors, a partner of the show who is going to be supplying us with some of our needed supplies for the hunter's gathering. So very excited to be working with you. Really like your products that we've gotten to test out so far. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day, yes.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

You didn't bring roses, but I'm still flattered.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

We're still friends. As long as you bring them to your wife, because she might not let you play with us anymore.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

You know, I was fortunate enough to have a wife that doesn't really care to celebrate Valentine's Day. Now, does she say that?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Is that code?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

And I for those of you who can't see or who are listening, he looked over his shoulder at his wife, who is standing about five yards away, making sure she didn't hear what he just stated.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

That's right. Check in with her first. Well, anyway, we wanted to have you on the show because we want to talk to people who are fairly new to or getting started in the outdoor industry. So we and we have a lot of listeners, I think, who and we've been there. I mean, we started Blacktail Coach five years ago. And so getting started in what with any business can be daunting. And yeah, we just we want to talk about that. We want to talk about others and kind of their journey and everything. And plus, well, we really like your stuff. And and you're really you and your wife are great people. So thank you. There you go. That's why you qualify to to be on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

High standards.

What The Leather Tags Do

SPEAKER_01 1:50

You got to be a good person. You got to be related to the Pacific Northwest in some way. And you've been hunting for your whole life. Yes. Right? Yes. There you go. You're in. Let's talk about bonded outdoors. What tell everybody what exactly you do? What's your what's your niche?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah. So Michelle and I run bonded outdoors and we make personalized leather products that you can go onto our website and you can put your hunt details on a leather tag and display it from your taxidermy. We make a couple of different options. One's just a standard tag, something like you would see on your luggage at the airport. You know, the only difference is they're made out of leather and they have kind of a rustic western appeal to them. We make a couple different versions, as I said. One's a pocket tag that that'll house your spent brass. If you're a rifle guy, it'll also house your state issue tag. Again, you can customize that with your hunt details. And then we make one that goes on the back of shoulder mount taxidermy and it just mounts to the back of your shoulder mount. Most all shoulder mounts have a piece of plywood that goes there. It's a larger patch. You can put a lot more information on it. And again, it creates a pocket on the backside where you can store your state-issued game tag, even maybe a note to family, you know, long after we're gone. And that's what it's about is hanging on to the hunt. And that's our tagline is hang on to the hunt. Oh, okay. Because hunting to us and to many others like us is very sentimental, and we want to pass that on. So I like the cartridge.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yes. And hearing about all of the different ideas that you do. I am I'm actually interested in that for when I get my first big buck. Because I pistol hunt. And so really be able to hold on to that. Little 10 mil action? No, 44 magnets. Oh really? Yeah. Nice. I go dirty hairy on him.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

I'm looking. Hold on here, Clay. I just reached over and grabbed this. What did you call this again?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

It's a shoulder. We call it a shoulder tag.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Okay, so the I'm I'm holding on to the shoulder tag right now. This is really cool. Because he's got on here just like the date, where it happened, who who took the shot. And I mean he's got on here. So it's funny, it says propose to Michelle. So I propose to my wife out in the woods. We were out there stump shooting archery. And this is really I love how you can capture the memory. And like you said, hold on to the hunt. You hold on to that. And I know with my kids, and Aaron, you can attest to this, their first deer was a rifle deer, both of them. And I saved the casing. I got the picture and I got the tag. And I mounted on a plaque with a cover. But you know, this is a great idea. I love what you're doing here. This is awesome. Hunting's more than just filling a tag, hunting is creating memories, and that's a great way of keeping them.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Because even with the tag, there's a lot of different ways you could do that. Like if it was your Euro mount and putting it underneath, if you put that on a wall.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Right. And it like what he's got here with this shoulder mount thing. That would be great for a Euro mount. You could move that down. And I love the bonded outdoors up the how you got it burned into the wood here. That looks really cool. That would look really awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, that's our next step, actually, is going to plaques and being able to put this on a plaque with just a like a skull hooker type style mount, you know, and being able to put that on there and still have that pocketed tag where you can put your state issue tag or a note.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah, I mean it's extremely decorative. You know, I I can't think of many women that wouldn't like the looks of that. It is very what did you say?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Western western appeal.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, like the old, the like almost a farmhouse or a hunting lodge cabin kind of feel to it.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Absolutely. Yep. And we source raw leather. We are literally buying half cowhides. I mean, we get every bit of that cow hide, we get the brands, we get the scars, we get the mac folds, we get everything. Okay. And we are cutting it down to smaller pieces, and then we run it through our process, we cut it to size, we engrave it with your customization on there.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

