Hunting Divorce, Doe Patrol and a Swamp Hog with David Whitfield

On this episode of the I Ain't Even Lyin Podcast, join us as we chew the fat with David Whitfield and we discuss a hunting divorce in the mountains of New Mexico, how doe patrol is necessary for the hunting community and the discovery of an  antlered swamp hog. This is one episode you don't want to miss!

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Hey, welcome to the I Neem in Lion podcast. Hey, listen, we're glad you're here. Yes. Episode 14 was a doozy. I'd have to say I was so glad Drew Bent was able to come on and tell his testimony. But even awesomer than that, I well, I guess I can't say it was even more awesome. Awesomer. Well, I wasn't talking about the word I used. The grammar was fine. But his stories that he told, I can't I can't believe, man, that Marshall story had me rolling on the book. That was funny. It was so funny. But hey, we felt that episode 15 needed to match the energy. And so we got a special guest today. His name is Mr. David Whitfield. David Whitfield's here with us today. Most of you probably don't know who he is, but I'm going to tell you after today, you're going to know who David Whitfield is. He's got a load of stories. He's got years of history as an outdoorsman. And uh honestly, he just got a really cool story. And I'm excited to hear the stories today. Not to mention you guys are longtime friends. So there's a history there. So I might today might just sit in the backseat, just let y'all drive the podcast. But other than that, so um, Mr. David, go ahead and uh uh tell the people. So what do you do for a living, Mr. David?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Uh I manage a quail plantation. I'm a wildlife and timber manager. I um, you know, look after property that people, wealthy people use for recreation just to hunt on.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Man, so that sounds like that's like an outdoorsman's dream right there. That's that's a dream job right there. So um so you manage the outdoors, so you manage probably habitats and different things. And so your job is is to to create the most ideal environment for someone to have the most success uh in their in their recreational activities. That's awesome. I and uh Yeah, mostly quail hunting, is that what that is?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

No, we we you know we quail hunt and um you know we have a deer preserve, we we grow big deer, we have flooded cornfields for for ducks. Really? Yeah, we have dove fields, you know, that are full of doves most of the time and and we have a few bass ponds when when things get slow, you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Oh, you just carry them like oh come on, you won't catch a fish.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah. I'd uh um one time when the the place sold a few years ago and the man came for Thanksgiving and he had a you know his family and friends with him and he said, you know, if it was you, what would you do tomorrow? And I said, Well, I'd I'd probably get up in the morning and I'd go quail hunting, you know, and I said, first thing I'd have somebody cook me a big breakfast and then I'd go quail hunting about you know about eight o'clock, eight thirty, and about lunchtime I'd come in, have somebody else cook for me. Yeah. I said, then I, you know, I'd probably after lunch I'd you know, maybe go fishing a little bit, catch me a few bass, and then in the afternoon he I'd probably go try and kill me a big buck. Yeah, yeah. And he said, Man, you reckon we could do that? I said, Well, you know, Lord willing, we we can try. So next morning we got up and had breakfast. We went and hunted, you know, birds, had a I don't forget how many cubbies we had, but we had a fantastic morning, moved a bunch of birds. And then that he went down at lunch while the other folks was getting lunch ready, caught 13 bass.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Then that afternoon we we went back and he killed a big old buck, just a really, really fine buck. And then that afternoon we, you know, had a cookout and and ate, and him and his buddy was out there laying in the yard just just looking up at you know to heaven and looking at the stars. I don't think they'd really had a better time than that. Wow. Wow, that's good. So a lot of times we just trying to, you know, create a situation where people can really, really enjoy the outdoors, and I'm very thankful to, you know, even be part of it.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Man. Wow. What a story. Yeah, that is great. I want to be I want to be included in all that. That sounds like a good time.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

I I'd just like to be a helper, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Like, yeah. There you go. But so go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

But I mean, you listen, and one of the things about the our history of knowing each other, I didn't I wasn't raised up with David, but I I once we we were younger men, he was way young a fair bit younger than me, but uh but when I did meet him, I thought, man, this guy's the coolest guy you ever met, you know what I'm saying? Uh uh and and really in Southport, kind of a crowd we we ran with around there. I mean, old Nick Ellis, he was a cool, good looking guy. I mean, we're probably one of the coolest, smoothest guys we knew. But David Whitfield run a second man. I mean, he was just he could talk, man. He just that's the dude you went like, hey, me too. Go on tell him, David. Yeah. You know, you get over and get to talking, you could talk forever. You you know uh definitely I mean great conversations we've always had, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

So So you're a you're a turkey hunting man, and and you know, being a turkey hunting man myself, I'm a little now you're more of a turkey hunting man than me. I telling some of the stories you've told, I I haven't scratched the surface, but uh, you know, being uh I I'm right now in a in a state of uh I guess mourning because the season's over and and I didn't even get to kill a bird this year. I it's it was a hard year, but there's a lot going on too. Yeah, yeah. But uh I will say, so I n I want to hear what's the craziest, one of the craziest encounters because I've had out of the few times I've gone and went hunting out west and stuff, I always seem to encounter something crazy. And so what's the craziest thing you've encountered on a turkey hunting trip?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Well, I got so many turkey stories because we, you know, I've been diagnosed with stage four turkey hunting. It's uh you know, terminal. I g I I I have you know, I thought when I got older it would ease up a little bit and and I would, you know, get more interested in something else, but it's actually got worse. It's uh d you know, just just want to kill one more and you know, I just want to, you know, go one, you know, one more time. And look, you know, last summer a man I take his son hunting every year, and he you know, he got a new piece of property and he took me up there and he said, I want you to meet the farmer and and I want you to look at the place and and it was world class. It was it was just unbelievable. And so we went up there and it was on a Saturday and met the farmer and you know he introduced me to the man and he said, you know, this is David, and you know, he he loves the turkey hun, and you know, he he takes all these kids and he don't even kill them anymore. I said, wait a minute. I said, hold up, man. I said, time out. I said, I let's don't start this out on a lie. I said, I don't know who you've been talking to, but I still kill turkeys. I mean, he said, well, I I I thought you didn't even kill them anymore. You just took, you know, old people and youngins. I said, no. I said, I'm I'm still killing them. So it's it's you know, it's just morphed into more and more and more and more. And there's, you know, what I love is I love one time I heard about what the hardest turkey that Will Primo's killed. And it and the story goes something like, you know, the everybody was driving up the gravel road and rattling the gate, and you know, and the bird would fly down the other way. And and so it became, you know, he he didn't drive up the gravel road, he didn't he didn't g unlock the gate, and he went in there and killed the turkeys. And what I love to talk about is the hard to kill ones.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

That's what might keeps you going. If you went out every morning and the turkey flew down in front of you and blowed up and strutted, and you, you know, you shot him and then you know went to the waffle house, you would probably quit after two or three times, and there wouldn't be much to talk about. But that getting beat up by him is what really sets that hook down in your belly and makes you want to, you know, just go more and more and get up earlier and earlier. And we had one that we had just about started sleeping with. We had we had he had bullied us around two or three, four or five times, and that thing, I don't know, it just kind of got under my skin. The other thing that got under my skin is right immediately, all you didn't need binoculars and all this technical stuff. You all you could see was his hooks. They needed training wheels. I mean, they were boy. They they were really, really, really big. So we called him Hooks Randolph. You know, you got to get beat up three or four or five times before you name a bird. You don't, you know, a deer, you name him in the summer when it's horned. But a gobbler, we really don't, we don't hand them off a name until there's been a few beat downs or or somebody's you know missed him or he's bullied, you know, two or three people. So we called him Hooks Randolph because he would he would roost in all these, he'd just move every day. And and you know, where we hunt, we've hunted a lot of these places we've hunted for years and years and years, and we you know we we think we know these birds a lot more than we really do. But we create, we're real serious about our habitat and predator control and feed, and so birds move in. And and I tell people, this this bird come in with a big suitcase. He he cut he come from far off because when he showed up, you know, we have spur cameras and we we we we turkey hunt 12 months out of the year with our we don't just you know go you know start thinking about turkey hunting or you know, go to Walmart and get a bag of corn the week before season. We're right, planting and you know, predator control. We're working on it all the time. And out of the blue, this bird shows up. He's he's got black spurs, you know. I mean, but they're just ridiculously big, and he's really, really big. And so we start hunting him, and he moves and moves and moves, so we do that for two or three days. I tell everybody, Tommy, that you know, we turkey hunt, you know, we try to go every day. And and uh if it's raining, you know, and there's some lightning, you know, we only go about two hours.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

