Lone Star Trail
Texas themed hunting and fishing interviews featuring experts and real tales from the field.
Lone Star Trail
AI Geo Maps and Near Death Experiences
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Part two of our series on AI impacts on hunting reveals a tool from a New Zealand company aiming to level the playing field for hunters scouting new areas on public lands. Wild Vision uses AI tech to bring the landscape to life. Oscar Goodman joins this week to explain the purpose and impacts of his product. Dayton shares some near death experiences while we sit and wait for feral hogs in a coastal field.
Thanks for stopping by and happy hunting.
Follow us on Facebook
Welcome to Lone Star Trail, a new outdoor show aimed at bringing you hunting and fishing updates and compelling stories from around Texas and right here at home. Get ready to join us down the trail. Now, here's your host, Nathan Smith.
SPEAKER_06Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of the Lone Star Trail. I'm your host, Nathan Smith. Glad you could stop by and join us again for another show. Today we finish our two-part series on artificial intelligence in hunting, at least for now. We're going to flip the coin and talk with Oscar Goodman, who is a founder and CEO of an AI platform that is seeking to give hunters an edge or level the playing field when it comes to finding their perfect setup, especially as it relates to public hunting grounds. You're going to want to stay tuned for this because there's lots of applications, whether you live in Texas, Wyoming, Montana, New Zealand, doesn't matter. There's a lot of implications for hunting and the hunting industry in general. On house rules, we pick up with Dayton and we go for another hog hunt that gets cut short because we see some hogs. All this and more, stay tuned. Pour some more coffee, and I'll see you after the break. Whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acreage to sell, you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. They use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway, call Ranch Pro Real Estate at 325-642-3630. That's Ranch Pro Real Estate at RanchProRealEstate.com. The land is their life. Let's face it, whether you farm or ranch or raise wildlife, you've encountered problems with predators, no doubt. My friends at Texas Farm and Ranch Wildlife Solutions have the answer to your predator nuisance farmant problems. They specialize in taking care of those pesky raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, beavers, whatever wildlife issues you're having, Texas Farm and Ranch Wildlife Solutions is your answer. Call my friend Philip Wood, 713-208-3517. That's 713-208-3517. You can find him online at TFRWS.com. He's a professional trapper. He knows what he's doing. He has the right resources and the right techniques to get the job done. If you don't believe him, look at his website and see all the happy customers he's racked up over the years. Phillip Woods with Texas Farm and Ranch Wildlife Solutions. Give him a call. You'll be glad you did. Let them help protect your land and livestock. We're glad you're here. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to the Lone Star Trail. We've got a great guest, an exciting guest here with us. We've been working on it for a couple of weeks, getting Oscar Goodman here with us with Wild Vision AI. Oscar is joining us this morning from New Zealand, where you're a native New Zealander from New Zealand. So we're excited to have you here. Thanks for taking some time. I know you're a busy guy. And you've got a hoodie on, a little jacket on. As we're triple digit Fahrenheit heat here in Texas, you've got your jacket on. You're making me jealous, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, jacket on, fire going. Um fire going even. Oh man.
SPEAKER_06I'm just like sweating here. Okay. Alright. Well, Oscar, man, thanks so much for being here. We're excited to have you and talk about AI. Uh, this is kind of second in our two-part series, uh, short series about um artificial intelligence and and as it relates to hunting and wildlife habitat management. And so we want to get into the weeds on that a little bit today, but first we want to know about you. Um, how did you get, and this is a question I ask everybody on the show, how did you get into hunting? Um, obviously, you've got a passion for it. Take us back to uh to the early days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um originally I grew up duck hunting um in Hawke's Bay, where I'm from, with my father. He taught me all about you know safe um gun handling and and how to stalk and and find ducks and and um yeah that sort of built this fire in me to to to pursue you know other hunting goals and and pursuits. Um so yeah, when I went down to Canterbury, moved down to Canterbury, which is in the South Island of New Zealand, um to do my degree in product design, and at which point met a few mates, um friends, buddies uh down here, and um they all loved getting out into the hills to chase tar and shahemi and and red deer. Um, and and they brought me along and yeah, shot my first tar on my first hunting trip and um was absolutely hooked since then, and that was about uh seven years ago now, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So uh you're you're you're well on your way to full-blown addiction level then.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, turned it into uh um started guiding and then and then uh started uh a technology company for hunting, so yeah, I'm I'm still I'm I'm a full-on addict, yes.
