Marc Smith | Keep Hammering Collective | Episode 070

every step I take I move my truth every time they tell me stop I use every comment hate that makes my ga up my energy and boom I them bling saying the way that I move is so reckless that is a part of my mind I've been blessed with giving my blood so I am Relentless all right we're here on the keep hammering Collective I'm with Mark Smith AKA muly Slayer one on Instagram that's right how you doing I'm good man uh I'm feeling the Oregon experience buddy yeah I'm feeling the keep hammering lift run shoot experience to the fullest I'm feeling it right now yeah we just got done with the lift so you should still feel it yeah so if I'm still wheezing excuse me because I'm still recovering but no this holy moly man this is pretty incredible yeah well so what do you think of my daily routine um it's I think I've told you a couple of times today on on there like I don't think um the Instagram the Facebook and the videos the YouTube they don't show they don't show it all and they don't show how real it is and it is uh it's pretty incredible it was hard so you know when you invited me out here back in the winter I'm I was as you I was out of shape and I started getting in shape and um just reached out to you we've been friends for 22 years and I reached out and said dude you're inspiring me again I'm going to get after it and you said good I'd love to have you on the podcast I could have fell out of the chair cuz cuz even though we're friends and I know you're my friend I know you'd I feel like you'd crawl to Texas over broken glass to help me if I needed I just feel that you're that guy but um to get invited on this podcast and see the great people you've had I was like man um I feel like this morning I told you now some feelings were coming up over the last couple days I haven't felt for a long time and it's like when I first went pro in the 3D circuit and the first Target I walked up to it was Jeff Hopkins and Randy Elmer down in Tucson Arizona it's a tough group uh and you're like yeah this is real like I bellied up to the bar with the real dogs and I knew I was amongst Elites and I was amongst the um the best in the world at what they were doing at the time that's how I felt today and so those feelings started coming over me last night I'm L going this is real now my son Travis been with he's been my great supporter my wife and I've been training I even went bought my own 72lb rock I've been carrying it around in Texas doing a 5k with it every day love it and that's so different than I'm piss on the hill but it's still um I had the technique down right moving the rock around and I had I felt like I had it it was just the hill man it was just the hill but uh I I feelings conjured up that I had not felt it was an excited nervous not a scared nervous right I'm not much scares me but excited nervous to come with an elite athlete um because I I'm like you you say you're average I'm going to tell you right now brother you're not an average man nothing about you is average no people say I'm a poser remember hey if you ever come up to me at a at a show and say that I'm going to punch you square in the mouth I promise you cuz I love this guy and I care about him a lot and he's legit and so doing that today um those feelings came over me and then but it's like you know if I was going to step in the ring with Conor McGregor you could get it all worked up in your mind but once he popped you in the mouth it's just Conor McGregor popping you in the mouth now it's time to get busy right that's how I felt with you today Conor McGregor don't ever punch me in the mouth but that's how I felt today with you like once go and so you're like hey oh by the way we're not going to just go carry the rock up Pisa we're going to go run Spencers for a warm up I was like are you kidding me right now what you're going to add extra yeah but you had to get your money's worth I had to get my money's worth and I got it bro and so I um but I'm so glad I had that experience you know I've seen you and your brother up there so many times and all your other guest runs I got the full monty dude so I ran Spencers most of the way I up there and then came down had some awesome lunch breakfast um and then went and clim Pisa carried the rock with The Rock and I carried it all the way I stopped twice I think so I stopped twice or three times set it down caught my breath regrouped and went back up but I carried it every step of the way you didn't carry it up for me and I was proud of that that was what I trained for that's I I was going after record but once we hit the 50 minute Mark we were still a five a miles away from the top I'm like I won't hit the record a long shot and uh but I'll be one of the guys that carried the Rock by myself all the way up and to me that mattered to my family that mattered and I did it and then um man from there uh just the whole I I just don't think people realize how great of an athlete you are and I don't think they realize how great you have it in this town with the bow rack here and having those guys man um Trent is just like missed Wayne and Lisa I'm so sorry for that but man Trent Trent had had on had their back and he he had my bow dialed man he already had my third axis set and I mean um someone that shoots as much as I shoot and had been a pro in the Pro Division I should be expected to pop a balloon at 100 yards right yeah but to pop it that fast with a bow I've never touched in my life yeah so I know I'm a good shot but to say I came in here grabb this bow out of the box they threw a sight and to rest on it none of it I was familiar with I wasn't familiar with that sight whatsoever I just brought my own arrows and my own release with me so to say um but you know my my friends and followers they're not going to be surprised cuz that's kind of what I do right I just get dropped off on the side of the highway and I come back with a dead mule deer I go troubleshoot figure it out and get it done so um I wanted to go for the record I did I wanted to pop the balloon at 200 yards but we had rain and wind and sleep and it was just you're like dude we could be here till midnight just trying to get lucky and I don't want to get lucky I want to dial in and drill it but that 101 yard shot man I I got it in like the second round and dialed it not even no tape on my bow or nothing just guessing and judging and shooting so well I was impressed you know yeah shout out to Trent and the bow rack they do such a phenomenal job setting up bows and not just setting them up but it's like the Precision on so you can you can paper tune a bow and you can go through paper and anybody who doesn't know or doesn't look that closely would' be like oh that's a bullet hole that's you're good to go but Trent is you know putting putting it back together where it tore through looking to see exactly where the tip of the Field Point went through just to make it as precise as possible so he did that you went out on the range at 20 and it's almost right off the bat every arrow in the X yeah and then step back to 30 and it was about the same thing yeah I mean I've never seen somebody shoot a bow that good out of the box no that the best I've ever seen yeah well the bow did most of it I was just hold it no I mean I was watching you you're a shooter yeah and so it was uh I love seeing that because the other things yeah you train but it's different when you get here and you get on the hill when you start running and you're lifting weights and all that but what nobody could ever question or or surprise you with is shooting a bow yeah I mean that's just like either you could do that or you don't that's what you do and so it was I hadn't you know to be honest I haven't seen you shoot yeah you know and so to see that I was like holy [ __ ] Mark's [ __ ] shooter so that was I was impressed yeah thanks man that's that's a huge compliment I appreciate it but yeah I've been doing it 40 years U been shooting a bow for 40 years I bought my first one when I was 13 um I tell everybody been bow hunt for 40 years but not really like I bought my bow when I was 13 and um just a bare black mag and uh I could afford three arrows and the bow and that's what I bought fingers arrows are expensive fingers bare bow they were the old G game Getters you know they were green game Getters and the olive green ones and I shot those when I was 133 I killed Turtles and rabbits and uh birds and things with it and snakes and just you know all game is big game when you're 13 we killed stuff with them with no sights and bow fishing but um I really changed and became a bow hunter what I say I'm a bow hunter like I can say I've been a bow hunter since I was 17 um something happened in my life where I was like I had this Revelation man about how powerful a bow and arrow is and um maybe I'll just go right into that because that's this is super um you know bow hunting people recognize that in me you know how you when you beat Armstrong in that race it just says bow hunter beats Armstrong to be a bow hunter and I try to explain this to even Travis and stuff like I'm a Hunter and I have you know I'm friends with weatherbe I have guns and stuff and I love guns but at my core I'm a bow hunter and to be able that almost carries some kind of weight when you tell someone you're a bow hunter and what I noticed as a young man um my my wife dating me as in High School 17 years old seniors um her father was a big hunter he was he just passed away last year he's a big hunter and it intrigued him right like it won me points for his daughter oh he's a bow hunter yeah he's a bow hunter he's uh that the people be like that takes real skill you know you got to be close yeah this not some dop head out goofing off you know you know I had a mullet in a El Camino right uh listening to White Snake um but I I was a bow hunter and I was so I was said in class um Fred Miller let me just tell you Fred Miller was my a teacher my best friend through High School ditched me right before my wedding right um he had borrowed the money to rent a tux to be in my wedding and then like a week before my wedding he's like hey man I blew all my money on fish and tackle and I I can't be in your wedding I'm like dude you're my best friend you've been my best friend all through High School what's going on here and he just just freaking to this day I haven't talked to him in 30 years I don't know what happened man he just ditched me the next person that was in my life at that time was Fred Miller my a teacher um and he was he was an amazing incredible man like yeah he was I was in a all years of high school and um he mentored me he you know his son and I are still really great friends and we go turkey hunt every year that's the memorial turkey hunt we go on his um Austin Miller and his his dad was Fred Miller and he was beloved man loved by the entire Community taught forever he died in 2017 yeah he he tragically died of cancer and he um he had told Austin over the years you know Smith's one of my favorites I can't save them all as a teacher you can only pick a few and he picked me for the by the grace of God this man saw something in me and mentored me and when I'd say dumb stuff he was that guy CU I didn't have much of a father in my life my father my stepdad amazing man he was just back out of my life at that time but Fred um was fully engaged in my life checked on me um and would like without going into too much my parents were separated they were in different places and me and my brother were at at home by ourselves a lot that year my senior year and Fred would he caught wind of that he stopped by the house and he' see us that no one's watching us I'm 17 my brother's 13 or uh four three years difference and uh he brought groceries he looked at my cabinets he hopped in while he's talking to me just walking around looking right he's like next day night he showed up with groceries and stuff and I'll never forget that and so he was just a wonderful man and and um so but he was also man a hardcore Hunter like he's the one that helped me I learned how to build rifles he taught me how to reload and all that stuff and um what he would do is he would bring um on Fridays goof off days you know he'd bring in a projector or not a projector but a vacr on TV we watch videos M and he come in one day and he's like hey Smith this is a good one for you you'll like this and it was Pete Shepley hunting brown bear in the 80s have you ever watched that one I think I have yeah dude it like I I'm sitting back there probably writing Christina a note and goofing off and Fred's like Hey we're going to watch this and then he got my attention he's like hey Fred or hey Mark um Smith we're going to call me Smith hey Smith this you to be up your alley here they're going to be bow hunting bears I'm like oh bow hunting bears and uh Pete Shepley took the float plane this was in 1987 the fall of 1987 I'll never forget it changed my life and and I'm watching this guy and he goes to I knew who Pete shley was he was in every archery magazine back then right with his mock fours and whatever you know I I he goes he and he back then you didn't have no rang finders or nothing you had that thing you had to dial until it wasn't blurry right he he he had this pouch made out of caribou skin I thought that was the coolest thing and he shoots this brown bear with a bow and something triggered in me like right then because I had a deer rifle I had a 3030 a Marlin 3030 was my lever action deer rifle that I bought from mowing lawns and you know just making cash selling bait doing whatever you picking you peas you know that stuff so I had a deer rifle but I knew my deer rifle was not powerful I knew that it was a good deer gun for East Texas inside 100 yards I'll kill deer but what what and I don't I've tried to articulate into words and I can't quite figure out how to tell someone this but it's like okay a Marlin 3030 on the beaches of Kodiak is not enough gun for a brown bear mhm but I had the sense to realize no matter how expensive that bow was and no matter how whatever that broadheads made out of whatever that Arrow's