If there's a water spout or a tornado, we go hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

You know, if there's a death in the family, we'll try to cut it down to, you know, maybe an hour. But the secret to it is is staying in there with them, you know. So anyway, Hooks Randolph shows up. We don't know him. He's he's he's in the Thunderdome. That's a whole nother story. Two birds enter, one bird leaves. That's one of the finest places.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Oh man, don't get me on that. But anyway, he moves around, we try to get on him, and and uh he comes in and and you know, we use every trick in the book. I've got a you know, real turkey, you know, taxidermy decoys, strutters, the whole nine yards. And and we said, well, we'll just put the old strutter out and we'll wrap him up. You know, that we've had enough of him bullying around. So we get the, you know, some of the purists, they they only, you know, turkey hunt with leaves and you know, hickory nuts. You know, they don't use decoys. Especially, I'm gonna give a shout-out to some of my friends from Alabama. Go for it. They uh, you know, they you know, they purist over there. They're gum decoy stuff is just for youngins and outlaws. Yeah so we just said, well, we'll, you know, we'll uh we got a little we got a little Jake that we mounted and and put a you know big fan on it, a little pencil beard. We call him Little Ricky.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And and he is he's brought the he is uh like old Sammy the Bull, the hit man, he's more lethal than Sammy the Bull. You go in there and put him where a bird's been flying down and strutting and whipping other turkeys, and that's his little spot, and he sees little Ricky out there, yeah, it's just as over. Game over. Well, anyway, we put little Ricky, we deployed little Ricky, and old Hooks Randolph flew down, and he cut out there about a hundred yards and kind of half strutted one time and just courtesy gobbled and walked off. Come on. And I said, Well, dad gum, the son of a gun, maybe uh, you know, thinking about the other team or something. I don't I don't know what's going on. So anyway, we we went back in and got up one morning, literally about four o'clock in the morning, and went out there and got up. We we had roosted him the night before, and he was on one side of the field, and we got up and went out there and got up against the tree, and he never did gobble, never did gobble, and all of a all of a sudden I heard a little turkey noise and it was in the tree we were under. And I said, Well, these hens is you know, is is right here. We got to be, you know, we can't even call. They fly down. Well, about that time he gobbled. In the middle of the night, he I guess he'd seen our blind and he said, you know, I'll just fly over there and get over that blind where I can see these fellas the top of their head.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

So he roosted right there. We didn't kill him, and then about a week later we had some highfalutin' fella come in from Oklahoma. I'll never forget that. And he was a turkey killing machine. And what I wanted to do was maybe swap a hunt with him. And so I said, I'm gonna take him in there and we're gonna kill Hooks Randolph, and I'll be, you know, he'll put me into, I'll be in Oklahoma in two weeks killing birds with him. So I took him in there and and and the same thing. He came down the road, come right in there to us, the little old small food plots you could shoot across. And boy, I just I went just went to sharpening my knife, you know, thinking about, you know, where all I was gonna, you know, how I was gonna skin him out before we took him to the taxidermist. And he came in there and got and come right in the field, and a Cody come running out of the woods and tried to grab him. And Hooks Randolph just kind of backed up, took two steps and walked off.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

So then it it we had a long story short, I'm on I could talk for an hour about him, but we hunted that bird for three years. And so I the third year it had flooded, and there was a little bit of high ground in a swamp, and he about big as a pickup truck. Come on. He'd fly down, and the hens would fly down, and he would gobble and breed them on that hill for two or three hours. And so I went in there about 4 30 in the morning, and and I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna slip through this water with my waiters. I ain't gonna make a noise, and I'm gonna get up within 50 yards of that hill, I'm gonna kill that son of a gun. I'm tired of him. And so when I touched my foot to that water at 4:35 in the morning, he gobbled. Oh my god. I said, Man, this son of a gun, he don't sleep at night. He got insomnia. So anyway, I called there's I I associate with several professional turkey hunters that are as lethal as you know anything there is. And so I called one of them and I told him the whole story, knowing he would have the relief of how to kill him and something to ease my pain. And he said, David, I'm just gonna tell you, son. He said, just leave that son of a gun alone. I said, Man, what are you talking about? I thought you were gonna give me some secret trick that I didn't know. He said, No, he's running you nuts. You probably ain't never gonna kill him. Just go hunt another turkey. And if if you know very much about turkey hunting, that was one of Ben Rogers Lee's sayings. I don't know if you know him from Covington, Alabama. He he's one of the people that started, you know, turkey hunting for a living, and I encourage you to look him up and learn everything you can about him. He's also the first person ever seen stand up and shoot a turkey. I mean, that I was like, what? You can't do that. But anyway, he that was one of his sayings. Just leave the hard ones alone and go kill some of them easy ones, and then you can come back to him. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we uh hunted that turkey the rest of the year, and about the last week of the season, he had roosted over a dove field, and I went and got an edge of that dove field, and I I got up there super early. I didn't even call to him. I said, I'm gonna wait till he flies down. And he got to doing that, that, that, you know, I could sit, I could see him right there on the limb, and he got to kind of ratcheting that limb with his legs and doing that that, you know, gobbling to it. You know, I could just see him about to fly down, and so right before he flew down, I just kind of putted at him a couple of times.

unknown 16:12

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And that some gun turned, you could see him kind of do stick his neck out and look at me, and he flew out of that tree and flew straight to me. And I thought when he hit the ground, he took two steps, and I thought he was gonna try to take the gun away from me, and I just shot him.

unknown 16:28

Boom!

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I mean, it was it, I mean, I didn't aim at him, I didn't, I didn't, the video camera, so I didn't even turn the camera on. Come on. And I and and I just stood there and I got I I didn't know what I'd done. I said, wait a minute, I have killed Up Randolph unceremonially. There's no video of it, there's nobody here to witness it. And he didn't even flop. Come on. He was just dead.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Now, did you uh do you got him mounted or anything?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Well, I that was back before that I knew you could mount half of turkeys you kill. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and so I just skinned him out and kept his fan and his spurs, but but uh no, I didn't mount him. I I part of the Whitfield prenup is I can have six turkeys and six deer in the living room, and I am way past that. And and no, I I regret that. That's one there's uh one day we'll talk about Godzilla and uh two or three other ones I didn't mount either. Wow. But but I have a you know I have my full six and and six deer, and but anyway, he so I turned the video on and made a short little clip of him, and and uh that was the end of him. But that's one of my favorite kids. What a story stories. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

