Episode 8 Robert sits down and Talks with hunting buddy. Donny Nickell (Dray)

Robert has a sit down conversation with his long time hunting buddy.  Topics include Alpha gal from outside looking in, 30 years of hunting together, Outdoor trips from around the country, and much more.  Also a special turkey update from 2 other hunting buddies via phone call. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Alpha Gow Doorsman Podcast, where we talk all things Alpha Gal and all things outdoors. Everything from hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, beeping, off-roading, even gardening. I'm your host, Robert Worley. Hey y'all. Welcome back to another episode of Alpha Galdoorsman. Today is going to be an exciting day. I am uh I'm sitting down with my best buddy here, and we're gonna we're gonna just sit here, we're gonna have a beer together, and we are gonna uh we're gonna talk about you know him going through Alpha Gal with me. Um he is the first guest that I've had on that does not have Alpha Gal, but uh he's he was he was with me through the whole course of my Alpha Gal and my diagnosis. Um uh before we get too far into that, I want to talk about a couple things. Um so I talk about the old boy from Georgia coming on. Um he was going to be this episode. He's still got that uh sick family member, but I will tell you, um, I will tell you, well, we'll talk about this in a little bit. He's got his uh uh calls. Uh last week's episode, uh, my solo episode uh just released yesterday, um, which was March 15th. Today is March the 16th. So we got right out a month before turkey season. So the bigger news is uh Bill 578. I got a text message today from my congressman um that the vote will is that a third cat out there? Or am I seeing things? I think I'm going crazy into it. That's a reflection there, but anyways, uh let's get back on track here. So um so uh Bill 578, my congressman called me today. It is going to a vote tomorrow in Congress, or no, yeah, the House. The House will vote tomorrow at 2 o'clock on Bill 578. Everything looks very promising. I have said, just like I touched on in episode seven, that um um I don't understand the politics of it. I don't know where it goes or how it comes or how it gets to where it's at. I didn't know if it was voted on. I thought it could have been, then not sure. So, but for sure, tomorrow. So I'm sorry, Wednesday. So I we're gonna get this all screwed up. So let's see. Today is March the 16th, so that'll make it March 18th, Wednesday, March 18th, Bill 578. So I may patch a piece it in here, or I may make just a special announcement. I'll probably just do a special announcement about Bill 578 on uh on here, um, let you know if it passed. But after that, then it goes to the Senate, and um we start the whole process over again. So I'm hoping that by the end of summer we got some good answers on if the bill will become law or not. So without any further ado here, my guest today is my best bud. He has uh been running with me for a lot of years. Um and from day one when I got diagnosed with Alpha Gauss syndrome, he was the guy when I had all my histamine problems and didn't know what they were and was all depressed and bummed and tore up, he's the guy's ear I've been off the most. So uh without any further ado, my buddy, well his name's Donnie Nickel, but we call him D-Ray. So D-Ray, tell us a little about yourself, my buddy.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Uh cheers, by the way. Yeah, cheers. Cheers, cheers. Um Donnie. Uh uh live uh right outside of a little town called West Elkton. Uh been hanging with Weedle and hunting for uh since just out of high school. Yeah. So been a long time. Been a long time. Uh do heating and air and worked at uh Dayton Children's Hospital.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

You've been at children's, so you worked at the atrium hospital before that.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Yeah, I've been working at the hospital. A lot of years.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, you've been doing the hospital thing. So um moved to moved to the children's hospital. I can only imagine what you see there every day. I'm kind of glad I'm not you in that sense. But um so anyway, D-Ray, so uh you know, we've been running together, like you said, for just out of high school. So that's been uh 30 years, 30 plus years. Yeah, we have traveled a lot of places, buddy. Um, before we get too far into that, um man, so I when I got diagnosed with alpha Gauss syndrome, I was having symptoms beforehand. You were around a lot. Um, what do you remember about them early days of my diagnosis just being from the outside looking in?

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Uh man, I'd tell you it was real uh it was a depressing thing, really. I mean, uh see uh get sick, having your episodes where you would swell up. Um, you know, you do a lot of the updates for your wife's uh country store. I would see you on the country store, and you would have uh black circles under your eyes, you'd be swelled up, lips swelled up, talking funny. But uh I I could tell something was going on, you know. I seen uh the fact that you pretty near starved to death. Uh drop a bunch of weight. I watched it.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

You know, I I kind of forgot about, you know, I mean, I do these, so just for the listeners to get up there, my wife runs a country store called Whirley's Country Store, and I do these things, I do advertising on social media for her. I do these things called two-minute updates, where I'll come on there with a camera, and it's just my smiling face, and for two minutes, I talk about the activities and the things she's got going on at the store. And I never thought, I never thought too much about that, but but um so you could tell.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Oh, yeah, you could tell by the way I was looking. Oh yeah, you could tell. When you first uh come down with it, you something's wrong, something's wrong. There was no diagnosis, there was nothing like that. You just man, I'm sick, there's something going on. I can't eat, I wake up in the middle of the night, uh body parts are hurting, I'm sick, uh, guts are you know twisting. Yeah. Um and i it's terrible. I mean, uh um I seen it, you know, uh felt bad for you. And then and then you come up with uh your own diagnosis. Yeah, I had to self-diagnose. And and I thought, well, you know, because we had talked about that long, long time ago, if you remember that. Back at back hunting camp long time ago. I have, I've mentioned it on the podcast before. Long time ago between uh uh the foursome, it came up and it was like, ah, that's not real. You know, I mean uh I know I felt the same way back. Yeah, and then you were saying, Man, I think I got it.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah. So what D-Ray's referring to here is like 20 years ago, that was 20, maybe 25. Yeah, we was we used to tell we used to take this big old camper and we'd go down to southeastern Ohio, Lake Oak State Park, and we would that's where we deer hunted, you know, in the fall. We'd take uh we went gun season for a while, and then we we'd go during the rut. But sitting around camp one night, and uh our buddy Brugman, oh Jimmy comes in and he's like, Man, have you heard about this tick that bites you and make you allergic to red meat? So we heard about it. Yeah, we thought that's the craziest thing I ever heard of. Yeah. So but I remember that conversation. I have mentioned it on this podcast a couple of times before. Um, and that's what helped me self-diagnose was remembering back to that uh conversation. Um, and honestly, I don't remember if I have read or seen anything else about it anywhere, but uh what helped me was is I knew I got a tick bite, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah, well, you knew you had a tick bite. That that was a a thing, and it it's becoming so prevalent now. I mean, uh I even seen on TV the other day, uh, I think it was Wisconsin is doing the same thing. They are trying to get a bill passed. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah, there's actually about yeah, that's right. There's actually about uh a bunch of states right now. I think bill I think Wisconsin's number might be like uh Bill 1625 or something like that. Yeah, there's uh I know Missouri's one of them right now. There's a bunch of them out there that are trying to do them. Yeah. So D-Ray was the one person uh that I man, I went through when I was learn, I hadn't learned about histamines yet. My histamines was a wreck. And um I would call I talked to this on a couple episodes ago with the AlphaGoy Grief Girl that I went through a state of depression. That was something terrible, man. And I remember back I would I would get down and out. Donnie was my go-to guy. I'd call D-Ray on the phone and I'd just wear him out, son, for about five minutes and say, I gotta get back to work. But yeah, well, I appreciate you for that, though, buddy. So you know, it wasn't five minutes. Yeah, how long was it?

