Welcome back to the Hunt in the Mason Dix and podcast, this is your host Jordan Jones. This week we got Travis Chapman on, he's a good guy, he's a local no one hunter, he's killed some good deer, he knows what he's doing when it comes to hunting, we kind of talk a little bit about like he hunts a lot of public land along with some private land and just kind of like, I hunt a ton of private land myself, I dabble in a little bit of public with a rifle, but just kind of getting his perspective because he's traveled down eastern North Carolina and hunted public land, he's hunted a lot of public land around here at home, he's been out of state hunting, I think he's been wilding and he's done a lot of hunting across and we're kind of getting some good stories there of him killing some good deer around home and stuff and yeah, I think that you guys are going to like this one, this is going to be a quick little short intro here, but I know like in the first part of this episode, like I say something about Cody and then I know in a couple of the last podcast I had mentioned him, like not being a part of the Hunt in the Mason Dix and podcast anymore, so reason being that you're here in it multiple times is because a lot of those were pre-recorded episodes from a few months ago that I had stashed back that I'm trying to get launched here from before we actually officially launched the podcast, so I apologize that you're here and it just seems like the last few podcasts that like, hey I've mentioned something about it, but this should be the last podcast you hear anything because this is, I'd actually made the official announcement on this podcast and then beforehand I made it in an intro, so it should be the last one, I think I have maybe one more episode where he was still hosting that I'm going to eventually launch maybe here in the next couple of weeks with my wife and him thinking about possibly launching that one, not quite sure yet, but yeah man, I know that you guys, I think this is going to be episode number 8, I know you guys have been listening, I've got a lot of good feedback, a lot of good support, I love it, keep it coming, message me on Instagram, Hunt MD pod, that's my handle on Instagram there, haven't officially made a Facebook page yet, but that's coming, it's coming soon, a couple of good announcements to be coming into the future, I'm not going to say anything about it now, but deer season's coming up on us, kind of getting all my stuff, starting to put out, done a little bit of scouting, you know me, I'm not a big scouter, if you've heard in the previous podcast, I just don't go and just spend a ton of time in the woods, it's hotter than hell, 95 degrees, humid, walking these big deep mountains, it's just not fun for me, I don't know why, it's just not fun for me, it hasn't been here of late because I take this time of year and spend it with my family, whatever they want to do, either going to the pool, going to the river, like we're going to the beach this weekend, it's 4th of July week, so we're going to the beach, we're going to have fun with it, but I'm trying to just spend my time, maybe the month of July, just with my family and then launching podcasts, I've got episodes booked out for a couple months already, and probably here in the next couple episodes, we're going to be really transitioning to the deer stuff, thank you guys for being so patient with me, and as I learn this stuff, this is not easy, it's not easy at all, I'm trying my best with this, and you guys have been so, man it's been awesome, I would say that at least, the relationships that I've developed over because of this podcast, the people that are 100% honest with me, I've got a good couple close friends here that have listened to it and say hey man, I like this aspect, but I don't like this aspect, perfect, that's what I love, I love when people give me, I call it constructive criticism, I'm not opposed to it, I don't get my feelings heard or anything like that, that's how you grow, and that's what I would love to do, I mean hell, who knows what this podcast will turn into five years down the road from now, ten years down the road from now, could it be a full time job for me a long time down the road, I mean that's the goal, but I'll just keep on selling bug spraying, for now and talking to you guys, I'm looking forward to seeing you guys, trail camera pictures, big buck pictures, send me whatever you want to tag me on my Instagram there and leave a comment on the Spotify, I mean the question and answer stuff and they can do that, and you know you listen to this anywhere, you know Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever you want to do, but thank you guys again, I just wanted to just kind of say hey, this was where I had made the official announcement for Cody, but I know I had done it in an intro a couple episodes ago, so if you hear any more about Cody, I'm sorry, but I still love the guy, still one of my best friends, so I'm hoping he does come back and he can really add to what I'm doing, you know, he complements the hell out of what I do, I can give him shit, he can give me shit, and we just have a good time with it, you know, but yeah, let's get to the episode, thanks. I'm your host Jordan Jones, got a quick announcement to make, Cody, he's going to take a quick step back from doing some of the podcast stuff, he's got some stuff going on, and him and I, we had a good talk about it, and he's just, he's going to take a step back from doing the podcast stuff, he, I'm going to mess him on here because he was a ton of help and people loved him, he was a hell of a storyteller, and I'm sure he's going to step in sometimes as like a guest, you know, on the podcast to kind of help talk and ask questions and keep the conversation going, you know, but just wanting to take a step back from kind of the podcast stuff, so it's going to be me and some guests, like I'll have Trent back on and kind of help him because, you know, obviously he loved it and he good banter with my brother and, you know, this is all just hunting camp talk anyway, so anybody can come in here and talk if there's anybody else that you guys want to hear from, let me know. But today I've got a guy, he's a kind of a local legend, his name's Travis Chapman, so hey Travis. Jordan, I appreciate you having me on here, it's definitely going to be a new experience. He's Travis is not much of a talker, no, I'm more of a quiet person, but I told him I agreed to it as far as, if you get me talking hunting, I can talk all night long, so. Well, he's my competition at work, he owns his own pest control company. He owns his own pest control company, so I can't even believe that I have him in the same house as me, and we're just sitting there, we've been talking about pest control, so as he walked in, so Travis, who the hell are you, and for the people that don't know. As you said, Travis Chapman, and I'm from local here from Caldwell County, North Carolina, where I was born and raised, I lived here most of my life, I've actually lived, I did about four or five years out west, lived up there for a while, but for most of my life everything's been right here in North Carolina, so you know, that's kind of a, it's his home. It's home, baby. It's home. It's home. It's home. It's home. This is, you live in, that's right, you live in Causeville, don't you? Yeah, I'm over at Causeville area, that right here, round the edge of the Pizzcon National Forest. Oh, do you want to get into it, cause we know what we talked about, though good old public land versus private land of bay. That's where I cut my teeth, it's a catchy teeth and guy, anybody ever been to Pizzcon National Forest, you know, it's a damn hillside with Laurel, it's all it is. Straight up, straight down, and nothing but buyers and snakes and a few deer, you said it right there, a few deer, a few deer, hey, there's some turkeys there, I mean, there's turkeys there. So, Travis, let's get into it, man. What you want to talk about, man, what's on the agenda for Travis or hell, how about this? We'll get into that in a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your past hunting and kind of like how you grew up doing that into it. Yeah. Well, my dad, he was always a big hunter, you know, he lived in the woods, you know, from the time I was little, you know, we would, he hunted some Pizz, get around here and add some foil or access and he would throw me on the foil or we'd go in and, you know, he'd go. I remember one of the first years I remember him killing, he was coming down this trail on the foil and he had spotted some and he's like, "Hey, stay on the foil." He's like, "I'll be right back," and he grabbed his own PSC 50-50 precision off the front, on the old, you know, aluminum iris, Eastons, and he shot Magnus, that was two-boyder Magnus, and I remember seeing him slip over the ridge over there and then it kind of disappeared and then here he'd come back and he, I was like, "Did you get it?" And I think I was like six years old at this time and he's like, "Yeah, I got it." He's like, "It's a three-point," and so, yeah, I mean, at this time, you know, it was awesome. I remember we went and drove it out and got it on the foil or everything and, you know, and just, he would take me and throw me in the climber with him. We climb up the tree and, you know, sitting there, I remember one time when he was climbing this tree, got about halfway up it, probably about 18, 19 foot in the bottom come out of that thing, and here both of us was hanging up in there and he's just gonna fish a thing back up there. Dropped his 243 and thing hit the ground. We didn't see it there, nothing but I think he went back in like the week after it didn't shoot his gun, nothing. I went back in there selling this big ol' pretty ivy ridge in there and it was the last day of season wind blowing. I mean, it was snowing and he said that there was two doves coming in there, come right by him. He said, "And there's a buck coming out there." He said that thing run its horns right up underneath that doze hinds, like, picked her plumb up off the ground and he shot it and when he redid, he just kicked her off. I think he had to go back in the next day to find it and it was laying in the middle of a foil or trail and he did that thing and brought him high in on it, so I guess it hit that femur artery on it, but it went about 90 yards that still had one of his biggest bucks. It was a big nine-pointer, probably about a hundred and twelve, thirteen-inch nine-pointer for his gun. I mean, it was absolutely Jonathan's birthday. Just seeing a deer with horns on his gun. Exactly. That's a trophy. Yeah. So I remember it was a big highlight, you know, just seeing him, you know, or seeing that buck. It was one of the biggest ones he'd killed and, you know, that I had actually got the lay eyes on and say, and, you know, if it were, you know, we hunted that mountain like crazy. I mean, as the older I got, you know, as full of buyers, started getting a little bit more brave. He had seen me in my stand on my own, all this, and we had some crazy times up there. I remember he took me to this one-ridge and we sat down on that thing and it was cold snowing. I mean, to an avid hunter, it was no better of a morning. It was one of them calm mornings with a snow just following his dead