Wow. Well let me let me take you to New Mexico and I'll take you to a heartbreak just uh because I I uh I find I I'm a decent turkey hunter, but I can't say I'm great honest. I feel like I'm losing my my my edge. I don't know if it's because uh I feel like birds here in the panhandle are uh they're harder to kill than they once were. I don't know what the deal is unless you got a piece of pasture or you just got an absolute honey hole of the public ground, it's difficult to get them here. But uh I remember, so I don't remember what year it was, but it was we went to New Mexico, and in New Mexico, the we we got between we never left these two mountains in this valley. We'd always park in the valley and either hunt on one mountain or the other mountain, because the birds are always on the mountaintop. And so we're we we're hearing the birds on one side and they're gobbling and we're kind of easing up these these ridges. Well, a bunch of flatlanders that we are, you know, we can't handle that climb up and down them mountains as much as we were. And so, but at that point, you just kind of there's a point in a hunting trip whenever you just get, you know, you think to yourself, This sucks, but I'm gonna keep doing it anyway. And there's a point your body just gets used to the the misery, and so we're hunting, and uh so we start hearing birds, so we're on the top of the one mountain, and we're hearing birds on the other mountain. And when I say mountain, I'm not talking like little hills, I'm talking rock, rock ridges and cliffs and edges. So we uh what we do is say, you know what, we're gonna go up there and we're gonna go scout that other mountain and and see what's going on. It's a lot taller, so it's gonna take us a lot longer to get up there. So we climbed and climbed. Well, there's a point where I'm looking over the edge, and if you fell from there, don't even you know, don't even bother looking for them. There that person right there, they gone. You know, so and it was so rough. And anyway, we kind of found our way around and we got up to the top. We see this looks pretty good, and ain't nobody been up here in years. There's an old mountain logging road. There was an old logging truck up there that had been told, like, I mean, rusted to pieces about nothing. And so it was just the coolest thing you ever saw. So we were like, okay, we're gonna game plan, we can get up at 3 o'clock in the morning. We're gonna start our my our hike up this mountaintop right here to this mountain. It took us an hour to get up there. Just that's how long it took to hike that mountain. And this straight up. And so we get up there and we're sitting on this logging road, and there's one just, I mean, losing his mind. I mean, he's gobbling just all the whole time we're up there. And we work around, it's still dark, and we sit down, and we're probably within 80 yards, what within 60, within 60 yards of this burden, it's still dark. And so the sun's just starting to peak up and being on the mountaintop, you're kind of getting a little more light than everything else below you. And as we're sitting there, you know, we're just soft tree yelping, just real, just honestly, we're just purring, ain't even doing much. Just purring just little clucks, purring, purring. And this Joker, every time you'd finish your run, just over and over and over again. And so finally, we didn't, we're just sitting there, we're waiting for the sun to actually like get right. He flies off the roost in the dark. And we're sitting there on this mountaintop, where you can just see, and I I want to say like we were minutes within shooting line or within legal shooting time in this bird. So our thought process was is that if and I'm gonna be honest, I I I this was the wrong move. I made the wrong move. But my brother-in-law said here, if he comes on the right side of between us, that's you. But if he gets on the left side, there's this imaginary line. I'm gonna kill him. Alright, no problem. That works for me. So he flies down and he's running up. I mean, his head is white. I mean, there's no other color. It's just white. He's coming up, he's gobbling, he's me. I'm a drumming, he's fired up, he's coming up the ridge. Well, I have had the worst luck with guns. And I've I bought a Winchester SXP, I've had a Mossberg 835, I've had all these guys, and for some reason, my the the SXP shot up and high to the right and all this stuff. I didn't know this stuff at the time. And with as close as this bird was getting and how tight my patterns were, it's about like it's you can miss. And so this bird. Coming up when I start to notice that he's about to cross the line and he's not and he's not quite in shooting range like I would like. He's close. Don't get me wrong, he is close, but he's not exactly where I needed him to be. And he was heading to the other side. And uh I couldn't help myself. I was technically up the bat, you know. I was up the bat, and so I I I I shot and I missed, and that bird flew off. Oh, I'm sure your uh Trevor was I'm telling this story before he ever comes on the podcast. At least I can say, Oh, that story's already been told. You ain't gotta tell it. Don't tell that one. We already told it. So I sat there and you know I I'm feel I'm I'm having my own pity party, feeling sad for myself. And Trevor's always been pretty good. I miss my share of birds. And Trevor's always been pretty good at, you know, putting on a smile and saying, hey man, it's all good. Don't worry about it. Like you'll get the next one, whatever. Let's figure out what you did wrong. And I looked over at him, I said, Man, I I can't believe I missed that bird. And he's he looked over at me and said, Yeah, I can't believe you missed him either. And and I think I got so mad I at my at my gun. I I this is immature. Yeah, it's the gun's fault. I can see it now. I wanted to be safe, but also this was unsafe. I grabbed that shotgun. I I unloaded every shell out of it, and then I threw the gun. Right. It's a stupid gun. And Trevor looked at me and goes, That make you feel better. I said, No. Then I had to pick up all my shells, put it back in the gun. And so anyway, he looked at me the next day and he goes, Let me tell you something. He said, You know, man, we've always hunted together. Always. If we're out hunting, like we don't we rarely we rarely split up because I mean the hunting's normally so good, you don't have to. He looked at me, he goes, you know, man, uh that's how mad he was. I think tomorrow, I think to maximize our opportunities, I think we need to split up, not hunt together. I felt like I felt like it was like my like my girlfriend was saying, hey, we need to go on a break for a little bit and just take some time apart.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, yeah, the turkey divorce can be very painful.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Oh, it was painful. It hurt my feelings a bit, so but joke's on him, he did that, and I uh that next morning, I was laying up there on that edge of that ridge, and uh because the the where I went, wasn't no birds up on that side of that mountain. We went doing the same thing, just wasn't nothing working. And uh I said, you know what, forget this. I was still feeling sad for myself. I laid up on my pack and I just kind of was like trying to get some sleep. He was still gone, and I heard a bird on the other mountain gobbling, and it was like 9 30, 10 o'clock, and I'm like, they ain't been gobbling like that this whole time. Not at this time, and so I throw my pack on, I run down that mountain. I'm I'm I make an hour trip up, I made it down in like 10 minutes or less. I'm just zigzagging all the way down. I get down to the bottom, he's still gobbling. I run up and I ease around through that valley trying to make sure they don't see me. I get up on the other mountain and I start, I'm on this elk game trail, and I'm sitting on it, it looks like a horse trail. And this bird is gobbling, and I start hitting him with my mouth call, and he'd gobble. Then I turn around, he went slate, and he'd really gobble. Start working down that ridge. Well eventually he he works all the way down, he's standing on this on this ridge right here in front of him, he's strutting around on top of it. And I hit him with a mouth call and he'd go back up the ridge. He gobbled, but he'd just go back up. Well, I hit that slate call and he'd come right back down. And then I'd hit him with a mouth call again, he'd go back up the ridge. And I hit him with a slate call and come back down. I said, okay, we figured out what the problem is. So I hit that slate a little more, and eventually, man, he started beeboping down that hill and come down that that elk game trail, and I shot that joker, about took his head off. He cut a flip, rolled right between my legs. And that thing right there, man, that was that was probably one of the funnest hunts. And then by the time we got down that ridge, I had thrown that bird in the back of that truck, and here comes my brother-in-law back down that hill, and he came down, he looked so defeated. It's the last day. We didn't have, you know, we didn't have any he didn't have any luck. He didn't hear that.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Yeah, he was on the other mountain, and you went off it to the one. Right, across the ridge. This was after the turkey divorced.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Yeah, that was after we divorced. Yeah, and so he uh he came up and he said, You do any good? I said, Nah, not really. Did you? So I didn't hear nothing. I said, Well, throw you stuff in back of that truck and uh we'll go. And he looked back there and the big old bird, that's probably the biggest, fattest bird we've ever killed. And he just laying back there and he uh he was blown away. But it man, that was a fun trip. I found an elk shed and all that stuff. It was a good time. But uh but hunting the mountains can be pretty agitating sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

So Well, I that I heard you that was a wonderful turkey story, but I heard something in there that concerned me.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

