Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 012 - Wayne Endicott

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Wayne Endicott, owns The Bow Rack, in Springfield, Oregon with his wife, Lisa. The legendary, Roy Roth, was Wayne’s 2nd customer 33-years ago, and since that time Wayne has been a friend and brother as our lives have been focused around the archery lifestyle we love. Wayne and Lisa play a key role and have become a fan favorite on the “Lift. Run. Shoot.” YouTube series.  Each episode includes a visit to The Bow Rack where the guest gets their bow set-up properly and Wayne teaches them to shoot correctly.     Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Connect with Wayne Endicott: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wayneendicott1354 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wayne.endicott.1/ Website: https://www.thebowrack.com/   Special thanks to our sponsors. MUD WTR: mudwtr.com/cam Use code CAM for 15% your first order MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping First Light: https://www.firstlight.farm/ Use Code Cam15 for 15% off your first order Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv Bass Pro / Cabellas: https://www.basspro.com

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Use code CAM for 15% off your first order. Hoyt Archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mine. Because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off. All right? Well, this is a Keep Hammering Collective podcast with Wayne Indicott. And this is, can you believe we're doing this?

Cam, I'm super honored. I can't believe you asked me to do this, really honestly. I'm honored, you know. Well, I mean, I wanted to anyway, but the public is pretty much demanding it because you've been such an integral part of the lift, run, shoot, series. And just how you can explain archery, how you speak from. the heart. Of course, I've known you forever. Yeah. And you've always, we've got some rich history. We do. And you've always been the same. But for these people coming in and seeing you and seeing how

genuine you are and how much you care and what a good teacher you are, people have been saying, you got to talk to Wayne, Wayne Indicott. So here we are. Okay. Here we go. You got me. So, I mean, this, I don't even know where to start. You know, we've been friends. friends for, I'll just set the stage, but weighing about the bow rack, way back when when we were young kids, I was, I think 19. How old were you when you bought it? I believe I was 26 years old. Oh, wait, no, no, no.

No, the bow rack was there when I first started a bow, honey. Right, right. You got it maybe a couple of years later. I think I was dealing for it in 89 and it went through, you know, right after the first year. Right. So I would have been maybe 20. 1889.

Yeah, and you were young, or mid-20. basically. But how was that process? I mean, buying the bow rack. Well, you know, I was, I knew, other than just having a weakness for archery and bow hunting at a really young age, you know, got out of high school, a bunch of buddies, you know, that I was going to high school with. We all wound up working at Roseboro Lumber Company. And I just, you know, all they did was talk about bow hunting. And so, you know, it's just right after high school. I think it was my second job after high school, welded for a couple of years. And then they, well, we got a bow hunt. So, of course, we wound up hanging around down there at the bow rack, you know. And I mean,

back then, you know, let alone we couldn't hunt up our car keys, let alone hit anything. You know, the equipment was rough at best. And, you know, we just pulled her hair out, you know, just trying to make arrows hit a target. And, you know, I was the kind of kid growing up that, you know, there was Anderson's sporting goods in town. It was like the sporting goods store. So it was a kid, like, I'd talk my mom into stopping, and then she couldn't, like, find me, because I'd be all over the store just looking at stuff, you know. And so I just like, this is a dream, you know, to have a sporting goods store. This would be nothing better, you know. And so, you know, just as kids, you know, we hung out the bow rack. It was the next coolest thing to Anderson's sporting goods.

You know, Ron Schreiber was there. Tony, oh my gosh, my mind slips me. But Tony was the main guy there. You know, everybody loved Tony. And, you know, we, we were just, like, all enthralled in the, in hanging out down there. And so, you know, period of time went by and we were just trying to bow hunt. We were big bow hunters, couldn't hit nothing, you know. I killed a buck. Jeff Brooks. Dwayne Levitt.

Yeah. You, Roy. I mean, you know, but that, you and Roy came along when I bought it. Yeah. You know, the early days was basically just me and Brooks and Levitt. and we were just worthless. Oh, my gosh. You got to tell the story about when you wanted to,

when you painted your arrows. Oh, that's crazy. So Steens Mountains, loaded with deer. You know, I'd grown up rifle hunting it. Dad had rich history there, you know, we've got a lot of history in the Steens. And so I told those guys, I go, look, we're going to the Steens.

First year, we're going to Steens. And so all year we shoot Game Gitter 2s. Yeah. Well, they had anodization, horrible anodization. They were orange, right? No, they were kind of green. Oh, greenish color. We're kind of just this dull.

Not the Game Gitter 2s. Like OD Green, you would call it today, right? They were game getter arrows. So we're just shooting these arrows into hay bales. It's all we had, you know. And so by the end of the season, like, we're ready to go. These are chrome. I mean, they are shiny chrome.

Because you bore the paint off. Yeah. All the aditization came off and they're just shiny chrome. Right. And so, like, we can't have this, you know, so we go buy a bunch of rattle can paint. We get the big idea. I think it was Brooks's idea. dude let's camo these arrows right so we do oh it's great you know

who knows what it changed the way because it'll come off right so we're just all ready to go and and so I'm spotting for Jeff and he's making this big stock I mean back then oh my gosh you remember the Steens oh so amazing and I've got another side story we I've taken Lisa and and I went in there the last two years and that's another side story but but there was literally you could literally these 75 bucks in one evening on one hillside. Me and Roy went scouting one time on the 4th of July when we were going to go in 91 when I killed that big buck up there when you invited me.

Right. And in the weekend, we saw something like 44 point bucks or better. And we were over on the other side. We weren't where I killed that one. We were over on the other side. And it's just like, we're like, what is this heaven? Deer hunting heaven? It was crazy.

It was like rabbits. I mean, it was like jack rabbits. It's the whole population of deer, right? And so, you know, anyway, so Brooke. is we had this big game plan. You know, we'd read Dwight's book, right? Honey and Open Country Meal Deer, right? So we had this all figured out, right?

You know, one guy spots and the other guy makes his long stock up and around use hand signals. I mean, we didn't have radios or anything back then, you know, just hand signal stuff. So we had all these hand signals worked out. So Jeff's like making his final assent on this buck and he's coming in over one of those big, you know, rim rocks, you know, and the buck's bedded right at the base of it. And so he gets right up there. and I'm just, it's just intense, just I'm sitting there just watching. And, you know, I see Jeff, you know, he's got his arrow loaded and he goes to start to draw. And this buck just shoots out of there like he shot out of a cannon.

And Jeff's at full draw and the buck's run and, of course, he shoots at it, you know, because you had to shoot, right? Arrows in the quiver, don't deliver. That's right. There's no, no hit nothing, you know. And so I get up to him, I'm like, I'm like, dude, what happened? You know, what in the world happened? how did he hear you draw?

And he's like, take an arrow out of your clipper and draw it. And I'm like, really? And he's like, just do it. Yeah. And I pull out. Was it a springy rest? No, no. We were more advanced than springy rest.