SPEAKER_06Well that's great. Uh well thanks for thanks for sharing that. And you know, we talk about a lot about legacy on the show. We talk about uh handing down things from one generation to the next, and almost without fail, whether it's it's ranching, uh farming, or hunting uh or fishing, it's almost without a doubt uh one of those one of those four uh you come across people and that's that's where they get their start, is through uh their their parents, their grandparents, aunts, uncles, whatever it may be. And so it's it's a unique industry, it's a unique um way of life, you know, from handing handing that that love of the outdoors, love of hunting down from one generation to the next. So that's great. I want to talk about wild vision, and that's why we're really here today, is to learn more about wild vision. Um, and I'm really just gonna stop talking, and I really want, if you don't mind, walk us through what is wild vision, um, how did it begin, and and uh what is it doing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so uh wild vision began um as a part of me trying to get uh get success hunting by myself um in New Zealand. Um we've got a huge amount of public land, and um with that a huge amount of public land hunters, we can hunt all year, and um that game gets pressured all year round and they move around. And if you if you're not in the know, then um it's a lot harder to to go out and get a meat animal to feed your friends or to to find that trophy stag um and stuff like that, especially on our public land. So it began to um to to solve that problem and to help firstly myself, uh, really selfishly myself find better game and be more consistent in my hunting. Um, but then it very quickly turned into uh well I'm I'm helping myself, you know, but we're doing it. I may as well bring this to other people. Um so it's now a an intelligence platform for finding, firstly, great hunting spots, and then also we're in those hunting areas to target your time, down to the the valley to look at, or the face to the face to glass, or the ridge to walk up, um, as well as the times of the day and the times of the week um to target your hunting efforts, as well as this delivered through this epic um mapping platform that has 3D offline tobographic and satellite maps for um for both hunting in New Zealand. And now we're just starting to build that out for the US. Um so we've just launched our 3D uh offline mapping platform for for mainly Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico, um, which is quite cool. Solving that same problem of um where where to target your hunts. Um yeah, so you know, we've we've done it in New Zealand, and and we what we really recognized, and I sort of found through guiding here and guiding a lot of um American clients um from all across the states is you had the same problem of finding great hunting areas, um, and and it was just an even deeper problem because you draw a unit for a western state um that you've been trying to draw for the past five years. Um and once you've drawn it, you you haven't actually been in that area before. And you're coming from, you know, you're doing a 13-hour trip sometimes to go hunt that unit for for two weeks, and you've only got two weeks to hunt it, and you've damn well gonna come home with something because you've invested that much into that that hunt. Um, so it was a natural progression of Wild Vision to then you know build out our intelligence platform for the US and and start to release our you know release our tools per state. Um so that you know you guys can can share in that share in that benefit of of knowing you know what's what's gonna happen before you get in the field.
SPEAKER_06So so many questions come to mind. Um and we're we're gonna be limited on time, I know, so I want to get maybe some of the most prominent questions that are on my mind at least up there and and foremost. Um first of all, I think there's not a hunter in the world that if you honestly if they were honest with themselves, would say that they would not take advantage of a tool to help them improve their odds. Now, of course, ethically, I mean there's some things you could do that uh are questionable that people would not do. But uh my mind goes to thermal hunting. We're big time down here in Texas, um, predator hunting and and hog hunting. I mean, hogs do millions of dollars of damage every year, and so um thermal has really changed the game. It's a huge, huge step forward in terms of population control and predator management, and so it's widely used now, and it's a technology that it's getting cheaper all the time, relatively. That's what I tell my wife anyway when I go look at buying a new thermal, is that it's getting cheaper. Um, it is really getting a little cheaper. And I've got people that'll back me up too on that. But um it it's also one of those things that it's like, you know, 50 years ago, nobody would have thought we were we would be using thermal um optics like we are widespread. You know, anybody can go get their hands on them now. And so I think there may be some resistance or some pushback against, okay, well, so you're you know, you're cheating by by mapping out a uh a geographical area, you've got all this topography information, you can see the streams, you can see the water, you can see the the the thickets where where cover is. Um what do you say to that kind of that that messaging about, well, this is you know, you're you're taking the hot away from me, you're taking the chance away from me. What is it that uh you may say back to that that kind of mindset?