And that's cool because the customization of different projects. And that's because we had talked to you about doing the patches, because Joe Riley, when he was on, he was talking about they had had you do a custom of his gear. But you said that that was another company who had done it. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

But you can do that. We could, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We and that's kind of one of our next steps is we're trying to slow roll how many products we offer. Yes. Because personalization can become very overwhelming. And it's a lot to keep track of and make sure that you're you're producing what the customer wants. But yeah, that is our next step. Right now, we are lacking space, so we are hoping to grow this into something bigger and that we can bring on some more equipment in to do those personalizations.

Sourcing Hides And Customization

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So, as you're talking, I'm sure we're going to be jumping around a lot here, but you actually brought up a very good point about the slow roll. And I know that's something that we've learned with the blacktail coach. Yes. I think Dave and Asha, and I'm sure they will both admit to this that I am the slow down the brakes. The brakes. And they get very both of them with with certain things will get very excited about oh, well, let's go do this. Oh, let's go do this, let's go do this. But yeah, that's a really key point of do what you're doing well first, and then add the next thing. Correct. You know, we've done that. Like we're in year five, and we had in year one the idea to do the hunter's gathering. We're in year five, and we're just now going to do the hunter's gathering. And we did the black tail boot camp, and that was there's an idea in a friend of mine who had an MBA that it's fail fast, fail cheap. Sure. And it's you want to figure out what works and and figure that out quickly and cheaply so you're not losing big chunks of money in in when you're rolling out a business. Right. And the idea of so we had also done, and I did a presentation, oddly enough, in in the early childhood field at a conference one time. The company is IDO, I DEO, and or IDEO. I'm not sure how that's pronounced, but they talked about how you you start small with what what with a trial run, i.e. blacktail boot camp, before you go on, work out all the kinks, and then you do the big thing that you actually want to do and start rolling it out. Yeah, it sounds you're you're following that that pattern, doing it right, you know, and not because when you're starting something out, it's it's your nine to five that's paying for it generally.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

That is, and so you and your wife still have the nine to fives, full-time jobs and and opposite schedules too. So the only day we have together is Sunday. So I work uh Monday through Thursday, 410, and she works Wednesday through Saturday. So wow, when I'm getting off work, she's going to work. So we, you know, she's she's doing a lot of production before she leaves the work. I'm doing some production when I get off of work, you know, and then Saturday. Or sorry, Sundays are the only days that we really get together and compile, you know, ideas and and feedback and and kind of coach each other and walk each other through some stuff and get a lot of production done. And then get the downtime. Yeah, yeah, that you need what downtime, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

That was gonna be one of my questions. Is is this everything you thought it would be as far as the outdoor industry?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I honestly thought it would be a lot easier getting into it, but it's not. It is work, it is hard, and it's been taxing, but we still enjoy it. And I kind of compare that to a hunt, you know. I mean, hunts are taxing. You're out there, you're exhausting yourselves, and there's a reward at the end.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah, and that's the way we look at bonnet outdoors, you know. It's it's just we're gonna get through this, and and and the hunting community is is a huge network, and we can go up to each other, we can talk about hunting all day long. And if you like our product, you know, you're you're like-minded with us, and and I feel like it's an easy sale at that point, you know. Yeah, but yeah, it's it's taxing, it's a lot of money. We are still paying out of pocket for this booth. This is our second year doing it, and the business isn't we're not getting rich by any means, but we're having a lot of fun doing this, and we see the growth and we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're just gonna keep pushing through.