Okay. We had a Huntmaster 2000. They were made by Golden Key. Right. It had a foot and a plunger button, right? On an overdraw. Yeah. And so, you know, I pull it out and I draw it back.

And the whole way back is just, and I'm like that pain scraping on that you've got to be kidding me yeah you know and so then we're just like well what do we do well Jeff had some Vaseline so then we vasolene our arrows and it made it go away

oh my god you can only imagine how those would have flown right we got pain on them rough which makes them heavy yeah we got Vaseline on them now I remember we're just total stumblers I mean we shot a lot back then we were the biggest stumblers

ever you know I remember Do you remember Bill and Bob Henson? Yeah, yeah, real well. Yeah, Bill and Bob. Yeah, their dad, I remember one time we were hunting up above Markolan, and he got back, and I don't know if he had arrows missing or whatever, and I was like, did you get any shots? He's like, he goes, yes, I did.

I said, what happened? He's like, well, I shot over some and I shot under some. So that was just the name of the game back then. Right. You took enough arrows so you could get some arrows in the air. The most amazing thing is that first year, I actually killed a buck. You killed that big wide three point, wasn't it? Unbelievable.

Yeah. It was unbelievable. And I missed it the first shot. Oh. So we're like, and this is, this, we're coming back from the Steens, Jeff and I. And, and there's this place, Tumolo Creek. I mean, everybody that hunts to Oregon would probably know where it's house over by Broken Top. And it used to be like all these giant bucks that were mealed here and they'd stay up there in the park zone.

And it was just beautiful country up there. And so, you know, Jeff and I park and we whittle our way up there. And we split up. where these bucks were at there was usually like 15 or 20 these bucks up there and they were all just stupid big you know like 180 200 inch bucks I mean back then they were an uncommon giant and giant bucks and so Jeff takes off to my right you know we're just going to split up and we're just going to do her own thing because it's kind of flat up there it's just these little tiny trees and mostly open and I you know Jeff hadn't been gone for like 35 minutes and I look over and here comes

that buck and he's big walking to you no he's running oh okay Because Jeff had spooked it. Oh, gotcha. And so here he comes. And so at this point, and I even hate to admit this, I'd miss 14 deer. Right. No, right? So this is going to be number 15.

Yeah. I miss 16 my first year. So I got you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you do. That's not uncommon for you to have me. But anyway, I draw, and I'm just like, this is what's going through my mind. I'm such a defeatist.

I'm like, I'm going to miss this thing. Right? I'm going to miss it. And so I draw my bow, and it runs right out in front of me. It's probably not 30 yards. Oh, man. And fine line sight, you know. Yeah.

And so I'm getting down to where, you know, because we have range finders back then. I mean, there's no way to know the yardage. We were crappy on yardage anyway. He looks like he's a bit of a distance. And back then, I mean, 50 yards was forever. That's a long shot. You didn't even shoot 50. You know, so I'm thinking, oh, he's got to be like at least 30.

Well, somehow I shoot over him. And the arrow, you know, the wind was blown a little bit. and the arrow goes over him and skips up through the rocks. Well, he hears it, and it spooks him, and he's just looking everywhere where he doesn't see me. I'm standing next to a tree, and he turns, and there's a little drywash right next to me, and he runs down the drywash.

So the best thing had happened is I get pissed. I'm just like, no, this is impossible. Right. And so I go running after it, but I'm on the other side of this little hill. Okay. And so he's running down this drywash. So I sprint down this thing as hard as I can go for like 150 yards,

and I'm just thinking, well he should be right here. So I pop up over the top and he hears me and he stops and he's just looking every direction. Then I got an arrow loaded and I drew back and I remember,

I mean, it was such a good lesson because I pulled back and I'm like, I'm just ticked. Yeah. And I'm like, I just put my 50 on.

If he's not 30, he's 50, right? You just guess. Yeah. There's no, I remember in my head, I'm just like, he's 50.

I mean, there was no second guess in it. I just draw back and I let that 50 set on. him a little bit and I cut it loose and I hit him through the neck, bust the opposite shoulder and he just falls down right there. Oh, man. And he doesn't go anywhere.

How'd that feel? Was that your first bow kill? That's my first bow kill. Whoa. And all of a sudden, I'm a big bow hunter. I've arrived. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember that picture. It's like 1980, what was it? 83 or something like that. Yeah. You know, it was way back there. I mean, we're wearing, we're wearing, our camel was like, Army surplus. Yeah. You know, the old woodland army surplus and these little fanny packs.

And there wasn't even packs back then. You couldn't wear them. They were so noisy. And the bows weren't, I mean. I shot him with a golden eagle. Okay. A golden eagle, like some kind of, I can't remember, Super Hawk. I think it was a Super Hawk.

I had the Turbo Hoc super cam. It was my first one. And this is it. I walk into the bow rack and they look at me and I'm 6'1, right? Yeah. You're 31 straw. Because you just had a choice, right? You were, you could have been 29.

I think they had 29 back then, actually. But you were 29, 30, or 31. They just look at me in your 31. And I'm like, the whole time, all year practicing, I'm like, I got my thumb behind my neck. I'm leaning back as far as I can. And it's all I can do to keep this bullet full draw. And that's what I hunted with. I'm like, you got to be kidding.

I'm a 20, well, for years I shot 28 inch draw. And now I'm 27 and a half. You just shrink over time. Yeah. It's just a reality. Yeah. Well, we all shot too long a bows, basically, because of that. Yeah, you just had to fit in.

That's what was made in the industry, you know. Well, that reminded me of you say that a lot with some of these new archers we have coming in about being aggressive, you know, with a bow. So you said you were mad and that's why you killed that buck. Right. And it is being the aggressor. You're going to make this happen. You're going to kill that deer. That's an attitude.

Right. And then it reflects over into what you're doing. Well, you know, moving forward, I mean, anybody that I could learn from, I would, you know. And so just, you know, Michelle and Terry Ragsdale, you remember them, they shot for PSC. Great shooters. Oh, my gosh. They won everything. She was the meanest, maddest chick shooting.

I mean, she's the nicest person. I think I met her one time. I met Terry one time. I went to Vegas, like, you know, I think it was 1989 or 90. I went to Vegas. And I met them. They were like the nicest people ever. But you watched her shoot.

Yeah. She had the most aggressive, she had the most aggressive stance. I mean, she would come in and she would just have like, I'm going to kill that target. Yeah, yeah. And you watched that and it was infectious because it's like, I like that. Yeah. You know, you have to shoot with purpose. You have to shoot with aggression.

And so she definitely had that whole mantra down in her tournaments. And she won. I mean, Terry didn't shoot like that. Yeah. He was still a good shooter. Oh, he was awesome. And his dad was like just incredible coach. you know.

I remember that. Yeah. And then I do, so I'll just throw out an old name and see if you remember this. I just thought about this the other day. And this was early days, Jim Hodson. Oh, Jim Hodson. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah.