SPEAKER_02Um the I mean the the guys that know that unit um already, they know they've they've learned where to target their time. And they've learned where animals hang out and stuff like that. So they've already got the the front foot, and what tools like this do, what Wild Vision does, is it brings people new to the unit, and oftentimes only so many can people can hunt that unit up to that same level so that the playing field becomes who has the best skills, so who can glass for longer, who's better at glassing, who puts themselves into better positions to glass the right faces, and then who's got the legs to be able to move, to be able to glass the country at the right time of the day to find the right animal, to find that big bull or that meal deer, um, and then make the stalk and execute. You know, there's so many variables from just finding an area to hunt. You know, the hunting is isn't finding an area, the hunting is finding animals that boots on the ground and making a stalk with an animal that you are absolutely 100% excited to bring home. And then making that shot count, packing it out, and bringing it home to share with your family. That's what the hunt is to me. Um, finding the area and and dare I say it, have a little bit of a shortcut finding that area just helps both me and everyone that uses tools like Wild Vision to get that head start so they can actually start hunting.
SPEAKER_06Well, I think for guys like me, I'm gonna call myself an average Joe or maybe lower than average Joe. I think if I've drawn a hunt in a dream hunt in Wyoming or Montana, looking for an elk or you know, moose or whatever it may be that I'm looking for, huge mule deer. Um, and I I I'm not gonna have two weeks, I can tell you that. I might have a week at most. So uh something that will give me just a little bit of a bird's eye view of what I'm walking into before you get there, I think that's huge. I'm also from West Texas where we're we don't have any trees. We've got we've got mesquite trees, you know, that most people you wouldn't call them a tree, probably. That's a it's a bush. But uh but it's you know, so that kind of landscape is just it's night and day different. And if you've never walked into something like that, I think you are at a huge disadvantage. So okay, well, great answer. That's a that's a uh great information to to understand and kind of start to wrap our mind around. I want to get a little more technical on the on the capability of of your um application. It is an app, correct? Yes. Okay, so so uh uh in theory, I could go on uh the app store on my iPhone and and download the app and and start planning. Um if I know I'm gonna be in a certain area of public land, um, and I've drawn the tag, then I can start scoping that area out. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02So you can right now and and uh you have mapping for across the entire line 48. Um and then you have public land mapping for Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico. So we haven't quite distributed to all states yet. Um and then we can have targeted targeted intelligence for um Montana and Wyoming. Okay, I'm gonna start here. What is what is targeted intelligence for those so that is distilling down um all of the country that you can hunt in the unit and bringing that down into the top 1% of the country to target. Meaning you can have 99% of the stuff that isn't even worth looking at. Um and that's that's that's curated based on um where we know animals hang out in their unit. Um, and then also where um you know based on what we know about these animals, uh what we know about alcoholia, where they like to hang out based on habitat, terrain, um proximity to to um to human areas, hunting pressure, all those sorts of things. There's a dynamic model that changes over the throughout the season.
SPEAKER_06That's very interesting. And how many how many developers is it just you? Is it is it uh a handful of guys? Is it a team?
SPEAKER_02How many developers are working on that sort of uh so there's about three of us who have been working on it um full time um for the past uh year and a half? Um building that core and an intelligent platform and then and then helping get it um into market. Um and and yeah, we've got the mapping, the mapping tools which you know how people to use model vision you know in the field and and and leverage it in the field. Um that's that's a big one for us too.