made out of no matter what that bow brand is or anything if you put a razor sharp Broadhead in the right spot with enough energy that is all you need to kill an animal right bam yeah brand doesn't matter how much the bow Coster Shar Broadhead in the right spot and I went well then that means my Bow's good enough yeah that means my bow will work right and so um I was working at Kmart at the time I was working in the Sporting Goods automotive department so um they had a bare white tail too with plastic Dino cams it was wasn't the white tail with the for Wheels it was the next level of it was a step up of the bow I had that was the first thing I bought with my first check at Kmart my first two or three I on layway and I went I got this bow and it was a 60 pounder and I could barely pull it back and it was set at 30 in so thing about my archery is I'm the reason I I was so impressed um and this there's certain things I know you and I know there's certain things that you willing to let go and there's certain things you're not willing to let go there's things that piss you off a long time ago and that [ __ ] just not going away right right that's how I feel about archery shops because when you're in an archery shop and you get that group of elitists hovering around the counter they only want to give attention to the guys dropping the cash and here's this hungry forn knowledge guy the guy you can really reach and just win over this guy and get him started down the right path but if he has $10 in his pocket all he's going to buy is knocks and field tips they would never give me time of day just white trash Mark come in here I wanted to be so bad I willed myself into the archery Community as it is right I willed myself into almost everything I've ever done like I started believing I was that before I became that and I would go to archery shops I would just sit there and listen to their stories and like see me just see me man I want that so today I walked in well now doing it long enough to kind of a few people know who I am so I walked in they were expecting this guy you were bringing um that's what I've wanted my whole life I want you to give me attention when I come in I'm in the business of service so I know good service when I see it I want good service and and I walked into the bow rack and man it was like roll out the red carpet they took care of me and not just fluff but meat and potatoes it took me I started bow hunting in 1983 I didn't kill my first deer till 1993 took me 10 years to kill a deer with a bow I just never gave up I just kept going and learning and and every bit of it was self-taught until I bought a bow in 1993 I bought a psse psse was making them it was a Precision Edge U like and a Carol right it was a edge bow and I bought it brand new and when I realized I bought it brand new from that shop and all the accessories and the overdraw this long and all that was 80 lb bow I had a Carol Intruder yes those yeah those are good bows Yeah man they were killers and and um when I bought that bow I got the service I'd been looking for then I got the training I'd been looking for you know the funny thing back then man as soon as someone broke out a chronograph guess what came out next Allen wrenches we're cranking them down baby so I'm out there like I remember shooting um you're going to think I'm crazy I remember shooting 19113 aluminums out of that bow at 80 PBS bam right like a 22 going on yeah dude so but speed was King speed was King you might have been getting 280 well that's because I mean we didn't nowadays it doesn't even matter how fast you shoot cuz you got that Rangefinder yes so then you just dial it up or you hold your PIN whatever but back then because we didn't have good rangefinders the flatter that Arrow would shoot the more leeway you had on judging yardage and that made a big difference so everybody was addicted to speed how fat how flat could I get that Arrow to come out its bow yeah mhm and then you get older and it's like well I want I want I want for I want it quiet and forgiving and good shooting bow yeah yeah um you know what in part of that story there you said that it started in ' 83 he didn't kill till ' 93 I just think that that needs to be acknowledged that do you know how many people would have given up bow hunting in 10 years with no success you know so that says a lot about you just about what's important to you and what you're willing to do to achieve your goals because a very small percentage of people would stick to something with no success for 10 years yeah you know what I mean so I got to I got to hand it to you that's uh for being a young man especially when you're younger you want results immediately you know and you want to be acknowledged and we want you know I can empathize with you going to the bow shop and not get getting you know not really respect but even just anything just just see me just see me just say something and so I I get that because young men that's what they want more than anything they want to be acknowledged and you know whether it's you know negative or positive guys do stupid [ __ ] just to get acknowledged and uh so I you know I can I definitely understand what you're saying but yeah I mean 10 years of grinding to get your first kill is awesome oh one time in the dark I'd climbed up this pine tree and I had a leverlock bear quiver where you shove it in and turn it and lock it and I'd missed the I shoved it in and it locked kind of out like this and open new morning we skipped high school we skipped school that day senior year um I was shooting fingers brass pins um big old by then I'd had me some orange on those like 7 oh yeah and and I had 100 and and my hero then was um uh Dan fist Jerald yeah that guy was aggressive he was he was the cam ha of the time he was the guy man I wanted like so Pete Shepley put the fire in me and then Dan fiser took me next level like you don't need a gun son just grab that bow and go and get on the ground with him and tear it up and I just thought that was the coolest guy so and he was shooting 150 grain um Rocky Mountain Supremes man they were like this freaking big and those big orange arrows that's what I had no thought of how slow my bow was right is so so lame yeah anyway opening morning man I had me a little pile of corn sprinkled on the ground over there and I was up in a pine tree sitting on a board and I heard a limb pop and I look and his dough just walked out and this is my first experience shooting at a deer so I started in 83 never even had a chance to shoot at a deer so the first shot I had at a deer was a dough when I was 17 and I remember think in my bow was like a 200 lb draw I couldn't even draw like all I I was always like if I can get the draw the deer's dead if I can get the draw the deer's dead we we always said that right so get the bow back all I remember man is let go while the the quiver flew off of my bow the arrow missed the mark by by a million miles and the deer ran off and I'm just like man this is so hard so I climb down out of the tree I get my quiver I go back up in the tree 30 minutes later this rabbit hops out he's eating corn freaking drill him an eyeball man just like no pressure onbit yeah and so in 93 I was hunting over a friend's house Trey weed he worked over at the he went to high school with him he had a little bit of land behind his house and I'm forever thankful of this family have not talked to them in 40 or however many years but Trey weed he was a cool guy I was in high school with him and he worked at uh he ran to propane tank place there uh propane grill place there in Spring Texas and uh his dad Bo super cool dude um they said hey you can come hunt behind our house you want to come back to Nowhere to hunt man I was hunting any wood lot I could get away with man I I mean just if I could get in there and going hunt there yeah and uh I I was in this Pantry of all things I climbed up in this big pecan tree and put a board wedged it between the there's no tree stands this is that that Carol that PSC yeah and uh I'm sitting there opening morning and uh this big D was walking through the yopon these bushes kind of back over behind my corn pile I drew back and again like I don't even remember aiming in the arrow went over the deer's back I had a face mask gloves pulled up all the stuff and I'm sit on that board so hard why does this have to be so hard I just want to kill a deer with a bow and arrow and so I rip my face mask down I take my gloves off and I'm just sitting there just staring I hear a limb Pop I look here comes a spike Buck walks through there 12 ringed him got him that's my first buck I shot him and like that's another defining moment changed me like man I'll never I'll never so in Texas back then everybody hunted with a bow from October 1st to Halloween next weekend you're getting your 25 all six out or your seven Mar you're going deer hunting that was you bow hunted the month they gave you to Bow Hunting that was it right so and I had this 25 all six that I just freaking murdered everything with and um but that year I was like man I kept hunting over into gun season so the year I killed one I killed two you that's always that way like you kept hunting with your bow yeah okay yeah and so um and then I ended up shooting some more deer with my rifle but I killed a d with it too here's and here's my dad my stepdad Bill cathol oh my gosh I love this little guy he always like whatever man you he kind of he was my stepdad but when it came to the hunting thing I Ruled the scene and he'd just go along whatever so that white tail too I never killed a deer with yeah I gave it to him and he took it down to the bow shop and they put the new little plastic dining cams on it and got it set up with some good arrows and some um ho black hole broadheads way back in the day and uh so the the day so I killed my deer opening day and we're going to go to this place where we're going to camp out and Hunt if this guy's property was going to let us hunt so me and my dad just packed coolers and food and stuff and we just like did this little Backcountry hunt in East Texas and we just set up a camp and a t big adventure yeah man and so I go and I hunt and um nature caller take it number two man so I climbed down out of my oak tree and back then I didn't have um any kind of stand I'd take a I'd go in a few days before a season and take a hammer and some uh 16 penny nails and I'd put them in till they're about that far sticking out of the tree and I'd hook my pinkies on them and I'd go 25t up oak tree and set on a limb and um my dad did the same thing Bill Bill did the same thing so I'm I'm the hero man I got me a deer no one else I I got a deer and Bill don't have one but I gave him my old bow and I'm I'm just like he's going to go through the motions with me and just having that meant everything to me mhm I get down out of the tree about 10: in the morning I got to go man I go down the woods take a dump over to Camp hang I walk into Camp I can see Bill standing over there like what's he doing back already and he's eating his Apple I remember had this big boony hat on eating an apple and you know like you do when you're in Camp the first thing you do is you look at your buddy's quiver right yeah I saw there was missing an arrow there's a bloody bent one in there m what what so I said did you get did you get one he goes I got two I said you got two he goes yeah man that dough and a little one came in there and I shot that big dough and she just ran over there and dropped I lit a cigarette and I sit there that other one come back and I shot it too I was like I love you so much Bill you're so amazing and he that the the the dough he saw fall and die but the little one her yearling it didn't um he hit it back a little bit I had to track it Blood Trail it yeah and um it was the first time me and him ever tracked a deer and I found I and it was it was cool man have that experience um with him how old were you at this time I was that was 23 okay I was 23 I started B when I was 20 or 13 and here I'm 23 and I get my first one and I'm the hero for exactly 12 hours in the next day Papa Bill comes over and whacks to but this the way he said it two I like oh my God yeah cuz he could kill two Do's in that county and two bucks so he killed two yeah it was legal yeah we were always legal but it was it was super cool man and then um just to stay on track with Bill when I moved out west I wanted um very much like you I have this heart I just want to give man I just I I've seen it today from you and it's just amazing what you do for people and I've always kind of been that way especially with with Bill and I wanted to do something for him so in 1999 I was already shooting for Hoy and um I was I wanted to take go mu deer hunting with him CU that's no that's my thing mu deer is my thing yeah and I wanted to yeah and uh so back then you could buy kibab tags over the counter and kab's a beautiful place old days yeah and so I was like Hey I want you to come out here man I'm going to I bought him a bow from the archery shop that I was shooting through put it on lway I bought him a bow everything nice brand new set up and I shipped it to him shoot it and then I want you to come out and August September and come deer hunt with me well he came out and um he' been shooting at I could tell you know I checked him he was shooting he was shooting pretty good and um I had just wrecked my horse I had this um Mustang named cabesto That We rescued from the government they had there's this pin in Governor door New Mexico I was living in New Mexico at the time okay there's this they'll go round up the Mustangs and they auction them off sell them get whatever and there was one in this pin I saw it One D driving by and I and I went over there and I some talked to somebody and they said yeah that one's got a hery they're goingon to put it down I'm like oh man and my wife had been wanting a horse there's a difference between a Mustang and a horse so I was like man so I don't remember all the logistics next thing I know I've adopted this thing from United States government it wasn't nothing wrong