You're about to up the mountain and down the mountain, and I I'm an old man and and you're a young man, and I I want to share a little a little turkey tip for all you young fellas out there that that uh is going out west and hunting these turkeys, because let me tell you something, you'll never love North Florida more than you will after you've gone off somewhere where there's no timber at hardly at all, and it's so steep, you just wonder what folks is doing out there. I mean it it it it doesn't, you know, it doesn't even they got mountain goat feet. I'm telling you, it's it's uh it's unbelievable to me that people daily interact with the terrain that they do. Well, I I'll tell you a little turkey tip, and and it's a really good one. I used to we used to have a uh road building crew and we had a old crusty superintendent that ran it, Mr. Jimmy Sbradley. He's gone on. But I had got old enough to where my ears had opened up a little bit, and I started listening to old people and I learned all kinds of stuff. Everything I knew about running the excavator, I threw away after I worked with him for about a week. He he taught me a you know a lot of tricks and I learned some stuff from him. And so he he was quick to tell you, he would say, son, it's hard, but it's fair. And so he would give you life lessons pretty regularly, and I and I applied a lot of them. And so we went out of town on this trip, and you know, he he he uh he said, let we got to the motel, and you know, I was the one paying for all of it. He had a company card in his pocket, but he said, son, you just let me handle this. And I said, Well, Mr. Jimmy, it's a little old bitty mo what is there to handle? We did we need we need two rooms and we're going to bed. He said, Son, I'm gonna show you how to work this operation. And so I was interested to see what he was gonna do. And he, you know, he had a lot of charisma and great personality. He walked in there and he chit-chatted a minute and he said, you know, he said, I'm old Korean war veteran and I got a bad leg, and which he did, you know, I didn't know he had a bad leg. But anyway, he went on with a story and he asked him, he said, now I know somewhere in this here establishment y'all've got a handicap room. And the man said, Well, yes, sir, we do. We we don't advertise, but we have one. He said, Well, I, you know, I'd sure appreciate it if y'all let me have that. I barely can get around. You know, he runs a bulldozer about 12 hours a day. So anyway, six days a week. So I said, Mr. Jimmy, why I may be a handicapped person that comes along, he said, son, I work too hard to be jacked up in one of these little old bootleg rooms. And so we went down there. The front of it looked just like the rest of the building, and you walked in that door, and it was like, huh. It was like the Taj Mahal. It had a big old living room and a king bed and a it had a shower, a double bathroom, you know, where you could roll a wheelchair in there. Come on. And I learned something that day. Yeah. Yeah. I said there's a handicap room, and everyone needs motels. Uh-huh. So when I started turkey hunting out west, this group of guys that I go with are some fine Americans, let me tell you. They're wonderful. But they're all, you know, they own their own companies or they're big CEOs. And, you know, like one of them, he takes the Navy SEAL diet, you know, where you eat every third day and have to, you know, swim underwater for eight minutes. And I mean, they're they're health nuts and they're all in mint condition, and they always want to go, you know, and and take the hard route. They, you know, we we got to camp and there's two mountains right out there, and I said, I I I can't climb neither one of them. And so I I I I got to thinking about what Mr. Jimmy said, and I asked that fella, I said, Man, I I'll just tell you, I'm just I'm a fat man. I'm not built, you know, for speed. I'm I'm built, you know, to kind of lift heavy stuff and stay in place and keep the fried chicken numbers down after, you know, Sunday dinners. And I said, Do y'all have a handicap course out here? And he said, you know, we do. Oh, come on. I said, Well, you know, what would a feller have to do to get in that club? I said, I don't I don't care anything about going up that mountain, and I know I'm not going up that one. There was snow on top of them. And so he said, Yeah, man, I'll this was in Colorado, and and it was beautiful and wonderful and all that. And he said, Yeah, I'll I'll find you. He said, We got a place over here, it's flat. And so we went over there, and they was, I'm telling you, it was a beautiful little old cow pasture. Uh you, you know, you could have walked a hundred, I seen a hundred lady had a 111-year-old birthday. You could have walked Granny out there and let her hunt. And we went out there and there was a fat gobbler strutting out there, and he didn't, you know, that gobbler didn't mind if it was uh, you know, straight up and down, up one mountain, down the other mountain. And so me and old boy eased in there and killed that old Fatlander turkey. And let me tell you, he ate just as well as them mountain turkeys did. So I encourage you to look for the handicapped room and look for the handicapped turkey hunting out west. Hey, I'm gonna use that even now. Yeah. It works. Yes, yes, I'm gonna.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

That applies to deer too. If you're hunting the same way if you hunt some areas that sometimes you can go too far. Sometimes everyone's handicapped. Everybody thinks they want to go far, but sometimes that you know I've I've I remember one of the best places I ever deer hunted. It was six yards off a highway on some public ground. And all the boys that I was hunting with back in that time, they were they were all hunting everywhere else. They'd had Onyx. This is when Onyx first come out, and they were all scanning their their phones and they had all the plans. And yeah, by the time we got up there, I didn't know Onyx existed. And they're like, Yeah, we've been planning and figuring, we done got all of our maps, we know where we're gonna go and set up, and it's where we're gonna hunt this day, this day, and this day. And they're like, What about you? And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. What how do you figure out where you're hunting? They ain't signs. He says, They're like, Well, not really. I mean, you kind of need this app. So I bought the app and uh but we're there, and they're like, Oh, we're gonna we're gonna go and put our tree stands up. I said, We ain't scouting, like I need to scout, I don't know where I'm at. And so they were like, Nah, I'm at I mean, well, they're like, Well, we'll go look for you for something here in a minute. Let's go put our tree stands up. So they all went dispersed, and now I'm like, they're like, Well, where are you gonna go? I said, I guess I'll just look around what while we're here. I might as well just walk across the road. It was like the tiniest strip of wood you ever seen on the backside of this cornfield, and that was it. That was just all it was. And uh I'm like, I'll go over here while I looked on the ground and all that stuff, and there's some scrapes in there. I'm like, there might be something to this. So they all went miles in, and I was walking 60 yards off the highway, and I tell you that next day, I ain't never had so many bucks on top of me, and I mean just wildlife all over me, and I wasn't 60 yards off the highway, and them boys is they made miles in, you know. So you can walk so the handicapped room, there's there's some validity to that. There's something to that. So, but uh, and that that bird probably tasted better than the mountain birds, not near as tough, not having to walk and and walk and climb up and down them ridge tops. So but uh but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Hey, well, uh, you know, it reminds me, and this is uh I this is a story about David. Now, uh I think this is the beginning of your management, uh the things that you started managing and and doing different things. Um and I was in the taxidermy business, and and you know, I I'd known David a little while, and he comes wheeling up in the taxidermy shop one time, and you know, confidence is strong. Yeah he said, Look here, I just want to tell you in that good, strong radio voice you got. Yeah, he said, uh, I'll be back in 45 minutes with a giant buck. And I'm thinking, I've had a lot of people call the shot before, didn't produce. Right. And so old David, he's gone. He's got two old sure enough outlaws with him for sure, and uh to help load it in the truck. I'm sure. Is that what you've done? You broke it. Moral support, I think. Some moral support with me. We called it back then. Yeah. David takes off and uh 45 minutes, he's back with this big old buck. Uh what was a big seven point or something like that? Big no, it's a big ten point. Big oh, big ten. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's a fining. I I mean uh I'm sorry, I didn't mean you say seven. Cut that part out, Tommy. I'm just just just downgrading this buck. I'm sorry about that. And so David shoots this big old buck, and uh, and he's got him there. Big ten point. And and I'm thinking, man, what in the world? He called the shots, got the buck, and I'm ended up mounting it for him.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