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah, there was there was I was worried about you, you know. It uh I was way out of way out of the character there.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Yeah, yeah. Uh I just had a histamine dump like that. I talked about it on the last episode. Uh um my Nikki's doing these workouts in the morning with get your cardio going, you know.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I jumped on and and done one with her a few weeks ago. Now I were I physically work every day, right? Yeah, oh yeah. And get my blood pumping. But this workout was a whole lot different. And I got out a few hours later in New York doing some stuff. And I started having the worst gloom and doom. I thought I was going into depression. And I had to, and then it dawned on me, oh my gosh, I'm having histamine dump from that workout, you know. And that's and it was it reverts back to like when, yeah, when early on before having histamines all fixed out.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

No, a guy like me, I I don't live it. So, you know, seeing that happen, talking about the histamines, I would think that, you know, histamine histamines are messed up. You guys get ready to start sneezing, you know, histamines. Yeah. But that it it does so much a whole lot.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, there's so much more to it. So, like, so histamines in your body is like a bucket, and this is the best way to explain it. It's like a bucket. And when that bucket gets full, it don't trickle out. It's like on a pendulum. And when it gets full, it dumps, it dumps the whole thing. So when you hear people talk about I have a histamine dump, that's what it is, is and then you know, getting your cardio up and getting your blood pumping, you know, will cause that, you know, and then high histamine foods on top of that. That's why I take the antihistamines. Now, I've taken Claritin, I've taken zertec, and I've taken pepsid AC and all of them. And people think, well, it's not allergies, or you're not having acid reflux. I don't take the pepsid AC because I have acid reflux. I take it for the antihistamines that are in it because the antihistamines help control my histamines. Same with the zertec. I don't have it because I have seasonal allergies, or take it because of that. I take it because the antihistamines in there controls my histamines, which is crazy to me when I first learned about it. Probably crazy to you right now. Right now, it's yeah, yeah, it's kind of mind-blowing. But that's that's in the gist of it, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

Yeah, I mean, you're learning. That's what everybody out there needs to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Yeah, you know, they need to learn their allergy, exactly. They're allergy. If you've heard me say it once on this podcast, you've heard me say it a hundred times. First off, I'm not a doctor, but if you heard me say, you've got to learn your allergy. And when you learn your allergy, so I I take a pepsid AC every morning. Early days, I take a pepsid in the morning and a zertec at night. And um, I'm down to one pepsid every morning, controls my histamines, you know, except for I go to do a workout with Nick. She might be in a little better shake than me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Uh, you're gonna put that on the podcast, right? Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're not gonna cut and splice on this one here. This is just a this is just a talk with my buddy right here. So D Ray, you and I, man, have uh seen the country. We have we have traveled near and far hunting and fishing and doing stuff. Um you got some thousands of miles. Thousands of miles. Thousands of miles. We've with dogs, without dogs, with fishing gear, with hunting gear. Um you got any favorites? You got a f any? I mean, what our trips in the past, even before Alpha Gal. Um, I tell you, before we get into that, let's talk about that first trip to deer camp when I got this, when I found out I had Alpha Gal. Because I didn't have it under control yet. Remember that trip? I mean, you guys cook steaks outside on the porch.

SPEAKER_05 13:13

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

When it was cold, it was it was balls cold out.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really that uh bummed me out because you're the cook. You know, I like cooking. Yeah, I I like cooking. And a lot of stuff, you know, it might be called slop, but it's pretty good slop. Yeah, I got yep. So uh uh yeah, I remember we cooked outside and uh uh yeah. Had the watch where we put stuff in the refrigerator, utensils, washing dishes. Yep. Can't use no pots and pans that you're gonna use.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

I that that first trip, I took my I well, I still take my own skillets and cutting boards when we go down there on our hunting trip. But um I I'm way better and got way more control now than I used to have, so it's a whole lot easier, which you've noticed a difference.

SPEAKER_05 14:04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Last year we had them ostrich steaks. What'd you think of those? Man, I'm not a big fan of them.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

No, you didn't like them, huh? Man, I'd tell you what. I think if they was uh that there they was cooked a little bit rare for me. Yeah. Uh but it was something different, you know. I mean, it wasn't bad, don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Well, it's the closest thing to red meat from it is a red meat, actually, but it's still a bird. Um, but it's the uh closest thing to a ribeye or to a daggone, you know, uh a filet or something like that I could have. I'd love them. I love them. So but let's talk about our trips, man. Um we've done a we've done a lot of trips hunting and fishing and camping, hiking, and all the things, jeeping. And what would you got any favorites or any stick out in your mind that I uh probably going uh uh into boundary waters was an experience, you know.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

But I mean we've had so many trips uh uh uh that just something makes them stick out, you know. I mean, even the days of hitting Twin Creek when we was younger and and yeah, you know, I mean those those are memories you're just never gonna forget. Yeah, they were day trips right there, and then we the thing about going to the boundary waters was we just got bad weather on the trip that we went. So it stands out, you know. I I slept with my pocket knife open laying beside me because I was afraid that it was gonna pick my tent up and throw me in the water. Oh, and you wanted to cut your way out. I wanted to cut my way out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Uh what D-Ray, what D-Ray's talking about there is we went to the boundary waters. What year was that? That was COVID year, 2020. Uh 2019. 2019, I think. 2019. And we went for Labor Day weekend, which is September. So we had weather that was seven degrees in the daytime and 30s, low 30s or high 20s at nighttime. But we get up there, I think we got up there, we was five days. Five days, five days. So we get up there. I don't remember what day of the week it was, maybe like a Thursday.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

We got up there on Wednesday and we were going out on Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

We got up Wednesday, we went into the boundary waters on Thursday. We get out, set up camp. Friday morning, we get up and it's gloomy. And by the afternoon, it started raining. And we had rain and high winds for uh three or four days.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

You gotta you gotta tell them how it was. It wasn't rain and high winds, it was torrential downpours and hell come to the I mean it it it just the thunder up there. Could you you remember the thunder? Oh, you would hear it, it would be way away and it would not stop, and it would just go whoa right on past you. That was the craziest thunder I've ever heard. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

So so boundary waters, the part we was in, I mean, we was only probably like what we were 50 miles from Lake Superior, uh less than a hundred for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'd say 50 miles. We was way up there, probably 50 miles from the north shore of Lake Superior. We was on the north side of Lake Superior into the boundary waters. So when that thunder would start, it would thunder across Lake Superior. Man, and it would you when you it literally would last 50, 60 seconds.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Long time, or longer even. You'd hear it coming and you'd hear it going until it was gone.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