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna assume some stuff here, and so you feel free to correct me if I'm way out of line or uh if I'm wrong, just tell me flat out I'm wrong. So uh feedback. So if I'm if I'm in one of these units, uh public land, and and going back to you know, Texas, we're 95% privately owned, um, but we've got some larger public hunting areas, and and public hunting, I mean, is getting more popular all the time. We've seen some great success, and even locally I've seen some great success hunting on public land. So just because it's public, I want you know my local listeners to understand just because it's public doesn't mean it's it's uh less than, and in lots of cases, there's lots of opportunity on public land. But if I'm out on in in public land and I'm using the uh Wild Vision app, um, and I assume you've got a way for some feedback to be happening from the field. So if I've if I'm seeing a lot of animals in an area where maybe the model is is is saying it's there there shouldn't be animals or there's not a high level of of probability there is animals in this area, I've got the opportunity probably to communicate that back to the app. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you can um create a spot, yeah. Create a standard spot on your on your on your tool on wildvision, and then you can choose to um send that back.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you can you can help to make the model better, um, but you can also choose.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_06I don't want to tell anybody about my secret topic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we like our models aren't trained using any user data, any um web data based on um what we know and and and what is what is known about this animal, um, and then yeah, goes from there.
SPEAKER_06So I want to dive into that a little bit. Um when you because all of this had to, I mean, I and I I sound so ignorant because I am so ignorant about AI, but tell me a little bit more about how you train uh your model. What what what went into talking about the the fall, let's say like November behavior of uh moose or elk or whatever how did how did that come to be? Walk us through some of that if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um in last year I went and guided in uh British Columbia, um, and that was for the core reason to um to confirm a lot of the assumptions I had about um the game animals in general. So in New Zealand, you know, I've hunted hard here for the past six years, guided here for two years. Um you you learn to find patterns about um what specific species do, you know, chamoita, red stag, fellow, you know, things like that. I wanted to confirm the assumption that that pop followed through into American big game species and North American big game species such as moose, such as mailing goats, uh, such as elbow um and so on. And yeah, did that in in northern BC. And obviously there's several changes between geographies and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, confirm the the overarching assumption that um you know moose hang out in swampy areas, they're swamp donkeys, um, and they'll hang out in you know oftentimes uh a a steeper aspect um or a steeper um angle with a you know slightly um southern aspect and stuff like that. So, you know, and and and and what all animals do without fail is they react to weather conditions. And if you have slightly higher than normal heat um or temperature in during your your hunting period for moose um during the rut, you you're not gonna have nearly as good a hunting because you can't see the because they're they're they're in the thicket. And and it's it's the same for every animal. So so once you can once you know that the the the animals can be patterned and animals can be there are there's a pattern that all the game species share, then you just need to find um what what those what those differences are for each species, and then we can we have our base model that we can then input those into and um and and we get amazing outputs from it.
SPEAKER_06Okay, I'll yeah no I 100% agree, yeah, and I follow what you're saying. I want to come back to the output, so don't uh remind me if I don't get back to it in a second, because my mind, as you're talking about uh the swamp donkeys, the moose, I my mind immediately goes to the feral hog issue, which I already talked about, and and implications for you know a more scientific approach to tracking behavior of feral hogs, uh habitat, which seems to be anywhere there's anything of whether it's water or grain or whatever. I mean, they're omnivores, but um I on a few shows ago I had a a local guy. Um uh Cody Bannister, he was on with uh Draper Ranch, and he had uh captured a hog and tagged it with an RFID tag, and then it was a cheap Amazon system, and he was able to on his phone track that hog. The idea was to be to track that hog back to the sounder and figure out where they were they were uh holding up for the day during the heat. And so um, you know, my mind just kind of goes crazy with all the implications that you know could be with AI technology in terms of uh uh rotator control and uh nuisance animal abatement, you know, those things I mean that can be a huge, huge game changer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Pegs are always uh a funny one. Um in New Zealand we we hunt them with dogs. With dogs, yeah. Yeah, just as you know, you do beer or or mountain lion, we hunt them with dogs. Um because they're always hanging out in a really fit country that you you can't glass up oftentimes. And yeah, there there are species that we um you know you can assume rough things about we haven't done too much work on because um in New Zealand we hunt them with dogs, you know. You send a dog through and the dog will figure it out, um, sort of thing. Um but yeah. Uh yeah. You can um over time create a model for for figuring out what the what that hog's gonna do, whether it's uh um applicable to to other areas is is the big question.