with him the hernia wasn't even a hernia just so they put a little band on it DED fell off he's awesome yeah surefooted mountain horse man um he's a Mustang wild wilder than man they're definitely surefooted but you can stay on them and I took him to this guy U Jose was his name big old big Hispanic man and he said I'll break that horse for USA but I am no Whisperer I'm no Horse Whisperer I was like all right I don't care if you beat his brains in we got to get him doing something so Jose breaks this mustang and I was riding him and man I I was going to take him in the back country that year I was going to do a back country hunt M so I was going to just start riding him and get him real used to stuff and then I was going to just pain your on basically walk him in with all my fear while I'm riding him on this Gravel Road we lived in a mobile home back then out in the country and I was up on top of this Mesa and the school bus came put on air brakes that sucker rared up went I went off the front when I landed like this it propped like two ribs off my sternum broke my ribs and I was shooting a 80 lb hoight Viper back then and that was about two weeks before Bill showed up or no about a week before Bill showed up so I had to make him drive I was over there taking vicadin man and going to the Kaibab but I still wanted to hunt with him I'm just taking pain med I'm hurting bad and we get over there and um there's not much you can do for that either no you just got let got write it out yeah and uh so I had we had turkey tag I think you kill turkey there too we had turkey tags and Deer tags I paid for all of it man I mean I I had no business I was making nothing but I just wanted to take care of my pops yeah so I bought him all the stuff and I paid for everything and we went out there had my cab over camper and I just like man we're going to kill monsters here this is the kibab we're going to kill giant bucks I so we split up and I put him in this spot I thought he might see some deer and he was like I'm just going to shoot one that's legal I'm like okay and I was like well I'm going to try to shoot a fourpoint I I at least want to shoot a fourpoint buck and I'm going down this Ridge and I'm just hurting man I already took my pain meds and I'm just hurting I just sat down by this tree and I look here comes this dough walking up toward me there's another deer behind it it's a spike buck with velvet about like that and um he walked up there about 18 yards and picked up a mushroom I just remember that poor little sucker sitting there eating that mushroom looking around having the best day of his life you know I freaking hammered him with that 80 lb ho I was like well I'll send pops home with some meat no matter what and I remember putting that deer up on my shoulders that's how we carry them out I still carry deer out like that it's not for show it's just simply the easiest way to get a deer out of the woods man really if you're not going to break it down and put it in a pack just put it over your shoulders it's way easier man I think yeah and I and I come back and he was so excited you know and I you got one like he didn't care like man you got one and I got yeah any Buck was a trophy oh yeah man it was is amazing that's good old days yep and so the next day we're going to drive up to this new spot and I Come Around the bin man there's a fourpoint buck stand in the bar ditch Ry hard antler it was later in September I was like Bill right there right there I I'm going to pull up here you get out he's over to the edge of the road shoot him up there Bill gets out and he gets about the half draw man the deer's only 30 yards it was like 140 in four point he was just right off the he gets to half draw and that bow explodes oh no he had his arrows all put together in his in his case no must have hit the cut his Yol it cut the Yol and so when he got that pressure on it broke the other y his bow that bow you bought me broke it blew up and I'm like come on man yeah so that wrecked our hunt we went home with a spike and I back then man I didn't I didn't start using a meat processor till till I moved back to Texas man I did everything myself I'd go get soot put if I wanted fat in it or make sausage whatever I made I did everything myself I everything thing DIY so I went home ground that deer up for him made him some hamburgers some steaks and sent it home with him so he got a buck but that's the only um one of the only mu deer hunts me and him ever went on it was a cool experience one of the most common questions I get is how do I start hunting my answer gohunt.com I actually really wish there was something like gohunt available to me when I was younger it would have saved me a lot of time hunting areas that game was scarce go hunt is just like Zillow but for hunting you can see every hunting opportunity in the west and E easily sort by game you're looking to chase along with draw ODS over-the-counter opportunities Harvest stats and even trophy size you can expect even if you've been hunting your whole life the information you can get from go hunt is Way Beyond what you'll find anywhere else it's the best way to go on more hunts every season they've also got public and private land maps in an online gear shop filled with field tested hunting gear not just a basic stuff you can buy at a big box store if you find it in their shop that means they've tested it on hunts and guarantee it's good if you haven't checked out go hunt see for yourself how easy they make it to plan a hunt you can use code cam that's CM when you sign up and you'll get $50 to spend in their gear shop plus 10% off most items in their store Sig sour is leading the firearm outdoor industry in American innovation Ingenuity and Manufacturing for over 250 years six sour has evolved and thrived by blending American Ingenuity German engineering and swiss proc ision Sig is synonymous with industry-leading quality and Innovation which has made it the brand of choice amongst the US military the global defense Community Law Enforcement competitive Shooters hunters and responsible citizens that's why I've decided to partner with them for my personal protection and concealed carry of choice Sig and I are working on some pretty cool collaborations for the archery Community as well Sig and I are working on some pretty cool collaborations for the Archer Community as well and I'm thrilled to have them as a sponsor of the show Sig is actually offering you guys a discount on Optics 2 which is unheard of in the industry I'm looking forward to trying out their new image stabilizing binos the Zulu 6 on my bear hunt in Alberto with the rivets those are also 10% off using Code cam at 6 hour.com that's code cam for 10% off so I mean that's your your origin story for bow honey when did the writing start when did you want to be like in the industry um man that's that's an awesome question question man cuz this kind of connects us right here I um so I remember laying in bed with my wife so I got married out of high school I've been married 36 years married my high school sweetheart we've been together ever since we were 17 but I would read to her at night I would just she would read to me and i' read to her and there's something special about reading to another person you know it's just such a connection I used to read to Roy yeah I heard I love that I love that not exactly my wife but I love that we' read bow hunting stories I love that and my wife she would read me um stuff that I was like but I would read her Bob Rob I would read he was one of my favorite writers back then and then Jim zumbo and I just read anything that was interesting to me and I'd be I'd read and she just listen what was your favorite story like adventure stories yeah yeah big adventure stories man and these guys were and I would tell her I'm going to do this I'm going to go do this stuff someday I'm going to go be one of these guys this is when I'm 22 years old right I'm just I love magazines I still I know you do too I love magazines man um I haven't had a new magazine in so long but I I um I joined Jason's thing the Epic Outdoors yeah those are beautiful magazines you get four times a year and you oh man I read the stories I love them but anyway I'd read to my wife and and I'm like I'm G to be I'm G to I'm I'm I'm doing this this is going be my life I'm going to be a big time Hunter and I'm GNA write about it I just want to do that and so what' she think dude yeah you are she believed in D my wife's believed in me like no one else ever believed in me she still does that's great um she's my number one fan just absolute love of my life but she she has always been that rock for me dude like um not to get off stay but she would sign me up for stuff I didn't even know like we were went to the when we were in New Mexico the first state indoor tournament I ever went to this is how we were we're in the archery shop talking to Jeremy Dugger and Larry my friends and she gets a flyer hey this is a state championship down in Albuquerque you're gonna go to it you're gonna win it I was like what she yep start shooting your bow I don't even know what the scoring rules I don't know right this isn't mid 90s like I just moved to New Mexico um we had no family there we just packed up and said we're going to go start our life out in New Mexico and that's what we did and so we would do things like that cuz she just like I think you're good you're going to she believed in me like you can go do this and I was like well shoot there was no internet so I had to go like I had to go back to the archery shop hey what do I do here we got to shoot these five spots and if you could hit all the whites that's a 300 you'll win with a bow okay loaded up shooting my 80 lb bow with hunting arrows my Carol that I had at the time and I took it down to Albuquerque and I think I placed fifth with that thing in the bow hunter class right and then um I realized I liked that and within a couple of years man I was the State indoor champion in the pin class that was that right then and then I decided to go to Pro and start shooting 3DS and stuff but the in um I knew it was going to be that well when I lived in New Mexico um Jeremy had left Zia Sporting Goods went down to East Main Trade Center which was a big pawn shop it was the big hunting store in that town was a pwn shop but he sold new guns and hunting equipment just wonderful Glenn Fuller excellent man and he hired Jeremy to run an archery shop for him him and Dana clevinger and uh I was Jeremy I had just I've told mine and his story of that thousand times so I I had keyed in on where he was hunting and went to him and pulled a map one day said I think about going here he's like well you're going to be all over top of me so you might as well just come hunt with me that's how we started our friendship right and that family took me under their wing and um he saw something in me and so um this is it's kind of hard Jeremy dugger's my Roy gotcha and uh just Believes In Me Like I believe in Jesus he just Believes In Me man he's just that friend dude that just live she's light and he is salt and he he lifts me up man and we were going fly fishing one day this is sorry we're going fly fishing one day and he goes hey he'd already signed Me on he saw me coming in the shop and he's like man there's something special about you he didn't say that but his action proved that right there's something about you and he's like uh hey you want to be a co-op shooter I'm like what you going to be a co-op shooter what's that man I don't know what that means he goes uh we'll give you a bow at 50% off cost M and you'll shoot for Hoy you'll represent Hoy but when you go to these tournaments around here you'll represent our store yeah yeah yeah yeah that's cool man I'll do that he go we'll get some shirts with your name on it and he goes um we just signed on Jimmy Hambrick too and Jimmy's going to be our Target guy but you're going to be our hunting adviser at the time I'd kill three deer with a bow but I'm going to be a hunting adviser I was like okay man yeah because I I loved it big man and I killed a lot with a gun I loved it big I loved archery and bow hunting big and when you love it that big be a staff shooter and have your shirt with your name on it that's a big deal for young Bow Hunter yeah man and I'm like yes I'm all over that man and so I took it so serious I read everything Randy wrote I read everything he was my guy so I set my sight I've emulated different men in my life that I'm a chameleon dude I can emulate different men for the right reason I told you about Tommy Young I emulated him to be the man I am I emulated Randy to be the industry man that I am a deadly shot approachable friendly intelligent about all matters archery and bow hunting and just be a killer but just be a good guy yeah first time I ever saw Randy olmer I was at a shoot and he a kid wanted his autograph Randy Elmer reached in his quiver and pulled out his own ACC and autograph the vein and hand it to the kid I'm like man that's a $30 Arrow yeah and you just gave it to that kid MH pretty nice will you be my dad so Randy knows the stuff about me too me and him talked a lot he's become a close friend not close he's become an industry friend um and when he was started hunting Colorado I was living there and he would call me and ask questions so that's pretty big deal you rmer asking advice about I looked up to him big time also he he was a legend he's been a legend he's a good man he's just a good guy and he's always been good he's always been consistent that's what I look for in a person you got to be consistent so I was reading his stuff and I started going to tournaments and just I took it way more serious than the next guy so guess what happens then you're the big fish in Little Pond and I mean I'm not just going out win and I'm destroying by 30 40 points between me and second place and I'm just and that's with pins once I put a scope on I was like 40 points ahead of the next guy and so um I was I started out doing that well so Jeremy gave me that opportunity to be that guy I supposed to be I was supposed to be just the hunting