Bear GreaseEp. 325: Render - Stone Points, Big Game Tattoos, and Pablo
On this Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb, Dr. Misty Newcomb, and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker are joined by Bear Grease podcast featured guest Pablo Esquivel. Pablo gives more details of what it was like growing up in Costa Rica, some of the culture shock of moving to Alabama as a young adult, his passion for deer hunting, love of finding stone points, and laid-back attitude about his big game tattoos.
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My name is Clay Nukleman. This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. So there's been some emails floating around. This is the Bear Grease Render podcast. The Bear Grease Render, I've heard it is where we gather up a group of people and I'm going to introduce some esteemed esteemed guests in just a minute. But I feel like this is pertinent right now. Is there's been some emails floating around from the powers that be.
Mean spirited emails or.
Well no, just business emails from meat eater. Okay, of the render was never videoed. None of this was ever videoed. But we've been born into a time where things rapidly moved, so all of a sudden we needed video and which is great. So we film here in my office. This is the global headquarters. At one time is the global headquarters of Bear Honey magazine. Now it's the global headquarters of Bear Grease also been called meat Eater South. And there's been a couple of little clues popping around in different places in my life about this office and the way it looked. The first clue was there was an article that was written about me in Farm Farm Bureau magazine and insurance companies like magazine, and this guy came here and interviewed me and we had just a great time. I loved the guy. The first paragraph of his introduction to me is he basically.
Says in three different ways, he says.
I'm standing in Clay Newcombe's cluttered office, which is like the man's mind. You know. I think he was trying to pay me a compliment, but I.
Was just like, sounds a little backhanded.
I was like cluttered, and I was like, this office looks exactly the way I want it to. Okay, we're getting to what you now miss because the office has been a little decluttered. Well, it's not long after that article came out. Not long after that article came out, the powers that me at Meat Eater may not have said the office looks a little cluttered, to which in my heart I replied, the office looks exactly the way Clay wants it to.
I believe the words that I uttered for you were that Clay like has the office exactly?
Yes.
And it was beautiful, Pablo, it was perfect. It was like a museum. And here's some of the things that we cleaned up like that museum. Yeah, and you'll no longer get to see this anymore.
Like if your hoard or great grandma had a museum.
This this deer horn was once on display right up there, yep. Okay. And there was a there was an episode that we did a few a few episodes back called The bird Hunter, and it was the story of Lew and Nukem. And at the end of the story, I told about the last hunt that me and Lewin Nukem, my grandfather went on together, and I picked up this shed horn while we were hunting, and I showed it to him and I just wrote on it that you know. Soon after that day, I wrote Clam Paps Nukem Bird Hunt two thousand and two. I didn't know that would be the last time I'd hunt with him, but it was. So that's what you're missing. You missed it, Pablo, Okay, that's one thing you'd miss me. The other thing that you'd miss was. At one time I had my collection of baculums right up there in the corner. This is not this is not all the vaculums that I've collected, but this is a lot of them that there are raccoon vaculums. And I have a raccoon vaculum that ought to be I have a raccoon. I have a raccoon vaculum that ought to be in the Smithsonian. Look at that it was broken and rehealed.
Do you see that finds a way? See?
Look, that's the way a normal raccoon vaculum looks. That one has been broken and healed like a collar bone that wasn't set right.
And a baculum is a baculum. You have to look that one up.
Yeah what it is? But it's a bone. And these are these are black bears. No, yeah, these are black bear bones. Two of these came from Roy Clark and East Tennessee. The first time I hunted with Roy Clark, one of the Bear Greece Hall of Famers plot man in East Tennessee. We killed two boars in two days, and right before I left, he had been whittling on two vaculums and he gave them to me. This one came out of the Boone and Crockett bear that I killed. There's a correlation between baculum size and skull size, i'd say, But that's what that's what they're missing, the people because I had to declutter my office.
What is clutter to begin with? Clutter? No, it doesn't even exist exactly.
And then and then the other thing that you would miss is my stone point collection, which I'm very proud of. Most of these stone points I found in my yard. And turns out Pablo, who I'm going to introduce, is a big stone point man.
Oh man, it's awful. Yeah, once you get into it, it's over with. Yeah, but those are beautiful. And when he's in the display.
Yeah, you would have seen them. I wouldn't have had to dug them out. And they're just all look how sad they look in that zip Like, No, can you tell that that is a celebration of life? No? No, because because you know there's a lot of great stuff in there. I mean, I can show you all the points right now.
You look like a kid with a bag of marbles or something.
Yeah, some of these I found when I was a kid. This one right here, I have written on it blue bucket, Howard County. Uh, it's okay, there's there's nothing there to see, y'all can all go there. I picked that up when I was a junior in high school after I had shot my a spike buck with my bow. Was track it was blood trailing the deer and picked up it's it's a broken fragment. And then this one, uh, it's it's it's come off. But I found this stone point when I was trailing a hog when I was a junior in high school. I dug a big hole in the ground, poured some corn in the ground, skipped class, went, no trail cameras or anything. But it was like a couple of It was a couple of days after I had poured corn in this hole and I had I had put it down in like that. It was like a big river bottom and there was a floodplain where the where the topography just dropped off and so basically it's flat and then there's like a ten foot drop and then it was flat again. I put the hole like right over the lip down in the second flat part, okay, and then I scratched out the leaves for about thirty yards back. I skipped school, slipped in there, walked on my leafless path, and popped up over the rise and what would you guess happened? There was a giant hog with his head in that hole. And there's Clay with his bow seventeen years old Matthew's high Country ex caliber sixty five pounds. He told me I could go. I got permission.
Wow, that's good.
Yeah, he told me I could skip school. And I draw back and shoot that sucker right in the shoulder and he literally shrugs it off. The arrow falls out onto the ground, and the hog runs off while I'm I do my due diligence to try to find the hog, and I mean he was not to be found, you know. Uh, And that I found that stone point, all these memories lost.
Yep, all these memories regret resigned to a ziplock bag.
Yeah, welcome to the bear gray Surrender.
Though I have, is that the first time you've you've ever been told that you are somewhat cluttered?
Uh?
Think think think smart.
I mean, I don't know if it's the first time. It's kind of like, you know what Gandalf said on Lord of the Rings I hate to quote Lord of the Rings, but it's a great movie. When he said a wizard is never late. He arrives exactly when he wants to.
I think that there's been a lot of conversations in the Lucome Home about Clay's propensity towards clutter, and I have always received the same message, this looks exactly like I want it to look. You know this, this has been a topic of conversation.
It's like my wife going into my shop.
It well, listen, there's actually I've recently read some interesting, interesting studies. I don't have much value to this podcast, but I think it's interesting. I think it could help you have a better strong marriages here.
If we were less cluttered, well.
It might help. You know. They actually did cortisol tests, like the stress formone they assessed us, and they found that clutter in a home actually does produce more stress on average in women than men.
What if we have designated spots where we can just keep our clutter.
Yeah, I've got no problem. It was fun, though, to watch Clay read that article, because you know, it wasn't a total surprise to me that someone wrote that. And I think your office is beautiful, a great museum. I love to take people in it. But when Clay read it out loud, I could I could see his face just kind of drop and he's like what and then he read because it wasn't one time it was in the first three sentence, mentioned a couple times different ways of saying it was cluttered or kind of haphazardly put together, and Clay was just astonished.