quiet. Yeah. And it was middle of November, it was peak in there where we was at. And it was perfect morning. He set me on one ridge. I sat on another ridge. That old glory at this time. I was probably about 11, 12-year-old, 11, 12. Okay. So you hanging? Yeah, I was young. And I had old 243 new England fire horn with like a little Tascos scope on her or something like that. I mean, it was a tack driver to shoot good, but scope wasn't much, but I remember I sitting on that ridge across from a move there. And he was over here in the street. I mean, it's a skyscraper. We always called this a long ridge because there's a big old long ridge run all the way down off there and you could shoot 220 yards in there. And there's an old one. I didn't know that that was 220 yards of freaking open space in the old town. Yeah. It's obviously going to go on or lower on this side, lower on this side, big old Ivy patch down in the bottom of it. And that big old long ridge run across there and there's a walking road run right through it and then bucks whenever they get cruising, they start burning them nose right down through and it's one of the better spots to, I mean, if you was there the week in November and you set there three days, you was going to get a chance on a really good day or just one of those consistent spots, but I remember we was there that morning and it was just absolutely perfect. I think it was about eight, 30, almost nine o'clock. It was just prime time of the morning. I was frozen to death. He was a very big goose down cover off. He's nice, warm, good. I had 15 layers on and I was trying my best to make it. I was shivering all the pieces. I couldn't even see through my scope. I just couldn't take his one in me, it just hurt absolutely hurt. I said to her in my mind, I'm like, I got to figure out a way to get his, get him ready to go without me being like, I'm absolutely just done. Yeah. And I remember, I was like, I'm going to throw off a shot here and tell my shot at one and I missed it and cause I couldn't see through my scope cause it was all fogged up and everything. I remember I shot off a shot and I come across there and I threw a miss big story. I shot it one, come off a ridge and everything. And I wasn't thinking about it and nothing. He goes, he goes, well, let's go here and see if there's any tracks. I wasn't thinking about snowing, I wasn't thinking about that. It was a big tracks where I think was, hey, call me out on that. I remember he was so tore up over that because that was just one of the imperfect mornings. But I mean, even those times though, just like that's what made me a better hunter, you know, just traveling, you know, going everywhere with him, he's always been my hunting partner. And we've hunted together like crazy timing. You know, we've at West here, I say out West, but the only place I've hunted out West is Wyoming and it was just when I lived out there. I just got back from Wyoming, that's the prettiest place I've ever been in my life. Absolutely nothing like Wyoming. There is no more ice in three days, 1,500 like Turkey or not Turkey, 1,500 freakin' antelope, deer everywhere, like seen over 1,000 deer, dude, it was insane. And most people, that sounds absolutely crazy. Yeah, but to them, they're like, oh, yes, it's normal. Yeah. I mean, we would jump in the vehicle and do like a 10 mile loop and by the time we got back home, it was like, I mean, deer just sees him, like 2,000, you know, just the field just full. I mean, yeah, you get everywhere, it's easy to see 100 deer in one field. Now, that was one of the places it weren't me hunting, you know, it was really hard to get back into here. I mean, it was awesome, it was easy, but you could say it. Nobody's tree stand hunted out there hardly, you know, everybody was just spot and stalk on everything. And so, you know, here, I have North Carolina roots, I'm in a tree, first thing I do, I'm in the river bottom, I'm in a tree, and they end here, it was nothing, you know, let it be at 115, 120, you know, just walk by you, and we're jumping out the bed of the deer, that size. Yeah, exactly. Here. And it took a little bit to get used to that out there, but it was a whole lot easier to do because you knew if you let one walk five minutes later, they'd be one just as big right behind it. And I say, I mean, it was just a whole different style hunt, and I mean, it was awesome love that killed some nice deer and absolutely enjoyed it, miss it, especially the outcome. But you didn't get your ass back out there then. I know, I know. I mean, the man runs the business, I can't really say nothing. It's in due time, but we'll make it back out there. Yeah. I want to go. I want to go. We're going, I think Trent and I, we talked about it. I think we're going to go back out there in two or three years and kill an antelope. And that's fun. Yeah. And I said never killed an antelope. I didn't even care anything about shooting one till I seen a bunch of them. Yeah. And I was like, maybe I want to shoot one of these big goats. I'll give you a little story on my first antelope that ever killed. Never antelope hunted in my life. I mean, didn't have a clue what to do, had old as a diamond outback bow. And me and my brother, we was like, let's go, let's go try some public land over here that normally has some antelope on it. So we go there, we roll up, we see us herd of antelope over and he's like, I'm going to go this way. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go this way. And we was just hoping one of us would get in front of them, depending on where it went. Well, I guess it's luck because they decided he bumped them. And they come right to me and I could watch them coming up there and I seen this one buck in it. And I said, man, that's a good one. But I ranged it and it was 72 yards. And I had single pen is all I was shooting was a single pen, wasn't even a slide. And it was just set at 40 yards. And I think I was ranging to the trail that is all coming up. I'm like, this thing's going to be 72 yards. There's no way. I was like, but it ain't going to get any closer to me. And I was like, and you can do this so flat and open up there. You can't get any closer. Because he was already on me and coming that way. And I was like, I said, I'm just on the hillberry. And so I ranged at 72 and I knew he was going to be moving. I knew there was no way of stopping it. And he come up at trail and come right over into this water break there. And right as he was coming up and I was I was expecting for him to be walking. So I was leaving him. I had I was about on his nose whenever I hit the trigger on my release. And I remember right when I hit that trigger, he stopped dead in his tracks. And that thing caught him right in the juggler there. Just hit him perfect. I thought he would have dropped. Yeah. He ran 400 yards. I mean, just spraying like crazy. I mean, by watching him go down, I mean, he just wide open and I mean, just beautiful, nice, tall. I remember saying the picture. Yeah. I mean, I had him IV tips on and just absolute awesome experience, you know. But you know, I think I'm going to go with a gun like don't get me wrong. Like I went to an outfitter to shoot a turkey and he was like, Oh, yeah. He said, I have 300,000 acres and I'm like, Oh, he's shit, but out there, 300,000 acres ain't really. No, I mean, that's a ton. 200 acres. Yeah. Yeah. That's a ton. But he's like, yeah, I've got 300,000 acres between what I own and lease. And he's like, I can guarantee you an envelope on the first day. He said, if you shoot one on the first day, he said for like half the price of the normal turkey hunt, he's like, you can go kill another turkey. And I went, Oh, he said to end there. He said, it's just as fun as hunting there. He said, because if you say a God word, there'll be 40. So I don't know, that'd be, that's going to be kind of fun. So how did your season go this year? It was good. I mean, killed two decent deer for around here. One public land, one private land had some opportunities on to good deer that just bad luck bad situation or whatever you want to call it just didn't happen, but you know, good decent public land six-pointer. I said, yeah, I think it's like 102 inches, but it's a six-pointer. It's a stud. Like that. Did you see the, the six-pointer, the one I killed two years ago, he's ever scolded on the, on that one, that's, yeah, that's a, you kill a, you kill a six-pointer over a hundred inches. Exactly. Just a stud. Yeah. That's a stud. So, I mean, of course, whenever you come up, how that little creek bottom at 20 yards, he looked like an absolute giant. Still, yeah, I know, but it caused there just so much mainframe there, you know, and he, he was a dang good deer shot him at like 15 yards and it was just a, it was awesome experience that week. It was a crazy week. I probably, I lost, probably would have been my biggest NC buck that week. Mm-hmm. I remember you texted me about that. Yeah. He's a, he's just beautiful mainframe. He, he's really pretty, um, just bad shot, I guess, hit him low shoulder on him. We tracked him over 800 yards, betted up in the creek, got back out, he bladed a little bit longer, dried up and we tracked him, you know, two, three hundred more yards, trying to find him and just never, never turned up on him. Maybe sick, like growing old, well, bad thing is, it's, it's one of the hard parts when we hung up public land and I spliced that I found was it just absolute honey hole. I looked at him and he don't want nobody to know about it. I looked at this place on the map for three years and I, I had studied it on the map and everything and I was like, I've got to put boots on the ground. Went in there, scouted, the sign was there, I scouted it real early season, sign was there. I dropped, I think six cameras in there and, uh, I come out and I didn't, I went back the week before I was going to hunt it to walk in there to see what the cameras showed and, um, cameras showed what I suspected a lot of big deer using it and, um, we went down 100 that week and, uh, in that week, I think I've seen, no, in granted, this is North Carolina as saying out west, saying to Ohio, this ain't Midwest, but if North Carolina public land, I think I've seen 28 deer in a five day period and six, six or seven of them were shooter bucks, good two bucks, shit. So, I mean, it was, it was just one of those spots like, and I didn't see a soul hunting it either. Not one person. Yeah. I had a few people on my camera, you know, early season, but not one person when we was in there and it's just one of those places I'm like, nah, yeah, bringing the dog gang worth it, bringing a girl ain't worth it. Yeah. You know, it's just, uh, let me ask you this. What if I give you the contact information of a guy, a drone guy that don't hunt? You don't hunt? That's a perfect storm there. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So I'll get you in touch with him, lives in Morgarten. So, and I actually had him on the podcast and, um, he, I had him on the podcast. He's a great guy. And he was like, man, he's like, hold on before you launch that one. He said, because there's so much gray area stuff that we talked about, but like, man, I like to talk about controversy, you know, and kind of like, because I'm going to ask you some questions about public land and private land and kind of, you know, do you have, if you have a hard on for public land or versus private land, but like for him, and he's like, let's, let's hold off on that. Cause I don't want some of the things that we talked about to push ideas anywhere, you know, but, but you will like Jared, I'll, I'll get you his information on something like that. Because I think I have an idea of where the, the public land you were hunting, obviously I don't know where it's access, freaking huge, but, uh, he, uh, he'd be willing to go. So, and he'll, he'll be willing to put the same boots on the ground to go help you find one. So he's expensive as shit, but what's a, what's a deer of a lifetime, you know, I mean, this is one that, if I had to go to the Midwest, it would have cost me a fortune anyway, but I mean, you know, it was, uh, for North Carolina, I would say eight point. It was, it was upper one thirties and witches, which is a big deer. I've hunted a lot of Midwestern states, right? I will shoot a mid to upper one thirties eight pointer anywhere, anywhere. I would have shot the eight pointer. I let go an hour this year, if it wasn't the first morning, cause he was pushing 140 and I'm going, I've got, I've waited six years and I'm going to shoot a deer that I mean, can't really see this at home, but I mean, they are around here, but I'm going to shoot a close to 140 inch eight pointer here and I'll have two weeks and say, well, if I grab my bow, I'll kill it. So I didn't touch my bow and so, so I get it. So all right. All right. That, since you shot that deer and you lost it, let me ask you this, do you get a heart on for public land over private public lands, my passion, man. Even if I had, why is that it's, it's the chase, it's, it's going in and figuring out a mature deer in his natural habitat where he could be killed by any other hunter and going in there and outsmarting, not just the buck, but outsmarting the other hunters. It's that challenge. I like a challenge. Now, don't get me wrong. I got, I got a couple of pieces of private land. I'll put a corn pile in it. I'll put a mineral lick in it. The cameras will be in there. If a big deer shows up in there, I'm going to hunt it. Now, has that ever panned out for me to kill a deer off that corn pile? Absolutely not. Okay. And then most of the time I kill them all in white oaks is going to be early season. But it's, public land is just a, I mean, like I said, it's where I cut my teeth. It's a. Okay. So you started out. So it's like it's passion. Yeah, it is passion. And you know, used to, I'd get bored with it cause all I did was hunt Pizka. That's all I knew. It's all in place. And you know, you could say the whole week and you might see a three point. Maybe maybe. Yeah. Some of those areas, if you said a whole week, you could have a chance on a good deer. You know, most time when he seemed one, it was a good deer. Yeah. But, you know, so as it got older, started, you know, exploring more of North Carolina and going different places, different public lands and stuff with that. But it's just, that's, that's more of it is just the absolute challenge of it. So you're not doing it for the fad, like what everybody else does? No, no, like, you know, don't get me wrong. I watch hunt and public hunt, hunt public a lot and, you know, a lot of these. But I think it's done more harm than it's being good because there's so many people doing it now. And it is. It's like you said, it's a fad. It's become tree saddles. It's become, you know, on X, it's become all this. Now I use all of them, but it just, it educates so many people to where it makes it makes a lot tougher on public land, which also increases the challenge, which I like to. Yeah. I'm going to play a clip for you and I want to hear your kind of your thoughts on this. This guy's a good friend of mine. He's on Instagram. If you looked him up, if you listen to work class bow owner, obviously you do otherwise you wouldn't be listening to this as much. His name's a basement decorator and he posted something like, like he spoke about something on the working class bow owners and it's about public land and I want to hear your opinion on this. And a good thing is about Thomas is he's, he's going to be like, yeah, dude, this is like, I want to hear the controversy. I said this to create controversy to create a conversation. So let's see. All right. There it is. A lot of private land. Right. If you have a lot of private land behind, I think it is very unfair view to go on public just to beat your chest because you screw it up for the guy who doesn't have the money to private, who doesn't have anywhere else to hunt and you're walking under in his stand and screwing it up for him. And that's just what I believe. I have met one use, I saw that video. So what do you think about that? What's your opinion on that? That's America. It's free country. You do what you want to do. I mean, it's just whatever butters you biscuits. I mean, you know, I mean, honestly, I mean, if private lands where it's at, that's what you like and you got to do it. But I know plenty of people that's got private land that still wants to go do that chase. Yeah. I mean, it's just like I see what he was saying. Yeah. I do see what he was saying, like, Hey, there's a lot of people out here, but here's the here's the thing here is because what 86,000 acres? Yeah. I think it's 86 or 80. It's close to a hundred thousand acres. There's 40,000 people that live in college or 20 or 40,000 people live in Cole County. There's 15% of us are hunters here and half of nobody probably ever even stepped foot on Pisgah hardly unless you're a bear hunter. But like, and so you're telling me that I can't if I, since I have quite a bit of land up in Ash and Allegheny County, like, if I didn't see a big deer out there in public, you don't want me to chase it like, and listen, I love Thomas and I love, I know that he's on this and know where my heart's at, where my head's at. I know what he's saying, I agree with what he's saying to an extent, but I'm never going to look at somebody and say, how dare you, you go and shoot that 150, 170 if you're in the Midwest or shoot that 120 inch, eight point or if you're here in the south, like how dare you because you've got, you've got 800 acres of family land, like you shouldn't be hunting that. How do I pay the taxes? I pay taxes, North Carolina taxes, I can do all of it, I want to. And I pay for, well, I don't technically because I have lifetime license, but my dad paid $100 30 years ago, 33 years ago for me to get that. So I put my time and my money in to be able to do that stuff. And I know these Iowa guys and all this stuff and Illinois, Ohio and Kansas and stuff like that, like some of their tracks and parcels and kind of how they are, like they can have 40 acres of public right here, they can have 4,000 acres of public. And I know kind of like how you are, and I know how I am, I'm so used to walking these big mountains, you get out there and it's flat. Dude, we can cover 4,000 acres in a duck, not every inch of it in a day, but I can walk a lot of that public, most of that public in a day to find that. So they are not with what he is saying, in my opinion, like you have no right to speak on it, right? Because you can't tell somebody what to do. But I love that he said that and I love that he has that opinion because dude, it has sparked a lot of conversation. That's a controversial topic to say that, I love it. One word in there that you just keep saying, public, yeah, I mean, I mean to anybody. It's kind of like I look at it from this perspective, so you tell me I can't go fishing on a lake just because I got a pond behind my house, exactly, so I mean, it'd be like me getting ticked off at you knowing that you got to land up and, you know, all these western counties and everything, got a bunch of private land and I'm sitting on some public up there in the same county and I see you come walking by me getting ticked at you, we're not going to do that. Because here's what I've thought about in that whole conversation, what has stopped people from going to knocking on doors like I do? Exactly. You put your time in to get to Portland. Probably more worth than most people do to get on public land, a lot easier just to go jump on land that you ain't got to ask for. I've got a binder, I've got a binder with so many permission slips, like, I mean, a lot of them I've lost the permission because people died and stuff like that, but I still have the old permission slips of where I have spent. I know Trent and I, we went up one day in the summer, a few years back in the hill. This was 10 years ago, actually. I think we knocked on 78 doors that day, knocked on 78 doors. We got three places to hunt, but the next weekend, we went and knocked on another 100 doors. The next weekend, we knocked on another 50 doors, I mean, but I'll run these cameras on all these places, but you're telling me if I can't, if I don't have a shooter buck on any of those properties, they're not every piece of property up here as an eight-pointer. And that's what you're doing. You're chasing to find that next shooter deer. It's no different than going to different tracks of public land. Uh-huh. And you've hunted public your whole entire life. Oh, yeah. Right. You've hunted, you've hunted it. You grew up hunting it. I didn't. I grew up hunting private and I started throwing in some public, as I got older and I longed the chase of giant deer, because we do have some giants on our public if you're willing to walk. Yeah. But you got to have boots on the ground. Well, there's, there's another one there. Okay. There's a lot of the deer on my wall. I could probably throw a rock from my vehicle and hit my tree stand because there's a lot of things, you know, a lot of stuff that people walk past. You got hunting public and then you got all these shows and everything, Tony. Walk, walk far. Get deep, get deep, get deep. Well, hell, that's the, that's the age old way of thinking like all the old timers to get away from everybody. You got to walk as far as you can get away from people. I don't care how far I am away from people. I just want to be where the deer are and a lot of times that's close and sometimes it's way out. But I mean, I've had a set and watched people walk by my tree stand before and them not have a clue that I'm there just to be able to get a opportunity on. So you're saying these deer will bed where they can see your trout? Yeah. They're smart. They know. They know where you walk. I know where you're going to. That deer right there, I could see the top of my truck. It was 60 is 61 yards to my tree stand to where I killed that deer and this deer. That was 42 or 43 yards from the truck. That 132 inch 10 point of kill musler two, three years ago, 80 yards from the truck. I'm pulling the clan. Now that's a crazy story. I know I showed you the pictures of an absolute giant North Carolina couple playing eight pointer. I mean, biggest deer I've ever had on camera by far at there is you boys that listen this from the Midwest, you would drop everything you could do to shoot this deer in Iowa, he's probably 13, 14 inch g2s, he's a he's a mid to upper 50s eight pointer and is all day brows are probably 10 inches. I mean, just, I mean, just, I might push 60. He's a just absolute giant and I mean, I've lost a lot of sleep