guy but I can't if it's a bow I'm going to be competitive with it and so I was spanking the pants off everybody in our in competition until some people got serious about then you know over a little bit of time the next Guy starts learning H you know and then you got competition I had to travel outside of my realm to get competition though and um but anyway we're going fly fishing one day me and Jeremy goes hey he throws this magazine in my lap and it's Eastman's um bow hunting Journal first issue this is 99 I think mhm 99 yeah or late 99 early 2000 he throws me this magazine he goes hey you can write you can go huny write your stories take good pictures put it in there they send you a hat I was like what he goes yeah they'll send you a hat says Pro Staff no way yeah dude you can write I was like who's Eastman like you know the old guy Gordon Eastman with his son Mike now is running this thing and you can write for it this is my friend showing me how to elevate yeah right not not I'm going to suppress you I'm not going to show you this cuz I want to be the guy no you go I know how you I I know who you want to be mhm you want to be great at this and share your experience you want to go be bow hunting great not popular not famous but greatness I've always wanted to be bow hunting greatness that's what I wanted like just a good I wanted to be a Randy Homer that's just I want to go be great but to to your point to have a friend that believes in you like that and and you're right cuz most most guys want a suppress competition yes you know and or they want the shine instead he's he's showing you where you can get some yes and that's he knows your dream yeah he knew my dream and so he he throws me this magazine goes you can go right and I'll send you a hat and stuff cool man well I that year I'd never killed one Pope and young animal this was in 2000 I'd never killed a pop and young animal of any kind I killed a 80-inch Antelope my first antalope I went New Mexico I got him it's a big buck yeah 80 incher then I killed 145 inch net 4x4 mu deer buck and then I went killed a 40 143 inch white tailing Kansas killed three poping Young Bucks it's a good year here we go baby I'm sponsored I got my name on my shirt I got the street creds now I can go write something that's meaningful and I wrote an article called pop a poping young medley mhm like a vegetable medley well this is a poping young medley I just I remember it and I wrote it and I reached and so I'd gotten a issue of Eastman's in the mail and guess who was on the freaking cover of it this dude named Cameron Haynes and it was the most beautiful picture of an anvelope you've ever seen the light was beautiful had your bandana on and here's this golly man's amazing so I called the editor at the time something you told me earlier rod rod rod Hart I called rod and I said hey um I got this story these are the three animals I killed okay they they meet the qualifications they're they're do DIY the white tail was DIY and the other two were um DIY public land so they all kind of meet the criteria to write the article cuz and and I'm glad they did that right like there's there criteria to get in our magazine you know back down no fences here right so I want to have the street creds to to be this guy or to write the story so I call him and I I'm comparing my photos to your photo on the cover and he's like that guy don't don't I just remember his voice don't worry about that guy that guy's an anomaly don't don't you whatever like he he wasn't discrediting you was like that's so far from where you are right now don't worry about this guy I was like okay so I write the article on hand wrote it I handw wrote it on paper I didn't have a computer back then and I went over to my sister-in-law's house and she had a computer and I sat there one night at their house I typed it all up mailed it to him and dude I subscribed yeah I had already subscribed cuz that's how I got yours and when I saw my work in that magazine like it was just like getting a gold medal man like golly this is millions of people are going to see me no I remember that feeling too I mean when you when you work not so you have to work so hard to make it happen and it's the year the sacrifice or years of of putting in time of learning this discipline is bow hunting then getting it done on a hunt and then writing an article is hard work yeah so to see that in print where other people are going to see it and you your hard work is validifi right there yeah it that is powerful and I had the cap man and you got the Pro Staff cap from E's that's I totally get it because I would I would race if it was like within a month of when my magazine might be coming out that I had an article in I'd be racing to the mailbox every day yeah just waiting it's so like yeah no one listen to this is going to understand that unless they're they've done what we doing because it's it's such instant gratification to just pick that phone up and find whatever you wanted to say today well and and now you can just po you kill something you just post it and say whatever you want before if we wanted to share something other than if it was at at the Bow Shop it was yeah 6 months you know what I mean oh yeah man just having that opportunity to pin up a picture at the Bow Shop was big deal yeah and then you write an article and then everybody at the bow shop that gets that magazine is looking at you different like that guy is legit man and it's an awesome feeling man and that that got me into Eastman's and then um and like I said earlier when we were on the mountain talking I learned to so um something about me is I'm like that Don Williams song um good old boys like me I was smart and I could choose I could learn to talk like the men on the 6:00 news I can read the room and I can speak the language very fast and I just I I'm do that comes from the beatdowns of the childhood that I had I had to watch what room I was in when I was in it and it just you know it's just it's just part of who I am man I've figuring things out survival Instinct survival Instinct well same thing in writing so when my article came out I would read I'd go back and read what I wrote and I'd look at the word smithing they used in what they was published okay change this word for this word flip this sentence and it was pretty good I that I wasn't good in school but I was good in English I was pretty good in English uh terrible in math but I'm good in English um so I enjoyed it and I wrote about hunting in high school I I would write about articles about I I write stories you know I've at essay um essay I wrote when I was run with Fred Miller he taught me the art of going and bartering at a at a pawn shop how to talk somebody down if you have cash instead of a check or credit card I wrote an essay about that my senior year of how to Jew down or pawn shop to get a gun at the price you want is that weird dude but that's the kind of guy I am I I wrote about that and uh I got A+ on she's like that's some crazy content but man you know your business about this Mr SM yeah my passion just to know it but also to put it pin to paper to where it makes sense you know so I mean that's that's a skill yeah yeah it and I had that and so I was able to write a decent article and then I would look at what they edited and what I got back I learned a self-edit and then inject this dude named cam hannes in 2002 so I'm getting the a magazine for a year or two and in there like I'm thirsty I'm hungry and I'm wanting more I want more information I want everything I can read about hunting and uh cuz I want to go Next Level right and so um oh good story about how I got to Hoy too don't let me don't let me forget to tell you about Hoy okay cuz I did it on purpose I got crappy on purpose okay yeah so um I see this ad they let you run ads in Eastman's for your it had to have been to let you run ads for your book in Eastman's right for your first book b hunting trophy Blacktail and I got that I I I saw that and so I I remember writing a check and mailing it to you and I get this post office uh you know the book The Boxes you put books in in the mail I'm like I God this book I think that's the first thing I ever bought mail ordered in hunting was your book so I get this book and I'm like it's hard back this guy's got this velvet Buck on the cover and your pictures just spoke to me man I'm like this guy is connecting with me like I I just dude I just felt it immediately when I started reading it from the forward from Lon lobber cuz I was already reading his stuff like oh Lon lobber he's that's the man right there you know and so I I I I really liked his writing he was a good Bow Hunter and then he was wrote your forward and then your pictures man just the I talked about that Arrow coming out of the page and uh um you and Tracy with the llamas I was like this a good dude because that matters to me your relationship with your wife and how you treat your family like we had that chili in there tonight with your that felt like I was just one of of the cousins man felt so good I just felt so inviting and warm and loving in there man and so I knew this is my kind of guy and it just made me hungrier for more of your writing and then when you started putting features in the magazine I just became a fan like I just I couldn't that like when I would when I'd get the magazine I'd go straight to the table of contents and see what Cameron Haynes wrote and I'd go find it because that's all I cared about I didn't care about this Yahoo from Montana killed a bull I want to go see what Cam said this week that's when I got those magazines that's all that mattered to me so um and I saw you on TV hunting with I think it was when you were hun with Mike Eastman and you killed that hard antler buck in Montana in that ditch or something I saw that right before I met you that was a 2001 is I'm guessing somewhere in there 2000 2001 I can't remember all the dates but I knew that was the first time I saw you and heard you talking no it was some little bitty for point you killed I think that's what it was and I think that was in Montana too but anyway I heard you talking and I was like golly I like that guy and then um I saw the first it was like the first ISC show ever in Denver in 2002 I went and uh they had that little tent set up where you're playing the videos in there you and Royal and your bear hunts and stuff and I went in there and I I was like man this guy the way you were dressed was different like um I never told you this I going to tell you anymore I was like man this guy's coolish this guy's cool man he's different CU you had on like pleated like pants and you had on a blue shirt and you had these cool like buckle shoes on you just you weren't dressed like a redneck you were dressed like a professional Bow Hunter and I'm like man this guy is I mean not not like no homo but I was like this guy's got he's put together and you were so cool though the thing about you is how cool you are and you're just like hey what's going on man hey I'm marks SM and you're like oh you know who I like back then you were still surprised someone knew who you were right yeah yeah man I know all I got your book and you were like oh really you got my book I'm like I got your book I read all your stuff and then there was a copy of my article sitting on the counter and I went yeah yeah that's me you went this is you I'm like yeah and then you were like you paid attention you're like oh okay mhm and then um you came back over to the booth like you found me later you came back over to our booth I was there with archery Adventures the archery shop I was shooting for and you were like you wanted to talk to me I could tell you couldn't acted the same way I did and we started talking and man I think from that point on WE traded emails and it just we became that was that's the day we met we became friends and then I can remember wanting to do good so you would be proud of me like I want to do good man I want to I want to kill animals and I want to write these stories I want cam to be proud of me and so that's so it takes I think it takes balls to say that these days everybody so but it's true man I wanted you to be proud of me because I was proud of you I was proud of and I could see what you were doing like you were breaking the code to be a standout what you call an outlier you were you were breaking the code for outliers in our industry and I've always respected that and I've always seen that and I've never thrown shade at you I've I've always just was respectful of your space and what you were doing because I knew what you were doing like and U and I try to emulate that too like I want to you know not I don't take risk like you do we talked about that today I don't take big risk but I just never felt like I could man and and maybe maybe I might be able to now but I just saw what you were doing and and so I would write those articles knowing you were going to be the guy to read them and get them right and then publish them and and then you would call me cuz like that time in 2001 when I had that incredible season that warm Colorado welcome and I killed a big 181 inch Buck a 6o no a fivepoint bull and another Antelope Snider me and Aaron Snider had gone out and killed this Antelope like on the Dark Side of the Moon he talks about that to this day like I that guy disappeared in this grass that was an inch tall I didn't like whatever him and Travis are sitting in Minivan and he goes and so I go out there and I shoot this analou man like I don't know how I did it but I got him killed I come dragging him back and Travis is in the back seat little kid right and Snider sitting in the driver's seat of my wife's van we're just driving around glass and anal up on this Ranch shoot and U he's like you know SNY holy eward I think he got something Anda he goes he laughed he goes Travis looks up at me goes you've never H with my dad before have you and it was a cool moment for me right and so Snider we only hunted one or two days to get and I killed this antalope so I this anope this Buck outsized really big buck and this deer and that's the year the bear