SPEAKER_06Well, the possibilities are probably endless, and and uh actually the more I talk with you, the the the more I wrap my head around the possibilities that really uh are very cool. And it sounds like there's some really, really cool opportunities uh with AI that that uh yeah, you can still carry your dad 3030 leather action winchester out there to hunt deer just like you always have, um and still have a better idea of where you're going. A couple other things before before we run out of time that I wanted to touch on. Um basically if if I'm let's see. If I'm if I'm new to uh an area uh or going in temporarily like we had talked about earlier on public land or some area, what how long does it take me um as a user to kind of get acclimated? I mean, am I does it put you kind of in uh on the ground? I mean, are we you you talked about 3D uh imaging earlier? Is it put you on the ground and and like a simulator type situation feel? Or is it really just from the the the top ground, uh top down with um with maybe some landscape indicators?
SPEAKER_02Uh so you can you can tell to the camera to be looking up at a mountain. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh which which helps you to get an understanding of what that country's gonna look at almost from the view of how you'll be looking walking up it um or walking into it. And then what it will do is it will before you go in, it will highlight areas within that unit um or that uh public land area um to target where where your target species, say um mule deer, is most likely to be hanging out given um the the habitat, the terrain, um the knowledge base of the mule deer, and then the upcoming weather conditions and how that is gonna affect that behavior. Um give that to you in a in a visual format on the map, um as a as a highlighted area, and it'll also give you in a text format as a you know, this is what's gonna happen, this is what we recommend.
SPEAKER_06Got it. Okay. Very interesting. I can't wait to download the app and just try it. Um even if I'm not in New Mexico or whatever, Montana, I'm gonna I'm gonna download it. Who knows? Maybe I'll get a chance to come to New Zealand and and uh use it down there. But uh where where do we go from here? Um I want you to kind of put on your uh crystal ball or uh future vision goggles, whatever it is, and just speculate with me for a little bit if you don't mind. Where what happens next? And and and maybe not just with wild vision, but in the terms of of AI uh implications for the outdoor world. What what happens? What are you seeing on the on the cutting edge right now?
SPEAKER_02Um so the knowledge gap is gonna get smaller for not just hunters, but fishermen, um uh skiers, you know. Anyone who's an outdoor, the knowledge gap's gonna get smaller to having the most fun and and the best experience outdoors. Um which means people are gonna be the the barrier to entry to enter the outdoors um and outdoor recreation sports is gonna be small lower. Um I mean, hopefully more people get involved in in what we what we all love and and and the outdoor industry as a whole becomes stronger. Um that's that's what I what I see and what I predict the most. Um so yeah, we'll be sharing sharing more of what we love with more people, um, which obviously is great, but yeah, um may come with some unintended consequences. Um around some areas could get more pressure than others, but you know, that's where it comes down to having the legs, I guess.
SPEAKER_06So we didn't really kind of come back to the um wildlife habitat management piece, because that's another thing. So obviously hunters as conservationists, as habitat managers, we're we're very concerned, and and that's always a point of discussion is to uh make sure that we're maintaining and managing the habitat well and uh with with all of those things in mind. Uh this tool really could give us another another way to help manage habitat year over year, quarter over quarter, uh especially as we're looking at weather events. Um you know, maybe we've got an influx of hogs somewhere, maybe we've got an influx of some sort of um you know zoonotic disease, maybe we've got something that is coming that you can you can readily tell, hey, we've got an issue in this particular am I off base there, or is that an application that we can use this for?