And it wasn't just one or two, all of them it was it all of the time, it thundered like crazy, and yeah. I remember laying there in bed at night, like we are so far out here, and we are in the wilderness, and it's blowing 50, 60 mile an hour, and these trees fall and smash one of us. I I don't know how you know it was something. Yeah, it was an experience. It was yeah. Fishing was for squat. You did catch a northern. I caught a nice smallmouth. Yep. Um, we did catch a few fish, but the we had one fish fry out of that five days. One fish fry. And we didn't know we none of us got a whole lot to eat.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

We ate pretty good. We ate the we ate the uh uh MREs. We did. We had a lot of. We ate pretty good. Yeah, that that uh uh that banana pudding was about probably the best banana pudd I ever ate.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

You know, I got that video somewhere, and I actually think that it's on YouTube. I want to see if I can pull it down and I can see if I can move it over to uh the Alpha Gal Outdoorsman YouTube page. I'll see if I can pull uh any of that down or move any of that around.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

There was a lot of stuff there that we seen though. I mean the beaver swimming past us with sticks in their, you know, they were an everyday thing. Yeah uh the bald eagle that come landed in the tree and just sat and watched me. Yeah, you know, for 30 minutes. Yeah. I mean, it was cool at first, and then you look up there and see him, that's a big old bird with big old spikes on his feet. Yeah, he was uh it made me uh a bit on the leery side, but uh yeah, it was cool. The whole experience.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Um yeah, I'll tell you one of my favorites thinking back, and I always think about our trips, and when uh now our boys are 27 now, they're 27? 27, they'll be 28 this year. They're 27 years old, so it was 20, 19 years ago. When our boys was eight years old, we took them to northern Canada. Our buddy uh from up there had just got a camp on Jimmy Lake. And it's so far up there that that you know, he told us when we get there, he said, look, if uh um the wildlife officers they come, they fly across on airplanes. If they see you on a boat on a lake, they'll land. He says, if they land, you have to tell them that uh you're friends of mine that we grew up together, um, because you know, this all them lakes around there are fly-in fishing camps where they fly in, you know, and it took we we drove 15 hours in a Jeep, you and the boys, and uh that trip is probably uh the boys, I know the boys still talk about that trip today.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Yeah, it was eight years old. That was an experience. I mean, uh the the your buddy he took us for a ride up there, and we're out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, the telephone poles start out with three wires, two wires, one wire, and then everything is tough. The birds are tough. But uh, there was, I mean, we're driving down this old logging road, and he's saying, Oh, there's bear skat. And I the whole time I'm wanting him to stop so I can look at him. I've never seen it before. Yeah, yeah. Uh, there's wolf skat. Oh, stop, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

But uh yeah, it was cool. That was a good trip. Yeah, yeah. We got up that one morning, Cage and I rolled out early, and and he we got on that right on it. He had one uh he had a couple boats, but one had a motor. It was like a like a three-horse, wasn't it? Little bitty motor. Wide open, it went trolling speed. Right. Wide open, it was like trolling speed. Uh, there wasn't getting nothing up on wake or nothing like that. But um me and Cage stood there at the bank and uh looked around and said, Where do you want fish at? We traveled various, we traveled very much. Let's just hit it all. So we just he put this little bait on, man, and um we trolled around that thing and tore them fish out. We had an absolute blast for hours.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Uh he has actually caught a what what they call that, a speckled trout.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

We caught a bunch of splakes. There was one that they really liked. We caught a speckled, a speckled trout. Um, and I think we threw it back. So the splake trout are a hybrid. And the D the uh Canadian government kind of flies over these lakes and they drop I don't know they drop fingerlings. Are they fingerlings? Okay. They drop these fingerlings in the lake, you know, so they kind of help stock them. But these splake trout are hybrid fish, so they don't reproduce. So if you catch the splake, they just expect people to keep them and eat them. So we did keep the splake and ate them. But we did catch, it was like a it was nice. Yeah, 14 or 15 inch speckled trout, and we ended up putting it back for sure. You know, yeah, Bob was like, put that guy back. We want to keep him in here, you know. Um, so yeah, that was that's my probably my when I think back of our journeys, you know. Uh that one's up there, it's on the list. Yeah, yeah. So um, so D-Ray, turkey season's coming. Now, when we go down turkey season in Kentucky, you don't turkey hunt, you just mushroom hunt, you and Doug. And me and Roy do the turkey hunting. Well, I might now.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

I got my knee replaced.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

I love that. I'm glad I'm glad to hear that, you know. Um, so um, but um, so I'm dedicating the second half of from probably well, April. I'm just gonna give April and maybe episode or two into May, or maybe the first one of May or whatever. It actually might be both episodes in May because well, I'm just dedicate the turkey. Turkey bonanza.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Turkey and mushrooms.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Turkey and mushrooms, actually. Turkey and mushrooms. Okay, I won't leave the mushrooms out. That's right. Um, you know, so uh April 18th, we're going down to Kentucky, back to Hemlock. So if people watch the any of the videos on the our the YouTube page, you'll see our deer camp when we went down. Uh we stayed at Hemlock Hill. Uh, if you're if you're interested in in visiting Eastern Kentucky, you can go to the Facebook page Hemlock Hill and Acorn Ridge at Red River Gorge. It's two cabins side by side. They're both Airbnbs. And if you ever interested in renting them, you can always give me an email at alpha galdorsman at gmail.com. But we're going back down. We're going to leave on a Friday, which is the 17th, and we're going to be there till uh Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

But um a lot of hunting ground there.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Lots of hunting ground. A lot of hunting ground.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Daniel Boone. There's a lot of it. Thousands of acres.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Right here where me and D-Ray live is, man, if you get a 50-acre patch of woods that you can go hunt, you've got something. Yeah. There just ain't big patches around here anymore. It's all farmed up or it's developed. And it's a it's a it's such a relief to go to Kentucky, to go to Kentucky and be able to run and gun for turkeys and not run out of room. You know, it's such a good thing. Speaking of that, what do you say? Let's get a Southern Ohio turkey update. So, right here where I'm at, I haven't seen a lot of birds. I've been I have been seeing a few from the road here and there, and they're flocked up. They're flocked up, but I haven't seen a ton of action yet. But I'll tell you what, we're going to do right now, we're going to call our two hunting buddies. I'm going to put them on the speaker phone. And um we're going to get so who are we calling first? Jeff or Roy? Jeff is Eastern Ohio. Jeff Southeastern. Roy gets all over, really. He's in the yeah, mostly central. So who you want to call first? Roy? Yeah, call Roy. All right. Roy. We're going to call Roy for a Central Ohio turkey update. Let's see here. He's a hoot. I'll put him on the speakerphone right here. Uh let's see what we get. I'm going to hold it right here. It's ringing. What are you doing, Roy boy?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