It was a great article the first time it ever entered my mind. But Michael Lewis says that the reason great writers are great is because they don't care about the reputation of the person they're writing about. Like, if you wrote an article about yourself, Pablo, you would kind of you You probably wouldn't do anything detrimental, but it also wouldn't be as interesting to the reader potentially. But if the guy that wrote the article about me wrote an article about you, he might he would like, tell us the real stuff that we really want to know. That might be you know, And Michael Lewis says that's the key to writing. It's like he's like, Hey, I'm gonna interview, but I don't care about your reputation.
He's pretty risky.
So Welcome to the Bear Grease Render. We have a very esteemed guest from the state of Alabama.
Roll Tide.
We've got Pablo Escaval Alabama, and you guys would know Pablo from the last Bear Grease podcast. And uh man, thank you so much for coming to Arkansas.
Man, no, man, it's my pleasure's an honor to be here with y'all. So I really appreciate this opportunity.
Yeah, a lot.
So we were walking down the road and our neighbor, me and Pablo walked down the road to move the mules. I got the mules grazing out on some leads and we met my neighbor who were in.
Like thirty seconds thirty seconds.
Of meeting him, greeted him warmly and in the way we do here. But then she was like, oh, I see you're an Alabama fan.
I'm sorry, yeah, because I just politely reply. He happens.
He said, he became an Alabama fan in the Nick saban era and got used to winning national time and then and then now.
Yeah, because here's the thing. When I came in, my stepdad was like, you got to pick up a.
Team Alabama at Alabama.
Yeah, it's like Alabama or r which when you're picking, and I was like, well, let me let me watch him playing. Within the first season, Alabama is mauling everybody.
On the SEC winning and I was like, it's no brainer, I said, roll time.
And of course, you know, I fell in love with him, you know, like like every Alabamia does, and you have Nick Saban rather so we're just winning championships left and right, and suddenly he's over and I realized, how it spoll I've been for the past wall ten.
Years, twelve years, how you feel like the rest.
Of us is?
Yeah, And now I'm like, oh man, this is this is what Auburn fans feels like.
You know, I'm like, just now, how long is Alabama not been like.
Just like two years? Last two years?
Have you been that good?
Yeah?
I remember we lost a championship against LSU again some up north that I can't even remember. And then the past few years it's been kind of like a bone dry okay, you know.
And always always thought it's interesting and maybe probably some of the states with smaller populations would understand this, but like in Arkansas, we have one high level Division one school. So whether you're in the southeast corner of Arkansas, the northwest, anywhere you go, there's this unifying factor of the your Razorback fan. Like, without question, even though there's a lot of colleges here, there's smaller Division two and even lower level Division one colleges here, but they those guys are Razorback fans. I mean, you know, like like we're all Razorback fans. Go to Alabama, which Alabama has a lot more people than we have.
How they do it's like five millions.
Yeah, we've got about three.
Okay, so just a little bit more, but it's still.
But you got to pick a team when you show up, when you get your card. In Alabama, they're like pick a team pretty much.
Yeah, you got to pick a team. Yeah.
It's like so old, he cheerful, and I don't know and now, yeah, I'm die hard with Alabama.
That's it. Yeah.
You can't, No, I can't be a fair weather for Yeah, I ain't doing it.
So yeah, do you do you know the roll Tide Willie guy? Have you ever heard that? Okay, he he's on social media. It's it's called Role Tide Willie and he's, uh, he's an Alabama fan and he's a he's a he's Willie's probably like late fifties, sixty maybe, And the story is like a Cinderella story of social media influence. And I was sucked in from the beginning. And there's a few there's a few qualms that I have a lot of alcohol, which I just you know, I'm not. I'm not into as much alcohol as they promote on right, I'll just say that at the beginning. But basically, there was this guy that videoed Willie, who was just a guy in Alabama, barefoot, sitting in the front of this old Alabama gas station. And and this guy pulls up and videos Willy, who's in like cut off shorts, barefoot.
And I think they knew each other.
They knew each other, but I don't think there was a plan. Yeah, they knew each other, but I don't think there was a plan for them to be like become well known.
No, Willy was just a big fan and he he's just.
This guy and rural Alabama. And and Chad goes, hey, Willy, how about that game tomorrow? And Willy just goes, oh, Alabama, we don't care about nothing but the tide roll tide. And he starts stopping around and yelling and the video goes viral, and long story short, like three years later, they have a pretty big social media presence, and it's pretty it's pretty funny most of the time, you know, from Rednecks and Little Little Yeah. Yeah. I like those guys.
I do, but just gonna I'd have Willie on Bear Grease.
If we could get him up here. So I got to give credit where credit is due. I was listening to the Southern Outdoorsman podcast with Andrew and Jacob and it was back a couple of months ago, and I just clicked on the episode that was up and it had your name in the title, which you know, I didn't. It didn't register that that would be significant. Just I remember seeing Pablo, which that's not a name you often see in honey here in this country, and uh. And I started listening to it, and pretty quickly that Pablo starts telling his story and I was just like, this guy's hilarious. And and you described it to me today, because everybody would have pretty much heard the stories that you told on that podcast, they pretty much heard on barg Grease, just kind of like your life story. You started by saying I was born in Costa Rica and we you know, did all this stuff with sling shots and shooting birds and you started telling your story and then you know, anyway, I just was like, we got to get the sky on Burgrease.
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
The opportunity with Andrew and Jacob, even though we live like within a couple. I did most and now we're in twenty minutes.
They're like, we got to do a podcast.
And I was like, yeah, man, it took like two three years, you know, timing wise, and that they we did it, and uh, we've done it. That day Jacob gaves me. He gave me a hat from Southern Endorsement. It's an orange hat. I was going haunting next day. He said, keep it up with you because that's the lucky hat. Well, I kind of like superstitious with this hat.
My wife bought.
Me an orange hat about twelve years ago on Walmart. It's the same hat is destroyed, but that's that's my lucky hat. That's the one that I wear. So I put the other one inside of my pack.
I go hunting. Next morning.
I killed the biggest bug that ever killed in Alabama, has six twenty in the morning.
No, I didn't wear a hat.
Okay, yeah, okay, and wearing my lucky hat with the other lucky hat and yeah, and I text him and I was like bug down.
They're like no way. And I said, I for the God and I send them a pictures. They're like no way. You know. So it was it was pretty cool. It was.
It was a pretty good kind of like experience back to back. So and here we are and here we are. And actually before I forget, you just mentioned it a oh that's mightiest look at that. That's the minded presentation. Okay, So this is this is a slingshot frame made out of a coffee plant.
Right, coffee plant.
Yes, I did this thing when I was like sixteen or seventeen years old.
Wow.
The tape is the one that it wasn't there when I could. So that tape has been there for like nineteen or twenty years. And man, you feel how light it is? Yeah, now try to squeeze that.
I'm afraid of breaking n A one.
It's semi flexible, but yet s thirty sturdy. That's what coffee it is for, you know.
So guys that are making sling shots where there's coffee plants. They know this is a good good plant. Yeah, it's good wood, Yeah it is.
It's very solid, very light, very solid, jet flexible enough nice for it.
So what would you put on the So if you haven't listened to the episode Pablo, he he made his I was going to say, make his living. That metaphorical. They were sling shot masters. You said that. You said that guys could like shoot like forty fifty yards.
And he'd an aluminum can with rocks that. Now I was in one of them, but I have friends that they were unrealistically good. It's just pure talent, like seriously pure talent. I was good, but but those guys were like beast.
You know.