And so the uh the thing is, is is it rocked on, and David was, I said, Well, you got a lease or something? He said, Well, kind of uh manage some stuff places. And I'm thinking, what in the world are you talking about? Well, he was carrying people, and people, I said, Where'd you kill that buck? I was killing with David. I'm thinking, what in the world? They think, where'd you get some deer meeting? Well, David carry me over. I shot a doe, but uh, and you know, it wasn't many doe days back then, but you know, kind of outlawed a little bit, doing a little management back then. You was doing some forced management that people didn't even know about. Yeah. Well, I finally put in, I said, he said, Well, what about getting this deer head mounted a little quicker? You know, is there any kind of thing we can do? I said, Well, you can carry me off and let me kill one of them bucks. And so David puts me in the truck, and I didn't realize the whole setup you had. But uh, and so as we're going down the road, now David looks at me, he said, Look, I'm fixing to turn on a road, and I'm fixing to turn this song on. And I said, What song are you talking about? Well, you know, the greatest anthem of any redneck, especially young redneck, is Hank Williams Jr.'s A Country Boy Can Survive. I mean, you think about it, if you hear that, you feel like, yeah, that's me. I can survive. I'm skipping, you know, a whole deal, you know. Right. So David said, we're gonna cut this song on. I'm thinking, what is this, a music video or what? So David cuts the radio on. He said, now look, I'm driving 60 miles an hour, and when we get, go ahead and roll the window down now, let that wind blow in there. He said, go ahead and grab that double barrel. And uh when we get to the part where it says, and you know it's coming up, I can skin a buck, go ahead and get ready to shoot. He said, and when Hank says I can skin a buck, you go ahead and be ready to squeeze the trigger. So we're driving along, I'm thinking, what are we doing? We we're not even in the woods. So we driving down a road, and right then, when it gets to that point, it's about two miles, about two, well, two minutes and twelve minutes in on the song. And all of a sudden, it gets to the uh I can skin a buck, and I'm looking, and there's a deer eating corn right on the side of the road. So I I just I had her laid out there. I shot that deer, and David swerved over to a little bit, and it that force of that cut that deer, he cut a flit, landed in the back of the truck, nice little weight point. And I asked David, I said, David, what in the world? He said, I got about four or five places like this. So do you still feed corn on the white line like you did back then?

SPEAKER_00 37:51

We have uh I got saved and the Lord He'd done a work in me and we we quit doing that. Uh I learned that from uh one of my roommates in college. He's the one that he he one night he he left and came back in about 15 minutes with a deer, and I said, Man, they ain't a deer with where did you go?

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

And he he he led me in the ways of how you get them deer up where you can get to them.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

And and shoot them and they just cut a flip, land in the back of the truck. You ain't gotta stop, you ain't gotta pull up. Yeah, I'm telling you this. There ain't no better deer hunter. I mean, now you're a great turkey hunter too, but David Whitfield. You could go off with him and he can show you how to do it. You shoot him, he'll cut a flip, land in the back of the truck. Nothing. I mean, wow.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

I've I wish that's the definition of fast food, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:35

That's exactly fast food. Now I did notice, and I knew that you'd kill the 10 point the same way, because there was scratches on the roof of your truck where them horns scrubbed it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

That m uh the big bucks is pretty rough on the roof, right? Yeah, lay tough on it. Yeah. Well, that was before ranch hands. That's a good thing. That's why we had to slide sideways. You couldn't hit them at on, he'd beat your truck.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

That's right. That's right. Need a bumper to be able to support that. That's it. Sure enough.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Well, that's that. I mean, what a what a great uh hunter this guy is, man. I mean, from I mean, I I'm not even impressed with night hunters. I'm impressed with white line hunters. Like, you know, there's no that's not even big time sport anymore.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

Oh, yeah. Right. Well, one thing I want to talk about before we because I I want to get into the testimony side of things here in a minute. But one thing I do want to talk about because uh, you know, you're a professional and what you do. I mean, you are it it people don't just trust you with that kind of responsibility um without knowing what you're doing, or at least have perfecting your craft. And so um around here and around these areas, and probably the people listening, because we have people we have people listening all the way from uh I have to pull out when you're telling the story. I'll pull out the uh the other countries that are listening to this. I mean people from all over the world listening to the podcast, but one thing I I'm curious about is if you had one bit of advice for good deer habitat, you know, living from the pan you're from the panhandle, you don't live in Florida anymore, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:08

You live in the No, I I still live in Florida. I I live just right across the line there.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

Yeah, so if you what is the one bit of advice, one thing that someone can start doing to better their deer herds?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Stop killing little bucks. If you if you want to have bigger bucks, you gotta stop killing the little ones, and that's some of the hardest thing in the world for people to do. You know, they're they're worried about what their neighbors are doing or what they're doing across the highway or what the lease next door, what their you know, specifications are. But you know, some you know, people talk about oh they you know they're radio-collared bucks and they went nine miles and you know, after Christmas they, you know, they they go, you know, they travel every night and they go here and there. Well, sometimes I can tell you that there's bucks that that don't do that, and they live in small you know, places and they you know breed the does they've got and they stay around the feed there, and it's amazing by it doesn't cost anything. It actually saves you money on bullets and uh deer processing is stop killing the little ones.

SPEAKER_04 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

People say, Oh, there's there's never been a buck over here that's lit that's been four or five years old, and I say, Yeah, because you kill all of them.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I said, if you'll just simply just say, This year, we are not going to kill any bucks that we're not gonna mount. I don't care how old they are, I don't care what they score. And you just say, you know, a lot of times, most most all the time, the buckdo ratio is the other problem that's real inexpensive to solve. If you do a camera survey, you can go on YouTube. There's several people that can teach you how to do that. It you've already most people's already got the cameras. It doesn't really even cost you anything. Do you a good camera survey when the bucks are together and you can figure out your buckdo ratio and and and say this year, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna kill the does and we're gonna, you know, if a big buck comes around, we wanna mount, we're gonna kill him. Otherwise, this year we're gonna clean this place up and we're gonna work on the does and the predators. That's another side of it. Uh you know, most turkeys are lost in the nest with the the tacoons eating the eggs and some of them catching the hens. But most deer nowadays are uh lost as fawns to coyotes. And so, you know, you know, the people that are serious about deer and turkey hunting that don't coyote hunt or don't trap are are just they're missing a lot of enjoyment, but they're also missing one of the easiest things you can do to get some results. And so I tell people to, you know, you you've got to kind of, you know, everybody wants to eat the steak, nobody wants to raise the cow. Yeah, yeah. And so what I tell people is is is if you'll if you'll get into a little conservation and and you'll you'll decide you know, you gotta set some objectives. Some people just want a bunch of deer, most people want to kill big bucks. Yeah, yeah. You know, same thing with gobblers. People want, you know, people want to kill a turkey and then they want to start then they want to kill the turkey. And and there there's some pretty simple steps to try to raise the age class of your deer and turkeys, and a lot of that begins with with you know not killing them and eliminate the things that are killing them.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Yeah, yeah. I like it. And Tommy's looking at me. Are you squirming over there? He's looking at me, David. I I like to shoot deer. I I've noticed that. I I mean it don't matter. No, listen.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

I love shooting. I I I preach this. I don't know. I'm like, listen, hey, I'm I looked at him, I said, I said, you see that little buck that we got on camera? What are you gonna do with his horns after you're done? You ain't gonna put him on the wall, you're gonna throw them things in a box, and you're gonna let some kid make a keychain out of them things. Like, okay, go kill you a dough. And he's like, he'll, you know. So anyway, I won't throw you under the bus too much. But I thought that was so funny. Because I'm like, I know someone talks exactly like you're talking.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

Hey, now I do like to shoot does too. I mean, really, I don't like to eat. I'm really interested. That I shoot an old buck. Because them great big bucks, my wife won't hardly eat them a little too strong for. But them young little old bucks still got a little milk on their mouth. Them things eat good.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

And I could do the same thing with a doe, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Well, their sisters eat even better, is what I try to tell folks. I mean, they do those those little those young does and people, you know, have made dough killing so complicated. You know, you know, what we try to do is you know, they wean them off in September.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

People people say, oh, she comes in with a doe, you know, yeurlin. Oh my gosh, we ain't gonna kill none unless they ain't got yeurlings. Well then you're not gonna kill very many does.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

So so what is your thought on like old does, the mamas, the your that that you can tell ain't a butt and buck, you shoot her too?