and run a lot of cameras over that deer and you know, I was on him for about two years, I stayed on him and then he just disappeared, hoping in the area that I was trying to find him. He just disappeared. Hadn't been able to find him against since then. But I was hunting that deer and I was hunting over this big breeding scrape and he and he breeding scrape, yeah, community scraper breeding. Okay. Okay. I ain't never heard about breeding scrape. Yeah. I was going to cause he does use it. He books use it. Okay. Yeah. You know, I've always, I just, I grew up with it being a pretty, same thing, community scrape, you know, ton of different books, using it, those in it. Sometimes I see more those in it than I do books in it, but he's always the first book to open it up every year. Well, for the two years, when I found the scrape, put the camera on it, he was always the first book to open that up. And bad thing is I was always hunting him a week, two weeks late and but I was, I was hunting and I could only hunt this draw because the way the thermals were and the wind went up super, I could only hunt it morning time. And whenever the wind was, I think going into the east on it cause I had to, the thermals had to be coming up out of there cause I had to hunt it close cause it's in a really thick area. And so I had to be within 30 yards of that scrape and I memorized hunting it and it wasn't seeing anything, a few small bucks using it, never seeing him. And I looked at the wind and I was like, that wind and everything is going to be wrong tomorrow. I was like, I don't know if I should hunt it or not. I was like, maybe I should go hunt it and how I was going to go in there to hunt it. And just I had that gut feeling, I was like, I'm not going to mess it up. I was like, if I'm going to have a chance, I was like, I'm going to go hunt this wide oak flat. I was like, I know that deer use it and if the does have been in their feed, maybe bucks come in there perusing. I slipped in there, I took my climber, went in, found mid tree, climbed up this pine gut in there. And I mean, it wasn't 30 minutes after daylight and I looked and I mean, I just see him coming straight at me. He might have been about 30 yards. I was like, you know, I pull up on him, I put it on his shoulder, I pull the trigger, smoke clears and he's still standing there. I had never in my life loaded my muzzleloader so fast and he was watching me the whole time. But he was just so zoned out for cruising in his area, that was hunting. It was horny. Yeah. His area is not, it's nothing but a funnel. That's all they do is just for passing. They don't really stay in there. They're just traveling to it. And I was loading. I probably got 60 grains of powder in, you know, I was trying to get my 400 in there and I was dropping, shaking everywhere, got it in there, got it back on poultry grom. And I smacked him that time and I mean, he went like 20 yards and I was like, 132 inch 10 point. Yeah. I would have went and sat on that one spot and not listen to that gut feeling and, and, you know, not following the wind on that cause the wind was perfect for that wider flan. I was like, we went excellent in there and then never even got the opportunity on this. I mean, sometimes it pays to just follow your gut while we're at hunter intuition. So I was at a public, I had the other land here was that a deep deer or was it a close to the truck? So what you realize is I don't want, or what you figured out is I don't want people to know where I'm hunting, but I also don't want to be stuck two miles back in this public and having to get a deer out and call all my buddies and, and which, and I know like you're a secretive guy, like, and we all are, I mean, we, I mean, listen, something happens to you. You don't give a shit then at that point, but I get it. Unfortunately, nowadays, a lot of times you do have to be a little bit secret, especially if you get on a good deer, getting a good air, then produces. I mean, you know, anybody, most time I'll take them back in hunt with them. You know, I don't mind. I have just as much enjoyment watching someone else kill a big deer. I mean, you know, or getting their first year, it's been nothing like watching my kids get their first year. Oh, yeah. Yes. My son killed his first bike two years ago with a, it was with a crossbow, but he's six years old. Okay. Yeah. All right. And I mean, but he was just absolutely stoked. And he got to kill it at seven yards. And I mean, it was just an awesome experience. Yeah. And then last year, my youngest son, a five year old, he, he killed it, got a doe and shot it with a seven Mac to beat it up. So now I shouldered, I shouldered it and let him get on the scope and it's got a muzzle brake on it and everything, but he smoked it. I mean, he was just ecstatic about it. And it was just awesome experience. I mean, I wouldn't trade those for some of my biggest deer. I mean, obviously. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Absolutely. They're ate up with it. I love it. Yeah. And that's honestly, dude, I'm, I don't care if people know where I hunt because I don't have to get permission on it. One, you'd have to get permission on it. Well, okay. Let's just say publicly. I don't care if you know what public I hunt. I don't care if you know where I go because I, and this, this sounds cocky and pompous, but there's not a lot of people's going to do what I do, go where I go, you know, and that's the, you know, I am the guy that walks the mile and half, two miles and he'll, you know exactly where I was. I was 3.7 miles or whatever from the truck, but that, that public, you can walk. Like I think from that one access to where I went in from Tennessee, I think it's seven and a half miles and it's a road bed, you walk the road bed a whole entire all the way through it. And, but most people's not going to walk that, you know, and, and then see in what I see and there's so much land there, you're probably, you'll find what I find by chance. It's not because I'm not saying I'm better than, or they're better than me or I'm better than them. It's just, there's so much land. The, the, the chances that you find where I'm hunting in there is, is so slim. So, like, that's why, I mean, I don't care. I mean, I go, I go out midwest, dude. I love it. I, it's really me. Oh, honestly, it's, it's completely ruined me. So like I come out here. I hunt public with a rifle. I don't ever vote on public. That is one thing that I don't do. That's my goal this year. I would love to be able to take over a 120 on North Carolina public land this year. That's, that's, that's my goal. That's what I'm shooting for. Yeah. That is a, is to try to get a really good mature deal with the bow on public, kill a couple of goodens with a bow private here. Yeah. Just not public. Plenty with a buzzwater, plenty with a gun. Uh-huh. That was, that's how I learned about you. Was that deer that you killed in the North? Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, you're, I mean, I still your biggest buck in North Carolina in it. No, he was a, he was 123 is what he scored out as. But you, that's my biggest, with a bow in North Carolina. Okay. Well, like I said, but I mean, where do you killed it? It's in city limits, basically. Yep. And that's, that's crazy. I killed him there with a, uh, 123 inch 10 point with a bow. Now see, that's one of them areas. They don't, they don't, uh, stay in there. They don't live there. No, they travel through there. So like I said, I saw corn in there, said for early season, I will not touch corn in there because there's so many widows in there. And that's what holds the bucks in there. Yeah. You don't want your corn to grow. You want to grow. And that's what happened. You know, I had corn in there early on. So early in the corn and apples and everything. And I'm like, this is a jot. I got to hunt it. My corn started growing. I found the feed tree that they was hitting. I went in there, set up that evening and I seen him in another eight point, uh, crossed down about 70, 80 yards, uh, from me, couldn't get a shot on them. Uh, next morning when it was perfect, I went back in there, said on that same wide oak. When I broke daylight, I had seven bucks underneath me, uh, all around me in that, in that wide oak. And he was the last one to come in and he'd come up to, uh, 14 yards and I was sitting at about 35 foot up and I mean, it was just a, I couldn't do nothing but put him right between the, uh, shoulders on the top of it. And I tested up a new broad head that year and it was single bevel and, uh, man at the air, we astute him so quick and I got two drops of blood on that thing and I thought we lost him and I mean, you want to talk about a day of absolute emotions. Yeah. Cause how old were you? I don't know. That was probably early twenties. No, I was probably about, um, I'd say about 28, something like, how are you now, at least 34 a share. Okay. So, okay. Six years ago. Okay. Yeah. Damn. I thought it was like 10 years ago. Feels like it. Yeah. So, I feel at that time, it was my biggest North Carolina deer and it was with a bow and I married, get my dad, my brother, everybody coming to me, my brother had searched just power line break. I mean, we'd crawl through prayers, creaks, everything and, uh, we had hands and knees, everything. And then my dad, he was like, well, come over and help too. So I remember I leave my brother down at the creek bottom and I was like, I'm going to go up here and get dad. I said, we'll come drop down below you and work our way back up. And my brother looked at me and he said, have you been down? This way. I said, I've been about 50 yards down there, but I ain't been any father than that. And he's like, all right. He said, well, I'm going to work down this way a little bit. And, um, I went up here and met with my dad and I just got up here and I heard my brother hover out. And I called him. I remember calling him. I said, please, please, please tell me, please. He said, I've got him right here. I found him. He said he was about 15 yards farther than what you'd walked. And I think that crazy how that shit always happens. You want to talk about emotions. I mean, I just did all settled in. I was that adrenaline. I was that. Yeah. That's what it was. I was doing a dump on that. And I mean, still today, you know, biggest NC deal with the bow. And I mean, I was just absolutely thrilled with him. I mean, yeah. Yeah. And like, if you know the area and I know some of the, my buddies, this one, we listened to our buddies and we listened to this. We kind of know like the, the little town that you, I mean, you killed it just on the outskirts of the town, obviously. Like where he killed it and like what type of deer that is for this little area, that's, it's a freaking stud. It's a stud. So I mean, I was like, damn, how the hell did he kill a deer of that size? I've been hunting here my whole life and never seen one that size. Damn. And 123 inch deer and basically the city limits of, of, of coral counties insane, you know. So. I crossed one again. I mean, I did kill out the same, Stan, I did kill a 119 inch eight pointer out of it, though. I think two years later. So. There you go. There you go. So. So you're not big on bait. No, you know, like I said, for my kids, stuff like that. And in that areas, certain areas, you