Growing Slow And Avoiding Overreach

SPEAKER_03 10:30

So, yeah, I that's pretty much our story right there. Um it it has and I I appreciate your transparency. It is hard. You you have to I I think it's a misconception that that a lot of guys have. Well, you know, they watch TV or whatnot, and they say, Well, I'm a good hunter, they've got a show and they don't feel tags. Well, how come I don't have a show? You know, and I you know, or if I just had a chance to get on there, I I know and the reality is is that it it is a hard industry to get into, to break into. And then I think Aaron tapped on it too, that a lot of guys get too big too fast. And what it is, I I call it getting lost in the vision, because when you get lost in the vision, you lose sight of quality, you know, and somebody's got to be quality control, right? They're just and and it's not the flattering position, but somebody has to bring you back down to reality so that you recognize that okay, the only way this is going to go is if we produce quality. And sometimes producing quality means you have to slow way down and like Aaron said, get good at what you're doing first before you add on to that. You know, and and it's hard because you get in this and you're like, you're enamored with everything. Oh, so-and-so knows me, or I have an opportunity to go and speak here, or they want me to do this. And you start, well, when am I gonna get sponsors? And you and you want to grow so fast, but it takes time, it it really does. And I mean, we're five years into it, we're still paying out of pocket, right? You know, but like you, we're having fun. You know what I mean? Absolutely, and when it stops being fun, we'll hang it up.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Absolutely, and and this idea again, you know, we get to be a part of many people's hunts and many people's journeys, you know. And even even though it's on that on the end of the hunt, and and you know, that most of the time these people are ordering their tags when they're when they receive their artwork back from the taxidermist, or you know, however, however, you however you hang your harvest up on the wall, you know, and you're you're having one of our tags made, we're a part of that hunt. And that to me is awesome. And and just we put bonnet outdoors on every one of our tags, and that is just awesome to me. Like I'm hanging in many, many people's houses, yes, celebrating with the nation, and just as excited, yeah, you know, as they are.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Actually, okay, now I have I was just thinking, so I got my first buck, what two years not this last season, season before spike, but so I got the five-inch spikes and stuff, and I've thought I've been thinking about what do I do with those and stuff. And yes, now now I have an idea of what to do with those. And on a board with with one of these tags.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

I'm telling you, this board is is yeah, sharp looking.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

It's like okay, I've got it. Because I was thinking about how do I because I was going to incorporate those when I get the buck that I actually want to do a full mount on. That first one. I was gonna incorporate those into that somehow. But no, I think this is yeah, this I of course I don't have my actual tag anymore. I probably I know I have the spent casing, yeah, because I keep my brass. Right. Yeah, I'll have to figure all that out. This is good. And I'm sure there's other guys, if if the wheels are turning, yeah, spawned it outdoors.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

We'll help you with those wheels. Yeah, and we try our darndest to highlight any first harvest, you know. So if we get a lot of tags that say first year, you know, with papa or dad or first year in general or first elf or whatever, we always try to make a little clip, post it on our social media, and just congratulate. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

That's awesome. Yep, good for you. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

So we went up, I think it was on Wednesday when we officially met, you know, there was some we had interactions through online, Facebook, and everything. And the first thing you're we mentioned that we wanted to do a project for for the hunters gathering. And yeah, yeah, we'll get that taken care of. And then you offered us the hats for our team. And it was Dave and I are both, and Asha are pro staff with Buck Ventures and Jeff Danker, great, great guy, great Christian guy, strong believer, amazing guy. And I went last year, it was my first year going. The really the only thing I remember, because it was just a non-stop weekend with them, serve first and then we hunt. And that was you. That is you, and those are the people we want to partner with, which is why you're here and why we want to talk to you, because these are the hunt companies that we want to promote, the ones that we're we're going to serve first and then we're gonna hunt. You know, we want to serve people, and yeah. Yeah. So thank you for being that type of person in this industry.