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Well, it it you know, of course, the best thing to do is to kill the older does.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

But if your buck doe ratio is really crazy, like you know, some people will do a camera survey and you know, they'll have an they'll have some kind of redneck wonderment of, oh, we ain't, you know, it's pretty close, it's probably one and a half to you know to one. And they do a camera survey and they got, you know, four or five does to every buck. And and uh, you know, when them bucks are in velvet and they're bunched up and they're they're around your feeders, you know, you can you can tell how many bucks you got in July. Yeah. You can figure that out. And so what I what I try to tell people, it it depends on how bad off you are. If it's pretty close, you want to be picky and try to shoot your older does. If it's way out of whack and it's crazy, shoot the first doe. Not you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Yeah. Now let me ask you this. I actually heard this this year for the first time and told my advice on on killing does. Um I heard something about if you have a button buck and a doe, and that button buck seems to be pretty well off on his own as far as like eating nibbling and eating corn and whatnot, and he's pretty could be independent. I heard rumors says kill the button buck's dough, kill the doe to that button buck. The reason why is is as that button buck gets older that he he actually has to the mama will run him off from the area because um hey, it's a it's his mama, you'll run that buck off because she'll dominate the environment that he's in because that's his mom. So is that is that something that you've found to be any kind of proof or any kind of anything that you've seen in your own years of experience of that?

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Well, I I hear more, you know, whining and crying with folks. They can come up with every reason of of why not to shoot a doe. And i if you're gonna get your buck doe ratio right, that I mean, and you're gonna have big bucks, that's one of the things you have got to get done. And the earlier you get it done, the better, because what you what you're shooting for is a you want to have a rut that's defined and intense so you see your bucks and also they're competing to breed, not just everybody gets to breed everybody. So what I try to tell people is is you know, it's just like you know, human beings, you know, if if if uh you know somebody's married and their spouse passes away, they're they're they're gonna go find another one. You know, if if if something happens to mom and daddy and the kids are left, the kids are gonna get took taken up by their aunt and uncle or somebody at church or their neighbor. And it's the same thing with deer. If you'll you know, if you'll notice that that button buck, he'll he'll be back in there in that same plot. He'll be back in there with us some other deer. If you kill his mama and his sister and his daddy, he's gonna come back in there and feed because that's where he lives. And the same thing with does. Those don't have a big range. You know, when they get when they get estrus, when they get in the rut, they get run all over the place. But for the most part, they kind of stay around. Yeah. If you if you take mama or the little one or the medium one or the middle one or the middle school or high school, though whoever they're associated with, they're gonna team right back up with the other deer. So so take that off your worry list. Quit wringing your hands and not shooting your does. Get your get your does out on the front end and and let's have a rut.

SPEAKER_03 47:54

Speaking of doe killing, I got a little remedy for that. Yeah. Well, back before Jesus uh in my life.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Uh not back before Jesus, because you're not that old. No, but I'm talking about way back.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

Back when I wore sandals. Back when I wore sandals, there wasn't many deer back in. And you know, you could kill a doe. No, uh me and old Randy Beavis, we you know, we've done a lot of crazy stuff together, but we come up with these, because we was dog hunting, and every now and then we'd shoot a doe. Now, dog hunting, you know, it's crazy because our code word, if we shot a doe dog hunting, was odd boys and dogs is going to the river. Now we wasn't nowhere near the river. You know what I'm saying? And we we quit using that when somebody from another party said, Hey, we know y'all's code word. Y'all say going to the river, and everything gets silent, and everybody acts like they're guilty. I said, Whoa, whoa, we're gonna have to do something different. So we cut up with uh uh I was working for a garage door company and I had some uh lag screws that that and I thought, man, we can cut these jokers off. And I had these little four-point horns and I saw them off and I epoxied those lag screws up in the in the antlers. And so we just took an old 16-penny nail and old brick, and you when you shoot a doe, it's probably ain't that cool to say, but you just knock your little hole in her head and screw them horns right in there. And son, that joker, you could ride it on top of the box with pride. You know, you don't go real big with it, and I never forget Randy Beavis got down Oakalochney River one time, and uh, and he was down at Whitehead Landing. I don't even know if you I don't even think there's any management area on Oakalockney River, but Randy was hunting somewhere on somebody's place. And uh sorry about this, Randy. I ain't trying to turn you in, but this is a long time ago. And so he shoots this doe, comes back to the landing, it's got these screw ends in it, and Mr. Whitehead walks up. He's an old man, you know. He looked at it, he said, Man, that's a nice book. He starts to reach for it. Randy says, Whoa, wait a minute. He says, Mr. Whitehead, I'm I'm I'm weird, I'm kind of strange, but I don't like nobody touching my deer. Oh no. You know, it's just it's just a it's it's it's kind of a spiritual thing. Yeah, sacred thing. Just he's he's giving his life, you know, and he's trying to make it look like he's an Indian or something, I guess. I don't know if he's got feathers doing this kind of stuff right now. But old man Whitehead didn't even touch the deer, you know. So I had the somehow I had the screw ins. And uh so I was up in Moores Pasture hunting. We was up there hunting, and and right when he first came up with grunt calls, you know, and have my grunt call, and I'm I didn't know how to, I mean, I didn't know what you're supposed to do with it, but I thought, man, this thing bring a buck in, because that's what they said. Well I got to hear and something. I and I heard something in a little distance here. I thought, oh, he's coming. I mean, thick old tide eyed gallberries and everything on a pine row, wet, and I heard I'm me and him talking to each other. I don't even know what I was saying. I think I was saying, come on over here. And he was saying, I'm coming. And so that Joker comes walking up, and I got the muzzle. He walks up about 30 hours, and I look and I thought, good night, man, that's a hog. I'm communicating with a hog. I need to get on deer mode, but I'm thinking, I'm killing this joker. I killed him, you know, shot him up muzzleader. He was yelling black, mostly yellow. Little young, little old boy had touches, you know. So I loaded him, throwed him on the truck, throwed him on the dog box, and and uh, and I got them screwing horns, knocked me a little hole in his head, screwed him in there, and I took him down there. This is the old timey way of showing off a deer. I carried him down to the bar to Smart, the little gas station in Southport, and uh and got my picture with him. And uh so uh had him on a dog box. Well, people started gathering up. They had the polaroid, you know, and uh they're gonna hang it on the wall. And people, but you would actually go in there in the afternoons, like when you get off work or something, like hey, I'm going by it. Yeah, especially during the rupt, people's killing boats, see what they killed. Yeah. Well, I was people were coming by going, hey man, what about a hog, man? Would you really like that? You have horns. I said, Yeah, man, he's crossed up. That's what he was yellow like that. Well, I had a black guy come up to me, he had a pulpwood truck there, and he, I mean, country guy, you know. He said, Man, I ain't never seen a hog like that before. Nobody else had either. You know, he said, Man, is that one of them swamp hogs? I said, Yeah, that's exactly what it was in the swamp. I mean, it grows horns like that. And uh, so it was it went around for a while, but screw in horns, that's a cheap man's dough tag. I can tell you that right now. Now I wouldn't recommend it. Just kind of throw that off. There you go. Don't try this at all. And and don't kill the small bucks. I'm I'm I'm buying in on this day. There you go. There you go. Get you on the theme. Yeah, I'm on the now. It's recorded. He's got all we do it, baby. I love it. Don't don't don't let him get your number, Tommy. Right, I love it. He's gonna turn me into you like dad, just he he just relapsed.