Do you remember, like, what stands out when you think of Jim Hudson? Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable Bow Hunter. And the most humble guy you would ever talk to in your life. Yeah. I mean, he would say his biggest lines like, you know, I'm not any good, but I'm just out there a lot. And, you know, if you're out there a lot and you shoot enough arrows, someone's going to die.

You would like say stuff like that? Do you remember that seminar he had at the Borac? So his wife was a professional photographer. Okay. Oh, that's what it was. That's why he had that album. She just sets my cameras up for me and I just take lots of pictures. And he had the most incredible photos in the world.

And he was the nicest guy in the world. He was a dentist from Redmond. Yeah. And he'd been to Kodiak. Like he would, he would charge me. Like he would get a hold of me. Wayne, he goes, look, you'd go to Kodiak. He goes, you need to go to Wyoming, mail-cunting.

He goes, you need to start now. And I'm like, I've got kids, I've got no money. We never thought about out-of-state anything back then. No. But he would tell, he's like, well, the last time I had him for a seminar, he was getting elderly, he'd been to Kodiak 55 times at that point. I think that was the reason Roy and I started taking such good photos way back when because we went to that seminar and he had that album of all 8 by 10s.

And we were just sitting there. We just look at all his amazing pictures of all these adventures. And I just remember Jim Hotson. Oh, my gosh. I need an album like Jim Hotson. That was my goal. Right, right. No, and you wanted to be like Jim.

I mean, in every way. I mean, he was the most humble guy. I mean, remember the story where he's like, he's like got this picture. is this moose and it's it's looking in his tent and he was sick or something and couldn't go out his buddy's going out looking and and his moose just comes in and it's a giant yeah it's a giant moose and he winds up shooting it like right in his camp and his buddy comes back and he's got it all butcher right here and yeah what did you do how did you get it back he's like well it came into camp well that i just remember that because as young bow hunters like we were right these guys who

they kind of paved the way you know now we're old And so now we got all these young studs coming up. Right. You know, you might say White. See Bright. Nathan Indicott, your son. There's this other kid. He kills.

Oh, Derek, somebody. Derek, David. No, no, no, no. Derek, his dad used to work with my brother and Jim Osborne. I can't remember his name now. But he kills a bunch. Right. Tanner, do you know that guy's, Derek's name?

Remember him? Man, there's a lot of hot rods out there. There's kids that are just driven. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Wyatt's like, Wyatt is a different cut of kid. I mean, he kills.

He's already got way more accomplishments in a tough environment for hunting than like anybody else I know at his age in history, maybe. Real? That's saying something. Oh, it is. Yeah, because he's going to out of state too, which we never could. Right. Oh, I know. I know.

He follows me. He's like, it's like, Wayne, I drew Wyoming. I'm like. awesome what you draw he's like and drew you know unit i'd hunted a lot you know and i would say it i don't really care i'll never draw it again in my lifetime but people get upset yeah we don't need to say yeah yeah but anyway and and he's been there twice now he drew luck of the draw man and he's just he's just this kid that's just blessed that way there's another there's another old guy too uh and i'll say what he just used to say is it doesn't cost it anymore to aim oh my gosh j c james yeah so jac's

quite the story. So when I first bought the shop, I mean, I know I was, I went to college a couple years. I was a criminal justice major. I know nothing about business. I'm an idiot. You know, and I don't know anything. I just know I want, you know, like every dumb kid, you know, that buys an archery shop, I think there's a pile of them that do it. You know, in the beginning, I'm like, dude, I'm going to hunt all the time. I'm going to shoot tournaments all the time. And I'm going to sell bows and arrows. Sounds good. Sounds great, right? Yeah. Except. I kind of left out the work part of it in the beginning, you know. So, you know, and I buy this shop, you know, and of course I go in, I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's, I'm, I'm, I, this is, this is a lot of work.

There's a lot of responsibility going on here, and I don't even have a clue what I'm doing. Right. And, you know, so, like, honestly, the first person I ever met in the shop was, was Roy, Roy Roth. And the second person's J.C. James. J.C. comes in. He goes, hi, hi, I'm J. James, he goes, he goes, I've got a, I got to ask you a question. I go, what's that? And he goes, I've got a vacation coming up. And he goes, I'm going to be off for a couple weeks. He goes,

you care if I come work with you for a week? And I'm like, absolutely. Why did he go, why did he offer that? Just because he's a goodhearted guy. Yeah, he just, and we became great friends after that. I mean, he's way elderly now. And it's kind of funny, you know, he's, he's, JC would have, oh my gosh, he's the best storyteller ever, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, joke tellers, except the jokes have probably curled your eyelashes, you know, most of them. But with that, you know, he came in, it's probably been five years ago, and he's telling me everything that's wrong with him. And he stops, and he goes, what is wrong with me? He goes, when we were young, he goes, we talked about hunting and shooting bows and tournaments and girls.

And he goes, now, because all I do is talk about the medication I'm on, what's wrong with me. But no, JC came, and he had a little store. He had a little store for a while. Archery? Yeah, and he was on staff with PSC. He was a competitive shooter. Shot bowhunter freestyle, which is, you know, all the goodies, Bowscow, 30-inch stabilizer, but he shot fingers.

And he was a good finger shooter. And so he came and worked with me, you know, and he set up bows and kits, and he'd like, you've got to get all these bows all cookie-cuttered in kits, and you set them all up, and guys come in, you let him show. shoot them and you work with them and everything. And I mean, I learn more from him than anybody I've ever been around, you know.

And I've had a lot of great men work for me. That's the other thing. I mean, once I kind of got the foundation built, you know, and stuff, I just had a lot of, you know, started with Jamie Coleman. Yeah. You know, Jamie and I were like family for a lot of years. And then, you know, Chris Phillips, you know, Chris is just a great kid. He's a state cop now.

Joe Young. you know, Joe was awesome. You know, I've got a great crew of guys now, you know, Trent Stoops and Jordan and AJ and Blake. I mean, you know, and then Nate works for me part-time. I mean, he's kind of, he's a crazy success story. I mean, just good guys, but I've just had great people. Chris Stewart. I mean, Chris and Chris, you know, Nikki worked for me, Nick Hammond, Nick Ham and Nick the trainer dude.

I mean, Nikki, oh, I've got such great stories about Nikki. He's such a kind-hearted guy. Phillips, you know, Chris, you knew Chris. Yeah. You know. He's competitive. Remember us shooting? Oh, gosh, Chris.

I mean, we used to do the 3D shoots. Chris was, and Chris understands this. He's going to like me saying this, but Chris was a bully. Yeah. And he used to pick on Nick, right? Who picks on Nick, right? Yeah. And Chris would just, just like, terrorize him.

Right. And so Nick walks in one day. Yeah. Nick wasn't having a good day. Nick walks in, he's got his, you know, Nick always come in with his cooler. full food, you know, you're going to eat all day, but he's, you know, he's coming in and Nick looks up and he sees Phillips and he goes, not a word, not a word out of you. I get one word out of you. I'm going to kill you. Just nothing out of you today.