When you told me that story, it made me think about, Uh, I do instinctive shooting and archery, and me and my son Bear are fixing the go to Alaska and we're using these primitive self bows that he made himself, and you're you're shooting them instinctively, you know, and it's and it's it's hard to be accurate. But I would imagine if ever since we were born, if that's the only thing that we could harvest meet with, and we'd shot bows our whole life are whole life, and there was that much at stake, we would be in a whole different category of archers. I mean, I just think about like you guys, you told me, you know, you didn't have guns, you couldn't even shoot bb guns and all this stuff in Costa Rica, and I mean these guys were just I mean.
It pretty much every day.
Yeah, and you keep a bag of rugs like the ones that you wanted. This is gonna sound crazy, but not all rugs are equal, right, Like I'm speaking of maybe like in a molecular level, some of them are denser than others. So the ones like this, the smallest one, the most round in heavior, those were the ones that you wanted.
Like you will just walk the creeks picking picking picks with cherry, yeah, oh yeah.
And then man, you get very good consistency with them, you know. So I mean you can throw anyone, it's not gonna fly the same way.
You know.
That kind of makes sense the story in the Bible of David killing Goliath, and you know, there's like this spiritual component to it, but I've always thought about it from a natural sense as well. Is that David the shepherd boy now he was using a sling not necessarily a sling shot.
Yeah.
It was like yeah, there was no no wood. But he had just like incredible confidence in his ability to just hit something about that big you know head. Yeh, he knew what he was like.
You guys said, he went and picked his stone.
That's what made me think of it. That's why he said he picked his stone. So he he you got yeah.
Because here's here's this story with this one. I wanted to say. I was sixteen or seventeen, My little brother and my mom were in Costa Rica or about to depart back to the States, and it was for Christmas. I didn't have anything for my little brother, so I said, I know, I'm going to make him a sling shot. So I went and him picked this one, which you know, this is the base of the coffee plant. Then this is gonna split back again. She's just gonna keep splitting him to list like a like a bush. So it was a younger plant because because they can get massive. Anyways, pick this one up and I was like, look, dude, what I got you? He was like what, Like what is that? And my heart was broken. I was like, man, that's a perfect sling shot. Anyways, I was talking to him one of these days and he's like, oh, man, let me show you something that I got. Now, you got to keep the mind.
He's twenty three now, and he goes and open a couple of cabinets and pull some stuff that I gave him when he was a child, like a letter, you know, when we were apart and I used to write him letters. We're like, man, you gotta stay strong and this and that. And I was like, man, that's so cool.
This letters dating back to like seven o six, A big brother riding to a little brother.
Right.
And then he's like, oh, what I got too? And he pulled this out. I don't forgot about it.
Oh that one?
Yes, So you thought he didn't care anything about it.
No, I didn't even know where it was because I forgot. Like I said, this thing is like twenty years old.
And I say, Indian giver, you know, yeah, And.
I said no, I'm keeping it. He was mad and he's like, no, I'm gonna call mom, And I said color you know. So Mom came, you know, and she's taking everybody's point of view and I was like, Mom, I cut it.
Oh, I guess it's like serious, this isn't a joke. Like he was really upset.
Yeah, and I was too, because I was like, how come that's that's been inside of that cabinet instead of being on display, you know.
So my mom was like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
You hear that, folks.
If you're listening to audio, that's all the stone points that you're not seeing anything.
There's there's no such a thing as cluttering, you know, it's always display memories. Anyways, my mom is like, yeah, you know, they're going to have to settle it. And I said, let's flip a coin. And I said, let's flip a coin and if I if you flip heads, I win. If I flip tails, I win. And he went for it. He wasn't paying attention, you know what I mean.
Oh you said both ways you win?
Yeah, pretty much. He's like okay, and just finding this out now.
He knew right away, and my mom was like, you should have don't pay attention.
Went yeah. Mom was like she was like, I'm not getting in between this, you know.
And he came home with me and I was and he's on display on my yeah, just laying right there.
Wow.
Yeah. So crazy. I want to remove the tape.
But at the same time, I just don't you know, like I said, it's been here for so long.
Yeah, I wouldn't know.
It looks it looks like you put it on there yesterday.
Yeah. And man, I mean if you peel you can see Luke you see how easy Yeah, the pill, how easy she goes. Yeah, it's just toasted, you know. So don't do it now, Pablo.
In Costa Rica, you said you you've worked on a coffee farm, well for a little while.
Yeah, that was usually like summertime, high school, in school and all that stuff.
You go to the coffee hills and work up there.
What do you do you picking coffee?
Yes, picking coffee green? They're green being ed, no red.
You want the reddish and kind of like no more than fifty percent green on the on the on the bean.
Okay, so you can.
Did you have a sense of where that coffee was going that you were picking in Costa Rica?
No, I mean you just get it and you imagine that this is kind of like for national consumption, if we can say like that, but some of that coffee gets exported.
It's coffee big in Costa Rica.
Oh yeah, absolutely, you know, and and especially with the altitudes and all that stuff, you get these really rich.
Bold like Arabic flavors. Uh, it's it's really good. Why Arabic? Why arab I guess the seeds that.
They came from.
Maybe at least.
I have no idea if he has to deal with without location kind of thing or with a screen.
Okay, I've got a little I know you're not a coffee guy, but I'm gonna bring this up because I've just never around people that have been around coffee. So you're the closest person to receive this.
No, I drink anywhere.
That they make coffee. They always make it sound like it's something special, just like a vineyard. Like if you ever hear somebody talk about a vineyard, they're like, oh, this is the nicest vineyard in Italy, and it scales though it comes down to like, this is the nicest vineyard in this county, and then it scales too, this is the nicest vineyard in this neighborhood. I mean, like people kind of carry a chip on their shoulder. I feel like regions with coffee do the same thing. You see, Yeah, you feel me. It's always the best of something.
I want to say.
I'm almost sure Brazil is the number one in quality I mean quantity worldwide.
Okay, but I want.
To sit I'm almost positive the Costa Rica is the number one in quality. Really, Yes, I want to say that, like a very expensive coffee. Oh wow, Like we can double check this with Google.
Or you're confirming exactly what I'm saying.
Yes, I believe.
I don't want anybody in fact check it the rest of my life. I'm going to be like, Costa Rica is the best coffee in the world. My friend Pablo told me.
Yeah, But at the end of the day, it's all about opinion, because I could say it. The Razorbacks are the best college team in the world, you know, and even though.
They're not, I don't think that can be quantified.
Wikipedia just kidding.
Hey, so you told us about Costa Rica to some degree in the podcast, but not not a lot. Like, so you lived in Costa Rica till you're twenty one years old?
Yes, describe like the the.
Topography, the vegetation of Costa Rica, Like how big is Costa Rica?
Costa Rica is I want to say this. I want to say, we have to check this fact again. But I want to say it's fifty one thousand square kilometers, Okay, fifty one thousand or fifty two thousand square kilometers.
How long does it take you to drive across the island.
Well, it's not an island. Is a country, Like it's dead on the middle of the continent. So Puerto Rico is an island. Costa Rica is not an island.
Okay.
Yeah, So if you're traveling across the country, if it was a straight shot, probably like three hours.
Fifty one thousand square kilometers, so nineteen thousand square miles. So it's tiny.
Yes, it's like nineteen thousand.
Alabama's like two and a half times bigger than Costa Rica and they have the same populations, so about five six million. So that goes to show you there's more people per square mile than what you have here, right, because yet you have these vast areas of no population and that's due to the terrains.
Right. So you're going, like I said, if it was a straight shot.