Balancing Day Jobs And Production

SPEAKER_03 15:21

Yeah, and and and that's unfortunately that's not prevalent throughout the the industry, you know. This is a sport that has a lot of egos. We've mentioned that many times on the podcast. And it's refreshing to find somebody that's saying, Hey, and I mean, because we say it all the time, we want to celebrate with you. And the way you're doing this is doing just that. We want to celebrate with you. We don't care what your trophy is, because we're not going to tell you what a trophy is. That's up to you, right? Right? They're all trophies. It's exactly right. Otherwise, you wouldn't have pulled the trigger on it, right? You know, and then you have those hunts that just have extra special meaning, like you were saying, grandson, granddaughter, you know, with papa or whatever. And it's like, no, no, no. That is what we want to be a part of. We want to, you know, we want to partner with anybody who has that heart to serve people, to meet them where they're at, where they're wherever it is in their hunting career, wherever it may be, and say, hey, that's awesome. We want to be a part of that. We want to celebrate, we want to put you up there. We don't want to blow out anybody's candle to make ours shine brighter, kind of thing. You know what I mean? Absolutely. So it was really refreshing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

So how many years have you been going now? I know you said you bought it outdoors. We started late 2023. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. And we hadn't had our website put together then or anything. And so it was, you know, I really thought by filling out all the state paperwork for your business, you know, the party, graffiti would come out of the sky, and yeah, we would just start making money, you know, and it was a reality check really, really quick. And then it was like, oh, I gotta pay for a website. And and luckily, my buddy Nick, who kind of pushed this whole thing, is a web engineer, and you know, he was able to help us. And nice. We went through that and we decided to just land on Shopify and we use one of their website templates, and it works great. I mean, the customization options are there. We had to do some coding to get it to work the way we wanted it to, but we didn't realize all the fees that come with on the business. Yeah. And and if you want you want to make videos of this nature and you want to do this, you want to do these graphics, you want to you got to have all these programs, you got to have this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And PayPal once they're cut, visa once they're cut, yeah. And yeah, uh, you know, there's insurances that you oh, I need to have insurance for you know something right related to this, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And then and then you got to promote yourself, you know. So I think Aaron, you and I had a conversation about clothing yesterday, and it's like you ask yourself, is it worth it? But you know how cool it is when you're walking around town and you see people wearing your gear. It is so cool, and it is worth it. You know, I will give my whole paycheck for that feeling, you know. It's really, really cool.

The Realities Of Entering The Industry

SPEAKER_01 18:03

So you mentioned the shirts, and this was one of Dave's ideas that he really wanted us to have have some gear, beanies and hoodies and t-shirts and stuff. And I had to slow down Asha because she kept making new logos. Oh, let's do this one. And it was like, okay, no, we gotta stop. We gotta have, let's just make sure that we're getting this out there before we start making so that people see something and they recognize, oh, that's bonded. Even if they look see you from a hundred feet away, they know that that's bonded outdoors because they can just recognize the shape of it. So that's I'm like, we gotta, we gotta wait on that. But a lot of it is we've realized with the clothing, we are so focused when we come to the shows and and whatnot that or when we're doing an event, we bring the clothing along with us, but we don't really have time to even talk about it. And we we do have guys who'll buy a beanie and a t-shirt and all that. We have sold sold some of our products, but it was one of those where if we could go back, we we probably would have done, I don't know, Dave, if you think this maybe differently. We still probably would have had t-shirts and things like that, but probably rethinking it.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Yeah, but I mean, in all honesty, that's not the main focus of what yeah, blacktail coach is all about, you know. Whereas bonnet outdoors, I mean, that is your niche, you know. We're that's not our niche, so it's not something that we remember to promote, right? You know what I mean? Right, it's kind of an afterthought. We're trying, okay, we got this course, this course, and it's just an afterthought. But oh, they walked away. Did you tell them about the beanies or anything? Right. So, you know, and it's like I was up there and Aaron kind of laughs, but I was doing seminars and and we had gotten all this apparel and everything, and we weren't selling it because we kept trying to push forward the classes and stuff, and so it's like I'm up in seminars going, look, if you value my marriage, you will come buy a t-shirt, you know, and it's hey, I pushed for this, you guys don't understand, I'm in the hot seat, you know. But it's it's it's been good though.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