Rough day. Yeah. And Nikki was always good, you know, but he's like, it was for anybody he was in there. It wasn't like business hours and he's just like, he just sets Phillips straight right on. Phillips is pretty relentless. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know when Nate ran the hill, that one time with you. Yeah. So this is Phillips for you.

Right. You know, we had a lot of fun with old Chris. Nate comes in, right? And he just got out of college, you know, and he comes in. He goes, hey, he goes, he goes, Nate, you're going to go run the hill? Cam's got that, you know, lift, run, shoot thing. He's going to give Bowie or whatever. You're going to go do that?

And Nate's like, no, I'm going to do it. And he's like, yeah. He goes, figured you, you know, and that's just what Cam said. He said he didn't have a heart for it. He said, you just smoke you. And, you know, you worked with my stuff. son and you guys already had the competitive thing and and I wasn't even there yeah I was like running errands and Phillips tells me all this when I get back right and and so Nate's like what he said that and he's like

yep said you didn't have the heart for it said you'd chicken out he knew you wouldn't do it and and Nate's like competitive the bone right my son yeah I mean oh I guess you know great stories about him as a kid but he's he's he's he's always been a driven competitor and And Nate's like, I'm going to go get my shoes. And so when he showed up, wasn't he just changing his clothes and putting his shoes on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He's a good runner. Holy cow. Oh, he was the runner. I, you know, he was the athlete. He was a kid, you know, and all the way through school. It's like, dad, I got to play soccer. Then I got basketball. Then baseball.

Then football. Flaggobles. It's like, okay, these are overlapping. Can we take? No. Yeah. I have to play every sport. So we had like practices overlapping.

And so I got to coach his basketball and his baseball, you know. When you talk about heart, I remember he like at the state track meets, he would run so hard. He'd come in. Did he have to go off on an ambulance once? So it was close. I mean, he was, there was, he was foaming, just like sprinting, giving everything he had. Yeah. He was a 1500, and he loved the 3,000, but the 3,000 would, yeah.

Yeah, and, you know, he'd win a lot of them. And, I mean, he set the whole wall of shame. You know, I don't know if much of his stuff's been broken at Thurston for distance and cross-country. Yeah. But, you know, that was his thing. He would put it all out there, you know, and he would train, like, like, he'd come. So his whole running career starts, like, when he's 14. And he comes home one day and he's like, well, no, school starts.

And I'm home. And it's like six o'clock. And I tell Lisa, I ask Lisa, I go, where's Nate? is like, Britney's here. Where's Nate? And nobody knows. And I'm like, so then, you know, we're living in Amble Side. And I look out in the street and somebody's pulling in like 630 and Nate jumps out of the car.

So I'm like right at the door. I'm like, so what's going on? He goes, dad, dad. He goes, he goes, I just, I just ran with the guys, you know, on the track team. And I'm like, and what? So I'm going to go out for track. And I'm like, really? He goes, I made the team.

He goes, I'll make, he goes, I make, I make, he goes, I make, I make bar. varsity. And I go, how do you make varsity? I mean, ran a meat yet. He goes, well, I just beat all those senior guys. Whoa. I'm like, yeah. Well, I guess. Yeah. And he, you know, we just got back from hunting and he actually hunted a long season with me that year. So no running, but he was in great shape. He was in good shape. So that kind of launched that whole thing. So yeah, Nate was a run around for Portland State, you know, great competitor. Yeah. He's still, now he's channeling, just like we did, channeling that that energy and that focus into bow hunting. Right, right.

And I, you know, shameless plug for him, but, you know, Indicot films. I mean, I think, you know, kid does a good job. Of course, I'm biased. I'm his dad, but, you know, I watch it. That's good stuff. It's good stuff. Yeah. He does a good job.

I, so you mentioned Roy was the first guy who came in. Tell me something about Roy. Oh, my gosh. One, Roy was unbelievable individual. I mean, you and I have the pleasure to know that. I mean, so many people, Roy, I'm in the shop one day, and Roy comes in, he sits down, just has a seat.

Still remember the joke he told. He always had a joke for you, and he's just the kindest, hardest, I mean, as a young guy, I mean, here, I'm this puffed up, proud, think I know everything, dude, you know, just a complete bumbling idiot guy. And here's Roy,

and he's just a kind of. kindest guy ever, you know, and, you know, he, he would come in almost, if it wasn't every day, it was every other day, just for lunch, you know, he was always working hard, you know, him and his dad had that foundation business where they were in a place and, and, you know, in construction and everything. And he just couldn't help, but just fall in love with this guy, right? And he was just one of those guys that just looked at you and you just, you just knew you were going to be friends. right off. Yeah.

I mean, and, and, and so just a, I've got a ton of hunting stories and you have way more than I do. But Roy comes in and season starts, right? Well, I'm, I'm just got like one part-time employee. I think Mike Allen was working for me and I'm just trying to pedal this shop. And so Roy comes in, he's like, man, he goes, I'm into the elk. And this is back when Warehouser had no restrictions and everybody could just go up there and do whatever. They had lock gates. Yeah.

But they didn't care if you hunted it or not. I mean, you know, bow hunters didn't amount to anything. And Roy comes in, he goes, man, I'm into all these bowls. And we got this funny horn bowl. You remember the funny. I remember a funny horn. I saw that thing. You know, and then they had all these big, big bowls, you know.

And he's just telling me all these wild stories. And he goes, you want to go? I'm like, I'm just starving to death to hunt because, you know, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I want to go. He goes, he goes, okay. He goes, we get done talking. He tells me a bunch of stories. and he goes, okay, he goes, we need to meet it too. And I go, Roy, I go, I thought we were going to go in the morning.

I go, I go, I have to run my shop. I go, I can't go at two. I have to be here to open it. I think back then, I think I opened it 11. And I got to be back here to run the shop. And he goes, no, two in the morning. And so, like anybody, I judged the book by the cover. I had never stepped outside one day with Roy.

Right. And so I'm looking at Roy, and I'm like, we got to leave it too, because. He's a big guy. He's a big guy. Yeah. Yeah. And so underneath all that, I soon discovered that that was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah.

Underneath all that. You know, because he's the strongest man I've ever met in my bloody life. I mean, you know, so, yeah, we met it two in the morning and we hike in the dark. Like, it gets daylight. We're at the top of Mill Creek from the bottom of Winnling. It's a long walk. And I'm trying to keep up with this guy. And we're cutting across units.

I mean, we went from one main line to the other, just cutting down and crossing a creek in the dark. Right. To the other side and hit some main line. And I'm just, I'm cut up, I'm bleeding. I'm just trying to chase this guy. Yeah. And I don't want to let him think that I'm a wussy. I'm like, but I've never really like done this in West of Oregon and push this hard.

Yeah. You know, I'm used to eastern Oregon. It's all wide open. I'm right. Cut my teeth over there. But this is all new, you know. Yeah. And, you know, yeah, it gets daylight.