know, I'm, I would gladly put out a corn pile. Has it been successful for me? No, it has not, but most of the time it's cause the book comes in a lot more nervous on it, you know, especially if you aren't close with a bow, a lot of times late season and early season, I tried not to ever touch corn because I'm always, I want to hunt feed trees cause it's more natural to them, they're in their natural pattern, they're, you know, it's used to it. I try to stay away from it until everything's right and then slip in. That's ultimately that's probably my, what's increased my success more than anything is staying out of areas versus putting a lot of pressure into area. Do you think cameras have, have, have the reason why you're doing that? Like cell cameras? Yeah. That's, I don't think I could do what I do without cell cameras. I hate them. I love them. Yeah, exactly. Cause I hate them cause I spend so much on them, but I absolutely love, I, I honestly Jordan, I love running cameras just as much as hunting. It's that chase of waiting for that one pitcher to come through of, oh my gosh, I have found him. I feel him or not, I found him and that's, and you know, and finding him too, not on my bait pile is huge to me, but even see, I don't care if I see 130 out in the wild and 130 on the bait pile, I'm still going to get just excited. Yeah, it don't matter what kind of food source I'm hunting them on. That's, that's, I grew up the same way. I grew up, I was hunting, you know, while I was growing up, my dad was like, we do not bait. Like my dad was totally against it and, you know, we, we have some properties, didn't we do, we just have to, cause we have, well, there's zero food on it and it's a 30 acre spot. There's no food. You know, and I'm like, it's a cut through like a run area and so I'm like, well, we'll throw out a corn pile just to see if there's a shooter here, you know, and then eventually we'll get a shooter there and never kill a deer there on bait except for, I kill one there early season. Actually, I killed that velvet buck out there, um, um, early season there and, but I, I can't say that, uh, hate baiting, it's camera candy. Exactly. It's camera candy. And that's what minerals are to me, camel candy, camera candy. I mean, I know it helps deer be healthy, whatever, but, but let you know what's in there. Exactly. Like I've killed a couple of big bucks on, on bait, I have. And so, you know, my dad was always like, ah, no, I mean, you're never going to kill a big deer on bait. It's just not going to happen. And I'm like, okay, so I was a firm believer, like, if you throw out a bait ball, you're going to scare off all the big bucks. So I didn't do it. I'm glad he did that because it taught me how to hunt, you know, but, uh, but then I started kind of baiting and, and, you know, kind of proving that a big bucks will come to it. And they will. You still got to play everything. Right. You're still going to play the wind, right? You're still going to be under your honor. Exactly. You still go, you know, have those instincts of no when to hunt it, how to hunt it still has to play. And don't just go throw out a bait pile on a pretty spot. Yeah. I'll put out a bait pile where the deer would normally be. And that's, that's just kind of how that's kind of where, where I might just, uh, yeah, deer's going to smell it. You know, he's still going to pick it, but you know, well, if you got seven or eight wide oak tree spread out over this and draw and they're in there feeding, you might catch a picture of the buck in there, but if you saw that corn in there, you're going to definitely get them in front of the camera cause you don't come check it out and feed it a little bit. So helps you let you know what's in there. And that's like I said, that one piece of property that I hunt, the bucks are in there all the way till about the second, maybe sometimes to be in about the third week of September. That's, that's their home territory during the summer. So I can get a good idea of what's in there early, but after that, there's no dose. There's no dose in there hardly. And so therefore that's where I have to put the corn there that way. So try to hold my dose. That was a kind of home of bucks because if not in that area, you know, there's not so many doses. Therefore, there, I was on one big 12, 100, I think it was 140, I think I said 146 inches when she shot it, but I was on a big 12 pointer over there that I almost killed. And seeing him, I had him at 46 yards. I could not get a clear shot on him. And of course I bow and I hunted, hunted, hunted two weeks later, I get a picture sent to me and says, is this the deer that you've been hunting? I said, yeah. And it was in the back of my truck bed and a girl, a girl killed at three miles from where I was hunting two weeks later following the dose. Why can't I get that lucky? I mean, I mean, I don't get the wrong, I've been, I mean, most of these deer have, are happened by luck, you know, but I want it to be a giant, you know, like I want to get lucky. I'm a giant. Mine is like, I'm climbing my stand and this spot comes under me and he starts blowing at me, you know, because I'm hanging a tree stand with, I'm figuring four in a tree hanging off the side of it. Well, in this spot, you're leaving, it blows the whole place down, which, which I'm not a firm believer that deer blowing in my other deer. I mean, I've seen deer feeding a lot of flatten a, a nose over your stomping and blowing and no, but in a buck when he pick up his head, I've watched those blow, or, you know, deer blow up bobcats coming by or a coat, something like that. They'll leave on there. Deer just fall right back in and he's like, I do not move if him deer start blowing. No, I mean, like, I know we're kind of getting like off topic there a little bit. And like, I've, I've been watching over a bait pile before and a those standing there blowing and bait. I actually looked at her straight at me and she just drops her head back down and starts eating. And I'm seeing deer blow with other deer just to get them to leave. And so it just, I don't know, deer, deer are the smartest dumb animal I've ever met or I've ever seen. I've ever tried to hunt. Um, all right. So, I kind of want to get here's, I'm not a huge believer in it. I think people put a ton of weight into it, um, but I guess where I hunt private land so much like I, I know the private land, I know what the deer is going to be at what time of year, you know, and like I have certain places that I want to hunt at certain times of year, do you do a ton of preseason scouting? I would love to be able to pretty season scouting. But like you said, I got my own business or wide open. I got three kids and it is very, very hard. Do I do a lot of boots on the ground preseason scouting? Absolutely not. I do not. Do I think it's beneficial? Yeah. I do. But what I do do is, I scout a ton. I am on my computer, I am on my phone. I am constantly looking for new places, overlooked places. Okay. Everybody's looking at a map. Everybody's looking at a saddle. Everybody's looking at a bench. Everybody can tell what a saddle is on a map. Everybody can tell what a shelf is on a map. But I'm looking for places that people's not ever even want to think about. Like a little bit of a small bench, a little bit of a small, very, very small feature in there. Do they always produce? No. But that's why you do have to put some of the ground that we've never to. But even like I said, the one where I kill 100 yards from the truck, those are those little pinch points that nobody's ever going to think about. And they're like, nah, they ain't ever going to be a deer there and they're going to blow it right past it. But that's... Or all this on is not time. Exactly. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I can agree with that. I'd say that's probably what changed the game for us with me, because it's used to, I might get an opportunity on a decent buck here. And then three years later, get an opportunity on it. But I think over the last seven, eight years, I've consistently been able to really get opportunities on mature boats by every year since I learned how to... My biggest thing is pinch points. I'm a funnel guy. Yeah. I'm not really... I know a saddle is a funnel, but a saddle is also something else that somebody can see on the map. Exactly. I'm more of a transition line area, banked up to something that's forcing them to have to go... If a field's here, there's a thicket here, something that's going to force them to have to travel through there. Yeah. That is more of what I always go for. Okay. And since I focused on that, the whole game's changed for me. But now, I can't just hunt that without the sign there, the sign there. It's got to be there. I mean, everything... I mean, like I said, you can't just go hunt a pretty spot, pretty looking. At first deer there, there's going to be sign. Exactly. We'll see. And here's like the reason why I hunt. I hunt, it's got a lot. Like, I have my tree stung on my back when I'm scouting. And I'm going deer hunting when I'm scouting because you've got to be able to... You've got to be willing to change and fly by the seed of your pants whenever it comes to if you're hunting natural, like you hunt these white oaks and shit like that. You've got to be on the hot side. Exactly. And so... And I know a lot of these places that I have, you know, there's one section. It's like 400 acres and I'll go... I start on one side and I'm just... I'm walking, walking, walking and people call me crazy because of all your blowing deer out. Like, you should know. Like, well, I kind of do know because I've been hunting that property for 20 years. And like, I know, all right, I'm going to check these history places. You know, that has been good this time of year each year. And... But I'm going to have my bow in my hand because first time he ends usually the best time. I'm not putting my boots on the ground in there and sweating up the place and changing deer's patterns. I'm going in there a while. Their pattern's hot, you know. And I don't know. I just... There's a lot of people put a lot of weight on preseason scouting and it's not easy around here. It's the biggest thing. And as soon as that first wide oak drops, it might be 400 yards from where you have your set stand and your cameras and everything like that. And it's going to completely change. It's going to completely change. So I'm like, "Why am I putting in?" And I understand the idea of preseason scouting to know what's there. Right? That's the reason why people put up minerals. The reason why people bait and do stuff like that because they want to know what's there. And this is actually going to be a good segue into the next topic that I want to really talk about. But they're doing that to see what's there. But I also like the... I don't really care to know what's there. I want to go hunting. There's... I only run cameras on like two of my properties. Like I go there and I'm like, "If that deer makes me happy when he walks by me, I'm going to shoot him." Because I don't care. I don't have to kill the biggest buck in the woods. I want to. I want to kill the most mature deer, which I'm not huge on that. If he's got a giant rack, I don't care if he's got milk on his lips, I'm killing him. Because I may only hunt that spot once a year. And I do let deer go and stuff like that. But with the preseason scouting stuff, it's not huge for me around here. Yeah, to me, I think with preseason scouting, I would probably be more into it if I was hunting out of state. I would probably go... Oh, yeah. Now that's a little different. Yeah. Exactly. You're getting a better idea of the history, exactly. Here I don't have to because I know enough areas that I could go hunt history. But also, I don't always just hunt right here. North Carolina hunt three, four hours away from here a lot of times. And so I may go once before hunt season and check an area too. Yeah. And that's it. But then I stay out. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. So the season's scouting and putting cameras and stuff like that out. And here's kind of what sucks and this is kind of where it segues is. Now in certain areas in North Carolina, there's no minerals. You cannot put out any minerals. If they can prove that you did it, it's a CWD thing. CWD. Yep. Which I don't believe in. I think it's all horseshit, you know? But that's me. That's all... I mean, I think CWD obviously is real, but the way that they're attacking it and the way they're handling it, because we can't even take them across counting lines. No, it's an absolute disaster. It sucks. Yeah. It truly sucks because like we hunt in a county that is heavily, like it's a primary area for CWD and it's 45 minutes from our house. And so you're telling me I have to cape out a deer to take it 45 minutes down the road. Yeah. And how many actually do you? Yeah. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Travis, how do you feel about these new regulations? It's crazy. I mean, in one way with the CWD and especially the area, now like if I was hunting private land in the areas that you're hunting, I could be a little bit more lenient on it. But you know where I hunt in these counties and you know where I walk into in these counties. So when it comes to CWD and I know the headache that I got to go through to get this thing out of there and it makes you be a little bit more selective on what you pulled trigger on for sure. But which sucks because whenever you go to a place like that, if a 120 inch 8 or 10 walk by, you want to feel like you want to pull the trigger. But at the same time, I want to be happy because that deer is in front of me and I found him and I can kill this deer. But in my head, I'm going, is it worth the trouble? Is it worth one? I'm going to have to go through. Is it worth the freakin' trouble? Exactly, which five years from now might pan out and there might be some bigger deer in those areas because of that. But at the time it's a headache, I mean just absolutely, I mean. And I feel for the game wardens dude, because I know, I know, like there has to be people tagging them in a different county. Oh yeah. You know that's happening. Yeah. Like I'm not going to do it because I have a great place to skin a deer. Like my camper where I hunt, a great place to skin a deer. But I don't have to because whenever I'm up there hunting, you know, there's, which I have one, there's areas that I hunt that's not in any of the CWDs, but if I'm hunting in the primary, I have a place to skin a deer so it's pretty simple and I usually don't ever kill a buck over there anyway. Right. So it's, I mean it'd have to be a giant for me to shoot it there, you know, at my lease. And like, you know, I know, I know it has an effect on herd. I've found deer dead from it for sure, but it's, um, is that you think it's from CWD or do you think it's from EHD because it's different? Yeah. I was going to say, cause this was some years back. So I guess it was probably more of the EHD black tongue that come through. Yeah. You know, it hit Caldwell County hard. That was a big difference. Dude. But when you get went down like 268, you could smell it, it was awful and it hit mulberry and all those areas and toward your house. It was awful. It was awful and peaceful over there. I mean, I went in one area and I think we felt like five or six deer in there near that creek and I mean, it was just blank and it was hard on it. We're just now coming back from that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You can kind of start to see the deer out in the fields a little bit more, but like the, like I understand they have to handle it, you know, and understand because okay, so the guy that owns my company was a retired game warden and then we have a retired game warden that works with us. And he was kind of telling us like the reason why they made those decisions and I'm hoping that he'll get on the podcast and like I want to hear his opinion, you know, cause he's retired now. So he can talk about it, you know, but I don't know this whole like I understand like, Hey, it needs to be caped out within 24 hours or if you're taking it to a butcher or you're taking it because a lot of people do, they don't have the materials and they don't have the know how to be able to butcher something. And I know like they're paying these butchers and, and things like that, uh, near processors or what I keep saying butchers, um, your processors paying them to ship off the, the glands, you know, to test for CWD. But the one guy I know, he said, there's too much trouble, too much trouble. Yeah. And so now, now we have to deal with that shit. Like if, if I shoot a deer in Ash County or if I shoot a deer in Allegheny County, and when I get to the Allegheny County, it's an hour and one minute line, I cannot leave that county. Right. Okay. Keep everything out. Absolutely clean. Yeah. You know what? You got to get that. You got to get that membrane right now. Membrane out of it. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, like I can understand for as them transmitting everything to like feeding on the same in like bait piles of stuff, but at the same time they all feed on the same white oak tree, they all feed in the same food plot. They're all on the same damn lick and branch. Exactly. They're all touching and all that. And then after you kill it and you're taking it to a processor, they're all dead anyway. Yeah, it can't spread. Exactly. It's not transmitting the live deer there because you're at a deer processor. They just want to see how many say, and I know that they fail nothing, well, seven cases last year. In Ash. No. Statewide. Statewide? Yeah. No, sorry. Right. Seven. Seven. In Ash. Eight. In Allegheny. No, no, no, it's like three in Allegheny, but for what we have to go through for just a few cases like them, COVID, like, I mean, we all had to know where am I asked for something that's less, less deadly than the flu and they'd be in the test control industry at freaking sucked through COVID, by the way, that freaking sucked because you had to go in people's houses and they wouldn't let you in. I was going with everything. Yeah. So the deer, like, we're handling it like how they did with freaking COVID. Yeah. And how much did it help? I mean, you just... Is it helping at all? The best thing was, is let it run its cycle, let it do what it's going to do, what it's going to do, what it's going to do. It's always been here. Yeah. And there's never been anybody die from it ever. Nobody's ever died from chronic waste and disease from a deer. Nope. I mean, I don't know. I could go into like a freaking 45 minute rant, which I don't get in a politics and shit like that. Like I hate, honestly, I hate politics just because it's too ever played. Yeah. So, all right. One last thing, what's your plans for this, like upcoming year? Are you going to go out of state this year, like what's your plans, goals, ambitions for the year before we wrap this thing up? To be able to go to a state, that's one of the things I've talked about in a life about the last couple of years, I've got to get out of state and try hunting. Everybody tells me like, "Hey, if you can kill deer like that around here, it would be life changing. If you go outside, you know, you would be really good at taking those packets and go outside of North Carolina. And like, something I've always wanted to do to try to find and get into that different class of deer. I mean, I go as I love to break over 140 inch deer, but hard to come by in certain counties in North Carolina especially whenever all you really got is public land. I've got one 15 acre track of private land that I can hunt and I've got one 20 acre track in both those areas, one 40 is hard to come by. Yeah. And so like going back to like whatever Thomas said, Thomas was like talking about like the guys that have thousands of acres of private land, whatever. So I didn't really like what he was saying, like honestly, like I shouldn't be hunting public because I have all this private lands, you know, like this, yeah, I will stay off your basically. Don't you worry. I ain't going to ever step foot. If you're seeing me in there, something happened. Yeah. Somehow I'm looking for somebody. I'm looking for you that fell out of your tree stand. That's about it. Yeah. I mean, that would be something I'd love to do. Is it in, you know, is it going to be something I get to do this year? Probably not. So it'd be a quick one close run, maybe run to West Virginia or how something I've really been intrigued with about Virginia. I'd love to go hunt some of the National Forest of Birmingham, Virginia as well. Like I talked about earlier, my ultimate goal this year has, I'd love to put our through a 120 plus on public land this year in North Carolina. That's just a, that's just a double. It's doable. And like I said, it's not a unrealistic goal. It's definitely doable, especially with this new area that I found. It's definitely doable because the amount of white oaks that's in there and the amount of sign that they put in there during when the white oaks is falling, I think it will be absolutely, you know, and Jordan, I don't know if I've showed you, but I mean, I've got probably a 150, 10 pointer on camera about killed in there near the muzzle alert to you. And if I can get one then we're all in there with a boat, we'll be golden. You won't have to go out of state then. No, exactly. And that's what I'm saying. That's the hard part is is I really want to, but at the same time I get so hung up here because I do have really good deer on camera. I do have, you know, opportunities on deer that you would shoot in the Midwest, exactly. So therefore, and I can drive two and a half, three hours. Mm hmm. Like I had, so my wife and I, we had a conversation not too long ago, like I took, like basically the whole month of November off last year. And she's like, Hey, can you maybe not take that same amount of time off this year? Cause I got a five year old until you got shit's hard, dude. You know, all about it. You got three kids. It's a cover for you. Seven days total last year. Yeah. I mean, you had pretty damn good luck in those seven days, but, but like, I, I come to this realization and my buddy, Petey, he kind of made me see a little bit more. I have a really good place in Kansas, like on a lot of private land, I can go to Kansas. When we going? You quit the pest control company, I'll take it to Kansas and give me all your leads and my competition sitting right here, 20 feet from, or 10 feet from it. But, but she made me like, I come to this realization, I'm going to go out to Kansas. I'm