But have you had any of those type of situations where oh, that was the wrong way to where maybe and it's one of those where it's it's always a learning experience, and maybe that's something that you you cut away. And now have you gotten into it enough that you've you've gotten into any of those situations, or are you smarter than us?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I think I just got a lot of good mentors behind us. Okay, like my buddy Nick, who's just he's got a couple different avenues of businesses, and and you know, he's he was the one that said, look, don't dive in with too much at once, you know, and make sure that everything you do is clean and neat and to the point. And another guy that I know, Tristan out of Idaho, he's a marketing guru, and he pretty much gave me the same guidance. And again, he owns multiple successful businesses. So I would say the only thing that that we have regrets on as far as advertising, or or if if we weren't gonna do it again, honestly, is advertising in the state regs. Okay, yeah, it was expensive, it was 850 bucks. We put a little tile in there, we thought it was a good page for a year, 600,000 copies, and nothing from it. We gave it its own little promo code and we got nothing from it. And I think that's the only thing that we have regrets on doing, and I don't think we'll do it again because we get more exposure from social media, um, TikTok, believe it or not, has been great to us. And just keeping things clean and neat and simple and and producing something, you gotta think hunter, you know. We're marketing to a hunter or huntress, and what would I wear as a hunter? And so that's how we went about designing our hoodies and our t shirts and our hats as well. Uh-huh.

Being Part Of Hunters’ Firsts

SPEAKER_01 21:55

And that's interesting because we did the print as well. And I think three, four months, full page ad and some sports magazines. And again, expensive, it was a couple thousand dollars, twenty two hundred dollars. as far as we can tell, got nothing from it. And and I know a lot of stuff like that is it's consistently like you've got to go months, six months, a year, things like that. But even then, yeah, we've learned that lesson. It's and it's you think you got to do some marketing. And it's it's one of the and so this is one I'm saying this for our listeners who are thinking about this about you know sit down with someone who kind of understands marketing but go that's a that's a go cheap with the marketing. Quick videos and I we have another friend who's been doing more TikTok and short videos and and he he's I think he's 60 59 something like that. And so that's all for us older guys that type of stuff is difficult. Because it's like I don't get social media really at all. I reluctantly sort of do Facebook Instagram I just don't want to yeah I don't like social media yeah although I will scroll through reels now but it's also free. It's a free way to market things. Yeah and it's very effective especially when you hit the right algorithm with your stuff. And so magazines things like that just radio spots yeah I don't know of how necessary that really is right and I can tell you honestly after we ran the ad it was like man when I grabbed those regs I'm just going to what I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I'm not flipping through pages and reading it. Yeah yeah I'm just going to to to the GMU units or or the regs you know and and seeing if there's any any changes or whatever you know but yeah I just like man I I wish we hadn't ran that.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Yeah and we almost did that with the regs yeah to to put our our an ad in there as well and well and that's not to put down any fish and game so we want to stay off their radar not at all this but anyway but it's it's just a different generation is what it is.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

You know it you know it's like newspapers nobody gets the newspaper anymore. Yeah you know they're they're online with everything yeah and that's where you have to be is online whether it's social media or YouTube or or whatever you know it it it's it's how people interact today. That's how they interact with the world and and they they get all their information via you know online.

Serve First Culture And Partnerships

SPEAKER_01 24:44

And so yeah yeah you you have to adapt and that's the thing because when we did that magazine we're all just thinking the same thing you were man this is you know we here they gave us free copies you know and it's like oh everybody at the show is gonna have one of these you know and and then yeah you don't get the result that you were anticipating you know yeah and it was a great ad it looked great i could say the same about ours yeah you know it's it was a big picture day with with lucky on there and you know some our information nope a swing and a miss yep and that's you know that's fine it's just we learned that and so but we want to pass that along yeah to because we want other people to not not lose a couple thousand dollars especially if you're doing the nine to five and that's the thing it's five years in and still got all our our nine to fives it's you know this is quote unquote the side hustle the black tail coach now we want to make sure it's it's quality and everything else but yeah it it can be a while before it's not the side hustle. Yeah you know and it's but it's about making those connections and right yeah how you connect with other people and we do see the difference of like I mentioned the surf first and we hunt attitude versus the I have the greatest product out there and you're a fool for not using it.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