trashed our camp just tore all of our remember those pictures we went home we had that in in the magazine I think yeah and you needed more information on that cuz you actually wrote a sidebar about bear safety for me I didn't write about I just said the bear tore up my stuff and then there was the picture of the tent just trash we left this tent with all the food dumb right stupid all the stuff for a week to come back the next week to hunt we show up to camp and is like a bulldozer went through there and so you called me on the phone and back then it was just you if you want to talk to somebody call them you're not going to you know DM them or nothing so you called me I remember I was on Parker Road in Denver Colorado I can remember like it just happened five minutes ago my wife's driving and I was riding this and you call hello that's hey this is Cam hey man what's going on you're like hey I just need a little more information about the bear I was going to talk to you about it I was like do you me to send you something you're like no man we're getting this thing ready for press just tell me real quick what some stuff and I told you the stuff and man exactly what I told you you put it in the article and then um boom I just started then I was that's like man now I've been in eans twice with epic adventure and then in and so meanwhile this back to the hoit story I had been trying to get on with Hoy and I was sending Mich I'd asked jackhead he was the rep at the time and I said hey man who do I need to talk to to Go Pro Staff I want to go full-blown Pro I'm be Pro bow hunter why Hoy because of Randy no I just knew hoists were the best BS okay and I'm being honest I just felt they were and Jeremy did too they just I just felt they were the best they've always looked like the the most well engineered B just like just something about them premium yeah are premium I already and I'd already had great success with them and to this day I think they have a warranty department I couldn't tell you yeah I have no 1998 S one back either since 1998 I've never even tested their warranty service so I have no idea if it's good or not yeah that's says a lot mhm and so I um I wanted to be on their Pro Staff because of Randy and I wanted to be on there because it was this prestigious place to be man MH and I just felt like I was pretty good bow hunter I needed to be a pro yeah and so I kept sending letters resumes like putting together a resume like with pictures articles and I send them and every year i' get the Dear John Letter back from Mike Looper not at this time not at this time thanks for your interest thanks for your interest yeah man hard I know I'm like you don't even know me man if you knew me you'd like I'd make you like me and so I was like you know what I'm going to do I'm going stick a thumb right in their eye and I went back to Grover Grover C he was running the archery shop there on the Archery Hut the one B Pino owns now it was on the Air Force yeah and U um Grover Cass owned it at the time and uh he had just signed me on to shoot for him and he didn't carry hoists at the time and um I was shooting hoists for jackhead so that was I was getting a free bow from the rep right and then I had to represent the region not just a shop but the region and um I wanted to go Factory Pro Staff MH and so because that was next level up that was the highest level yeah and so I uh got the Dear John Letter From Looper and it just really set me back like man this is my third year trying I had no business I had no business being on their Pro Staff but it's no no fault of Mike Looper at all I'll just say I'll just say I wrote my first book having after killing seven bucks so seven bucks all of a sudden I'm writing a book on how to do it so it's like we sometimes you know this this journey the patience is a hard part yeah you want you want that end result before you really earned it you know if if we're being truthful I didn't really earn the the right to have written a book yet but I did right I'm like I'll get other experts South Cox Lon lobber and they can help me put this package together so I I totally get where you're coming from on third year you want to be Factory proa on probably one of the biggest archery companies in the world oh yeah for sure man and and so um I went down to the Archery Hut there and I was talking to Grover and he goes well I don't I'll sign you on I know your reputation and stuff and you can shoot and you're a nice guy and all that but I don't carry Hoy I said what you got you know he was a huge psse dealer so psse let me see what you got that was the year the pre this was 2003 the year the Primos STL speak the language came back never even speak the Lang that was back when they used the um barnesdale I think it was barnesdale LMS yeah cuz I I got burned on those teardrop axle blowouts no you did too I went through three of them in one season yeah and so they were awesome bows though but this that was not good plastic injection mold I they're great people whatever um but that Primos had those barnesdale Limbs and I liked that and I shot that thing lights out I won the State outdoor Target championship in the Pro division with that bow and camouflage with that it was a solo Cambo it a single cam bow it's a good shooting bow and I freaking dude I I like I shot really good and I think there was about it ain't like I was the only Pro I think there was like eight in the Pro division MH and I just wor out with that camouflage but I didn't wor and I was I wasn't Factory Pro Staff so I like if I'm not Factory Pro Staff I'm nothing I'm I wore a plaid shirt and a Dr Pepper ball cap with a camo bow and I spank the pants off these guys yeah and uh won some money and a trophy and then I took that same bow and there was a guy working there that could make stickers I said I want you to make me the biggest that will fit on this quiver and bow red psse stickers you remember John May John May was a great bow hunter I don't know what happened to him that guy was a great he was a good guy remember we had him on the cover of East with a big white tail big heavy white tail you remember that kind of like at a night shot and then the aners were yeah I think it was a white tail he's just a he I met him he was a very humble good man I have no idea that guy fell off the planet great hunter him and you were on staff then him Jeff Dobbins remember there was a lot of people on that staff back then and and um I uh and so that was part of it too Cam's on there I go over there and be with those guys and so I had this guy made me these big red PSC cutout stickers and I put one on the hood of the quiver on the face of the limbs on the inside of the limbs I want every I want the world to know I'm a PSC guy MH and I'm fing go tear this mountain down I'm going make poy feel it yeah and I did that's when I went and wrote that determined article and I and I remember setting down um by that Creek washing my face and getting my cup and that when you open that spread determined yeah and there's just me with all this psse stuff well that was in September I killed that well in October of the next year the sales meeting they would have this uh KB Outdoors that was jackhead he would bring all of his sales all of his shops in to show them the gear and everything it was at ho headquarters mhm and I went to uh this is going to tell you another cool story this is lead into something else I so I went to I I grew over was like Hey I'm going to start carrying Hoy I was like oh okay he goes well I know you know those guys and everything would you like to go over there and represent the shop and go set in I'm like I'll go over there is Mike Looper gonna be there he's like yeah so um this article had just come out and um man it was good y'all did a good job put some be that's the only time I've been on the cover but I'm in the corner of the cover with my pack on glassing but all that PS stuff caught Mike Loop's attention because he got the he was going to read everything that was coming out back then and he saw that well I went to this sales meeting and I'm sitting in there and Mike Loper just keeps staring at me across the room and I can tell he's looking at me right like he's recognizing who I am I'd never met him before MH and so we break for our first pee break in the morning like 10 or something and he walks over hey um you look really familiar I was like yeah I'm Mark Smith who are you he goes I'm Mike Looper I'm like oh nice to meet you Mike he goes hey I saw your Eastman's article what happened bro what happened I was like what do you mean what happened he goes you had a psse in your hand he goes what would it take what would it take to get a ho back in those hands I said that's all on you bro yeah that's all on you man I've I've written you I've called I've done everything I can and I'm going where the opportunities are and uh you know those a pretty good bow they got over there so I don't you know I'm like dude I do anything yeah he's like come over come come over to the can you come can you come over to head quarters after this thing today I'm like yeah dude I walked out of there with a signed contract more stuff that me and my family can carry of hoit Swag they take me over to East check this out he's like we're GNA take you over to East too son so they take me over to Easton and I can't remember the guy's name then he was a the marketing guy for Easton but he like not Gary no it was before Gary okay this was in 200000 this is in 2003 um going into the 2004 season okay and um yeah and so I go over there to Easton and the fat boy and the axes weren't launched yet they were going to launch them ATA and January MH I'm pretty sure and I would have to go I I don't know who I would ask but I'm pretty sure I'm the first human being to ever kill an animal that needs to access Arrow because I went over there I got to sign contract um a target bow and a hunting bow you know they're going to put me on hunting and Target Pro Staff now I mean they went all over that's awesome yeah dude oh yeah that's big deal yeah it was really big and I'm not trying to it was amazing like my wife and I are like crying we left there like wow cuz she was part of it my kids were my kids have ho hoodies my you know what I mean my whole family so um we go over to Easton and this guy's like hey come here we're not launching these yet but I want you to have them this is going to be our Target arrow for like the 3D guys it's a fat boy it's a thick carbon Arrow line cutter yeah I was like okay and he goes and this one right here here man um this is the eastn axis we talked about in the sales me he not going to launch so you can't really let nobody see him until January I said okay well I had a bison hunt in November so this was like in October I killed a bison with E Axis at 60 yard pass through shot him through the shoulders and dumped him man he didn't go he didn't go nowhere I'm film and just dumped him and um it was private land in Colorado but there's a place down the South Park it was huge Ranch like six, thousand of Acres man and so that you couldn't just walk out and shoot one with a bow guy was like y' Ain going to get one with a bow you bring a gun to shoot one you going to get one with a bow like okay challenge accepted and we were in a foot of snow me and Sean Dennison and um dude it was 600 bucks and you got to keep the whole thing wow the meat the hide the head I got the shoulder Mount I got the hide and the meat those those oh my gosh those Prime ribs were just amazing my wife was like man you that was like the you know if you could ever do that again I keep putting in for the Henry's over in Utah I'm like 17 points now but um it wasn't a wild Henry's but it was a hunt you know I made a hunt out of it I found a 2-year-old bull I wanted to kill and I stayed after him all day in snow and here I I just raised up out of the snow with my ultr tech man 60 yards and just laced him like right in the pocket just oh dude that but I can't E Axis in 2003 Fred Iker did not see his first e access till 2004 and so I'm like yeah yeah but it was cool man like I have just to be acknowledge like I just have that I have that I have that I can go look at that picture that bison today and go I know that story and and and U that's believing in myself man even so it's hard and we're impatient but that self-belief like even when no one else Believes In Me all I need to know is is you know I have the Lord in my heart and I have my wife on my side and the rest is cake baby I'm going to get mine I'm going to go I'm going to go get mine the hard thing been for me speaking of that is um that whole I'm going to get mine you've got to realize when you've gotten yours and you've had enough now it's time to share yeah and that it was hard for me because when we were all in that space coming up together I always say me and you came up in the industry together and we did but I realize you were a little ahead of me but you um you were so determined you had such a I can't say you had a plan you were just you're kind of I think you're a lot like me where I don't necessarily have goals but I don't have limits I that's what I tell every even about my job and my day job my career in refrigeration it's I don't know they're like where you going to go cuz I'm a director now and I have a huge span from Farmington New Mexico to Baton Rouge Louisiana and everything in between so Texas Louisiana New Mexico was all mine I didn't go to college I started off sweeping a refrigeration Shop with a broom and I'm a director on like doing good and they're like well how what are you going to do next I I don't know if they need a president I'll be the president they want a CEO I'll be the CEO I don't know mhm I'm not going to put that limit on myself right do I have a goal to go be a CEO no they have to travel too much it cut into my hunting I don't want to go do that but if they called upon me I go where the need is right and one that that's I love about the group I work with now is man everybody's Reaching Across the aisle helping each other all the time I'm just I don't I'm where I belong in my day job I just