What's happening, little buddy?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Hey, me and D-Ray here uh record the podcast on Alpha Get Outdoorsman. And um we know that you are a railroad man and you are all over central Ohio. Uh we're we're wanting a turkey update, son. What do you got for us?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Son, I'm telling you, the hottest ones I've had right now are up toward the Sharonville areas, up towards Cincinnati. And some now are hanging out and just gaggles. I mean, just hordes of them. Uh ran into some the other day, which uh, you know, we got some good pictures, good looks at. Uh they were strutting. They were all fanned out, and uh I got my turkey feather, you know, kangaroo undies on them, my turkey feet, and went out there trying to, you know, get with them. And I think I scared them off, but uh had a nice, nice big uh big Tom. He he was he had a good beard on him and uh Jake. They were spread out, and I am starting to see them hot and heavy come out toward uh Springfield area, London, Enan, uh up toward uh you know Clark County as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

So it's starting. It's starting. Today is March the 16th, and it has started, and that's a worse, that's a bad thing about the Ohio season, is they get it in later to give the birds a chance to breed, which is good, but man, it makes it tough hunting sometimes here in Ohio. Sometimes you miss it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I'm not hearing a whole lot of talking and squawking, but uh man, they are out, they're out feet on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

I'm glad to hear that they're out and they're out in uh big groups. You know, they haven't separated yet, and uh, they're not really talking a lot, but man, they are out in uh huge groups, thirty, thirty or more sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Well, well, me and D-Ray are uh sitting here recording. We're talking a little bit about this year's um this year is uh uh Turkey Camp, which is April the 17th. It comes in on the 18th. Um, and uh, you know, uh me and you got us a double last year. So, you know, uh you had to shoot a couple two or three times to get you. I just want to make sure I ain't backing you up this year, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I'm trying to be uh you know a little better sided. Uh I got a good knee this year. I'm uh son, I'm on fire. I'm on fire this year.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

You and D-Ray both got new knees, so I better look out. That's all I can say.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Son, all I got to say is we'll get there and we'll have a race to see who's got the better of the two spots.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

I love that. Can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

He just he'll win it fair and square. I'll take it.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

I love that. All right, Robert, we're gonna get off here. We're gonna give Jeffy a call next. So we'll talk to you soon, my buddy.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

All right, brother. We uh we appreciate you and uh Alpha Gown Outdoorsman. Forever.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

See you, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

All right.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Well, there D-Rig is your central Ohio update. He gets around. He does, man. He's everywhere. City. City turkeys. That's where the city turkeys are starting for. Yeah, yeah. So let's see what uh Jeff is in eastern Ohio. Now he's down, he is down by uh MacArthur. Yeah, yeah. Dundas. Dundas. Jeffy, what's going on? Rafa Gala, and we are wanting a southern, a southeastern Ohio turkey update. What do you got? What are you seeing?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

No, right now.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

I know it was snowing here today. Is it it's gonna be out there right now? It is getting down, buddy. We got over here. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

No, it's not coming down.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

I'm gonna walk over here to the window and see what we got. I still got green good ass grass, but it looks it's coming down against weather down now.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

So um, today's March the 16th. And uh, are you seeing any turkey activity down there?

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Not a half, I have not a cloudy. Uh little dude right now is that they clear cut all the way around the farm here. We got 80 acres, and there's over 200 acres that's around us on the three sides, and they clear cut over a bit of it, and I haven't seen a turkey too.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Uh I have a couple of cloudy, I threw very two deer.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

That cut that clear cutting. I I'm I'm I feel confident that they'll be back, but I think we've they've just put a shock into it. How long ago was it they clear cut all that, Jeffy? All summer. All summer. So this is the first season. We went through we went through deer season and going into turkey season. It's the first turkey season since, huh?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yeah, dear. Gotcha. But uh, I haven't seen any turkeys. Usually I can sit here and see turkeys over there in uh clay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

But I haven't seen any. Not one. I got even a yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Man, that's kind of well. I'm gonna have to get down your way, and we're gonna have to take us a ride one evening to see if we can get some birds talking.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah, I talked to my son, he got some UPS, and he says that he hasn't been seeing very many, but he's in Morrow.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

But we've been talking to a lot of his buddies who said they've been seeing them.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, I got you. We just talked to Roy, too, and Roy's been seeing quite a few down in between Springfield and Cincinnati. So uh they're starting, they're moving. So yeah. All right, Jeffy, we'll be letting you go, my buddy. So uh we'll talk to you real soon.

SPEAKER_05 31:23

All right, see you, bubba.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

See you, buddy. Well, D Ray, we got kind of a mixed bag right there, man. Sure enough. Well, Jeff lives in the country. It's a city turkey. That's right. The city turkeys were roars. Yeah, it's cities, yeah, it's city murder. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Yeah, it sounds like he's had a a real big change down there.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

I mean, yeah, but you know, um them clear cuts. A couple years, a couple years into them, boy, they they bring the wildlife in. And you almost you can't you can't get them out of there. No. I mean you gotta like just for for deer hunting, for instance, I mean you gotta hunt the edges of them clear cuts.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Uh surprising that the deer are not in there though, because they've not dropped them tops, and you know, the that's a good foliage for the deer. Yeah, yeah, which you would think the turkey would get in there too, because you got all that mess now that turkeys can get in there and and uh lay their eggs and nest. Yeah, uh it's tough for things to get around.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

So you know, they're probably there, and he's just maybe they're in there. Well, that stuff ain't you. Some of the lot of the tops are there. You know, maybe that he's just not seeing them because of that. Yeah, and I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right on that.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

You know, a lot of the a lot of the tops, even though they're down, they'll still butt out. They may not have died yet.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah, yeah. I have seen that before.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

You know, turkeys eat on them.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Yeah, I have seen that before. Um, you know, um, so hopefully they come back, hopefully they come back, you know, um and and by the time season comes in, Jeffy's got some birds on the place. I I think that my son and my son-in-law and I, now first week of Ohio season, I think that's April 24th, they have a bachelor party or something somewhere. Um but the second weekend, I think, I think me and Cage and and Logan are going to um we're gonna make a trip down to Lake Hope down by Jeff's. Go down and try and call. Yeah. We're gonna go down and we're gonna hunt. We're gonna hunt. Now in Ohio, you can only hunt till noon until uh last week or two of season. Um so but we're gonna go down and hunt, you know, a day and a half. We're gonna hunt Saturday and Sunday. Um and uh hopefully we get some birds talking.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Ah, you're pretty good at it. You've uh you've always called uh called for me, uh way better at it than I am.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

I like calling. That's my that's why Turkey Hunt. That's why Turkey Hunt. Speaking of that, so we talked about an old boy from Georgia. Now I'll tell you his name is Eddie Palmer. So I um he makes wingbone turkey calls. And let me tell you something. I've never used one of these before, and I am not good at it at all. When I first got this thing, you should have seen me in the house trying to make some noises on this thing. I couldn't use it at all, and I still can't. I probably will not hunt with it this season by no means, because I'm no good at it. But this thing is the most beautiful thing I ever seen, and I'm starting to I'm getting better at it. So let me give this thing a tote or two here. Uh it is pretty. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna show it to the camera here a little bit. Let's see, it says old Turk, old Turk wing bones. Uh it's got a date on it when it was made and everything, you know. It's pretty awesome, ain't it?