And we've had those conversations at these shows with people like you're yeah I've I've not that not that we're saying that but that we've had other vendors come up with that attitude and I can't believe people aren't buying my product and all this and people want you to be relational first. Right. Yeah especially in this industry they want you to be relational first they you know they don't care how much you know till they know how much you care. Right. You know and and you've got 30 seconds to do that with a lot of people. Right. You know so you you're behind the gun already at at the initial one. But like I say I tell people all the time even with our pro staff none of the guys that we brought on pro staff were big buck killers you know and I told my wife and Aaron when we started this and we started considering pro staff it's not about killing big deer. No I says we need to get people who are who and and Aaron put this forward too who want to serve in other words who want to help people become you know not necessarily better hunters but hunters that achieve their trophies. Right and it's like I can teach guys how to kill big bucks I can't teach them character.

Launching A Business In 2023

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah that I just met you and you're already offering when you get a bear or deer down call me I'll come out and help you drag it out of the woods. Yep we just met and you're already offering do you need help with putting up your tree stands or your ground blind brushing it in just give me a call. Right. Yeah I'll come out and help you yeah so it's yeah it's the those type of attitudes yeah and honestly and I tell this story a lot to people so I've known Dave for 30 years now over 30 years and I've only been hunting for the last three four. I've done bird hunting and stuff I was just never really interested because the hunters that I knew weren't like that. And then we started this business and we've attracted those type of people and it's like okay now and it was even when we started I didn't hunt I was just because of my education background is why I was involved but I started meeting all of these really great people and even the guys who aren't our pro staff just great people who come to our classes it's like oh these are the guys I want to hang out with these guys I want to hunt with and now I'll start hunting because yeah these people exist.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

I didn't know that these people existed so I'm saying this clay and I'm trying not to take it personal but he knew me and he admitted for over 30 years now and he didn't want to hunt so I think I fall into the category of the other guys.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

So I would have hunted with Dave had it it just been Dave but it was and I don't want to throw the yeah all the guys who are uh who I know are listening but there were just a few that you know guys that stole Dave's spots and there were and just because Dave is the nicest guy I've ever met yeah and I'm thinking okay if I go out in the woods I'm just looking for places to dump your body for stealing Dave's spot oh you don't want me along on that hunt. Can you say that hunt here? So when the police asked you can't do it in real life but you can say it. So I want to wrap up here I want to hear because I'm looking at your logo Bonded Outdoors and the U is rack and you told us the story of where that came from so tell us the story about that deer that is the U in your in your logo.