with the best people man that's great yeah shout out to the ticom group I love those guys I I am just a cool CEO and my boss is just freaking salt man and I just I I don't h i don't have to go to work I get to go to work and I love that saying you say it too I get to get up and do my job every day and I just love I have a team of men that they would crawl through the gates of hell for me CU they know I would I would lead them there I would I would be with them too you and so I love that part of it but um you know uh just being a leader and giving back to those people and giving them my time and knowing when I've had it I've got mind things I can make things look easy because of experience but just given that encouragement I have a group text with all my field leaders every and I tell them good morning fellas how we doing today anybody got anything burning down that needs my touch today that's got to mean the I've never had a boss say that to me right like and they'll be like most of them are like oh I'm good but some of them will say yeah man I'm burning down over here and I need help in this El Pas I need help and abene or whatever and I call I call another service manager I get people rock and roll into the de go help them out and give just be there for them man and so that kind of that's you know my hunting career and my work career they're the same thing it's about troubleshooting it's problem solving and getting it done because Back Country hunts are a lot like that you know and so as I've been grinding and working my way up through the mountains and at my job they just paralleled each other man like you you know it's like you saw me on that mountain today man I was troubleshooting I'd get that rock over here over here in the center I'd bend over and I never puked no you didn't I never cried no you did great you did great yeah so it's uh so you're so you're kind of coming up to the ranks making a name for yourself getting added on to hoy's factory staff everything going good and then you're were kind of saying well when have you got you know like determined when when when were you satisfied you know what I mean or or you said you don't put limits on yourself I mean you me you mentioned me that I hadn't and so how is how is that your journey kind of kind of uh mimic that I guess um like in the hunting industry of No Limits yeah um the more involved I got are you where you want to be now no oh no I don't have my own Studio I don't have lift run shoot I don't have to keep hammering Collective and I don't want to copy you but I want what you have but I don't I want to copy you I want to go have what Mark has yeah I'm not a el guy I'm a mu deer guy right I want to go be the MU deer guy that's I don't know but I don't I want to do more yeah if I could make if if I could go um I don't know man I just love bow hunting and and the whatever the next steps are for me if you'd have told me prior to three months ago that I'd be sitting here doing this with you I wouldn't think you would ever even though you're my good friend I feel like you're my good friend I I who am I I don't I don't belong here I don't belong in this room but you know I think people listening to this that don't know you you know I mean some in the a lot of people in the industry know you some that listen to this won't know you but you cannot question your integrity your heart um the words you speak anybody listening can can be like that guy's a straight shooter oh yeah so whatever he's saying whatever it is I might not know that much about it but I believe it yeah that goes so far in this day and age you know cuz people just want somebody who's just be honest with them yeah so you're honest um so I mean I think it's I love having you here and it's like what I the hunting industry it's you know there's so so many stories you could tell about it good and bad right you know because as we've said I've mentioned it there's a lot of ego and hunting and you know as I was telling you earlier today that's kind of that go goes with the territory CU you have to believe in yourself at such a high level to be successful in the mountains because everything is against you so you have to have a little bit of an ego or I don't know if it's self-belief ego that those get mixed up but when you're that type of person you are going to be in competition with other men so that's how hunting the hunting industry works but point is it's like uh I with you um you've always been in my corner yeah you've always believed in me you talked about your wife believes in you and and Jeremy believes in you well I feel like you've always believed in me too I feel like Roy always believed in me and we're very lucky to have people like that who believe in us and and also in in turn I've always like admired um just there's something about you that like I said you're believable and I loved you know how you cared so much about telling a story and getting that story just right I remember there's another story too about I think you were with your son and I think you killed a six you haven't killed a ton of bulls but you killed a 6x6 bull I remember right yeah wasn't that with your son um was there was there a story like that there was a story where I took my son I killed a buck and a bull it was my next Eastman story okay but I had him with me at 14 13 I took him on his first Back Country hunt yeah um and I I've always I never pushed hunting on my kids but it was up V was always there yeah you want to go and so Travis who was a little scrawny little guy yeah that's what I remember and he had I know what year that was he's got a picture that was in 200 um five yeah there's a picture of him on the mountain drinking from a he looks like a total little ba man he's up there drinking out of he had on a b and I made him carry his own stuff like I pulled a h h on him I made him carry his own weight he had to carry his own food his own water his bed every he's scrawny the dude don't weigh 100 PBS yeah perfect little he had a little ho bow he emptied that quiver three times he shot at a 340 bull cuz he had points that I didn't have so I put him in for an elk in that unit and I watched him at 50 yards and I had him shootting about 45 lbs he was shooting cut on contact UM was or uh Magnus Stingers Stingers yeah yeah and I was like you can get and he was hitting he could pop balloons at 50 yards that Broadhead would kill something yeah I was like you think you can make it and I watched it go right under his chest it was a 347 by7 it was beautiful bull to this day he's like oh man I watched him empty hisz you could kill doe in that unit too I watched him empty that quiver on Doe's but he had Target Panic like you could not but dude I smoked a buck with him at my side that's hard to do man yeah to kill a I killed a big heavy three-point Buck three by3 for the back three-point me and him were coming up this Trail I looked down this little Bowl right below us in the um in the willow patch and this these five bucks are feeding up and I smoked one and it started raining soon as I shot I mean bottom fell out and we were above Timberline went gotten a 10 I said we'll get him in the morning and I hit him quarter and two me so that exited way back here so he went pretty far down the mountain just running straight down the mountain and I remember man getting him down there and putting him on the blood and I just stayed back he found I let him find it oh man he just he loved that but um that was his first High Country hunt but I never I want to say this this is It's a good segue to this part that I want to talk about um I kind of thought about this earlier a little bit about sponsorships and and free stuff yeah so Travis is um 20 years old almost 20 this was in 2012 this is my last year as a resident in Colorado and um I was already smelling what was brewing on the horizon I was going to be coming back to Texas and um so I was like you know I need to take Travis on a back country elk hunt like legit Back Country eight miles in you know down my favorite elk spot and so we trained for it and got him shooting good and everything and I was like hey you need take he was working at Dick Sporting Goods he's already graduated high school he working at Dicks and I said hey I want I want to take you on a back country elk hunt and um Chase uh Hudson my T talk to you my friend from Utah he was going to come over he was Liv in Utah at the time so the three of us backpacked down into this Wilderness in Colorado and I took him back to my favorite Avalanche shoot like there's a spot right by this Creek that man I can always find a bull in there so I took him back there on WE hike it takes all day to hike in there set up camp get up the next morning hunt your way up and then you got to be ready in the afternoon in this Avalanche shoot there's a big metal at the base of it comes down this Avalanche shoot a meadow drops into this River and then another big Meadow down here and um I start cow calling and man I'm just bull light up and these cows are all chirping it's just like elk heaven right below us man just bugling I'm like man get ready and so I said I'm going to back up about 50 yards I'm going to call that bull he's going to come right across the creek going run right up here man going smoke him down okay there's a 5x5 bull he comes across I can hear him Splash in the river below and my heart's pounding man and Travis um he rares back and like I told you before he he has Target panic and this wasn't from Target Panic this is just from holy crap there's a bull Arrow between that thing's antlers man like I'm watching and I see Travis shoot this Bull's looking at us Arrow like goes between his antlers did that kill it um huh and he he he just looks at me with this look like like I like what I'm like I don't know what what did you where were you aiming I had it right on his brisket I'm like I don't think so I saw you shooting you know he was hitting this you know this this can at 50 last night I don't I don't think so homeboy and so um he was pretty deflated and I was just like hey it's bow hunting man I get trust me I get it man yeah and um he uh I think it was the same season maybe the season before no was the year before he killed his first deer with a bow he killed a dough at 70 yards with his bow yeah double like 12 reinger broadside a good shot yeah and so he got that one he's proud of it and everything and so this um he missed this bull and then all of a sudden this big bugle right below us I was like Hey and on the hunt I said I don't I only want to kill a big old 6x6 herd bull or nothing and you kill every other bull we call in well I GL down there man there's 15 cows in this big old dinosaur I was like it's Daddy's turn I was like he goes no no no I don't think I could kill that thing so he got to watch me from a bird's eye view strip down cross this River come up the other side belly crawl out into the middle of the herd no call just he watching bird ey view of me crawl out into the middle of the herd and make a lofty shot and smoke this huge bull down for Colorado over the counter and I I got him dude like really yeah and he's just like he ran up to me and just dude real tears I mean big ones just shooting out of his face like he's so excited and happy for me you know that he's like God you're like you're just amazing man you're like you're just amazing guy you're dad you're an amazing guy I'm like cool man whatever we got some work to do here so I um start breaking the bull down and he never seen any of that I break the bull down I put it in game bags I got it all hung up I was like okay in the morning we got to hike out and call the Packer we ain't backpacking this bull out of here so here's another experience we backpack all the way up out of this Canyon with get service I call him and I'm reading off GPS coordinates the next day the Outfitter comes in friend of mine with mules I mean he's able to walk the mules right under the game bag cut the cord drop in the piard and Travis is like you're like a pro dad you're like a professional bow hunter yeah I was like well I've done this before son and so he's just seen his dad a different guy for the first time like I just had this whole this you know step one step two step three like at every step right then and what really impressed him is now we've we've killed a bull worked to the middle of the night hiked all the way out got an Outfitter come all the way back in and the next morning he's thinking this coffee time we'll sleep whatever and I'm up before the sun yeah hey get up we got a hunt we got a hunt you got a tag let's go and he's like you are you are you serious I can't even feel my feet right now man like get up get dressed we're going you got to get you a bull man and we go we go down the river about two two and a half miles to the next Avalanche shoot and I hear a bugle and I start calling and we start closing in strip down cross the river put closeth back on go grind go grind and it's very much like carrying the rock up Pisa it's this this grind is a grind to get up this Hillside and your dead Falls and Aspens and you're just going man and I put push and I push and I push and I push and we're about to bench out and it's like a 32 6x6 bull I can see him raking a tree I'm like hey man um this is bigger than the one I shot it wasn't older it was better scoring ball right I was like Hey and I'm just I'm like hey this is this is a big bull he's like 320 what I was like yeah he's good he's bigger than anyone I've ever killed look don't don't look at his antlers he's broadside when we ease up there he's going to be about 40 yards just put your 40 yard pin on and smoking man you good yeah I'm good okay we ease up there man and the Bulls just raking a tree but right when we topped out he decided to walk around the tree and looked right at us oh God and then he's turned now facing us yeah and then he then he starts to turn and I went and I leaned over at the waist I went 43 and I leaned over and but the instant he hit full draw the bull just bolted oh and and was gone God God dang it yeah and he just he I I have this picture of him sitting on a log it