But three hours on a straight line, but you're going through all these different habitats with altitudes, increases, decreases, valleys, rivers and all that stuff that the travel some areas you're doing.
Like it's mountains and they have you have a volcano. Yeah, there's like seven volcanoes, like active volcano.
It's like okay, so you're dropping.
You're gonna go from like dry from like dry Arizona looking like forest, you know, to the rainforest, back down to maybe Louisiana mugginess looking like swamps, to the Caribbean side and back down to the jungle on the south end of the country.
And then you cross into Panama.
So you and that's without talking about the volcanoes and the hot springs and all that stuff. Yeah, everything is it's like a like I said, the place has two percent of the word diversity, just bio biodiversity. Nineteen thousand square miles. Two percent of the word biodiversity is located in there. So you you can imagine that the flora and the fauna is going to be really rich.
What kind of big game? Are there any big game animals? O realize they're not hunting them there. Yeah, that was part of his story, is that there's no honting in coast through it's legal.
That doesn't mean that it's not. But there's some whitetail.
Whitetail there, yes, which would be invasive.
I guess, I don't know.
I mean the white tails are.
And there's pigs, you know, feral pigs as you cannot run them off. They're going to be everywhere. Jaguars, jaguars of course. There's also this creature. I don't know what's the name on the English, but we call it Danta. She's like, like, go ahead and google it so you can maybe describe it. But she's a big, old, like a bear, looking like creature. We no longer her, and her nose is going to be long like a taper.
It's like a taper.
A taper, that's what it is. There's those all over the place, all over the no, no, let me take the bag. Not all over on the south of the country. There's yes, tapers with jaguars usually.
Have you ever seen the jaguar?
Yes, you really? Yes, down there on this south it's called cord I.
Mean, not not in a no, not in a case. Yeah, tell me about I mean, like, how do you see a jaguar?
Well, what how did you see?
The one you saw?
That's on the National Park. It's a reservation. So this is is crazy.
But the wildlife is used to the people like not messing with them. So as long as you know to do, you don't do any kind of like a stupid solmn movement. They're gonna behave natural and they're now they're not gonna come up to you, right, but they're gonna keep a fair distance. That time, I remember we were walking towards the bridge, towards the beach because we're gonna do some snook fision right there on the on the shallows, like on the on the sandbanks. And my body screamed, jagguar. And when we look up, he was on the go, like like he was moving away from us, you know, maybe about seven yards he probably saw us walking to him and seven yards seventy oh no, seven yards no then and he was on the go. And even though he was that far away, man, you know the presence of those cats like that being that big, especially like mound lions. Yeah, I know there's some mount lines as well, not as many color pumas. Yeah, and those are gonna be I guess like the Florida panther m.
Yeah.
I think the I think the mountain what we call the mountain lion here puma puma con color. It's the same cat. That is, there's different subspecies, but it's the same cat that's like in Montana that would be down in Central America as I understand it. Yeah, it may be different, different subspecies.
It's the same, but the genes are going to be a little bit different. It's just like the white tails from the South versus the one in the Midwest, just a little bit smaller, Just the same overall stuff, you know.
Yeah, have you ever seen a black jaguar on pictures?
Never on person?
I've noticed that there appears to be a jaguar tattoo on your hand.
A puma?
Yeah, that's a puma.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Really, Now, what's the significance of that?
Nothing?
Just like.
Good looking puma.
Yeah, I got yeah, I got that puma. Man.
I got a bunch of North American and American kind of like animals. So I got a puma. I got a deer right here?
Oh really? Yeah? What else do I got?
Is it like a big buck?
Yeah?
I mean, can you pull your arm.
You're gonna like that one? Oh wow? Soon on his forearm. There's a there's a bison, and then there's that bug right there. Oh, look at that redtail hawk from wearing there.
Now, okay, I.
Give me.
Let me see that buck again. Hold on, put your shirt up a little bit more. Okay, now the tattoo artists that did this there, I noticed there's a forked G two. Yeah, I'd say that's an unusual characteristic for a white tail.
I know. And did you request the fork G two?
No?
I was like, that looks like a mule deer. But I mean, here's the thing, if.
You want it to be a white tail. No, it looks like a white tail.
Let me explain.
I think there's a story here.
Yeah, let me explain.
Everything that I have is handra like I usually request my body matschief Flip that's his name. I know him for several years, Templo, since I came to the States. And every time I'm like a math, what if we do like a like a puma?
So he will sit down.
So it was all that done at separate times.
Yes, and then he will draw by him out of his mind right like will he's like sketch it on your arm and pin or something depends.
Yeah, sometimes he will do it on his tablet. Get it all done, or sometimes he will do it directly in my skin, right, depending on what he's forty. Anyways, on this case, I said, Matt, I want to do like a buck. He said, what are you talking about? And I said, just just a big buck. He's like like a white tail deer.
And I said, yeah, so is this guy this an Alabama dude?
Or yes, he's an Alabama dude, but he's a known hunter and he doesn't go outside as much as we do. Right, So, so here's the thing. He's like, I look some reference points and a few pictures of deer, now white tail or nothing.
This is what I came with. And I look at it and I said, that's a mule deer. But we're here right now.
I'm not gonna tell him nothing. Oh no, I said, Matt. Just put it in there, you get He said, oh you like it? I said, yeah, I put it up there, so just like that, you know, so it is a mule there.
Yeah, okay, but you were You didn't need a white tail though.
It don't matter if it could be a white tail for interpretation, Yes, yeah, it's I can see it with his eyes on the back of the.
I think that you've got the right to be like pretty picky about which reference drawing they make if there's a tattoo on your arm.
But on the on the throughout the years, the relationship that it goes past client tattoo artists and it's just comes a friendship, right, it becomes a frame life lessons with Yes, so is.
This would this be like a so Okay, I mean I'm I'm I'm not. I'm not seeing it, but I would don't trust you're You're just like, I mean, were you gonna hurt his feelings?
No?
But it was like going through the process of like, oh he has to draw it again?
Yeah, so I said you didn't want to inconvenience.
No, just put the I gotta go.
Yeah, I paid for the guy to spent an extra thirty minutes on it.
Now I'd be like, as a double it's so good. Yeah, I like it.
If it's a white tail, it's I'm a sucker for a four G two.
He's an incredible artist.
I mean, yeah, he is pretty good.
Hey have you ever you got a bison on there? Have you ever read Steve Vanella's American Buffalo Book?
Uh?
Uh?
If you're if you're looking for a good book to read you ought to read that?
Does he has that one on audible? Yeah?
Oh yeah, it's on audible. I want to say it's truly one of my I mean, it would be have to be in the top top books. And I'm not just saying that because we like to. Yeah wha, he does not, Thank goodness, he does not. But it's a good book.
Yeah, I definitely I want to say, like, I'm almost one, I got that book on the playlist on Audible.
Yeah, but he has to. I will.
I will show you because I know it's going to be like, oh yeah, right after we told him so only he got I will show y'all later on.
Yeah, to see that.
He has to like, yeah, I swear I did. It was him or somebody else. Well, now I'm hold on and say hold up, but let's just go ahead, let's keep it be. Yeah.
I will pull out that phone later on and it's stuff end noll. If you're watching this, I'm going to prove I'm want to prove this.
You know, well, you know the coolest thing about your story that I learned on the Southern Sportsman Endorsement podcast and what we heard on Bear Grease was that it's really cool how you you got into hunting and and if you hadn't listened to it, you got to go back and listen to it. But I mean when he just started from like zero, when he when he got here, and you're like becoming a really good hunter white tail hunter.