Well, my shop didn't open that day. So we got into a big herd of elk up there. Yeah. And Roy's like, okay, they're going that way. I'm going to go this way. You go that way. And I didn't see Roy again until like four and a half hours after dark. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was the first day I hunted with Roy. People talk about, you know, everybody likes talking about how tough they are. I don't, and I just, I compare everybody to Roy. And I'm like, you're not tough. No. You're not tough because I've seen tough. I tell everybody the same thing.

I go, go to Rich Outdoors and go to Roy podcast and watch that. I've had a financial, well, Scott Whiteley, financial advisor. He was doing seminars. He made him listen to Roy's podcast. And I mean, there was so much to learn from Roy, but I mean, don't talk about the old days. Yeah. Exploit everything that you have to the fullest. And I mean, oh my gosh, I remember watching Roy.

You know, Roy was with me still to this date. I've killed some good bowls, but, you know, that bowl we killed Nesteins together. I remember it. I think that that's still like one of the biggest. Yeah. That bowl was, I mean, I remember it's fourths coming up on, especially on that one side and that picture, such a cool picture with you. And to us, that was like a world record bowl.

Right. You know, to us. We hadn't killed anything by then. No. No. And that bull, and he was with you. And Roy called it in. Okay.

But Roy was, the thing comes around a root wad and Roy's blocked. Because I look over. a full draw and I see it coming. He's a full draw. I'm like, so I draw and I look and Roy's not shooting and the bull comes around and a punk, I shoot and Roy luts up and he's like, I'm the dude. I was blocked. Yeah. You know, but what a great experience that was with Roy. But another thing I learned is a master butcher. The dude was a chickmunk with a knife. Yeah. I mean, he knew, I mean, he's like, what do he, we get done taking a few pictures, you know? Yeah. And I had to talk, Roy. This is before pitchers days. Okay.

I was still big on photos, you know? Yeah. I had to talk Roy and had to taking some photos. Okay. You know? And stuff, because we were just, he was like, as knife out, I'm like, no, no, we got to take some photos. Right. And so we get all done with the old photo op.

And I start to jump back. I go, we get this thing rolled over. He goes, why? I go, because we're going to get it. He's like, we're not cutting this. He's like, we're, and he's just into that thing, full on, capes it. I mean, I'm just holding and pulling and pulling. And taking shoulders off.

And this guy's like, I'm looking at him like, okay, my dad used to hatch it. And would like cut everything in half and put it on a horse. Yeah. And, you know, let my mom quartered up when we got it home. Right. Oh, my gosh, this guy. Because Roy trapped forever. Oh, yeah.

So he was so used to skinning out, you know, whatever he's catching in the traps. But yeah, he was. And so fast. Ray had to teach him. Ray had to just being a master butcher himself. Well, they grew up. He's born in Wisconsin and on a dairy farm. Oh, yeah.

So I think you just, you just learn so much being in that situation. It's like way more, just, I like to call it capable. You just know a lot about a lot. Right. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And so I think it was from that and then the trapping and then, you know, the foundations, you know, how you're always bent over, you know, how your back gets so, so on fire from

bending over working on animals. But Roy could do it because he's used to tie in, tie in foundation. together, you know, or I mean the forms for foundations. So he's bent over all the time. So with a knife, with all that, easy work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just amazing. He was unbelievable individual, you know, in every way. I mean, I sat with him on a campfire, you know, I think it was the night. We spotted that ball, you know, and we were going in on it the next day. And we just sat there and I, you know, there was such a side to Roy that, you know, we're both believers. And I was probably, You know, at the time, I was probably just living for myself.

I'd been dedicated and then, you know, give him a heart and life to Christ. It was crazy, unbelievable experience for me. But by the time I was there, you know, I was in a broken marriage. I was just in a kind of a dark place, you know. But, you know, I watched Roy that night, you know, and he just, we were sitting there. And just out of the blue, he just puts his singing, like he always singing. And he just stops. and he puts his hands in, you know,

he puts his head in his hands, and he's sitting there and he, and he just kind of looks at me and he goes, you know, hunting means too much to me. He goes, he goes, he goes, he goes, I just trying to get a handle on it, but he goes, I just don't know, you know, he goes, I need to pray about it.

He goes, but it just means too much. And I never, you know, I just, it was like, you know, I never even had that thought, you know, because I was, that's all I thought about was hunting. I mean, there was nothing else in my mind, you know, and it made me step back and think, you know, that's why he, that's why he, who he is. Yeah. Yeah.

Because he's sensitive to what God wanted. Right. You know, for his life. Yeah. And I wasn't at that time. I was just totally selfish living my own way, even though I'd had an unbelievable experience when I was 18 years old, you know, where I was like the rottenest kid in the whole entire world. and I was following a girl to church and you know youth pastor asked me

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The link will be in the show notes of the podcast for those interested. Cabell's and Bass Pro Shops is a sponsor. of the podcast. And that's especially powerful for me because I remember when Cabellas came to town, came to Springfield, Oregon. And I actually played a role in the opening of that store. Instead of cutting the grand opening ribbon with scissors, I shot it with an arrow. And it was just a monumental thing. I mean, everybody here in town was talking about, hey, are you going to go to Cabellas? Can you believe Cabellas is coming here to Springfield, Oregon? So I know what a staple those giants in the industry are. And it's actually, it's one of the first places people go

when they're looking to get geared up to become a hunter as they go to Cabellas and buy everything they need. So I'm very excited that we've partnered together and we can help open up those outdoor and hunting opportunities to listeners of this podcast. Loophole optics has been providing my binoculars and eyewear for the last few years. I like that it's an Oregon company

and they make such high-quality glasses, all I've really used. And if you can't find what you're hunting, it's going to be tough to kill. So loophole optics has really played an integral part in my success these last few years. Thank you, Lou Pold, for supporting the podcast. And I'm like, well, without a doubt, I'm going to hell. I knew that.

I mean, I knew that was written on my heart. I mean, I had a dark heart. I wasn't there. I didn't like church. I didn't like anything about it. I didn't like anything about God. And it was just a short period of time after that. And I just had to be honest with myself, you know, that, man,

I didn't know there was a way out. I'd never heard the gospel. I mean, my parents were great people, and they were good moral people, but, you know, they didn't know God. I mean, it's like fishing. I mean, you talk to somebody very long. It's, you know, a steelhead or salmon fisherman or a bohunter,

or a big-time bowhunter. You don't have to talk very long, you know, with them. And either know they're a poser or they're actually the real thing. Yeah. You know, and so if you come to a relationship with Christ, I mean, you don't have to talk to somebody very long. to know whether they actually have experienced that or not. And I mean, the one time that I really was honest with myself

and I had somebody kind of lead me in a prayer, because I was ready. I mean, I'm like, I want to go to heaven. And they led me in a prayer. And I actually had demons go out of me. I felt hot air go out of me. And I felt clean for the first time in my whole entire life. You know, and then when you meet other believers, I mean, when I met Roy, I mean, I just knew right away.