starts raining to to beat the band and he's sitting on this log with this thing pulled over his head and he's just sitting there with this bow in his lap and it's the it's the it is the epitome of defeat that's a low moment it's the lowest moment he this close to Glory this close to Glory yeah and we get and he's like he's fried I've already got a dead bull he he there been a roller coaster of emotions for that kid and he goes hey Dad I want you to know I love you and I'm so you are an amazing person but I have had all I can take he goes I I I cannot take another let down like that let me go regroup and rebuild and rest strengthen for the next season but I cannot I can't not kill the next one like I I don't want to I want to stop trying because emotionally I don't think I can take it if I don't kill I'm like all right man well it's at this point now it's your hunt I'm going to push you to the point where you don't want to go but if you don't want to go I get it he goes no no no I am so grateful I'm so thankful for this experience and it's been so enriching and everything and we ate elk steaks on Open Fire and the whole had the whole experience and we get back to Camp that night and he's like hey I get it now he goes I all my life that I can remember boxes of stuff show up like binoculars camouflage boots bows everybody knows you all this stuff right like that's all like probably like a lot of your kids they don't know they just they do now they're grown but when they're little kids they don't know what you did for all of this stuff to show up at your door and he goes you and your to have your son tell you this is incredible he's like you're an amazing man like you are you work harder at that than most men work at their job I get it now I know why wants to give you a bow they're glad to give you a carbon bow every year and these arrows and these broadheads and these boots and these things he goes I just I took it for granted but no one no no one's going to outwork you on this mountain I just I just really appreciate what you've done dad and to have your son tell you that is powerful man and then I'm like good I'm glad you get it but it's also I mean I don't know I have to just for him to have that perspective as a young man yeah that's rare yeah so whatever you've done however or maybe maybe that's just how he is but however it worked to where he could have that insight and that CU that's wisdom yeah in some respects to be able to to articulate that how that felt for him and to see you in this light that is as a father I don't know if it gets any any bigger than that yeah it was it was it was I don't want to say life-changing but it was important it was an important moment for my son and I on the mountain and so now he works for me I'm his boss and um you know it's weird it's hard people think that if you're the boss's son man you've got it made it is way harder with the expectation that I have on people I I expect a lot I expect Excellence that's in my tagline at work on my signature you know expect Excellence I expect Excellence because I'm going to give you my very best right and if I'm going to give you my very best I expect your very best and and my son being working for me that's got to be hard man that's he told me he's like dude you cast freaking huge Shadow yeah he he wants out of it like he wants out of my shadow and he wants to be able to go do his own things but we're just like best friends and he just wants to be involved in everything I do and so it's it's a weird mix but I never let it get out of balance I never let it get out of check but I also treat him like a partner and I've had since he was 13 since the first time he went on the mountain I let him help me make decisions like from hey what do you think we should camp and if he makes a decision then he has positive impact from that decision then he he I've strengthened him to make good decisions he's building confidence yeah and he's like where do you think we should bet I said well I always personally sleep in Deer beds it's the only flat spot on the mountain so I would just try to look around so he starts looking around and I knew we we were in the proximity of where I wanted to be but he's like I think this is a pretty good spot I think that is a pretty good spot so we made Camp let him find the you're empowering now yeah I empowered him to make decisions now he's a business that's big deal dude's leading $10 million worth of my business right now so it's like dude you're you're amazing little guy and he and he's uh um he's a good partner but anyway I had that and I have stories like that with my daughter too you know she my daughter Casey she's older than him but um 2007 she she came she was she was going to go to the Navy I was like oh okay I'm not whatever I would in the military I love the military but I wasn't in the military she was spending the summer with her grandma and grandpa and Grandpa he's a Vietnam you have you know go get your VA loans you do he was right he was and she's like my daughter's very much like tan like Bookworm like smart man like um super smart and so she went in the Navy man she was a she was a petty officer whatever cryp Tech she was like she intercepted enemy fire types like she has the highest level of security that you can get in the nation she could have a job at loed Martin SpaceX stuff like she's super intelligent and she's super um just she's a mom of four right now yeah but she got a degree and she she she was in the Navy six years on a warship and saw some crazy stuff proud of her yeah oh my gosh I'm super proud of her but she went to um boot camp got out of boot camp was fixing to go to a school the last week of August MH and she going come home I'm coming home last week of August MH [ __ ] man fix I'm fixing to go deer I'm fixing to go to the mountains man and so I was like man I want to spend time with Casey but I wanted to go bow hunting and I think she just I'm her hero you know she we adore each other my daughter adors me I adore her and uh I want to be around her she wants to be around me but I don't want to go bow hunting to I don't want to miss opening weekend of bow season yeah so it's cool this cool thing man I'm I come in and my wife she comes in they've been at the store that day I'm in there packing like halfway packing feeling the room am I going to go hunting am I not going to go hunting but she knew how important it was to me and she my wife comes in she goes do you think Casey could go hunt with you like you think she'd go she wants to go oh yes we're she's going then that's awesome Yep and so I go in there I was like so she's like we'll just go ask her if she wants to go okay so I go in there and ask hey Casey how long are you in she whatever I was like kind of want to compromise I said I don't want to miss you but I don't want to miss opening day either would you if I cut my hunt my first week of hunting just into a couple of days to get the opening weekend in would you like to go with me yeah so we went down to Walmart and bought her some Ozark Trail freaking hiking boots she still owns to this day this is in 2007 oh and she still owns them and loves them and um I bought we bought those and back then I had this old International Scout that the um starter had gone out on so I had to always Park on a hill yeah and pop get rolling pop the clutch and get it going yeah um that's the only hunting vehicle I had at the time and um so we just made this adventure man we got her the boots I got a little Badland 2200 pack got it with just enough stuff for her um and I took a twom man ENT not a bivy sack I took a Twan ENT I took a little bigger camp I carried most of the load I took her to the wom Wilderness High Country as hard as it gets in Colorado and uh we go up in the dark by the time we get there it's dark she puts on that pack I'm like okay little sailor M we'll see what you're made out of yeah and we just go in the dark and headlamps we go above Timberline probably four miles get up there above Timberline get set up on this Mesa and hunt and there's some dudes in there and they kind of bump the deer Dugger was up there him and Omni Warner were up there too hunting and I could see them and I waved to him and then so uh I was like a these guys are up here let's go back by the trail head I've been seeing some deer over there and then let's go back over to this other big place and so we went parked and started and we went about a mile and she goes dad I love you but these new boots are killing me I want to show you my foot and she had this horrible bler open wound blister on her foot and I'm like oh man so I made a decision right then that it's not always about big bucks I'm like you know I'm going to compromise even further I was said hey let's go Road hunt tonight let's just go pop some eat I love nut goodies you know what nut goodies are the little Maple nut goodies they little candies and me and her both love them that's her thing I was like let's go get some Dr Peppers and let's get some nut goodies and let's just go Road hunt some of these roads and see if we can find some bucks M freaking smoke down fourpoint Buck man did you me and my daughter dude yeah we come around this bin and man his heard of bucks they they were up on B real close to a trail head and they were just kind of going up on the side of this Burn yeah and I parked and stocked out there probably 200 yards Boke down a nice 4x3 and she witnessed it saw it we got a buck man like like like God just you know me man I'm I'm I'm I'm a Believer and I just believe that God just guides everything in my life and it's just like because of my compromise because of not not I didn't I had scouted some big bucks like I was going after big you know 190 plus buck that I scouted but that moment was bigger to have her with me going off to the Navy like I'm shipping her off man this is it she's going to a school and she's going to battle and um man you know weird thoughts go through your head I want every minute with her so she'd never had a mountainous meal and to this day to this day you could ask her hey what would you like to eat she'll tell you I want a beef strogen off Mountain she's like Dad this amazing this the best food ever I'm like I know I love it too it's only good in the mountains yeah it's only good in the mountains at home not so much no I don't know there's been a couple times I didn't feel like cooking I've eaten some Peak refuels that I like a lot I've well I've had you know some meals in the mountains I'm like I would eat this at home this is so good and I get home and do it yeah way different but yeah but my little girl man she's a she's a amazing she is you know we all believe that her kids are amazing she's a mother of four married just the best dude man he's a he's a sheriff's deputy in Blunt County Tennessee they live in Tennessee now he's from Virginia and they didn't want to live like right up our butts or up his mom but so they pick a spot in the middle went to Tennessee which I love going to Tennessee man so she's over there and with my four h them babies man I got I had two kids I got eight grandkids out of the deal wow and so they're making the most of it oh man that is just it's incredible dude well those those two experiences with your kids I mean you know Travis on that hunt your daughter on that hunt it's like you know how many people go through their their lives and never have like a real meaningful type experience you know they might Disney dis Disneyland isn't like that right Disney your kids aren't seeing you in a different light and like looking at their dad and going my dad is incredible it doesn't happen in Disneyland you know what I mean so the fact that you've had those those experiences with your kids in the Mounds that's I mean that's once in a lifetime almost you know for some guys so it's uh well she amazing she's also incredible Archer and she is ho in her blood like man when I you know I'd left that little stint we talked about yeah she was the biggest anti don't do it don't don't do that don't don't no I love like she loves Hoy like yeah and and she oh man anyway my point of saying that is here's this 30-some middle-aged mom of before two years ago she called me she goes hey I'm getting like a really big tax return I want a new bow she grew up bow honey my daughter grew up she killed um she she killed some exotic animals Hogs she killed a lot she killed a hog with a bow when she was 13 and uh um legit dude like legit with my wife's target bow a red white and blue flag po target bow my daughter took it and I set it up again with fix on you know cut contact head she killed a hog in Texas can't see that well no and she killed um uh she's killed some really big Hogs and she killed that Ram but she's like hey she calls me two years ago she I want a bow I want to get a new bow my own I'm get a good tax return I like to have a ho so we got an eclipse a blacked out Eclipse with that blue string this is such a cool looking bow man yeah and so I get I order it from Evan and I got it I put a side on it I cut down some arrows and found a box of old 85 green Broadhead and got it all put together and they kids got out on spring on fall break were they Rocky Mountain titanium no they were um these were Slick Trick 85 four blades okay got you yeah and so um and she's shooting 50 PBS so this bow comes in I'm like hey I'm going to start you off at 50 and just see what you can do she she drew it back easy at 50 lbs that's impressive yeah and um man I had her so she comes on spring break I'm sorry she comes on spring break gets the bow goes home to Tennessee shoot on her own free will a middle-aged mother mhm I want to shoot a bow she loves it she loves it dude like my daughter is a like Travis is a hunter yeah Casey is a bow hunter period She is bow only yeah and she um she she shot got stayed in practice and I had a big ground blind set up um in in my spot in East Texas and um I stayed out of this spot there was this young Spike Buck who's coming in there pretty regularly I'm like Casey's going to smoke this Joker and so they came on fall break um and so they were there that spring