Man, I wouldn't say like a really good I will say it more like a like a very persistent and stubborn hunter. You know, they keep making the same mistakes two to three times until I learned from him. Right, It's like, no, no, it wasn't me. No, No, it wasn't me. And then it's like, okay, it was me. It's time to make a change. But but yeah, like I said, the progression is being steady slow, but you know, step by step. But it's been steady.
And I was talking with.
Clay about this that everybody wants to go and kill a one fifty. We all do, right, But in my case, man, I started from like not knowing how to hunt these creatures to where I'm at now. So I've been following a process that he has to be respected because I feel that if I rush it, I'm gonna take away to all the fun and all the joy that I have Now, if I kill a one fifty, thank you God, it will be amazing. But if I don't, it's not going to take the slip away from it, right, And then I'm not going to be passing on the small bugs that I shouldn't be passing because I'm waiting that one fifty. And the only thing that is that I'm going to be thinking of is it's a different level. And I respect that position from the guys that live that kind of like a hunting life. But in my case, my particular case, Pablo's life is a process and that process, you know, it just takes time and it cannot be rushed.
It's just what it is. I'm being honest.
I'm not ashamed to say, like a man, if I'm hunting and sometimes it's a bad day to be a spike.
Just like that.
It happens, Yeah, it happens. It happens like last year.
Listen, last year it was the best year ever kill the biggest book that ever killed in Alabama. Kill a bug on this particular double you may I've been hunting seven years in that area without being able to kill a legal book. Everything is within less than a week time frame. And then the fourth day, No, the fifth day of consecutive hunting, a cow horn looking like a spike comes up and I was like bloom, yes, and everybody's like, you gotta be kidding me.
I was like, what do you mean?
This is a huge accomplishment. They're like, how big is the spike? And I was like, it's like a food long No.
It was a good It's always funny how people talk about it was a big spot.
It's like as if if the two spikes walked up and one at three and one at four, this one is a good one, yeah, this one is. This one is a good like cow horn looking like a spike. Yeah. I can't get enough cal horn spot.
So I was like, what a better way to do it then going back to basics and pull the trigger and the spike burn attack and be done in Alabama?
And everybody's like, okay, so.
Did you just graduated from this spike management of university orre you going to keep doing this?
And I was like, I don't know. We will find out next season. So I went two weeks later to.
Mississippi kill a book, and I mean, come on, you know what I'm saying, right yere man? Yeah, killing the best book on the state killing a book and I've only made it took me seven years to do that. Tagging out. It don't matter what do you tag out, but you tag out and then on top of that killing now to state book.
It doesn't get no better than that.
Right, big year, good year, I've got I've got a question for you. So because you've you've you came into specifically whitetail hunting so fresh, with such a clean slate, like you didn't have any cultural baggage like anybody that's raised I mean almost in America. I mean, deer hunting is so big in America. I mean unless you're just like from like the Inner City and your family has been there for like generations, there's a good chance that you have some connection to hunting. Maybe it's your grandfather, maybe it's your uncle, your cousins, like somebody the hunter way back, and and you come with this baggage of the way that you're supposed to hunt, like whether it's whether it's bow hunting, or whether it's doing drives, or whether it's hunting with deer dogs like it is down here in some places, whether it's bow hunt whatever. I think that in today's like oversaturated whitetail world that's so commercialized, and it just is I mean, you know, I mean the company I work where we try to sell hunting products. I mean, that's kind of what makes the thing go round. I don't feel bad about that. But also in like the media space in general, it's like we need things to talk about, and so it's almost like hunting gets more and more complex, like if you were just starting from scratch, like when my dad started hunting back in the nineteen seventies. I mean, it's like you needed a bow in a flannel shirt, you know, and maybe a baker tree stand that you could climb up and probably die. Those things they call them widow makers. But today you might get the idea that you got to know about all this different stuff. You're an interesting case study because you do know, I mean, you've kind of, you know, a lot of information. You've just been a sponge and learned about thermals and learned about feed trees and learned about funnels, and like he's a student of deer hunting, you know. And so here's my question all that, to say, what really are the limiting factors of killing a deer? Where you hunt. Okay, because it could be somebody might come into hunting and think it's camouflage pattern, which we all know is not true. But what what do you think the limiting factors are killing deer?
Based on what I believe personally pressure. I believe pressure is a big thing. Also on this particular dog.
You may tell me what you mean by that. They interpret that.
Like like hunters per squaial mind.
So you so for you to be successful, you go where there's not pressure.
Yes, Also in this area where I hunt, the deer population is very low. The habit that is pretty monocha. How well, it's pretty much the.
Same block like monoculture.
Yes, so.
There's different areas where I can move and go and kill a deer. Right, it might not be the greatest, but he's going to be a deer and I could be pretty successful about that. But once again, there's gonna be things such as.
Pressure. That's to me, that's the biggest thing in Alabama.
So what what when you say that to me?
I hear you say.
If I was telling a new hunter what to do, I would go find a place it doesn't have a lot of people hunting, and you could be you could you could not have knowledge and kind of not know what you're doing, but maybe still kill a deer because they're unpressured.
No.
Uh, now, here's the thing that's that's that's kind of like a different question. I'm gonna answer in a different way. But I think, to me, my blessing, because it was a blessing, was that I learned from all school guys. Guys didn't have social media. Shoot man, they had paper maps. That was the way for them to scalt the areas and all that stuff. So that was my principle. You know, that was the foundation of where I'm at right now. Everything else I don't pick it up throughout the seasons and you learn a little bit more about this and about that. If somebody asked me right now, based on what I know, I'd be like, Okay, the best way to try to seal the deal is to figure out when is the rut.
When the rout is on, like on the peak. So you're going to find them cruisers and go ahead and put yourself nearby a creek crossing or a bluff gap. That's what I would choose. Like special so.
Understanding like when the times are so you can understand in topography.
Yeah, so that way you're going to get the most daylight movements and the most exposure, you know, because because love is in the air, and they be goofing around and I'm yeah, you know, and they exposed themselves in the ways that they never do. Yeah, I've been winded before, but bugs. They's like, man, I have got this crazy, but I have got encounters with big deer. Last season, I bomb paid Monster a monster and I called my buddy Daniel Williams and I said, Daniel, I just bomb pay Monster. It's like two thirty in the evening.
What do I do. He's like, Oh, don't worry, You're going to do this. You fix them, kill him. And I was like no, like he's gone. He was like, no, do this, you fix him, kill him. And I didn't listen to him.
And I think that I should have done it, and I might have killed him, you know, but I was like, no, no, hold on, I'm going to try to do this.
Well.
He was recommending me, was like trying to circle hook that book, but I just couldn't avoid it, and I did the opposite and just kind of like straight up chasing climb a tree and I was like, he's gonna come back, and I bet you he wouldn't run, but he was a monster.
H bet it on the wide up and yeah.
The crazy thing is I stopped and look at the tree. I came out of the thicket, stop looking at the tree, and I said, this is a really good transition area. This is the climber and the trail comes right here.
Yeah, I like it. And I did one step and he bumped about twenty yards, so you were right. Yeah, I was right there, but he was already there. Yeah.