I mean, we didn't have to talk very long. And he was like, dude, yeah, I'm a. believer, I go to the Assembly of God and Mohawk and, you know, my wife. And he's just like, yeah, you know, he just had that heart. Yeah. You know, and he was just such an awesome individual. My biggest, it took me years to get up to where, like, I was ready to go to Kodiak. And Nate Simmons did that, that whole video.

It was kind of, it was our hunt, but it was kind of a memorial to, you know, Western hunter, you know, when Nate did that. It was a whole memorial to Roy, really. And I mean, honestly, in that whole hunt, you know, I was just kind of brokenhearted the whole time. And I wasn't going to go. I was going to cancel. And Bob Amin and Jodagh, and they all grabbed me like,

no, you're going. Roy would want you to go. And this was at Roy's service when we lost Roy. Because two weeks later, we were supposed to go to Kodiak. And I had a full-on planned on, no, I'm not going. Because I don't know where I'm going. I don't know any logistics. I didn't have any gear.

I was just planned. Roy had all that. I mean, Roy was the one guy. I mean, that's the only time in the whole time that Roy ever canceled on a hunt trip. Because, I mean, he was the guy that anytime we were, when we were kids and we were younger, if you're going to go, Roy's there. He's never canceling. He's going to be there. He was that guy.

And so we were supposed to go to Kodiak two weeks after the sheep accident. We lost him. and I wanted to have my son experience a hunting trip with Roy. I really did. I wanted Nate to experience that. And when I was in the airport, you know, I made a phone call. You know, and I just sit in there and the Lord just says, you need to call Nate Simmons and you need to call Steve Howard.

And I did. I called him in the airport. And I just said, look, I mean, you dropped me off. You and Trace had dropped me off. And I just said, look. I'm going to go on this hunt. And I know it's a short notice. I mean, it's like a, we had like 13 days or 14 days.

And somehow they both said yes. And somehow Nate secured a filming permit for Western Hunter to do that show. And so I can't remember what season it's on. I've got the DVD. But, you know, the whole time, I mean, it was just, you know, it was just like Roy was just, like, this was Roy's hunting ground. This is what he loved. This is where he loved to be.

And the one thing you could count on Roy is that he was going to smell out the number one hunting area for Blacktail on all a Codiac. You could count on that. Yeah. Because he was that guy. He was. I mean, Dave Chapman has a story about Roy where Dave was flown out with his pilot. And the whole time Roy's arguing with the pilot on where to drop him off. You've heard this story.

I think he talked about it on his podcast. And they land. Well, Dave's just going to hunt caribou right. where he's at. And Roy's area is like 13 or 14 miles away across Muskeg or something. Yeah. To even get to his unit. Yeah.

And the whole time he's arguing with the pilot, a pilot just dumps him out. Well, Roy's gone. Yeah. And he makes it back. And Dave talks about the whole thing. And I heard it from both sides because Roy told me the story. Yeah. And Dave told it.

But, I mean, literally the toughest, kindest, most unbelievable individual I've ever hunted with him. And we both were both super blessed and super gifted that we had that time with Roy. We are. Beyond imagination, he impacted us. Like, we didn't deserve it. Like, unworthy that we could have a guy like that. And to know he's in heaven, I mean, it comforts me because I know, you know, the Lord loved him so much.

And it's like, if there was a multiple choice on how you're going to go. he went the way he wanted to go. Yeah. And the Lord just looked down like, this guy's such an awesome, this guy's such a prince. You know, we're going to,

he's, he belongs with us in heaven right now. He's such a prince. But, you know, he's just, it's just the fact that he was just that guy. I mean,

once in a lifetime type guy, and we've known a lot of them. I mean, there's all kinds of them. There was some. We were talking about Mark Ludwig the other day. And, you know,

a totally different spectrum type of guy. But the fact that you get to know those people. Yeah. You know, and then some of our mentors like Larry Jones and Dwight Shoe and, you know, in the later years I got to be good friends with Dwight and, you know, spent some time with him. We'd call and talk.

He wanted to hunt the same unit I'd been hunting in Wyoming. Right. You know, he had the points and he was just, he was sick. And, you know, it was just, you know, just the awesome experiences we've had, Neil Summers. You know, another great bow hunter, great guy. Call him anytime asking me anything, just full of information for you. You know, and if I can be anything to anybody, I want to be that.

Yeah. You know, with my time left to these younger guys that are coming up. And if I can help them with the equipment and make them comfortable with equipment, that's just one part of it. Yeah. But, you know, that just, it just kind of gives you that sense of purpose, you know. It does, yeah. Yeah.

And giving back, it's like we've transitioned. We were the young guys now. or the old guys. And so that's why to me, I love doing this lift run shoot with not so much people already that at Bowhunt. You know, it's just like,

we got them. We need, I want to share this, something that's impacted us so greatly with people who maybe otherwise wouldn't. And now we're the guys. We're the old guys that, you know,

whatever, yeah, we're maybe we're not as good as we once were, but we can still get it done. Oh, yeah. And it's, I think it's so vital.

And it's one reason why, I don't know, I love the positive aspect of bringing them to your shop, you go into the basics, you like really teaching them how to do it right, because there's nobody can question your passion for bow hunting or for archery. And having somebody like that, I think changes everything. So your goal, what you say you want to do, you want to be like we had, those old guys that we had, you want to be that for these, and you're doing it. Right. It's a, it's, uh, it's, uh, and, you know, as far as the beginning, you know, there was,

there was so many people I can't even start to name that have helped me, you know, so much over the years, you know, I remember, we lost Terry Gent. Terry Gent was president of what now is Umpqua Bank back then was Centennial. And, you know, back, I was swinging a hammer. I worked outside of the shop, you know, through the 90s for a lot of years. Lisa would run the shop with one employee, Jamie Coleman. and I would swing a hammer in the wintertime because, I mean, you know, we weren't making it. Pretty slow, yeah.

Yeah, it was different times. And, you know, I just, you know, one day I'm just like, I've got to get a handle on this. You know, I've got to be able to make a living at this. And so, you know, I went, when there was a piece of property where I'm at now, I came up for sale. And I'd been swinging a hammer enough. What, you know, what an opportunity. I mean, Steve Johnson was, I think he came in, he'd been shooting lead. and Steve's like, well, if you want a job, I give you his job framing.