SPEAKER_04 52:43

Yeah. Love it. Well, since we're talking about, you know, you're talking about before you met Jesus and that's the things you did, which you don't do that anymore. Yeah. Um you just decide you just want to kill the little bucks instead of just having to go put horns on them. Yeah. Um, but so you know, we talked about it uh every week we we do a podcast, uh, we talk about a testimony and we share a testimony. We honestly like to hear about everybody's their stories and and their their accounts and where what God has brought them through and where how far God has brought them to this point. And um, so Mr. David, you'd kind of hit a little bit about um your testimony before we had gotten started, and and you didn't really tell it in its entirety. Um, but the uh one thing I want to do is before we get off the podcast today, I'd like for you to to share your story, share a part of something maybe God has done for you in your life, and and you know, and just uh just you never know who's listening and whose life you're gonna touch by your own testimony, your own accounts, and and the things that you've experienced in your life with the with the goodness of God.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Man, I tell you that's a that's a hard thing to condense in a few minutes, and one of the main things that I'd I'd want to share with you is you know, I I was brought up in the church. My dad was a was a you know a good Southern Baptist. He believed in salvation and tithing and going to church on Sunday, and you know, I I drank a lot of hot chocolate and did a lot of wrestling on Wednesday nights and but in the middle of all that, you know, I could I you know when you get under that you know preaching and worship, you know, you you get a sense of who God is and that that he's real and that his word is is true. And and you also, you know, you look around and you see, you know, people are serious about this. I know my dad was a great example of a godly man, you know. Wow. He um he laid that foundation for me and and um but at the same time as I got older my flesh developed, you know. I you know, I was a young man, I got hormones, and I, you know, I had interest in all kinds of silly stuff. And um, you know, I think I feared God. I'd I I didn't want to be a hypocrite and you know, I'd I didn't want to go joking on Saturday night and roll up in there on Sunday morning. Now my daddy made me go to church.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

You know, I heard somebody say the other day, the way we raise our children is you have to do four things. You have to mind, you have to go to school, you have to go to church, and I forget what the fourth one was, but uh but the point of it is is you know that seems to be lost a little bit on people now. Yeah, you're right. I encourage you to to um take your children to to church and anybody that's living under your roof, you know, if you're feeding somebody and you paying the power bill, you ought to make that a requirement because what happened with me is I you know I got a sense who God was, but at the same time I, you know, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And I got a, you know, I was afraid of God. I didn't want to be a hypocrite, and I didn't want to be a kind of person that went joking on Saturday night, didn't come in on Sunday and and you know, and you know, get up on the front row and do cartwheels. And and so I I, you know, just kept on living and doing my own thing when I got grown, and you know, my daddy, uh he wasn't there to make me go to church, and nobody was there was either. And what I was concerned about is that, you know, one of the things I said, you know, this Christian stuff. I said, you know, the Lord, he's gonna, he's gonna want me to quit joking and you know, stop drinking and cutting up and chasing women, and you know, he's just gonna and and the other thing is, is, you know, he probably ain't gonna want me to hunt like I do, you know. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I back then I was hunting in at, you know, daytime and nighttime. We you know, we hog hunted at night and deer hunted in daytime, and and you know, that was our priority, not going to church on Sunday. And and uh I said, boy, you know, when I get older, you know, I'm gonna come on in and settle down and start going to church. And I just right now, I just want to I want to have some fun and and I don't want to be a sissy, you know, and and and be one of these little fellas that has that little tight tie and carries that big Bible and sits up there, you know, and says amen every time. But I'll tell you how good God is. It's the goodness of God leads to repentance. And so when I got about 23, some things happened in my life that I knew that God had done. I knew that that no man had done it. I know that I didn't do it. God had had had given me a great job, and he had given me some opportunities, and he had changed some things in my life. And I tell you what, the Holy Spirit uh brought conviction on me. And I just got to where I knew that I needed to start going to church and I needed to get right with God. And so I started going to church and and I knew what I needed to do. I needed to, you know, I'd heard John 3.16, I'd heard Romans 9, 10, and 9, you know, you know, if you believe and you that Jesus is a son of God and God raised him from the dead, and if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you'll be saved. You know, all those that call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. I'd heard that, you know, it not, you know, that foundation had been laid by my dad taking me to church and making me go, and and and so I started, I got under conviction and I yielded to it. That's a that's another story. There's a lot of people that are, you know, where God is convicting and and you may be one of them, and and God is drawing you and pulling you, and you are just resisting and resisting and resisting. And the Bible talks about that the Spirit of the Lord will only strive with a man for so long.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

And then he'll just leave you and turn you over. And if you've got cable television, you know that there's part of this world that's been turned over to debase mind. And that's that's when you really get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

And so I hadn't been in anything like that, but but at the same time, I got under conviction. I I knew I needed to go to church, I was being drawn, and and so I started going to church. I heard that gospel being preached, the same one I'd heard, and I said, you know, I need to get saved. So I made me an appointment Friday at 2 30 with the preacher, and I went went by there to see. And and uh, you know, he was he said, Well, you know, I didn't know him, you know, he you know, and he didn't know me. I'd been going to church for about three months and two or three months, and he said, You know, well, son, what can I do to help you? And I said, Well, I need to get saved. And he said, Well, well, man, I'm here to help you with that. Yeah. So we said a little sinner's prayer, and he gave me a Bible. And, you know, if you're gonna work on a John Deere tractor, you're gonna need a manual. You know, if you're going to, you know, you know, put a uh air conditioner and tear it apart and fix it, you probably need a manual to know what evaporator to put in it. And so I said, you know, this is the manual. At the time, of course, I didn't know that all scripture is given by divine inspiration of God and is good for correction, reproof, and sound doctrine. I didn't know that it's living inactive, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing, dividing, soul, spirit, joint, and mirror, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I didn't know that it was I didn't know that in the beginning the word was with God and the word was God and the word is God. I didn't know that Jesus is the word and the Bible is alive, and what a difference it can make in your life. I'd heard John 3.16. I knew about David and Goliath, I knew about that boat Noah had built. Yeah, yeah. Because I had gone done that, I drank that hot chocolate and I went on Wednesday night.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

But the the the moral to the story is I I that little old hard, I always wondered what that thing cost. You know, it was a little little little cheap, hard bound Bible. Well, I read that thing, and man, whoo!

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

That thy word I've hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee. What happens is is that that thing gets down inside of you and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and it starts, you thought you had some conviction before. Well then, you know, you know, you start off, you know, dealing with with the immediate problem, which is you know, hell still in staring you in the face, and then and then God starts, you know, cleaning you up and changing you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

And all things become new in Christ. And and so I started experiencing that. And let me tell you, people talk about, oh, a diamond in the rough. I think I was a piece of coal in the rough. I I I had some rough, rough edges. I had some some habits and things that that I had participated in and did, and I just thought, you know, that was just the way you did things. And and God kept working on me. I kept going to church, kept going to worship, kept reading that Bible, reading that Bible, and over a period of time, um God has changed me, and I'm you know, I still look the same. I'm a lot older and b gray-headed, but but God has has done a work in me, and I'm a I'm a different person than I used to be. And and God, let me let me give you some some folks some encouragement that are holding out because they're worried about what God wants to do with them. Let me tell you, God only does good things. That's his nature. The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and and life more abundantly.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

God only does good things, and so what God did is He He ground on me and He changed me and He He made me, but at the same time God built me. Yes. He the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable without repentance. God made me in the womb to give me, you know, to prosper and not be harm me, give me a hope in a future. I'm not an accident. God, God intended for me to be here, and He's got a plan for me. And let me tell you, if you'd ever met my mom and dad, talking about two different people, well, man, I'm a combination of those people. And and and I'm, you know, an unusual cat. I I recognize that. I there, you know, there's only one of me, and and uh I can tell you something. If you delight yourself in the Lord, that God will give you the desires of your heart. I was worried God was gonna make me quit hunting and fishing and and you know, make me, you know, sell Bibles up at the junior store on the weekends. Well, I'm here to tell you. God, uh, I know it might sound silly to you, but I mean, the God has taken me places in my in my job, and and uh listen, I'm even married.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:38