So you know, I used to think about bow hunting. If somebody would have seen me killing deer and would have been like, oh, man, you're a good hunter, I would have said, I don't know. I don't really think I'm a good hunter. I think I just go lot and I'm really persistent. So what I saw people do is like learn a lot about hunting. And this is kind of a fictitious scenario, but like learn a lot about hunting, try to find the right time, like basically find the right scenario, and then they would go and not be successful. And maybe they even knew more about what was happening than me, But I was I just went more, stayed longer and ended up killing deer, and in the process of that you learn a lot. I mean, so I think the thing that I would say to people is just go go climb up in a tree and sit there, and when you don't see deer, you're gonna learn something. You're gonna go somewhere else. When you do see deer, you're gonna be validated. And you're gonna watch how they use the terrain, watch what they're feeding on, watch the direction they come. When you get winded, you're gonna learn Oh dang, I need to be on that side of the funnel, and the thermals are gonna suck my wind down in that draw. I mean, like you just learned so much about being there. But as opposed to and I guess I'm kind of combating what you and I talked about earlier today about how complex sometimes. Yeah, like the more the longer we do this white tail hunting thing, the more fine tuned it becomes, and kind of the more complicated it becomes in a way.
And there's so many members technicologies, so many technicologies and things that it seems like we're speaking about like outer space kind of stuff. And it just takes the whole the fun a way.
When's what's the last white Tail podcast you listen to? Miss nukelem.
When was the last time you did a Dear Stories podcast?
Oh? Yeah, you know what, I'm just gonna ask you.
Well, I was thinking it kind of reminds me. You know, Shepherd always our son. Shep always talks about luck favors the people who who show up, who are there, and if sometimes he'll hear you and Bear talking about about whether you should go or not, and if you don't, He's like, oh man, they might have missed the air lucky.
Day, so powerful quote. Love favors the ones that show up. Yeah that is so truth. Yeah that's so good.
Yeah, no, segue into this. Pablo told me a quote earlier today that I was like, Hey, that's really good about nostalgia.
Oh yeah, yeah's here it because you know, here's the thing. I was talking with Clay and I said, a lot of times I get very nostalgic when I when I think.
Talking about Coaster Rea, I get very nostalgic. And it happens. But but I said, nostalgia is the greatest liar there is, right, And that's because it will bring you back to these really like cool moments and great memories while hiding the real reason why something ended or something was. Don't forget right.
That's good, Yeah, it's really good.
So so what I get is all these reels of high moments of my childhood, pretty much in my teenager years, which I had the greatest childhood ever, man, like I you know, with you can you can try to put in context like oh, there was some limitations or whatever was I never felt, you know, I was a happy kid with what we had, right, and the greatest thing we didn't have internet and we didn't have cell phones. That was the two greatest thing it's ever, you know. So we grew up everybody in the neighborhood, my area pretty much like that, like yeah, wide up and on the woods, you know. So you you cannot be asking for anything better than that. But I get nostalgic.
It's normal.
And especially when I think about fishing, I'm like, oh my god, man, oh my god, you know, forty five minutes away from from the ocean, yeah, or something like that. And then you start recalling, Okay, what was the reasons why we left or what do we move forward? This and that, and then you start realizing like, oh, yeah, that's why you know. And so yeah, gotta be careful when you get nostalgic, because you can be impulsive.
Okay, tying this back into deer hunting, have you deer hunted long enough for you to be nostalgic about deer hunting?
Yes? Absolutely?
About a place in the specific, Yeah, this area where I used to be the one that I think that shot in that big deer. I don't want to get into a lot of detail of the place because I will give it up.
But the place was.
It's no longer available mm and and that was my honey hole, and I hunted it hard, man, every moment, every day that I had, I was on the same tree, the same sweet come about this big because it was the only one that you could climb in that swamp. And now I go by the place, even though there's nothuntable you can go by, and and man, sometimes I just kind of like stayed right there, and I'm like, man, I wish that I could haunt this place back again. And even though this nostalgia is like legit, like there's not such bad reason for it, Like it was out of.
My days you sat there and didn't see anything.
Yeah, but how much I learned and how much time you because there was so much wildlife on those swamps, which was incredible.
Man.
I got to see in otters. I got to see beavers, all kinds of ducks, coons, bobcads, just walking by me, minding their business. And that's quiet that you can stay. The more you're gonna learn, you know. That's I learned that with deer as well. The first time I seen a doubt with triplets. That doesn't happen very often, but it happens. Well, it might happiness more often than what I think. But the phones were like literally underneath me, and I was like hugging the tree, like police go away and they're doing their thing. And Mama was like forty yards away, ears wide open, scanny. She knew something was off, but she could figure it out. So I was listening so carefully because there was so many bocalizations going on between and back and forth that it was just an amazing experience. And they ended up just walking away. But I was like, these are the days that really make the difference when you learn and experience a little bit better, you know, behaviors or things like that. But yeah, yeah, that place right there. And there's also the one that they got away, the one that could never recovered. You seeing that book, Yeah, he was a good one to as show it to you later, but he was a good one. And then what else, like seriously that again.
Be thinking of a question you might have for him? Anything? Josh, you two got it? Do you have any questions?
Well, I just I enjoyed listening to to your story for the podcast, and I think I think your passion for the outdoors surfaced when you were so little, and I admire your your passion when you got to the United States of you know, learning that you could hunt and and uh does that I guess My my thing is is like, what is that? What has that done to you? Is it filled you with more passion? Are you still just as excited about it today as you were then? I'm actually have you have you like, has that branched out into other areas of hunting?
Yeah, it's well to start the question is like he has I'm actually hungrier than what it was before. And the reason for that is because now I understand what I'm doing and now I can actually understand why am I doing it?
Things?
So it has drew me like crazier than what it was before, right because it's like, Okay, now I have no excuses.
Before I could have this excuse of.
Inexperienced this that like that, like now there's none Like now I'm I should be good to go. And yes, absolutely, man, I was Remember I was disclosed to be turkey hunting today. Okay, I've never done it before. He turned down a turkey hunt to come with me Jamie McKay and Alabama. He was like, We're gonna go turkey hunting and I was like, mister Jamie, I can't. I gotta go with Clay. I said we wait until I said we wait for next year because I've never done it before.
He was like, oh gone.
You know so I want to do some turkey hunting, you know, of course, fishing all the time, deer hunting and man, everybody, I mean, I don't know, somebody doesn't say like elk hunting or any other game like that. Yes, I would love to venture into that, but I guess that's gonna come with time. When when the time is right, I guess yea. But yeah, now I'm more passionate than before, because now I understand, Yeah, well I'm what am I actually looking for?
Man, You've had some incredible mentors, all the guys they all mentioned. I mean that when when I heard his story, that was the thing that stood up to me, is that all the all the people that just brought him into kind of their inner circle. And uh, that's that's as it's honestly a testament to them, but it's also a testament to you. I Mean, sometimes I think people talk about maybe not being able to find mentors and and really a lot of times the fingers should be pointed back at Yeah, the person that they're not reaching out to the right people, or they're they're they're not respecting I mean that I don't know. It's it's it can be hard to break into.
Let me tell you how they started. Well, first and foremost mister mister Tony, right, But then I spoke with Josh about this friend of mine, Parker McDonald. He had he has a YouTube channel, right, so years ago it was called Southern ground Hunting right now it's Southern Collective. Anyways, he put up their own social media. I'm looking for an interm for Southern ground Hunting. So I email him and I said, I have no experience with a camera. I don't know anything about electronics. I do not on a computer. I'm technologically slow, but I have a good attitude and if you put a camera on my hands.
I would love to go out there with you.
I said, here goes nothing, and I sent the email right literally, did I know he texts me back. Well, he emails me back, Hey, this is my phone number.
Give me a text.