Well, what an opportunity to learn how to frame houses. And guys like Steve Johnson and Pete Wadsworth and Todd Mayhem and Jerry Sherman, all these guys that I work with, they're all young guys. And I'm like the old guy in a crew, but what an opportunity to go learn. You give these guys a nail gun, a saw, and a framing square and a pencil, and they build the Taj Mahal for you. I mean, there was nothing. couldn't do. We were doing Street of Dreams homes. And like if there was seven, you know,

Street of Dreams homes at Valley River Village and the tour, Steve would land seven of them. Yeah. Or five of them. Talented carpenters. And then there's seven of us, framers, so we're all spread thin. And, you know, he had a great reputation for frame and a great house doing an awesome job, big house, very efficient and perfect. And so I learned from those guys. So like when this when this lot came up for sale, I went to, I went to see Terry. Well, Terry was a bow hunter. And I just walk into his office and he'd known me, done business

with me, different times we were living in and I walk in and I go, Terry, I go, there's a lot for sale down the street and I go, I'm thinking about build a building. I know how to do it. I could do it myself. I'll build a whole entire building myself. And Jeff Brooks will help me with the concrete because

Jeff did concrete. I have his own concrete business. I go, I'm going to do everything. And I go, I think I can save a lot of money and I think I can get it done for a small amount of money. This is Terry. He opens up the drawer and he looks in his drawer and he looks at me, looks in his drawer and he throws a blank bunch of checks across and he goes, come back in next week and sign some stuff, but he goes, I'll activate that. And he goes, go buy the property. Wow. And he goes, we'll just do it all on a line of credit. And when you're done, we'll switch it over to an SBA loan. And I'm just like,

Awesome. So I couldn't get a hold of the guy quick enough. It was like, no real estate guy. This guy had $56,000 for that lot of guy, right? It's long and narrow. And man, I'm over with Jay Marcotte and Rick Roberts. And Rick draws the plans for me. I'm at the city.

And before you know, I'm swinging a hammer and I'm building. And, you know, it's coming together. And I'm like, you know, it's awesome. I'm just like, it was me making the commitment that, you know, this is where I'm going. And now it's a destination. Yeah. People know, everybody knows the bow rack.

And we're going to make it better. And it's starting in October. I'm going to expand. I'm going to add 1,800 square feet. So I'm excited about that. Just met with the city before I came over to talk with you. And it's, it's, it's like, yeah, go for it. It's all a go.

We've got to just dot some eyes and cross some teas. And, you know, but it all looks great. So we're going to make it better. We're going to make it a little better. We're going to add about 1,800 to 2,000 square feet to it. So this can be good. Man. Can't wait.

I'm, I'm still healthy, I guess, stay healthy enough that I can get that construction job done. Well, you are the herd bowl. Well, I always say, yeah. I'm going to pull in another herd bowl. I got a little, Tim McMahon, he ran Essex crews forever. Tim's awesome. He's so funny. He's the funniest guy ever, hunted with him in Wyoming.

And I laugh so much, I mean, he's kind of like Roy, you know. Tim's just always, is never anything serious. He's just the biggest, you know, funniest guy, just always cracking jokes. just had a great time with him. I already talked to him about us, so he's not surprised that I'm going to pull him out of retirement to come home with me. That's a good hand. He'll keep me straight.

He goes, we need to hire a framing crew. I go, you're looking at him. That's one thing I respect about you. You do a lot of work. I mean, you're one of the hardest working guys I know.

I enjoy it. You know, I think Thomas Edison had a quote one time. He said, opportunity often disguises itself as hard work. Yeah, right. I think we have light. He had something to do with that?

He had something going on there. I'm sure he worked really hard at it. I was curious. I remember, and you probably remember better than me, but back in the day, we used to shoot league at the bow rack. How was Roy shooting the league? Do you remember? You know, Roy wasn't the best shot,

but it didn't matter because, I mean, neither was Jim Carter. Right. Jimmy missed a walkback one time from 10 yards back to 20, and his wife at the time hit all eights and tens. But Jim was just relentless.

Right. I mean, like, if he had to stab, if he didn't have anything left for arrows and he found a knife in his pack, he's going to stab him with the knife, right? Yeah. I mean, those guys get it done. Right.

And Roy was that guy. I mean, it didn't matter what Roy Shaw. Like, Roy was incredible. I mean, he picked up a recurb. How many brown bear did he kill with his recur? I don't know. He's sheep? Yeah, he killed nine brown bear.

and nine sheep, I think. Oh, gosh. Not all of them with his traditional bow. Yeah, not all of them with the traditional, but I mean. And he called me one time. He's like, look, I've been struggling with target panic. I think I'm going to shoot a traditional bow for a while. Okay.

Well, yeah, he had no doubt he was going to get it done, right? Oh, no. No, he killed giant animals with that thing. He was just, just, it didn't really matter what he used. I know. He had such great stories. You know, he came and he, you know, for like the last three years there, he came down and stayed in the barn and had a blacktail.

And, of course, I sent him to the high country and he had a lot of fun up there, you know. But the most fun I had is I was working and I wasn't, you know, I wasn't hunting yet because he came pretty early in the season, I think right when it opened. Yeah. And they'd corresponded with other family here and stuff. But Roy, of course, he was hunting. And I just was looking forward to when he was staying out there. I'd go out and listen to all his stories because, I mean, he had such crazy stories. He did.

He was, to me, I mean, kind of how you said that, that guiding. light a little bit because where you guys talked in the Steens where he thought bohunting meant too much to him. You know, he's worried about that. Well, that was me too. And I never had that balance of he had he knew that it shouldn't be like that. He should be doing more for God. I didn't have that. All I cared about was bo hunting. I didn't care about anybody else. I didn't care about anything else. All I wanted to do is bohunt. So that was our common thing. I just didn't have the positive balance that he had. And he helped me with that.

Right. That was where you could, he never felt like, it never felt like he was preaching. He never felt like he was scolding. He was just there and just offering good, good advice. Right. You know, and you could tell him anything. Yeah. And he won't judge you.

You talk to Roy about anything. Mm-hmm. You know, and he was such a, he's such a loving individual. What, there was 675 people or something like that that came to his service. I mean, and I never forget, you know, because, you know, a father's love, for his son is incredible, but raced it up and said, he was just, he goes,

I'm just so impressive, my son could touch so many people. You know, and he touched way more than it was there. Those are just the people that came. I know. You know, and he, he was here, and then he was in Alaska. Yeah.

You know, and all the old sheep hunters that all turned out that had so much respect for him. I mean, you know, you know you're in greatness when somebody can go to a land that they're not native from and within a short period of time become a legend. Yeah. In more than one way.

In humanity. Yeah. In a human, you know, just because he loved his fellow man so much. Yeah. You know, sure, they looked at his accomplishments. And I remember Jay Marcotte come back and Jay had been up there hunting because he had family up there. And he went to, I can't remember which one of the local archery shops there, but I think

it was an anchorage. And they had a map. And on that map was all the map. And they had pins back then of every place that people. They had different color pins for caribou and moose and bear. And there was this pin and Jay took a picture of it and brought it back. It was old 35 millimeter days and he shows it to me. And there was this pin that was like way, way out, you know, in the middle of nowhere.

And it had this note written on it. And it said this guy from Oregon that moved up here and shot a moose out in the middle of the muskag. It took him like, and the whole thing was written out. Five days. to pack it out. Five days by himself to pack it out. And weren't they search and rescue went out looking for him?

And he's still like he's almost done. He's doing the leapfrog, yeah, because he'd been gone for so long but he had the snow and the good weather but he's so far back packing a moose by himself five days. And I remember Roy telling the story.

He's like, dude, I got out there and I get up on this point and I spot this giant bowl and it's way out there. He's like, I'm going. Yeah, there's no. Because he knew no fear. No limit.