SPEAKER_02There's a huge application for that. Um where uh not just Biovision, but other people can um can build tools to help um everyday people to to track um or to log observations that they have in the field, and then models such as what we've got that that can log historical weather and historical environmental effects, and then we can derive um some incredible insights you know over five years of what's happened and and how that um how that's embodied into into what we're seeing on the on the ground today. Um you know, a harsh winter could you know, taking out you know, huge amount of milk year, you know, tag numbers get dropped in for that specific unit, and then what happens, you know, building that state forestry probably, or state um would track that, but then it adds another tool to uh yeah, to confirm what's going on, pretty much.
SPEAKER_06Going back to I just I just remembered going back to kind of the the end results of of what your model has done, what what you're seeing. Um I kind of cut you off earlier. We were talking about uh I guess measurement of success. How how do you guys measure success uh with your app an animal down, yeah, a successful hunt.
SPEAKER_02Um so with a I mean it could be a uh an animal down, a tag field, or it could just be great time, um depending on what the hunter's goals are. So yeah, great experiences.
SPEAKER_06Well, I can't thank you enough, Oscar, for for taking time to be here. Uh Oscar, Wild Vision AI. I'm gonna download the app and I'm gonna put it on our social and uh and let folks look at it and check it out. Um what kind of we're gonna talk about pricing? Do you have a subscription model or what's the what's the model?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so our mapping comes in at um $49.99 a year, and then our intelligence platform, which is launching in Montana and Wyoming in August, will come in at uh $199.99 a year.
SPEAKER_06Okay, that's cheaper than a tel camera subscription every year. I know I've got a lot of those. And so uh while they can give you a picture, this can give you a whole uh 40,000 foot view of the complete area. So uh really interesting to talk with you. I want to have you on the show again another time, Oscar, and kind of keep up with you and see how things are going. Um, man, we'll we'd love to have you in Texas. Anytime you get ready to come down here and hunt some uh coyotes or pigs, you just uh give me a heads up and we can we can make it happen.
SPEAKER_01I understand. Sounds good to me. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for having me on, I think. All right, well, thank you very much. We'll catch you later. Cheers, enjoy.
SPEAKER_05Stay tuned right here. Lone Star Trail will return after these messages.
SPEAKER_06Whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acreage to sell, you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. They use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway. Call Ranch Pro Real Estate at 325-642-3630. That's Ranch Pro Real Estate at RanchProRealEstate.com. The land is their life. You're listening to the Lone Star Trail and it's time once again for House Rules with Dayton House. Dayton is a retired government trapper, a firearms expert, an outdoors enthusiast, and a true Texan. At 76 years old, he's still going strong and enjoys sharing his passion of the outdoors with others.
SPEAKER_03Well, we're back at BD hog hunting tonight, so um told Nathan a moment ago, I hope we have to stop during this interview and shoot some hogs. But uh it started rooting again in the coastal here at my brother's place, and since all this rain we've had, they've really been active. I've got another call there in Hamilton County this afternoon. Guy at a feedlot had some hogs rooting in his silage or tearing up the silage bag, so I'll hunt there next week. It's hogs, you think? Yes, uh he's had this problem several years, and I don't normally kill many hogs there, but uh there are a few. I wanted to tell you about some near-death experience I've had over the years. The first one when I was four years old. We didn't learn to swim. We were playing in a dirt tank. Mama was reading a book in the pickup, and we were on our own, and I slipped off in the deep end and went under three times before my brother threw me an inner tube. And so uh that's not a good situation. Every kid ought to learn to swim.
SPEAKER_05That was the John Wayne school of swimming, it sounds like. Yeah, that movie Hondo.
SPEAKER_06You seen that movie Hondo where he throws the kid in the river pond or whatever?
SPEAKER_03The lady didn't know how to swim either.
SPEAKER_06Did your mother know how to swim?