I was like, do what, well, mister Towny, don't talk to mister Michael. Mister Michael saw Parker somewhere and talk to Parker about me. Parker's like, hey, Michael talked to me about you.
Do you want to meet in this place? And we we talk about it.
We talked a little bit and we became friends. And next thing you know, I was out there hunting with Parker. There was no inner spot.
I was just with him.
He started teaching me as well what he believed he was the best approach for me, while being double check with mister Tunny, mister Jamie, mister Michael McCabe, and then Daniel Williams came along the road and he's like, okay, now you're jumping on on on this truck and we're fixing the move along and this is when you're going to start learning about topographies and learn about this.
Wow, it's like a like a class exactly.
Everybody this is this is the best of the best. Everybody has a very strong like a subject to each other strength. Yes, that that everybody like mister Michael bluff gaps and creek crossings, you know, mister Tonny Myers fea trees. Yes, he killed a state record on a history. Mister Michael killed the muscilow of state record not long ago, like a one eight.
The one who said like.
Yeah, and after that the place look like a punkin patch, you know, like opening there. Yeah, nothing but orange. It's just an awful you know. I was like, yeah, it's over with. But something I have learned is that the pressure goes up and then the next year will it go kind of like a dive down. Then a couple of years we'll go back up. Anyways, Parker is all about access, you know how you access? Yes, mister Jamie is about travel corridors, like where do you find them?
Cruising?
So I've been picking the best out of the best man, and I got a feeling that this will pay sooner or later, will pay off, and if it doesn't, it don't matter because I have got the greatest time eror with these guys and and just just being able to learn from him is a luxury. Like what a luxury do I have to man that?
Oh? Yeah, I've been in scouting with.
Well, you know what I tell you, I guarantee you that you are well just from being around you today. You're a great listener. It's fun to teach somebody that's passionate. Yeah, it's fun to teach somebody that's appreciative. It's fun to teach somebody that is taking what you what you teach them and in doing and doing it. And actually, I mean so my point being, those guys are incredible. A hat tip to every one of those guys. Uh, you're doing some stuff right too. Yeah, I mean, just just in the fact that you could gain these guys trusts and well, that's the that's the biggest thing. I mean, it's like, you know, kind of like throw your pearls before the swine. I mean, it's like, if I'm going to invest in somebody, I want to know that it's it's gonna be there's gonna be a return on that investment, like in their life, because we all have invested in somebody that kind of squandered what you gave them, and you kind of learned from that. You're like, wow, I'm not going to invest my time in that anymore.
But you know, my thing, I will say, the biggest thing for me was that you have to be aware that the people's time is very valuable and the experience that they have gained throughout the years is priceless. Like seriously, man, they have expent years of their life up in that mountain chasing these creatures, and suddenly if you're here for a free ride, that's gonna throw you off the door right away. Like you see what I'm saying. What I want to learn is how you do what you do?
Now? Where you go to do what you do? You know?
Like so I don't know, I guess it's the will, your attitude, perseverance, you know, how good you're going to be able to face the challenges that they throw it at you. Maybe I don't know, just the blessing overall, that's what it is. Yeah, good lord looking over, there's nothing you can do about that, right.
So it was good, So.
Did you have a question?
Actually my question was how did he get his mentors? That was actually what I was curious about. I haven't listened, you know, I didn't. I wouldn't. Haven't heard the whole story yet. So it's kind of hard because I actually have a lot of questions, but I feel like it would be repetitive. They're probably answered in.
The yeah, yeah, So how did you get here? It's like it cannot be disclosed.
So real quick. I met this gentleman. I was doing some work outside of his house. They took me on the backside. My stepdad did well. He had giants, state records and all that stuff, everything from public land. I was like, oh my god, got his name.
Uh. A few years went by. I'm striking with no lock on public land. Three years without seeing a deer, without seeing a deer, three seasons honting, no dear. I'm desperate. And I spoke with my stepdad and said, do you remember that gentleman? He said, yeah, this is his house.
He's like, I don't know. I said, does he still lives in there? He's like, I don't know. So I said, I something is gonna happen. I'm gonna get shot or I'm gonna find my stani but something.
They're doing concrete work. This guy's the stranger's house, saw his trophy room. And then a year later he goes back.
It was three three years later, yes, oh wow, yes, three years later. I went back to Miss Tony's. Anyways, I said, something's gonna happen. I'm gonna get shot or I'm gonna find him. I saw the con I was like, that's that's it, you know, that's that's the one knock on the front door. Nothing, And I said, here we go. You just gotta roll the dice and I walk on the back, like on the back of the house.
If you knock on my back door, you're getting shot.
Yes, and I period. Miss Donna came out and she's super sweet and kind with me, and she says, can I help you? I was like hell, you know.
Yeah, I said, don't let the serotypes guiding you to this, because I'm fixing the gains shot.
You know, I have an accent and a bunch of the this It's not what it looks like, you know, right. I was like, it's not what it looks like. Just bear with him and let me explain myself please, and I said, mister Tony home.
She was like, no, he's honey. I said I'd be back, and so I came back that evening as mister Tony. He was like, everybody, I.
Remember you, just like that, okay, and that it started, and then he he took.
Me under his wing. He's getting closer to retirement. He's a legend, man. And then he's like, I'm going to talk to some of the guys from the same generation so they can kind of like still help people a little bit and all that, and that's how the ball went down eventually, all the way, like I said, mister Tony, mister Jamie, mister Michael, Daniel Williams, Parker McDonald, Nick Brandon, Brian Prosser, that dude, man, that guy Brian Prosser. He's like, this is the crazy thing on public Land. He's able to pinpoint in the specific individual and do a lot of effective prayer that that buck is gonna live until he's like four years old. They even know that he's been shot since he's like six months old. He's like, God, please don't let him get killed this season.
And somehow this guy, this guy's praying for a specific year.
Yes, somehow this year end up being like on the one, twenties, one thirties. Next thing, you know, they jump from that to like an upper one. Photies on public on the same place.
Many praise that they die, and he does that. He kills them all the time.
Like last time that I was with him, he takes me, hey, I'm going tomorrow, and I was like, ah, good luck, it's the only day that I have.
I gotta go. He was chasing a giant one fifty four a point double brow time mm hmm.
So text me about seven point thirty he's down and I was like, there's no way I go in there retrieving that bug with him, My goodness, man, talking about popcorn, all kinds of stuff.
I should picture.
Later, the deer came in and the deer saw him drawing back on his bow, so he said the buck stop and turns looking at him like that, and right when he's about to go.
He releases.
So there it goes through the deer nose out in the yall into the neck area and he s lip and ordering, wow, he was able to kill him. On the picture, you see like a cross right here on his nose and then where it was. But yeah, every year he does that, and he's one of the guys like, like I said, everybody else, actually my Boddy Nick. I was with him last season, and uh, we're hunting on this area where I see the triplet. I heard the first thing in the morning. I said, man, he got one on top of that ridge. We have receptions and Nick is like, hey, man, I shot a big old pig. I'm gonna go retrieve him, and then you know, we go, and I said, cool. Well, I didn't hear anything else. And like three hours later.
I see Nick limping really bad heading my way and I was like, what happened? He said, man, I dang pig. He wasn't dead.
Yeah, Like the pig was inside of a ticket. So Nick goes into the tickets looking for him because the pig was wounded like really bad. He thought that he was done, and as soon as he got two him, the pig just jumping.
He charged on him.