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

And all handmade. Um, you don't kill nothing. You're looking good out there. I'm looking good with that thing around my neck, ain't it? So uh I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna give this thing a whirl right here. Um, like I said, I'm not good at this thing. I'm gonna I brought I got some other calls laid out here. Uh I'll hit some turkey calls a little bit, but um so this is as far as I got on this. Now don't be giggling at me all right.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

No promises.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

See. See, I just ain't got that the pitch. I'm not too good at the pitch yet. Now he did it to me the other day. I talked to him on the phone. He was picking them up, but man, he was making them tearing them up. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I'll get it. Just gonna take me a little time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my my box call, you know, um it's I I like the box call because it's good and loud, and it's um I like it especially locating. But if they're talking if they're answering back to it, you know, I'll keep hitting that dude, but it's you know, that sucker's good and loud. When you're in the woods, carry. Yeah, yeah, it really does. Now, the slate call I use a lot, um, and um, excuse me, um, because I can purr with it, and I haven't been practicing a lot lately, but I can purr with it, and I can't purr with anything else. I can't purr with the mouth call or the box call, and they really like that purr. If you get a bird that's not that's not responding real good, a lot of times you can purr at him and you can get him fired up. Not always, but a lot of times, you know. And the slate calls, you know. Well, that sucker's pretty loud. Yeah. But my favorite man is I like a mouth call because my hands are free. But I tell you what, a lot of times they just don't respond. Now, and this is just this is just me. This is not everybody, but my experience is a lot of times they just wouldn't answer a mouth call. There's been times when I've had the slate call and the mouth call both going at the same time, or I'll do one and then hit the other one a little bit. And I have had birds answer that slate call and not say a word to the mouth call. I could hit that, he'd gobble. Hit it again, he'd gobble. A few minutes later, I could hit the mouth call, he wouldn't say a word. I've had that happen numerous times. Now, last year this thing was really productive. Uh Roy and I's double was this mouth call. Brutus. Did I tell you about Brutus?

SPEAKER_03 37:59

I know of Brutus.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Brutus, yeah. Let me hit this mouth call a little bit here, huh? I like that call. I like that call. I like to have my hands free, you know. But Brutus, that's the call right there called Brutus. Let's get back to Brutus. That sucker gave me the slip last year. I talked about him last week on on this on last episode seven, but I'll I'll tell I'll tell it again. How tall was that bird? Oh, he was six foot tall. Five-inch spurs. With a bandana on it.

SPEAKER_05 38:38

He wore a bandana. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

I ain't sure he didn't have a scar on the side of his head where he had stitches removed. I mean, he was a big old mean bird, son. But it was my fault. I sat up too close to the to the cliff edge, to the to the ridge edge. It was pretty steep hill coming up. I sat too close to the edge where I couldn't see over. And um and over at the farm? Yep, down to the farm in Kentucky. And when he popped over, when he popped over, I was just turning a little bit. I had dad was about 200 yards from me, and he was he was calling. And then I was calling. And between the two of us, we had we had two or three birds gobbling. It was only about an hour after daylight, if that. And um man, he came up over the uh and he was 20 feet when he popped over and seen me, and I seen him about the same time, and he took he took a few steps and took flight off the ridge, and was that was it. You know, and you know I may have could have taken a pop shot, but that's just not who I am. I just I just watched him take his headband off as he flew across. I was like, this sucker, I'm coming back for you. So I I I gave him fair warning last episode, I'm giving him fair warning this episode, Brutus. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. So Drake, let's what about mushrooms? Oh let's talk mushrooms a little bit. Um so man, you and Dougie killed them last year. Big old yellows, son. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

Um where were you finding them at? Uh down in uh runoffs, mainly at runoffs close to the creek. Um it wasn't like uh they were by uh any certain tree. You know, they were on the flats in the grass, close to water, uh standing water, actually. Yeah, yeah. Um and we never found not a one snakehead nowhere. Not one.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

They were all yellow sponge. All yellow sponge.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Man, we ate good. We had we had turkey schnitzel and fried mushrooms for dinner. Yeah. That was a good one. That was a good one. Uh, three big old bags. I I think there's some pictures from that trip, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

I got a picture.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

If you got pictures, send me some pictures. I'll see if I can get them. Uh maybe I'll put us a little thing together and I can find all these stuff and put them on uh the YouTube channel or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

So I think that down there just hadn't been hunted in a long time. And we hit it, hit it just at the right temperature.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Uh yeah, that spot's pretty sweet for sure. I mean, we've been we've been mu we've been turkey hunting and mushroom hunting down there for a few years now, and that sweet spot, I mean, it's probably what from the cabin to the waterfall is probably what?

SPEAKER_03 41:45

A 150 yards. Oh, you think that's it? I was thinking it ain't too it maybe 200 at the most. It ain't that far. You know, you're probably right.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Going across that's right, you're probably right. Yeah, like Red Curl Friday, it just going down that hill and out and around. It seems like a little farther. But I bet you're absolutely right. And that 200 yard stretch. I mean, how how many we had we had, I know we had four big Walmart bags full.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

And and there was a young boy that was in there. He had already got a couple bags out of that area.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yeah, yeah. Man, you know, there's a they build a house just up from there. That boy did? No. Uh, you know, before you get to the waterfall, there's a house there now. So hopefully we're gonna. I mean, we could still go up through there, you know, uh uh tur or mushroom hunting, but there is um there's a house up in there now. I don't know if we'll get to not cross that piece of property. We might get cut short, might lose 50 yards of that sweet spot there for sure. So that's all right. That's all right. So, D-Ray, what's on the agenda for this year? Um uh outdoorsy or um uh you gonna put any feeders or any food plot out there at your house? You live out in the country and you got deer. I'm putting out some trees.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Yep, yeah, yeah, which which uh uh putting out quite a few trees actually. Fruit trees or all fruit trees. For the deer? Yeah, persimmon trees. I'm putting out two persimmon trees. Um which there'll be years before they do anything.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

But uh, I've got one plum. They come up, eat the eat the plums. Uh I've got a it would be good for gray or good for jellies, but it's not a good plum to eat. Um the deer like them.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

That's the key right there.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

That's the key right there. But uh, yeah, I'm gonna put out several trees and uh hopefully here in about four or five years, I don't want to have to leave the house.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