going to shoot 140 inch deer. If I say 140 to 145 inch deer, I've got multiple of those in a hive on the private land that I have up there. And like, I only have a week that I can go this year in November, and I'm like, why would I go all out of Kansas, which I didn't end up drawing anyway, I put in for it, because oh yeah, I'll fly off there and hunt for eight days, you know, but like, why would I, why would I drive 14 or five, three hours whenever I could drive six hours? And I'll show you the deer that I've got, and I know we've made it for a fact. I know we've, I know for a fact that deer still alive could have my first typical 200. Go to say that. He's a very, very, I mean he's 180 inch typical 10 last year, so I know that because I put my eyes on him. I saw him and a couple of people I know saw him that are very big deer hunters, and they know deer. And so I'm like, do, do I waste my time going that far? When I know I can, and I hate to say this, I can go sit on a bait pile and know how six hours away, they have a chance to shoot a booner, and that's tough, that's tough. Like, and see, I don't hate baiting during the run anyway. I mean, they sent check it from 50 yards, 75 yards anyway, and it's, I mean, I ain't gonna lie to you. I'm watching a bait pile when I'm in Ohio, because I'm hoping that a doe that comes there, exactly, and which is so frustrating. It's so frustrating hunting a bait pile, but you get the pictures of him there all the time. And that confidence to just go there. Yeah, yeah, just go there. I mean, we got two spots like where Petey, where Petey hunts and where I hunt on this, on this lease. And so it's like, he's going to show up if he shows up, he's going to show up in these spots that were hunting, because he knows that bait pile is there. He's going to see if it does there. But the problem is, and some of the areas he can win check that show from 150 yards away. You know, enough is there. So, I mean, like the public land in Ohio, it's overrun, but it's good. You should, you should, if you've never hunted Ohio, you've never done it. It's good. I mean, go try it. If you ever get to experience the Midwest run, it'll ruin it for you here. I say it's a lot like Wollman, because like when I hunted out there, you did not go in the woods where that is, but it got you. But you didn't go in the woods without horns. You better have your rattling horns. Yeah. And you better be good at the snortwhees. Yeah. That's things that does not work here in North Carolina that much. No, you'll run it here. Exactly. A four-pointer snortwhee can run off a one-to-one. A rattling with two, number two pencils here. Yeah. That's like a lemon pouring, right? But, but yeah, you could hit the horns up there in Wyoming. I mean, and butts would just come from everywhere. I mean, they'd just come running in, running in snortwhees, a turn around all the time. They come right back to you. And I mean, and it was just that something completely different than I'd ever experienced here. Yeah. Dude, it's, it will change your, change your perception. Yeah. Like dude, I appreciate where I hunt here. Like I do. Like if I shoot 120-inch deer here, dude, I'm like, I shot a 170 out there. And like, okay, I killed that seven-pointer earlier this year, and I'll show it to you better. It's over on the pool table. I was more excited about that deer than the deer that I killed in Iowa, that 170 IQ, just because it's, it's a, that deer's a giant. He was seven and a half years old and, but he's 110 and, but it's the caliber deer here versus caliber deer. Yeah. And, and something that I, like I, like I talked to my buddy, Chris J about this, like, and he's on a podcast and that'll launch here in the next few weeks or so, like there's a misconception between like Midwestern hunters and, and hunters from here, like we all think we're the best deer hunters. We do. Faith for us, even though we're as good as we are to go out there and to be able to change. Cause everybody thinks you're just going to walk in the, walk in the woods in Iowa and shoot a 170. That's not how it works. You think you're going to go to the public lane and know how and you're going to have a chance at a 150. That's not how that shit is. It's how you, you would like a home because it's a lot like on here and, but it's, there's, there is that misconception. There is that, that hardness. If you ever do go, you'll see what I mean. Like the, the rut is still the rut. You want to see a lot more big bucks out in the field, you know, and stuff like that. Cause there's not as many big patches of woods like they are here, but it's still the rut. And you could shoot a 170 or not see a buck for seven days, but I'd highly advise you to get the week after Halloween, I highly advise it. It will change your life when it comes to run. I'm ready. I want to go do it. Do you have anything else? Anything that you're passionate about, dude, before we wrap this up, is anything that, that comes to your mind, like, do you think cross buzzer gay? Nah, man. I'm, I'm a compound bow all the way. I mean, that's where I started out. I'm in first, first bow was a hoyot. I'm trying to remember what model it was, but. The ultra tech or. Yeah. Something like that. I started with a V. It was a, Oh, uh, viper tech. Viper, yeah. Viper tech. Yeah. That was my first compound bow. You know, as like a teenager, I remember this be a good story. So it was my goal of getting my first deer with a compound bow. And I was hunting this little patch, it was close to my house. Did I have permission? I don't know. Probably. I think I never asked, but in North Carolina, if it ain't posted, you could hunt it. Correct. And this was, you know, I was probably nobody give a shit back then 13, 14 year old, something like that. Yeah. Nobody give a shit. Yeah. And then there first morning I had two velvet bucks comes over here. I shoot hit one belly, white hair goes everywhere. I mean, just buzz cut him, miss it. Go back in like a few days later, hunt it and have his real pretty nine pointer come up through there. And he had, I don't know how or why, but he had just got in, he'd been holding a holly tree and he had the limbs and everything still sticking in his rack and he'd come in about 45, 50 yards down below me on a logging road. You know, I've always called him the holly bush book since then because, you know, just it's what he had in his rack. I slung out him, I missed him. And I think I missed three deer that week and, uh, the odds you suck. I know it was horrible and I was, I was about done with it. And then finally I'm sitting there, one comes come straight at me. I think it got me like 16 yards. I shoot, it's a butt head, but I was just as tickled with that button head as I was. There's one mounted in that little room, but it mounted. That would be the first thing it seemed a button head metal for. You've never seen a button head? I got a button head and a, and a four-pointer mounted. Well, I got first one, you know, with that, and I was just, you know, plumb static and I absolutely just fell in love with bow hunting, you know, since then, and I've killed a lot with a bow. Uh, there's nothing like that to that noise whenever you hit that trigger on a, no, but so like hitting a psychiatrist, my, you talk about the spot or the butt head and the four-pointer all this, man. And, you know, my very first deer I had to give credits to my brother. He took me to my, uh, he took me hunting. We went into some private land that we had permission to hunt. And I think I was 11-year-old and he took me in there with old Remington Model 597, uh, 22 long rifle with stingers. Oh boy, and we sat in our, and we laugh and there's this squirrel fell out of a tree in front of us and we laughed our guts out over that thing. We sat, I was like both of us looked, we ain't gonna see a deer whatsoever. I remember I woke up and I see us both walking down this fence line and I'm like, hey, that's, uh, there's a bug. He's a, you know, bug, he said, he said, we've been laughing our heads off, I ain't moved it. I said, they're a bug right here. And he looks up and he's like, oh, there he is. And it come in there to eat white oaks and it's standing right behind a Bob Orr fence. And he told me he said, he said, put it right behind here, put it right behind here. I said, all right. I pulled the trigger and we were, I hit that, I hit that, uh, Bob Orr fence. Like, how does that always happen? Dude, how does that shit always happen? Like if you, there can be a six foot gap and that there'll be 20 yards and it not even touch it like not even in the way and you're going to hit that fence. That little eight inch freakin that wire going there and you're going to smoke the center of it. What I think around about 10 foot and we're laughing. I mean, cause it's just a noise from the whole situation. We're already, you know, just laughing our heads off and he's like, putting those on behind his ear and I'm like, no. And I just throw it up and I put it right behind the shoulder and I just pulled the trigger on it. I swear a thing went 15 yards stopped and fell over right there, right in front of us. Um, 15 yards, I mean, absolutely it was a five point basket rack, five point as my first deer. Next year on Pizga, my second deer last day of season killed a 112 inch 10 point. So it went from a basket rack five to a game land, 112 inch 10 point. And I was like, I'm right. I'm done. It took me from the time that like I killed my first deer when I was eight, it took me cause I was 19 years old, a kill eight pointer, but I still shot everything. Like looking at the wall of four pointers and Fox around there though. And that's what I tell everybody. I'm a, you got to get you feel when you first start hunting, just kill, kill, kill, cause I mean, that's what breeds it in. Yeah. I mean, you just got to get in that. You have to be a killer to do what you have to want to be a killer to hunt in the south. You have to want to be like, obviously there's easier places to hunt in the south. Like you go to like central part of North Carolina. It's all flat and it's, it's pretty damn easy hunting. Like easy hunting. I ain't saying easy killing, easy hunting, but to live where we live and like to run down the Appalachian mountains that goes like to Alabama and Georgia and show like that. You got to have that grab to kill buddy. Yeah. It sucks. You know, in absolutely sucks. And that's what I mean. I don't matter what it is, whether it's in your deer, elk, elk, speaking of hog at, we done a hog, went and does a public lane hog hunting on in South Carolina. And I remember first trip down there. We had the dogs and everything and they run in there and stretched one out and I run in there and I was first one on it and how they were pulling off the knife on it and stick it with a knife. And I remember when I stuck it playing blood blew back all the way to my shoulder up my arm and I felt like I could just turn around and rip a tree out the ground. I mean, it's just like a man. Yeah, you felt like a man. It's that driving. Yeah. All right, before we wrap this up, I'm going to get into that just a little bit. Just take a couple of minutes here. Yeah. What the fuck did you stab a hog with a knife? That's what they told me it was best to do because with the dogs on it and they say, you know, they're like, well, if you