SPEAKER_03Uh I don't know. I don't know that she ever swimmed, but uh she I I was across the little dirt tank or pond and she couldn't have got to me. And luckily one of the brothers through this interview, my grabbed it and survived. The other near-death experience is while I was uh trapping just a few weeks before I retired, I wanted to go on lump one last squirrel hunt on the Leon River there in Hamilton County. And I don't know the man's name. He was a big uh man in Coca-Cola Company and owned the large shares, and he had bought the Wiley Ranch is what I knew it years ago. And there were seven or eight thousand acres on the Leon River and had probably eight or nine miles that you could drive both sides of the river and pecan trees everywhere. Squirrels had got in the attic at one of his houses and were tearing up the wiring and doing damage, so he asked us to come in there and hunt. And I had a 17 rim fire, and that's a perfect squirrel gun. It would kill a squirrel almost every shot at a hundred yards, and I'd drive down to the river and park, and when I saw a squirrel, I'd drive to it and shoot it and wait on another one, and I spent all day there just driving the river, and evidently on one there were two trees together, and one female was in heat, and the males were just chasing her from one tree to the other one, and I killed 26 squirrels out of those two trees in less than an hour. I couldn't believe that many squirrels. The local trapper was Danny Craig, he lived there in Hamilton. He wanted a squirrel to put in a buzzard trap, and I told him where one was close to the county road, and he went in there and picked up one and he caught 32 buzzards off of that one dead squirrel. I don't know that uh the squirrel would last that long, but uh that had to be a record for him. But while I was hunting, I was looking out the window, and I didn't know it, but I'd pulled a muscle in my chest. This was on Friday afternoon, and I'd hunted nearly 14 hours there, and I think I killed 261 squirrels that day. Wow. And Monday morning, when I got up, my chest hurt. And I thought I was having a heart attack, and I drove myself to the clinic, and they wouldn't let me see a doctor because I didn't have an appointment. Two weeks later, the lady that told me that they fired her over that deal. Oh wow. Because I went out in the parking lot and called 911 and they brought the helicopter in and flew me to temple. When I got down there, well, before they lifted up the helicopter, they gave me a nitroglycerin tablet and I put it under my tongue, and that helped a little bit on the pain. But two or three hours later I was still there in the ER and they hadn't done anything. I complained about, well, I'm still having chest pains. And the doctor said, Well, we'll give you another nitroglycerin tablet. And within two or three minutes, I passed out, and I was watching the blood pressure monitor, and my blood pressure went 40 over 20, and I just fainted. And of course the doctors were aware of it, and they got whatever I needed and brought me back. I don't think I was out but a minute or two. But uh my brother was there witnessing that, and he said, you know, that's what happened to mama. Daddy killed Mama. And sh in reality, the old Dr. Childers there at Gohoit said, anybody that has heart problems or any type of related issues need to carry nitroglycerin in their pocket at all times. And so Daddy had a prescription for it, and when mama had chest pains, well, he gave her a tablet, and they were headed to Go White, and she got out and opened the gate and got back in the car, and before they got to the highway, well, she leaned over on him and died.
SPEAKER_05My goodness.
SPEAKER_03And I'm thinking that she had the same reaction that I did. And she didn't have an autopsy done. She was 78. Right. And we just assumed that she had a heart attack.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_03And I believe there are seven or eight hogs. They look like they're moving like hogs. Yes, I'm watching them. They're across the fence. I hadn't entered into this property, so. So there's still 180 some on yourself. Yeah, maybe 200 there at that point. It's real thick to property to the east of us, and the hogs can stay there without being molested till they get here in the coastal. So Nathan and I are ready to hunt hogs.
SPEAKER_05They're still baling some hay uh in the field next to us here, and these hogs don't seem to be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Brother Lee's joining 160 acres. He's had it for 20 something years, and it's only for hay. That's all he does is cut coastal off of it. And evidently the hogs are used to it, and it's certainly not affecting them. But uh it'll be interesting to see how close they come to us tonight. I've had a lot of broke ribs over the years, and one of the worst was uh uh motorcycle accidents, or I'd drive in too fast and hit a stump or a rock and turn over and hit the handlebars and nearly always break a rib. And if you turn a motorcycle over, it's almost impossible to straighten that booger back up, and the pain is so severe, and it's hard to lift one up and get back on it and ride again, but that beats walking to three miles with a broke rib.