That'd be nice, won't it? Well, you still gotta make a make hunting camp, though, you know. Oh, yeah, well.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Yeah, yeah. I've got uh I think uh I had 14 in my backyard here a week or so ago.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

14 deer. So it won't be long. Uh crappie will be hitting too. Yeah. I'm ready for some crappie fishing. I got me a new canoe.

unknown 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

You got you a fiberglass one, didn't you? Or a uh or the Kevlar, I mean. It's a Kevlar. That light one. Yeah. Yeah, it's about uh 40 pounds.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

Man, that thing's nice, ain't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, me and Nick did last year. So you we talked about Twin Creek earlier. Um, so where we live, Twin Creek is the creek that that we how how long we've been we've been shooting the creek. Well that's a five-mile stretch, I think. Uh about a five-mile stretch from bridge to bridge, we put in. We go down about five miles. But we don't we take that five miles and we just kind of float and fish and then get out and wade and fish. But the creek's pretty small. I mean, dead of summer, it's hard. You do a lot of walking.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Dead of summer, you you you got the potential to shortage quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

A lot, yeah. Nick and I, so we somehow, I don't, I know Whitewater River is over in Indiana, but we're what am I right here? I live 15 minutes from the Indiana, no, about 10 minutes from the Indiana state line. Another 10 minutes is the Whitewater River. But I never knew how far up the White Witter River came, you know. So if you you can go down toward Brookville, which is like a 45-minute drive, and there's canoe, canoe rentals, and stuff down there. And I never realized how much farther up the watershed of Brookville Lake came past where the lake is. They got the watershed. So Brookville Lake still owns all that property around the river coming in, right? Sure. State ground. So Nick and I discovered, I don't know, I've lived here my whole life and I knew it was there, but I didn't realize, you know. So Nick and I, we kind of discovered, you know, that's that's public access. Nick and I jumped a Jeep one day, you know, top off take us a country cruise, and we went and took the GPS or took, you know, on actual phones and we took off. And um Liberty, Indiana is the pullout. I don't even, was that State Route 44? 44 or one. One of the two.

unknown 46:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

They criss-crossed right there in Liberty. So uh, but anyway, and then we we headed upriver. You know, we went past the river, found a road that went north, and jumped on it and went, found another bridge. We ended up going up about let me think here. I think we was like 15 miles. We was four or five bridges north. And nice, yes, and the river is still big. It's way bigger than we did it in the dead of summer last year, D-Ray, and um never had to get out. Nice, never had to walk the middle of August, never had to get out and walk. The water was up, the water had a good current. You know, a few spots we had to port each because there was, you know, down trees and stuff like that. But let me tell you something, buddy. The smallmouth fishing, and I've talked to you about this before. Yeah, the smallmouth fishing is just unlike what we're used to down at Twin Creek. So I think a big part of my year is uh I actually went and bought a new kayak last year fishing one I could just set on top of, so I don't have to get down in that um old green one, you know. Um, but um the you the the smallmouth fishing over there is so much better. Um I don't know that I'll be hitting Twin Creek much sooner.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

In other words, I need to buy my Indiana fishing license.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Yeah, that's that's exactly where I was going with that. Yeah. That new canoe of yours, and um, yeah, I'm ready for a shore lunch for sure. But um we got turkey season coming, turkey bonanza coming. We have uh mushroom season will be here before you know it. And usually we get about the same time. Oh, yeah, for sure. That usually is. Um, but then um and we go to we hit Kentucky first. And the thing about the mushrooms is the mushrooms down there are in about opening of turkey season. And we're three hours north of where we go down there turkey hunting. Up here, usually we get a week or two of turkey hunt before the mushrooms start popping. Um but I'm ready. And then anything else, D-Ray, you want to touch on any cat fishing you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Or man, I'm ready to go to the woods.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Every time I record one of these podcasts and I talk to some people, I'm ready, ready to get out and get it. They go fishing. Yeah, yeah. Well, it won't be long. I mean, we got so today. I've said the date three times. What did I say? It was 16th. Today's the March of 16th, and um, it's gonna be 17 degrees tomorrow morning in the morning. That's what 17 in the high of 25. And last week, or what, three days ago, we had 70. No, it was 70 yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

Was that yesterday? Yeah, it hit 70 yesterday. 70 degrees yesterday. Yesterday at 4 o'clock, it was 70 degrees, 70 plus. And right now on the way home, my truck said 31.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Man, I'm tired up.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

And that was almost a whiteout that I seen out the window.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Well, look out the window on my roof over there.

SPEAKER_03 49:38

We got we got a dusting of snow on the roof. Yeah. I'm done with it for this year. I am too. I am too. I hope uh that uh the old saying that uh the the snow and the cold uh bugs go away. We're gonna see this year. We are gonna see. Because we had a lot of snow for a long time and it was cold for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 50:01

Yeah, and I was always my whole life, um, up until Alpha Gal. You may or may not know this, I'm not sure, D-Ray, but I was always under the pressure my whole life that a cold winter and big snows killed the ticks. And that couldn't be farthest from the truth. They just hunker in. You're better off to have um really, really cold temperatures with no snow, you know, but it don't it don't kill them. With no snow. They don't kill them at all, but you it will it will take care, it will kill some. If you uh older ticks, I know this sounds crazy, talking about an old tick or a weak tick or whatever, but they're just like, you know, they're critter just like anything else. They don't get enough nourishment, you know. They starve to death. They will, they will, they'll they and they go into this thing, and it's not hibernation. They uh there's another name for it for a tick. And I but they don't die. Ticks don't die, and I think these lone star ticks, I think they're tougher than the most, you know what I mean? And um, I mean, I just seen so Red River Gorge is where Hemlock Hill's at. That's where the cabin's at, that's where we go and we hunt just on the other side of the gorge, but we spend a lot of time down there. I've already seen on the gorge pages this year people have been picking ticks off of them. Really? Yeah, and I've actually been seeing that for a couple of weeks because it's been getting uh I was down to do some service work on one of the cabins uh two days ago, and it was 70 degrees. Yeah, I sat on the porch waiting on the I had some polyurethane on one of the countertops. I was waiting on it to dry and I sat on the porch without my shirt on in the sunshine for a little while. It was 70 degrees, and that was a little pretty windy, but you know, but um them ticks are migrating north uh so fast, man. Um I know when I was in Congress, um we had some paperwork, we had some uh flyers and stuff that was printed from Alpha Gal Alliance to take they they took care of all of our packets um to pass out to the senators and the congressmen and stuff like that, you know. And there's a map in there that shows the spread over the you know last, you know, I don't know, 10 years. I can't remember the timeline on it, but over the last few years, and they and they kind of a projected timeline. And um they're finding lone star ticks now all the way up into Michigan. Wow, and there's not a ton of them, but they're finding them that far north.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

And it's only been a couple years that that they found finding them here.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