pull out a pistol, the whole turns wrong, you pull the trigger, you have the dead dog. So the dog stretch them out, you know. So that's why they make people stab them with an eye. Yep. Is that not dangerous as shit? It is, but it's fun. Barberry man, it's also I just can't like I don't like dogs hunting. Yeah, I don't like tree and bears and stuff with a dog. I can't stand it. You're buying something up and you're just walking up and shooting it like I don't know why I just I don't think it's fair to the animal, but those holes can really do a lot of damage to you. They can do a lot of damage to the dogs. I get it. I've never understood the stabbing part because my buddy Kyle, I'll get Kyle on here and he does it. He talks about it. He talks about it and I'm like, I just I don't know if I'm I ain't scared to do it. I just don't know if well, maybe I am a little scared to do it. Maybe I just found out something about myself new fear, but like I don't want to walk up to an animal just stabbed the son of a bitch and let's just like trying to hurt me. I just can't. I can't see it. I just can't. Well, if it was to finish a deer off. Oh, yeah. I mean, the deer is already wounded. I'm going to do whatever I got to do. I've had to stab a couple deer. I can give you a good story of one and while I'm in if you want it, I'll get you. So peace properly they have done there about 20 acres, which felt like five acres because it was mostly field and had a little bit of rushing off bottoms in it. But bank right up against the high school property and so we had football field on one side. So a walking park track had come out in behind the high school there and blooded right up against our property. I was sitting in my tree stand one evening as she was thanksgiving day and I had to bow. I had a couple of those come in that had to split G2 9 pointer come in about 116, 18 inch deer. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to shoot him. I shoot the joker and I shoot right on her. I miss him. With both, well, he jumps the fence and runs up a little bit and he's still on our property but he's really close to the edge of the line. And I remember it snows all over the ground. I shoot at things and I spine it. Well that thing rolls over and goes right in the middle of the walk and pass over that the high school over there and I mean it's a it's a bloodbath. It's a massacre out there and I was like, by this time I didn't have any errors. I wasn't going to shoot it over there on the property. I had to go throw the bow down, I had to go up and try to stab the thing with it. And you might have to cut this board out. No, fuck it. I ain't cutting out of this shit out. But my knife was too dull to even slit it through. So then I just had to start jabbing it. So I've got blood everywhere all on this. I mean, it is all over this walk and pass. And I'm like, oh crap. So I think the deer's dead. I start dragging the deer. I get it down there and I'm trying to get a drug underneath the fence. Well, halfway underneath the deer comes back to and that thing like to whoop me. It about drove me all the way back underneath the fence. It was an absolute mess. And I'll be honest, George, by the time I got done with that and I was like, I don't want to deer hunt anymore after this. I mean, it was just one of those. It's so bad. It's so bad. I mean, it was horrible, but I mean, it was a great, great, nice buck. I was tickled with it. Happy with it. It was good with the bow. But just the whole thing. It was just stabs, I don't know what dark that was. His European mount in the basement. And like, you know, cool whimpering. His fun and all. But I remember I hadn't go back up. I was grabbing fresh snow trying to throw it on the walking path to cover up all the blood. And I was like, Oh, this is, this is terrible. Yeah. I had it. I shot one one time. I'm like it quick. We're going to raff it up. I shot one one time with a spike and I was 13 years old, whatever, and I shot the thing kind of in the hit. I didn't hit the femoral artery, but I like hit it in the hip. I shot the deer. It was running and I was like, yeah, don't shoot. Don't shoot. Wait till it stops. I got a gun in my hand. I'm shooting at the damn thing. Okay. Every run or not. I'm 13. I knew better, but I didn't. You know, I didn't care. Shoot. The deer like rolls down the hill and I see my dad like take off running because he knew where I hit it. And he's like, don't shoot it again. Don't shoot it again. Because it like it runs like off down to this creek and like, I can't see the fucking thing. So I take it. So I go like running and I see my dad just run and jumps on this deer and takes out a freaking knife and just start stabbing it behind the shoulder, stabbing the shit out. I'm like, what are you doing? Oh my God. My dad is a freaking Superman. Like he's like tackling his 73 pound spike and he's like a Rambo just fucking thing. And, and I'm like, why didn't you cut his throat? And he's like, well, if you want to mount it, I say mount a damn spike. And he's like, well, I don't want to mess up its hide. You know, I just going to stab it behind. It'll stop breathing. The fucking thing will live for another 10 minutes. I was like, you didn't get it deep enough and get its heart duty. It stabbed it all in the heart like four times in the damn thing still live for like 10 minutes and they are, I mean, I've had to stab a couple deer, you know, spine them and didn't want to waste another era, you know, but now I don't care. I'll waste 17 hours, five to stick them on them. Cause if I'm shooting a deer with a bow in North Carolina or anywhere, if it's not a dog, it's going to be a big buck. So I, um, or big to me bug and we'll waste a few hours on it. Yeah. Yeah. You can go buy some more at the store. I ain't worried about it. Walmart sells areas for $3 a $3 piece if you want to go get the cheap ones. But I think it's just a deer, it's just an era. But Travis do this, it's been pretty cool, man. I like this. It's kind of changed it up a little bit, you know, uh, I'm actually not a big tactic. I hate tactics. And I, I'll actually enjoyed this one because it wasn't, it didn't really focus on it, but we got it. There was a little bit sprinkled in here and I actually enjoyed that. And maybe I, maybe, maybe changed my mind a little bit about it, you know, and I enjoyed the stories and things like that. But if there's nothing else you want to add to, we're going to drink a couple more beers and let's get back to the house. You know, I appreciate the invite and have me on, you know, it's always good to talk. You know, that's a, we're not all alone in the hunting. That's the bad thing is, is become a part of everybody's against each other anymore on it. You know, all right. So trying to out-compete someone and all this, but man, we're all in it together and uh, it's just too much controversy in this, the camaraderie in it is what it's all about. And you know, just to getting together, having a good time and that's what makes hunting. Yeah. You can do it by yourself all you want, but it's nowhere near as fun as those weeks at hunting camp with all your buddies. Well, that's, well, I mean, he's talking about this. That's why we posted on Instagram and Facebook, because we want people to enjoy that one little moment that we had. That one little moment we had. You want them 10 or eight comments that you're going to get on it, congratulations. Good job. That's it. It's that boost of confidence. What makes you also want to do it the next year? Yeah, absolutely. Like, and I know a lot of people that don't do it for any of that stuff, don't have social media that a freaking giant bug killer or something. Oh, yeah. My dad killed a big deer every year and he, he don't have, you know, have any of that stuff and hit like he actually kind of gets upset if I post on there. He's, I want people to know what I kill. I don't give a shit about them. He said, do it for me. I'm like, well, yeah, I guess you got a point, but we'll get to that age one day. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I want people to see my 110 inch eight morning that I killed and that I worked not very hard for at three point, it's bigger than this, but. Listen, okay. Okay. I'm saying this and I'm in this podcast. The three pointer thing, me and Casey, me and my Aunt Casey, this is in Trent's podcast. If you haven't listened to that and you'll know what I'm, if you have listened, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So that morning we were eating at Bojangles and I, and Casey, Casey looked at me and she said, I'm going to kill a bigger deer than you this morning. I was trying to say, no, the hell you ain't neither. I said, I'm going to kill a bigger deer than you and she said, you watch and she had never killed a deer with a bow yet. Well, she kills a spike and she shoots me in this text and she said, I just kill my first deer with the bow. I was like, hell yeah, how big is it? And she said, it's a spike. There's a three pointer standing in front of me. It's like, I'll fuck a waste of tag just for this and I shoot this three pointer and it's full velvet. Yeah. He'll, it's right over there and, and I get there and I didn't tell her I shot one. She said, yeah, look at my first deer with my, I said, that's awesome. I said, do you remember that bet we made this morning? She's like, well, I said, you owe, you owe me a dollar. She's like, well, why is it? Cause I killed a three pointer. I said, I just, and my grandpa hears this and instantly flies off the handle. Like you just have to be better than your aunt. Well, I was like, pop off. It's a joke. Like we're joking about, he ends, dude, he flew off the handle. Then I sit on the cooler and bust his cooler. I don't know what I'm going to tell me to do that shit. I wasn't drunk. I was 16 years old. I wasn't drunk or anything like that. I just, there's a cooler, I'm going to sit on it, instantly disintegrate. When I say Trent lost it, cause you know, Trent, you've known Trent a long time. Like he just, he puts his hand on his forehead and just like, he can't hold it together. It's, it's the funniest shit. Oh my God, that podcast, dude, that's the funnest. That was the best podcast. It was so funny. I love that one. Like, like, which I had to beg Trent to come to this one, but. It's those memories. That's one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, if we did a podcast about the stories, it'd be a five day podcast. It's five days. I mean, cause hell, we've been best friends since we're five. So, I did, we're going to wrap this up. We got more beer to drink and we'll let you get back to your kiddos. Awesome man. Jordan, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Go make one of the dig taters boys. Huh. [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
Travis Chapman is an avid big buck killer from the mountains of North Carolina. In this episode Jordan and Travis dive into the debate of private land vs public land hunting. Also hear some awesome hunting from Travis!
https://www.workingclassbowhunter.com/
The HMD Podcast is part of the WCB (Working Class Bowhunter) Podcast Network! Check out the other awesome shows in the family:
Working Class Bowhunter The Victory Drive Firearm Podcast Tackle & Tacos - A Fishing Podcast!
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