There's a lot of people thought that I would my daddy, he's like, son, you know, or for crying out loud. You you you you need to just pick one of them, settle down, and let's let's get this show on the road. God gave me a wife. Uh, you know, I have my own home, you know. Wow. I've settled down, God's changed me. But at the same time, the the passions, the things that that God built inside of me, which you know, like hunting and fishing, man, he has taken that to a to a different level, taken me, you know, places and done things. Just like my turkey hunting. One night when you can't sleep and you got insomnia, call me and let's talk, let's really talk about turkey hunting. It did take about five or six hours to even really tell you where all I've been and what all I've killed and who I've met and who I've been with, and just the mercy of God and the goodness of God, and this and and I would encourage you to I want to I want to send out a challenge to all the listeners to this podcast. You know, you have been doing things in your own way your whole life. I don't care if you're six or sixty-six or eighty-six, I encourage you to surrender your life to Jesus. You know he's Lord. Even the demons believe that he is God and tremble.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

I mean, devil, the devil knows he's Lord. He just doesn't serve him. I want you to get out of your head knowledge and actually go to work and surrender your life to Jesus, read that Bible, find a church. Don't be looking for the church. There ain't no perfect churches. Find you a church and go in that church and don't try to run it. Go in there and worship and pay your tithe and show up on Sunday and Wednesday, take your family, or if you don't have one, that's a good place to get a family started.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

And and say, you know what I'm gonna do? I have tried everything under the sun. I I have, you know, watched all these self-help videos and done what my cousin Larry told me. But I'm I'm gonna do, I'm gonna try God's way. You know, he invented the universe, there's a Bible, there's a Christian fellowship I can get in fellowship with, and yield yourself to Jesus and give God about six months of your life and let him have his way. And here's what I'm gonna tell you you're going to experience some some correctness. You're going to experience some encouragement. But the best thing you're going to get out of the whole deal is the peace of God which passes all understanding. Well, you've been, let me tell you, we we we we're looking for the peace of God. We we might call it a big buck. We might call it a uh you know, like somebody like um somebody was looking for this perfect horse the other day, you know, people that love horses love horses, people that like the turkey hunter passionate, people are, you know, trying to catch the biggest tarpon. You know, people are chasing women, using drugs, you know, doing all kinds of things, whether it be good or bad. And really what you're looking for is you're looking for the peace of God. And so I encourage you to turn your whole operation over to Jesus, do it his way, not your way. Read your Bible, go to church, and give God a try. Because I'm gonna tell you something. If you've got cable television and your eyeballs work and you've got a cell phone, you know that things are kind of weird in this world. Yeah. You know, there's there's something going on. You know, you can call it whatever you want. The weather's stranger than it's ever been. We're we're right in the middle of the worst drought I've ever seen. Yeah. Um the the you know, we're there's a war over here and a war over there and a war over here. People are people are trying to to to do things and live ways that are that are just completely ridiculously unreasonable to God and man. So there's something going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

You know, I don't know if it's the end of the world or time is growing short, but today is the day of the Lord. You are not promised another breath. There's once to die and then the judgment. You're going to stand before the Lord. I don't care who you are. So what I'm what I'm encouraging you to do is try Jesus. You've tried everything else. God, God can bless you and do some things in your life that you can't do, and the peace is worth all of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Absolutely. My goodness. I could I you know, we could stay in that vein, you know, all day, just that in itself. And you know, I think you might have I don't think well let's say this. I I could say I was gonna make a joke, so you might have missed your call, but I'll be honest with you as far as being a preacher, but I I'll be honest with you, there's this idea that you have to be called in a different capacity to be able to preach the gospel or be able to speak life into somebody, but but God did not just call preachers or people who do it for an occupation or people who volunteer to be pastors to spread the gospel. He actually um called every one of us to preach the gospel, to every creature to and so so I as I was gonna make that joke, I actually recanted that because man, you're doing exactly what that's exactly God's placed you where you at. Yeah, and you just you just preach the gospel just then. And so it the that story is so powerful and the and and just so touching, just the fact of it is that the give God a try. Give him a shot. Yeah. Um and and one thing is is if you couldn't tell, uh Mr. David right here didn't uh he's got the word hidden in his heart. I mean he was slinging scripture left and right, that's right. And that doesn't just come from just just just showing up and and being a part of a routine. Yeah. That in itself is taking time and having a personal encounter with God and his word and just spending alone time with him. And I would encourage you, like he said, give God six months, you'll never regret it, it'd be the best six months of your life. That's it. It'll turn into it. It might be the first the hard the the first month's gonna be the hardest, yeah, but it'd be the best six months of your life. And I I would challenge you too. I had a um I had a guy that worked for me one time and he was having a major panic attack, like just bad. Like he like to the point, like, do we need to take his guy to the doctor? Like he can't breathe. And man, I'll never forget. I walked up to him, and I'm sure if I if I ever asked him and got him to to say it, I'm sure he would admit is there was a moment where I walk up to him and I and I said, Well, I gotta pray over you. Like, I'm just gonna pray for you. So I started praying over him, and this guy don't go to church, you know, he d his heart don't belong to God, but yet in that moment, God started to do a work in him, and he come it as it he felt peace in that moment, and I asked him, I looked at him, I said, Let me ask you. I said, if I had the perfect, and I said, So I said, You you you take medications, you may smoke weed, you may do this or that, and you do all this to combat this feeling you have right now that you're this overwhelmed feeling of anxiety. I said, What if I told you that I had the perfect drug for you? The perfect drug and you would it it would it would help you fight anxiety in a moment and it would actually better your chances to not have anxiety attacks. And I it and it was something that you'd have to try, and it in order for it to work, it takes six months for it to kick into effect. But after six months, you'll find that you'll have less anxiety, and actually the medication it it it it actually really just starts to help you combat those things. I said, Would you try it if I had a drug for you? And he says, Yeah, absolutely. I'd try it. I said, Okay. I said, if you're so willing to try something that I have that you don't even know if it works or not, but yet I told you it would work, I said, then be be willing to give God a try. Yeah. Be willing to give God a try because that's my answer for you. And it's not a figment of your imagination. That's it. It's not some just some thing that we say in like some club. Because I'll be honest with you, if it didn't work, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't either. If if the a relationship with God wasn't real and and salvation wasn't real, like honestly, I love to hunt fish. And Sundays are a great day for that. But you know, it's real, it works. I've had an encounter with him. You've had an encounter with him. I mean, we all love to hunt fish, and yet it's worth God having my time, it's worth God having my schedule so that he can have me and I can have him too. And so give God a try. You won't regret it. And uh we're just a we're just a bunch of old rednecks, these guys have lived a lot more life and had a lot more experience as far as the hunting world and fishing world as I, but you know, everything you said, you've you're Christian. One thing that we talked about not long ago is Christians can still have fun. Oh, yeah, they can. Yes. And it's kind of funny. Your your initial thought of when I get saved, is God gonna make me not be able to have fun no more? Yeah. And so, um, but you're living a life, man, and it's yeah, you you get no a great job, you got a wife, you got a house, you got just a lot of fun experiences, and you get to travel. Like, what a what a what a cool thing. God, it sounds like God elevated your opportunities to have a good time and enjoy his creation rather than before. So, but anyway, so that is the I Neem Line podcast. Today is a little bit longer of an episode, and I'm I'm I'm here for it. I I I enjoy it, and and uh you may have to break this up in a couple parts, maybe to work, from work, lunch break. I don't know. Yeah, that's it. But uh, but anyway, Dad, do you want to pray us out and we'll conclude this episode?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

Lord, we thank you again for uh this opportunity to uh to just visit with these folks and uh to really get to hang out with my friend David, God. God, I've known him many years, and it's great to kind of re-reacquaint each other uh with each other here. God, I ask you just to touch him. Go with him, lead and guide him, God. I don't know where you're gonna take him uh and and where he he gets to go, just let him shine like he's shining here, God. Go with him, bless him, bless his home, Lord. I thank you for everyone that's watching today, God. I ask you just to let them just pick up on this and maybe have a little breath of fresh air and smile and say, hey, I could use some of that. God, go with us and keep us until the next time. In Jesus' name we pray.

unknown 1:13:47

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:47

Amen. That's the I Neve Line Podcast. Hey, we're glad you came by. Don't be a stranger. We'll be back in two weeks. We'll see you.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:55

Y'all have a good one.