Hidden Costs, Websites, And Fees

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah so the deer rack that you see on our logo is a deer that we called Duke and my daughter named it Duke. We were hunting western Washington rainy cold my daughter was about six I think I'm pretty sure she was missing her two front teeth at the time and it made it clear to us we did four and a half miles the day before and made it very clear to us that she was not wanting to do that again. You know she didn't want to go outside so it was crank the heat in the truck and we were going to road hunt and I was just going to glass from the truck for us you know and we were glassing this kind of a rock outcliff you know and it it it turned down into a point of of just some really tall laurels and I saw this doe standing next to a tree and I was just watching her and watching her and watching her and she just kind of calmly turned and walked down on the other side and I said man I gotta go see where where she just walked into you know because at this point I'm just getting into blacktail hunting and I know nothing about black tail hunt and I've been mule deer hunting eastern Washington Montana Wyoming Whitetail but I'm getting into black tail and I don't know them. And it's just a whole different terrain that that they live in so I told the girls I'll be back in 10 15 minutes. I'm gonna go up there and just see where this deer went into and so parked the truck grabbed the rifle jet it up there and I'm over my head in Laurels and cannot see anything. And there was some windfall so I jumped up there and I'm looking around and I'm kind of making a noise and and I can see two does go out the bottom of the draw and then I'm just about to turn around and I look over and I see this buck. I mean I I know he's a good buck by no means did I ever did trophy ever cross my mind you know took the shot and I immediately get a phone call from my wife was that you yeah that was me I I got one you know and she's like oh awesome we'll we'll come up there and join you so my daughter you can imagine a six year old girl swimming through laurels you know and the reckless that makes so I'm over there with the deer and and you can just hear you know and are we there yet are we there yet you know anyway it was the first hunt successful hunt that we experienced as a family and that my daughter was a part of and the look on her face when she walked up to that deer was just everything. You know it just I'm getting emotional about it thinking about it but yeah so I asked her I said what are we gonna call this deer and she said Duke and it was just like I don't know how you came up with that name but okay and so we were trying to hire people to create a logo for us and it was just like pounding your head against the wall and you're trying to tell them you know because most pardon me but most graphic designers are not hunters. No you know and and they're trying to push you on something that works for them or some other product or some other company you know and we're saying no we we just want something that's really you know kind of western has a rustic feel and just says hunting all over it. Yeah and we just couldn't get anything back from them. And so my wife says you know I give me a crack at it. And so she took a couple pictures of our deer and she was able to work her magic on the computer and she was actually able to get our our antlers and she incorporated a skull into it and I had the idea I said hey since you got those antlers now on a file let's use let's replace the U You know let's let's just incorporate them everywhere we can I wish I had the other logo here but I don't but yeah so that's all the antlers that you see in our logos is Duke. That's one of our most memorable hunts as a family that's awesome as a family. Yep and that black tail I didn't think it was anything real special again getting into black tail I've seen mule deer and I'm comparing it to mule deer you know and we go back to camp and guys are like dude you have any idea what Duke's a monster you should probably get that scored and I've never been a score guy never cared just get to score animals because that's not what I hunt for and the more people that I had tell me you know you need to go have that thing scored you know and and so finally I brought it in last year and as they're receiving the deer oh I I think you got something here and we ended up taking second place in the three by three cascade black tail as a typical and it scored 133 and an eight oh so yeah it's just a beautiful deer real and we've seen it but it's yeah it's awesome.

Apparel, Branding Consistency, And Focus

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah so probably the best one I'll ever harvest well it'll be because it was with your family yeah so because of the memory so yeah it's funny because of the the logo the having a hunting person do it it was we same thing we struggled with our logo and I I think it was was it Jeff Lander from Paraclet basically a friend who he's the one who connected us with across the divide ministries who does for veterans and they provide outdoor activities for veterans. Well somehow they had a friend who did graphic design but also understood hunting and he's like well you know I do this and let me give it a whirl and stuff and they came up with our logo and it's like as soon as we saw we're like that's it that's it yeah that is perfect. That's awesome looking because it's the B and the C, which are the head just backwards and it's like I don't think it even crossed our minds to do something like a logo like that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah a logo is a is a hanging spot for a lot of people yeah you know you're comparing yourself to everybody else you know the born and raised guys smong yang you know the pee and wild guys and you realize that yes we're a part of that same culture but that's not us. That's not our brand you know and so the fact that we designed our own brand and own logo is just it's us. And you can look at it and if you know Bonnet Outdoors you absolutely know that that's that is our logo. Yeah so that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Well we're gonna wrap up here thank you everybody for listening if you could go on share like subscribe do whatever your particular platform that you're listening on wants you to do that would be great. Share it with your friends clay thank you for coming on we we wish you the best success in the future absolutely we are glad to partner with you in any way possible why don't you tell us real quick how can people find you and we'll put your your link below in the description as well but tell us how we can find you. Yeah we have a website bondedoutdoors.com you can find us on TikTok at bonded outdoors one and you can find us on Instagram at bonded outdoors or bonded underscore outdoors and Facebook as well so okay great and not only individual projects but you can handle you you take on larger projects as well I know you're working with Heather Aldrich with a project that she has so if you have a project that you think would look great in leather reach out to these guys.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah yeah we local business support local business not not too much guys yes don't overwhelm them get in line yeah be nice about it but yeah we do we do offer real quickly air fresheners that we can customize so if you have a company logo that's real simple we make an air freshener that lasts for about six months so and it's been a real hit for for companies to buy in bulk on those so personalize those and it's a free handout yeah that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Yeah okay well until next week