got the bow went home she shot in Tennessee all summer she come back in the fall this is two years ago and I sat with her me and her together sitting in this blind and I see him coming through I can see his ears flipping mosquitoes and stuff he's coming through there and I'm like hey Here Comes Your Buck freaking smoked him she's a m middle-aged mom got her first buck with a bow and arrow and I was just like another amazing moment and then my her son my oldest grandchild is her son Mason he's oh my gosh Carson Travis's boy he's a killer he's already killed he he killed a deer when he was seven he killed a deer he's killed a 200 PB boar he's just killer he's a killing machine but Mason um he was he he became a bow hunter in one day we were going um last year we were going to go over to the deer lease and I stopped at Academy that's a big hunting store there in Texas I was like do you have a bow he no I'm buying you a bow today mhm really like yeah I'm buying you a bow went in there and I found this I don't know what the brand is I it's a bear I think little youth bow camo which a pretty legit bow yeah I'm going to get him a Cobalt I think all the grandkids are getting Cobalts for Christmas this year but I got him this bow and we go side in the top pin and I took him down to the big lake there that night we went frog hunting he swung four big bullfrogs his first time ever shooting a bow then we brought them home and his little sister I took her fishing and she caught her limit of crappie so we had this big fish fry frog leg fry can't beat that no they're just like they're eating frog Prov yes and they they were so proud I got a picture of on my Instagram from that year holding this plate there's frog legs and Fish on it both of them holding the plate for me for a man you know like do you know what that means to me man like everything yeah they're just incredible man well like with all the changes you've seen in your whole journey what do you think of the hunting industry today um man I don't want to be I don't want to cannibalize ourselves I don't want to be down on it but it is just a different place yeah it's a different place where me and you had to learn the ropes M um people talk about epic days on the mountain and they talk about Game Changer this trinket this gadget you know this thing's no you know what a game changer is a rangefinder son that's a that's a game changer um the fact that your bow stays pretty much put together and your peep site comes back most of the time is a big deal like you don't even know what that was like to have to I heard Wayne I love Wayne I was listening to Wayne the other day about peep sites and being at tournaments checking your cam timing and like these guys man the string stretched all the time you know our parents and our grandparents they had these stories too well in my day and you're like just shut up because whatever but now we're those guys and it's like well back in my day and we just we were definitely tougher yeah we I we were just tough we you weren't allowed not to be tough cuz you weren't going to survive if you weren't tough at school at whatever you just you were people were just well the difference that I see like the mapping programs like you remember going into the back country I mean unrolling a map now everybody knows where you're at uh exactly where you're at and exactly where everything is you don't have to know how to read a map no nowadays yeah so just that gives so people so much confidence cuz most people wouldn't go deep in the mountains because they wouldn't know for sure where they were going to how to get out what if something happened if it if it got socked in with fog you didn't know which way was which so most people hunted close to their rig just because of that yeah and now you know you know exactly where you're at at all times that that one thing is a huge Advantage yeah I see people all the time go to their phone and type in the grocery store they've been to 5,000 times and follow the lines to the I'm like what are you do man can't you remember where you were at no no when I want to know where I was at back in the day when I want to know where I was at I had to climb I had to stop hunting and climb a peek and look around to figure out which bowl I missed or which Basin I missed I remember being off the mark by just a few degrees yeah looking at a map and going in the wilderness and being off a couple of degrees you lost a whole day of hunting because you just didn't end up at the right spot yeah a lot of times when I'm lost I've killed some big stuff yeah but if you wanted to be somewhere if you didn't have those whatever go hunt Onyx and all that yeah I can't even I don't yeah I don't probably wouldn't be who we are no we had that stuff and I would never be able to contact I never had a satellite phone no I never you know so I would just go back in there and if anything happened I don't know how anybody would find me yeah but there was like something about that that changed who I who I am you know cuz you had to believe in yourself to go back there and do stuff like that you had to believe that you were survive you could get it done back there and it's it's just different it's not it's not easy but it's easier yeah than back in the day yeah I'm glad we still have people that want to hunt and I'm glad we have people like you still putting bows in people's hands and I try to put bows in hands and and I hope this puts a lot of fathers and putting bows in their kids' hands because you can you just got to just help them believe in themselves and they go do it because we we got I like I said I don't want to cannibalize our own we we're bad about that as an industry we are I'm not trying to talk I know I know you're not and and because that's why you brought it up we got to lift each other up into into the light like Jeremy and like Roy and and if it's not your just anybody you know be if you're a shop owner man you're in you're affecting someone's life man take two seconds and ask that young man sitting over there to staring at you for the last what you need man yeah what can I help you with what can I you know don't think about the dollars think about just what can I do to help you be successful and I see that though I do Jeremy Dugger shop is that way he he sees everybody you don't let nobody get out of there without help I feel that from Wayne I feel that today when I was in there I just the service and um we got to do that and and uh man more programs I love the programs that get kids involved and I love to see people like Hoy making kids bows man you know and and giving families they make a women's bow they make kids bows they make men's bows that's your whole family yeah it's once you have the membership and the arrows and the bow man that's every day every weekend you can go out there and have just the time of your life with a bow yeah I like too that nowadays you know people see what we do that aren't Hunters you know so it allows us to grow that the sport you know and it's like before it would be you'd write an article that was just other Hunters you'd be on TV that other Hunters watching it now with social media people can talk about negatives of social media and there are plenty of them but there's also some positives and so people can see shooting an arrow watching that Arrow go and see that like shooting the balloon today and that that smile and a fist bump did it who doesn't want to experience that yeah you know what I mean so that's we're able to share what we love and what has changed our lives every day on our feed and that's going to impact people that's going to that's you know people are going to say now how do I learn to do this where do I go to do this and I get that all the time it's local Pro Shop yeah go Google it go to the bow rack if you're in town you know and it's uh that's what I love about it I I do love there's a lot that I love about today and the reach that we're you know we're lucky enough to have because that wasn't always the case no back in the day so it's uh I think it's a good time yeah it's a great time to be in our industry and um for the for the consumer and the manufacturer you can't make it any simpler to get going you just just got to have they got to have that human touch a little bit of time the equipment's going to go man and and you're back where you should I mean you've been where you should be but you're shooting a brand new ho oh yeah like this what about this bow right here oh that baby right there is the 100 yard balloon Buster look at that bow dude yeah I mean do you know how sexy that thing looks yeah all black I mean an RX8 Ultra you shot that thing like you've been shooting it your whole life today has a good Bow Man I mean look how look how good that thing looks it looks fast it just looks no it looks beautiful yeah it just you know what I mean it just looks like grease lightning that thing's Bad to the Bone one the first time I drew it back man I mean it was just a couple of shots popping bullet holes and then to I don't have a tape on the side I don't even have anything past the 30 yard pin sighted in and I popped a balloon at 100 yards with it yeah you did I was like just you're shooting so good today I was just figuring it out man man this thing is set up and I can't believe I can't believe after this whole journey we're sitting here today we're at a table that's that's honoring Roy mhm who you know changed my life by introducing me to Bohan and you talked about people who change your lives but we're sitting here today across the table from each other after being friends for over 20 years with a brand new bow that is you know as a kid we would dream about something like this yeah you know there's no way we could afford something like this when we first started coming up no not even close you know and like we're s like I I don't know it feels surreal how lucky we are yeah been bow hunting now 35 years you 40 years and we can talk about this like from this place of experience and this long journey of these ups and downs and it's just like I can't I just can't express how grateful I feel for your friendship and for this experience and to have this moment and and to be where we are in life I just mark it means everything to me that you came here to my hometown you shared my routine with me the lift run shoot you've been in my corner for decades yeah and brother I love you I love you too man but hey I got something for you what I brought you something you did I don't have a badass World Championship Jersey and I don't have a game day Jersey but I have something very meaningful I'm fixing to give you all right I've been hiding it all day okay this Arrow killed the first mu deer I ever killed the first public land animal I ever killed really hunter green Thunderhead if you go to my Instagram feed from today and look I posted it on purpose okay this Arrow this arrow is in that quiver no way just like this you can still kind of see the blood on it old hunter green Thunderhead big old 5 in feathers to make it fly but Larry Dugger built this arrow in 1995 and I killed my first mu deer with it that's yours gosh I wrote on it look at this I wrote on it Aztec New Mexico 1995 Mark Smith 916 1995 yep first mu deer first public L now I want you to hang that in here somewhere man I'm going to that's the only thing I thought I could give you that would mean what this moment means to me yeah wow this is this is incredible because also you know okay first of all when we first started bow hunting this Arrow right here I couldn't afford these arrows these are double X 75s you know how much those cost I know you know cuz you had to pay for them too back then but in the 234s cuz that's a thin walled big shaft Arrow um and the thunderheads that's what I started bow hting with too everybody shot thunderheads back in the day but I this this means a lot I know it does that's why I wanted you to have it man this means everything well this is going to go here this is going to go right behind me somewhere right here I'm going to put it put it somewhere right here right now all right look at this we're going to be able to see this at all times on this podcast that could that's the only thing I thought of that I could give you that was as big as this moment that's incredible thank you that means a lot love you man I appreciate it thank you brother and here here's your brand new bow you going to take that home today oh yeah that thing's going to stack up some mules in the wilderness bull this year buddy I'm get into it all right well thanks for an amazing day lift run shoot incredible podcast thanks for the stories thanks for the friendship I appreciate you thank you man all right guys keep hammering all right guys welcome to the brand new Cameron hay.com truck [Music] giveaway this truck used to be red but we got this sick badass wrap on it to go with the theme of this giveaway what you do in the dark matters that means we got to train at night we got to get better we got to earn that edge at night so what you do in the Dark Matters out there getting in those miles maybe shooting in the driveway and the headlights of of a of a truck or maybe just pushing weights in the gym we got to do something to set ourselves apart so that's where hey the night shift comes in and this brand new 2023 Ram TRX 702 horsepower killer looking ride is going to go to somebody who enters to win at cameronhanes.com whoever that is I'm going to fly him out here they're going to get this ride I'll hand them the keys and 10,000 in cash and I hope it's you so again head to my website figure out how to enter and win good luck keep hammering

Channel: Cameron Hanes

Views: 8,156

Keywords: cameron hanes, keep hammering, cam hanes podcast, keep hammering collective, khc podcast, cam hanes bow hunting, lift run shoot, cameron hanes motivation, cameron hanes collective, jake asman, marc smith, marc smith the mad one, trail running documentary, jake asman show youtube, hunting podcast, Hoyt, max thieriot interview, joe rogan

Id: aRC7ZU_02NY

Length: 109min 30sec (6570 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024