SPEAKER_05I didn't know you drove a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_03Oh, all the time whenever I was checking snares on the trap line, I had a big wheel. A Yamaha, the back wheel was 13 inches and the front wheels was nine inches. Uh-huh. It's real low to the ground and real stable. You could ride up hills that a horse couldn't even climb up. Just angle up the side of it and lean over into the hill and real slow and you can take your own speed, and feed is on the ground all the time, and that was a perfect way to check a trap line. You could weave in and out of trees, and it was better than a horse. For a while I rode a horse, and that's slow and yes. And the motorcycle was the way to go. But nearly turned it over every week. And hurt something, not always break a rib, but I'd uh tear something up or bend something. Once I was trying to pin cattle there at the house on a Yamaha 360, it was an off-road bike. Dirt bike, yes. And two cylinder or two cycle, and it had a big exhaust on the right side, and I hit a log and roll that thing, and I wound up on my back on top of that exhaust. And for several years I had this perfect U-shaped muffler imprint on my back. You know who else used to ride dirt bikes?
SPEAKER_05Who? My wife. You're kidding. No, you wouldn't know that, but she was a real daredevil as a teenager. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06She downplays that when she talks about with the kids, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03The worst accident I had on four-wheeler was trying to pin cattle. One old cow turned back, and I wasn't gonna allow that, so I was running down the fence, and the dog was on the other side of the cow, and he pushed the cow into the four-wheeler, and then I ran through the fence and hit a steel post and turned over and broke my collarbone. And the dog brought the cow back within just a few feet of me, and I was laying on the ground there crying and suffering, and I couldn't turn it over, so I called the brother-in-law and nephew, and they came over and picked me up and carried me to uh uh Gatesville, and while I was there in the hospital, they x-rayed it, and the nurse wasn't very gentle. They didn't sympathize with uh motorcycles and accidents like that. They thought she deserved it if she was driving too fast. But uh she was getting too rough with me and uh passed out because of the pain. Yeah. And man, uh they said, Oh, it'll be alright. Just if you want us to put it in a slang, your arm in a slang, we will. And don't lay down in bed for a month because you can't get up. And I slept in the recliner, and after a month was over with, I laid down in bed, and whenever I got up, I broke it again, or I heard it pop and it separated. Oh, you're kidding me. And so I understand why they told you not to lay in bed. Wow. Did you hit the post when you built the four-wheeler? No, i it spun around 90 degrees and flipped upside down. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05And lay on it didn't land on top of you?
SPEAKER_03No, it did not.
SPEAKER_06So just the impact you hit the ground.
SPEAKER_03That's right, yes. And a couple of years later, I was chasing a coon one night and hit a stump and turned it over and it landed on top of me, but it didn't hurt me that time. I had the spotlight in one hand and the handlebars in the other one, and I was upside down. The light was still on, and I had a nephew with me, and he was able to turn it over and uh didn't do much damage to me or the uh motorcycle or the four-wheeler either, but uh usually when you get hurt on a motorcycle or a four-wheeler, it's your fault because you're going too fast.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03Uh look like we got sows and pigs there, Nathan.
SPEAKER_05Looks like little ones over there on the left.
SPEAKER_03There are one old boar there to the right, but uh I think these little ones. White ones may be bigger boars that have got in the mud and they look white because they're got all that mud caked up on them.
SPEAKER_06So Dayton has it set on black hot on his thermal rover camera, and so we got some white pigs and some black pigs.
SPEAKER_05The white pigs have gotten into the mud. Now they're moving a little bit west as they move north.
SPEAKER_03I think we ought to get out and wait on them to come toward us. Alright, well. So end of interview. We'll be back.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's all the time we have for this week's episode. Thanks for stopping by. Me and old Hank the Gar Dog will catch you next week at the same time, same place. If you can't join us on a local station, find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find podcasts. Also, you can connect with us on Facebook and share your hunting and outdoor photos and stories with us at Lone Star Trail Radio at gmail.com. Until next time, for all of us here at the show, so long.