They it's it's like I will say this that five years ago in Kentucky, uh eastern Kentucky, people was like um Alpha Gal Center, what's that? And now everybody knows what everybody knows about it. And this I was in Skybridge Station, which is a restaurant slash pub um in the gorge, and I talked to a a lady and her husband has Alpha Gal. She claims he got it working on the blacktop driveway on a car. He was underneath the car on a blacktop driveway, and I will we'll talk about that in a minute. Then ticks are pretty aggressive like that. But um when I was talking to her, this was just this was just you know, a couple months ago, she said 30% of Wolf County have Alpha Gal. And I'm like, that number sounds absurd to me. That number sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_05 53:45

That's really high, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:46

Yeah, and she says, she said, okay. And she did this for an example. I don't know if she's right or wrong. I'm I'm just you know, one person. So she said, look around this room. How many people in here you see? And I can't remember now. There might have been 40 people in there. She said, How many people in here got it that you know of? And you don't know, but maybe 10 people in here. I said, Well, the the bartenders got it, your husband's got it, I got it. Drew, the trivia guys got it. You know, I mean, I sit right there and named five people. She's five or six people. She said, You just named five people, and you don't know 30 of the other people in here. She said, 30% of this county's, and I still think that's kind of crazy high, but it could be true. And I I mean, I don't know. That's the great thing about Bill 578 for Ohio. Kentucky just made this year, their bill passed into law this year, Kentucky and West Virginia both, that they have a law now that you go to the doctor or the allergist and you contract Alpha Gauss syndrome. The doctor, the allergist, has got to um report just like Lyme disease or Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Well, it's all about the education because a lot of the people that are getting this are not outdoor people. They are people who, you know, walk their dog, whatever. Uh, they're not hunters. Right. Um, they're somebody gardeners, yeah. They're out there. So that the the doctors that you know, the first doctor you went to, I remember uh uh he was useless to you. He was the guy did not have any idea, nothing about it. You tried to you educated him what he knew about it. Yeah. But but uh um, you know, I mean, everybody, the nurses, the doctors, they need to be at the ERs, people go in there sick because that's where they're gonna be. They're I mean, it it makes people a lot of all your listeners, they realize, you know, how bad it is. Uh I didn't realize it was that bad, you know. We're allergic to red meat. Oh, well, you just can't eat red meat for a couple of days. No, it's bad. It's bad. Don't go away. Yeah, you're you're, you know, people going to the ER, people. Well, the pilot died from it here not not long ago.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

Yeah, and he was the first.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Every time somebody dies, oh, the first death of Alpha Gauss syndrome.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Well, yeah, but yeah, but that guy, he was probably not an outdoor guy. He's flying all over the world and stuff like that. So when he got sick, he didn't know how to self-diagnose. You know, he went to the doctors, and he's probably going to the doctors in these big cities and stuff. They got no idea.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Yeah, no idea.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

No idea.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

So, yep. Uh, I think it's awesome. Uh the um, I tell you, I will tell you this. Um, I don't know if you listened to when I had the um, I think it was Jenny, the Alpha Gal Grief girl. She went into anaphylactic shop and um off to the hospital she went, right? I think it was an ambulance ride. She epi penned and then ambulance ride to the ER. And when they get to the ER, they'll say, You're all you're having an allergic reaction of some sort to something like this. And they gave her an IV fluid that had mammal in it. Oh, they doubled down on her. She just injected an epipen, and they get to the doctor, and the doctor don't listen to nothing she says. I can't have no mammal. He knows more than her, and he's never heard of it, and gives her an IV that has, I don't know what the IV was she didn't say, or maybe she didn't, I didn't catch it, but and and it had a mammal in it.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

I never heard of it. I never heard of it. I work in a hospital. Yeah, I've never heard of an IV that has I don't know what it was. Goose taline, whatever it is. I never knew.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

Right, right. Uh it might not have been an IV either, it might have been some kind of medicine. I so don't uh maybe I stand corrected right there. I they've been doing a lot of connect corrections on that podcast since I started this thing. Yeah, yeah, that's what last episode was. Last episode was a solo episode, and I just kind of cleared up some things that uh I had been you know talking about uh over the last six episodes to clear some things up, prep for the future, you know, whatever. So so here's my thoughts for Turkey Bonanza, right? So we're going down. If I can get Eddie Palmer on for the 15th, I'm not sure. Like I said, he's got a sick family member. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that I can get him recorded over the next 20 days or so, and he'll he'll be April the 15th episode. And we can hear somebody really use one of these uh uh old Turk wingbone. Wingbone. Yeah, old Turk wingbone turkey calls. Um, but then this is my first episode right here where I just sat down with somebody. You know, we're using the computer camera, there's nothing fancy about this. Uh, if this goes over good, then maybe I'll get some other equipment. But um I want to sit down, and I'm hoping that when we get down to hemlock, sit down and do this very thing at Turkey Camp. Me and you and Roy, whoever shows, whatever, uh Doug, whatever, and we'll sit down maybe the first night and we'll record 10 or 15 minutes, talk about our setups and what we're doing, and and then maybe the last night, or maybe we'll just do a whole podcast. I don't know, I want to do that. Um or we'll do one, we'll do a full episode the first night we get there, and then we'll do a full episode the night before we leave, and I'll just do a two-part series.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Oh, that be able to show all the mushrooms that I find. That's that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

That we haven't eaten yet. Yeah, we have right. And then what happens if we don't find we already ate them? Yeah, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

That's like the turkeys. If you don't get one, uh, it was a good one.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

That's right, that's right. So, D-Ray, I know I asked you this once before on uh one of the videos from Hunting Camp. I try to do this to every guest and I forget sometimes, but um, you know, I we have these things called the Alpha Gal surprise. And it is um either good or bad. And I will tell you this. So, like a good Alpha Gal surprise for me is when I discovered Twizzlers had a safe sugar in it for me, right? Because I like Twizzlers, you know. Um uh and then, you know, like and I use this as an example all the time that aquafine and disani water are filtered through bone char. Uh, I learned the hard way. That was an alpha gal surprise. You know, being around me and um, you know, going through this with me, we got a catfight over there, son. Um real live action. Yeah, live action. Yeah. Um, do is there any Alpha Gal surprises that really stand out in your mind? Things that you've seen me go through, things that have happened that um was like, wow, I would have thought but never thought, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

Well, that's just like just a few minutes ago, you said that uh ticks don't hibernate. Or you mean don't freeze to death. Don't freeze to death. It's uh it surprises me that I've never seen a tick in the snow. Right. You know, I haven't. You would think that being covered with snow, they would freeze to death. It makes sense that they starve to death and die. Um well, they're dormant.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

It's not that they uh are active, they're not active, so you probably won't see them in the winter. They're not active at all. They just dig into the leaf litter and they lay dormant. And I maybe they do call it hibernation, but I don't think it was with the ticks it was hibernation, it was a dormant state that they go into. Um yeah, yeah. But ticks, I hate them son of a guns.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