Luckily didn't hit him with the tusk, but he hit him good enough on the leg that he was like he was in a binding and he was about a mile away from where I was. So to me, it was no way to tell that he would have been hurt, you know. So I said, okay, next day, I go in and during there at night, so I pull up my phone and start recording because they're squealing like really hard, and I got a green light. Next thing, you know, one of them is charging at me. He's like four o'clock in the morning. So I just jumped in the tree and held like that and I was like sweat until the sunlight comes up.
Because we fixed him. Settle this down, you know.
So I climbed our tree somel like, came up, took a shot. Surprisingly I missed.
Oh the pigs were still there.
Yeah, no, they didn't go nowhere. Apparently I'm not the greatest shooter at which I thought I was, but I am not.
And I.
Know I hate him, but I didn't hit him right. And then I'll start chasing and running behind it and just shooting lead like crazy. I bet you everybody in that management area was like, what's going on in the hall? Or a couple more steps, man, Yeah, it was didn't recover Just to make it sure, yeah it didn't.
It needs to make it short.
Yeah good, Yeah it happened. Here's the thing with my rifle. It was a gift.
First gun that I ever owned my life Reminton seventy seven thirty or six. My stepdad and my mom purchased that.
Gun for me. There you go, you have a gun. You have a rifle. Never have one before in my life.
So because in Costa Rica you really couldn't have no.
And calivers like that, I don't really yeah, you know, I don't really think that they even provide those things. I know, pistols, yeah, but like hunting like that, calivers like that. Now, yeah, well apparently you got to side the thing.
I had no clue. I just went honting and I so that had a scope on it. Yeah, And I just went hunting.
And then never sided the No. Years ago, a couple of years to no.
Yeah, about three years ago, Daniel asked me because I shot and I missed.
Man, here's the thing. It was a mistake, but it's the middle of the rug right, there's the biggest crape. And I was like, oh, right here, right here, it's hot.
Climb up the street and about I don't know two hours later, five those man come in and I.
Was like dough bloom and she hunched over and I was like, yes, got it. Deer. So I text Daniel and I said, I just shot a door.
He's like, what are you doing? Here's the rug were shooting dose? And I was like, dang, you man, he's actually right, I said, got the money. Well, I mean it's I next thing I know, she stands up and I was like, oh no, and well, I guess the adrenaline. Man, I end up sending twelve shots like I run out of ammal.
Boom boom, beloaded for more and well, man, I got down and went up there closer to the scrape where I shot her, looking for blood.
And I turned my head lamp and there's a buck literally on this crape looking at me. And I was like, of course you show up now it's dark. I can't got no ammal, you know.
And I said, this is well.
I didn't find it though, you know, like she she was gone, like she's just gone. I bet she wasn't even mortally wounded. But anyways, Dan, he was like, when was the last time you sighted your deer? And I said what do you mean? He's like, when do you when when it was last time you shot to a target? I said, you do you mean like a deer? He was like oh my god, no, like I said, I never done it. No, He's like, you got to be kidding me. He's like, and it was the last time you cleaned the rifle, And I said, what you mean? When we look at the barrel it looked like the entrance of a coal mine. I mean seriously, it was.
Out and then like you.
Can see like the strips on the barrel. Then it was like, what, which is crazy? Like how good these things are? You know, because with a bunch of neglection they still functioning just perfectly. Now now I'm cleaning you know, here and there. The only thing that I got to do is just get a scope because the one that I have well, apparently I didn't know.
That the prize is correlated with how good the scope it is. And I was like ninety nine ninety nine. I said, that sounds like a deal.
And if it's not like one o'clock in the evening fulish, then you ain't gonna see a thing through.
It, you know.
So I was like, that is fun.
So you never started the gun after that?
I did, yeah, yeah, And after that.
I went to a range and I was like so this He was like, yeah, like, what's wrong with you? You know, and that thing was way off. I wasn't a hundred yards. I wasn't even hitting Oh my good paper, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and uh, it's funny.
And then if you don't, we start dialing in, and of course a rival don't hit the ground. A few times with me, like more than a few times. I dropped him from the tree the same as I did with my bow, and and he was loaded and he fell with it, stoke down on the mud and just stuck up like that. So I was repelling myself on the other side of the tree, like oh boy, yeah, and I was able to get it off.
I wish somebody, some little guy had been floating around in the woods with a camera video videoing you with all these.
A lot of men.
A lot of times I'm like, a guy, pulease, don't let nobody be right here, because, yeah, I for some reason, A lot of times I encounter things that normal people want to do, Like with the rattlesnakes.
I have one. It's not that big. It's about that long, but it's not that wide. That's a big old girl. Yeah. Anyways, I seen it and I was like, man, I gotta take you home.
Now.
You got to keep in mind I don't have a firearm. I have with my shady and my walking steak, which is the bottom part of a surfing rud. So I'm about a mile and a half from the truck and I said, you know, want let's let's roll the dice. Let's see, let's see what happens. And there's no cel from reception too, so I said, let's let's just see what happened. Yeah, And for working with a snake, this is the best way that I like to describe myself as a hybrid, right, fifty percent Hispanic, fifty percent red neck. You know what I'm saying, It's just the hybrid. I just don't know what they kept. Yeah, you don't know what they're capable of. You don't see him all the time. So I was like, ah, let's go, and we start going. She immediately knew what was up, and she coil up and got on the striking position. I whack her penny down, reached down, stretcher, step on the tail, pull down on shading. When I'm going to strike, she comes loose and strike between my legs full force.
So I jumped back and I was like, all right, let's let's go ahead and do this again. Then start running.
She tries to flee like take off, and when she did, I just reached down, which it was pretty stupid, and pull her from the tail. And as I pulled her back, because she was going on the bloff. As I pulled her back, she came back striking.
Man. I swear her.
Mouth went like this, like like in a slow mo, full wide open, and I was like, I'm fixing two, getting get in trouble. Group myself back again, back back again, you know, start going at him and whack her again. Penny down, pull it, step on it, pull my shitty pull cut the head that was, I gotcha, put it on my pack, continue with my day. Now she's not rattling no more, but you know, reptiles that will be moving throughout several hours. Made it home and my wife is like, a how to go? And I said, good, but something that's been boogering me.
On my backpack. She said, what are you mean? I said, I don't know. I got something here. It's kind of weird. She's like, well check it. Keep in mind she's in the kitchen fixing lunch and I just grabbed my pack and flip it upside down and let it up, and and that thing fell on the floor and started moving.
She was jumping this high, that creepy and my dogs were like, whoa, and he's got pit bulls, yes.
And she got so upset, and I was like, it was a joke. It was a joke. I'm sorry I ended up picking the snake out. She was like, yeah, I think you get out of there. Help more lunch for you.
And I was like, I follow you from my behavior. I said, he was a bad joke. But yeah, she's still don't don't enjoy that memory from that snake, you know.
So ah, that's funny. Well, hey man, it's been great to meet you. Great to have you on the podcast. Really appreciate you coming up here.
Man, I appreciate y'all. I seriously do. People like you.
Guys are are the reason why, you know, most of us do what we do because y'all have the right approach and that means a lot to me.
So thank you so much, Thank you so much. Opportunity.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Pablo.
Yeah, we'll be I'm sure we'll be hearing from you in the future. I want to be getting some pictures of some big Bucks.
Yeah man, we'll see. Yeah, well see how it's gonna go. Yeah yeah, definitely yeah yeah.
All right, keep the wild places wild because that's where the Bears live and you might find Pablo there.
You never know, Hey, just a matter of time of time, yeah,