Anyway, there's there's there's multiple things. Uh um uh a couple of things that stand out is the food that you eat. You know, I'm always good for a free meal, so uh the food that I've come up here and tried that you are cooking. Yeah, you know, I I I like to try this like the ostrich and uh emu and uh and you know that kind of thing. Um a lot of the stuff that uh um you've gotten a lot better at cooking. Well, I'm glad to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

You got anything favorite that I've cooked so far? Let me ask you this the smoked duck with the fat on it. What did you think of that?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

Oh, that was delicious. It was delicious. The uh uh the emu or no, the the ostrich I wasn't a big fan of. I think it was just my burger might have been a little undercooked for me. Okay, yeah, yeah. But uh holy smokes. I tried some cookies that oh gosh dang, let's not even talk about them cookies, but these cookies that you you had come up with that uh uh I I I I couldn't eat them.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

So my uh so God love my wife, man. She has been she's been a guardian angel for me. Because we've lived Alpha Gal together. She when I if I can't eat it or can't do it, she hasn't. You know, and it don't bother me. I mean, we go if we go to dinner or do something like that, she'll get a cheeseburger that don't bother me. And I love it to see her get a big double cheeseburger with or a single cheeseburger with bacon on it, you know, because she don't get that at home. But that was early on before I had my histamines in check and all that stuff. Man, I was just dying for something sweet or something different. And she dug and found this cookie recipe. It was pumpkin, it was some kind of a pumpkin cookie. It was pumpkin. Dude, I tore them things up. I absolutely tore them things up, son, like Indian fry bread or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

You loved them. I couldn't eat it. I mean, it was uh uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

Do you do you remember that part, Jeremiah Johnson, when that the uh that Indian squaw cooks him that raw bread and he walks around spitching out as he's walking away? That's what you reminded me of.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

Tell the boy go check the traps and get some proper food.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

Yeah, it was it worked, it worked very good, but uh uh you you've come a long way with it. I mean, you've learned to deal with it, and you're uh uh come a long way. Like I said, you were you're on the peaking side, you were skinny. Oh man, you're telling me, oh, it's black, uh yeah, you've come a long way. Black bags under your eyes.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Yeah, yeah, you were it was a rough time for a while, that's for sure. I I I I feel like I'm one of the fortunate ones because I really have learned my allergy, and I still learn stuff every day. I have really learned my allergy, things I can have, and and I don't cheat because I don't want to have nothing bad happen. I don't I don't, but um Well, you can't cheat. You can't cheat sick, you're gonna get sick, but I do know the places that I can push my luck a little bit, you know. Like I can have some dairy and I can have some cheese. And sometimes I push my luck with cheese, you know, because you had an extra piece of pizza, man. You know, you've got all that mozzarella on there. And um sometimes I push my luck, and I gotta be careful where my where my pizzas come from, you know, uh because I gotta know the way they're cooked and the knife they're cutting them with and that sort of stuff, you know. But um, that's why I'll give a shout out to Miguel's down in Red River Gorge because if you go in there and you order, and they even got they even got uh um vegetarian or vegan cheese for your pizza. I had it, and I won't have it again. But they got it, you know. I'm fortunate right there that I can have some cheese. But I'll give a shout out to Miguel's pizza down there in um Red River Gorge. If you got Alpha Gauss syndrome, you go in there and you order you a veggie pizza. You know, I like uh green peppers, green olives, onions, and mushrooms. And I tell them I got Alpha Gauss syndrome, and they make sure they cook it completely separately. They put it on a different platter when they cut it, and they cut it with its own knife, and they put it in its own when they deliver it to you. If you eat in, they bring it in a box instead of just bringing it out on a tray, even though, you know. So that's uh I'll give a shout-out right there for Alpha Gal folks. So their pizza is good too. It is good, eh? Yeah, it is good. Uh and uh well, Skybridge. I had lunch down there at Skybridge the other day. And did you know that they have a vegetarian burger? No, I did not. I didn't either, until I had Will Winfer, the rock climber, on here who rock climbs in the Red River Gorge, and he told me about it. And since then I've had two. And it's the same thing there. I give a shout out to Skybridge. I go in and they're getting to know me enough to where I can say, hey, don't forget, I got an alpha gal, and they'll clean the grill and everything for me. Now, unfortunately, there is some folks out there that are so sensitive that even though they cleaned that grill, they couldn't eat off of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

And I'm very grateful that I'm not that person and I sympathize with the people that are. But now you were really sensitive at first. I was, boy. Yes, I was very much. Um, and uh it 99% of that I think was controlling my histamines. There's a couple other things that I um you know tried and done too.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:29

I remember uh um the uh we had Santa Claus here, and I was out there cooking sausage on the griddle. That's right, and you just walked through the smoke and got and got uh reaction.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

Yeah, I was too close to you for too long. Um, and I have this telltale sign that my forearm still is you've you've pointed it out to me before because there's times I'll start itching my forearm and I won't realize I'm doing it. And you have been around me enough to know goes, hey, what are you doing? Look at your arm. You know, you pointed that out, you pointed it out to me at Deer Camp uh last year before last. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you was cooking sauce. So what I think I've talked about this on the podcast too before that you know, my wife runs that country store. We have breakfast with Santa Claus every Christmas, and you guys, I used to do the cooking when it comes to that. We cooked pancakes and sausage links, and um I stood right around that smoke too long, and um I had to get away from it. I had to get away from it. It was um, but it was um that sausage was strong. We cooked, and you probably cook 200 sausage links for the kids. Oh, a lot more than 200. You're probably right, yeah. Probably five or six bags, yeah. Probably five or six bags of sausage links for the kids. I mean, I think Nick, my wife can tell you how many kids come through the door that day, but there's probably 50 or 60 kids, I'm guessing. A whole bunch. Yeah, a whole bunch. And a lot of the parents ate, so yeah. Sure, there was a whole bunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've covered a lot of stuff here, D-Ray, Alpha Gal and outdoors, and um, I wouldn't mind doing this. Uh, let's get into summertime and get our get our get let's do turkey season, let's get fishing, let's uh let's take an adventure. Let's do that. I tell you what, let's do the Brookville Lake or Brook or Whitewater River uh when we get into summer, and then we'll come back on and do another podcast. We are to do one of these from uh shorelunch.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

We should do one from shore lunch. We should do one from a shorelunch. You know, we can do that too. I can take the GoPro and we can set right up. We can we can hook up the battery, that's not a problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

I think that GoPro, I think I can get her to last long enough. If we if the volume, we can get the volume right. That's I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. So, D Ray, anything in closing? Any concluders? Nice meeting everybody. Yeah, yeah. My buddy D Ray here, guys. I appreciate y'all for tuning in. And until next time, Alpha Galdoorsman. Thanks for tuning in to Alpha Galdoorsman. Make sure to hit that follow button until we meet again. Where do you ticker fella?