No. No. And I mean, you know, the more confidence you have, I mean, fear is a terrible thing. And I mean, fear hampers us. I mean, we just got done with a period of time in our history where fear is totally gripped a nation

and actually changed the culture of a nation. Right. But, you know, fear's not a spirit of the Lord. I mean, you know, the Bible says that. Fear is not a spirit of the Lord. You're to fear God, that's the only fear you have. You know, outside of that, fear's a horrible thing. Right.

And so it just totally handicaps everything. Right. I knew who he was. Yeah. You know, he knew who it was. No fear. He knew who he wasn't God. And he had no fear of anything.

Yeah. You know, there was so many stories. I remember, you know, because I grew up trapping. And so Roy was talking and telling me stories about, about Wolverine trapping. And because, you know, when we were up there hunting, when you and I were up there hunting with him for Brown Bear, you know, there's just wolverine tracks everywhere. You know, and so, you know, after that, when he came down and I think it was the next year. He's like, yeah, he goes, those Wolverines, he's worth $675

bucks, I think, at the time, you know, I'm like, wow, that's good money. He goes, yeah, but he goes, oh my gosh, he goes, it's treacherous. And he said one time, he goes, there's no daylight. You know, he doesn't need daylight to trap anyway, you know, so I'm out and running my trap line. Well, there's some warm weather come through. Well, I get this big river, I got across. And he goes, got my trailer, got my sled. You know, I'm on my big snow machine, and I'm halfway across, and I fall through the ice. And he goes, I don't just.

fall through. I fall through. And he goes, I'm in the water. He goes, I got to swim back to my sled to get rope because I got to tie the sled off. Yeah. Because without the sled. And he goes, I grab my sleep bag. He goes, I grab some rope. I tie it off. I swim across the ice.

I get out. I'm not good. And he goes, I got my sap phone. He goes, I got my sleeping bag. He goes, I get this thing roped off. I tie it off to a tree on the bank. And I get in the sleep bag. He goes, I get all the clothes off. He goes, they're so stiff. He goes, you got to get them off quick. because he goes

once they turn rock hard you can't get them off so get all my clothes off and get his sleep bag and he goes he goes he goes Jill always loves he's called

that he tells me and he goes I call Jill and he goes tell Jeremy yeah yeah he goes this is where I'm out

he goes I need chainsaws I need we need stuff to build fires I need gas I need

he just lines him out he's 75 miles on a snow machine yeah from Jeremy right Jeremy, and God bless that guy. I know.

Just immediately, jumps to action, gets everything he needs, goes out there. They, you know, gets to Roy's got clothes for him. Of course, Roy said, I was teetering. I would have been dead. Yeah. There's no way. I would have froze to death. He would have came up on a guy, froze to death.

I am not that guy. I'm not Roy. Right. I'm not Arnold Schwarzenegger. No way am I Roy Roth. Yeah. You know, there's no way. because that was always my term.

I mean, Roy was Arnold Schwarzenegger under all that, but said that they sawed that snow machine out. They had a chainsaw winch. They winched it out. Then they had to build fires around it to melt the ice because it's frozen. They can't, the snow machine's not going to move because it's a big ball of ice. And they get it all done. And what's Roy do?

This goes right back to traveling. He doesn't come home. No. Doesn't go, I think I'm going to rethink this thing. No. He's just back at it. He was just a hiccup in, you know, in his life. I mean, just a small little problem solved.

Yeah. Yeah. He was made for Alaska. A big part of hunting the backcountry is problem solving in logistics, you know, and just being tough and just and not panicking. No matter what happened, he would never panic. He'd be like, okay, this is what we got to do. And you mentioned Jeremy.

He was the one who was with Roy. they had been watching this brown bear come out of the den up in that same country where we killed our bear. Right. And watching it come out. And then they're watching this den for a while. You know, normally the bear in and out, in and out, getting their stomachs kind of warmed up. And after coming out from winter. And nothing had come out.

So he's like, hey, I want to go up there and look at that den and see how big it is. So they like to din up on really steep hills. Yeah. And so he climbs, has to use a shovel to cut foot holes all. the way up that hill and he's in there and and Jeremy's there and he's like, Roy's like, I'm going to stick my head in just kind of have a look around. So he stick his head in and comes face to face with a big old brown bear. A 10 foot brown bear. And this bear took a swipe out of him. Roy goes piling back, hits Jeremy in the face with the shovel. And Jeremy from the hip,

I think has like a 375 mag or whatever. But anyway, from the hip shoots that bear because they'd come out on the lip and is looking at Roy and folded it like a duck and the and the bear slid down over over the top of Roy. Right? Yeah. And Roy stands up. He's like, I'm good. Yeah. I know.

And Jeremy's like, I'm not. I know. Me in the nose. His nose is bleeding. Yeah. I mean. Bro like broke his nose. He said he nearly knocked him out.

He said he could hardly even see to shoot the bear when it went by. And Roy called from the satellite phone right after that. He was so fired up. This is like greatest story ever. But that's. Remember, he told that. We used to have that big hunter's rendezvous. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he goes, Roy goes, okay, I'm not lying. You can't make this stuff up. I actually did this. I know. Anybody else, it would probably be a big, a big fabricated story, but Roy didn't have to make up stories. His stories seemed like they were made up.

But you started to tell, I wanted you to go back in that first packout because I know it was a hard packout of your bull in the steins. And that was your first experience pretty much with Roy. Yeah, that. that bowl, we get done butcher in that, and we switch off, you know, and I'm, I'm 20, I can remember my age because it was, this was an imprint because it, it just cut me to the core as an arrogant,

you know, selfish, you know, self-centered 27-year-old man. I, we killed this bull, and Roy and I switch off. We got the head in the cape, but we don't have our packboards. You didn't hunt with packboards back then. Right. We didn't have good packs. You know, they, They braddled. They made noise. They had all these little clips, you know, but we had those big metal frame packs, you know. And so, you know, we got to haul this head and cape out,

but we got everything boned and sacked up and waiting for us, you know. So, you know, we get it out. We sleep that night, you know, and Roy was great at dreams. Yeah. Remember that? Oh, I know. Yeah. So we just had a great.

Or fighting. Oh, my gosh. We just had a great day. And I'm a light sleeper. I still don't even sleep. I don't, I close my eyes, but everything wakes me up. I mean, you know, and so I'm laying there, you know, I'm tired. We just had this crate hunt.

I'm pumped. I'm just jacked because we just killed this bowl. But I'm not really sleeping. I'm just kind of sleeping. Right. And all of a sudden, Roy just sits up and he's just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's giant. It's just, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh. And I don't know what to do.

Like, he's screaming. Right. And I'm like, we're in the back of my, I think I had an old 85 Toyota truck at the time. Old diesel, that old diesel Toyota had, you know, it was a turbo diesel. Great truck, four-wheel drive. And he just lays back down. It goes right back to snoring. And then a little bit later, it goes on again and he was yelling about some else.

And I'm just like, so the next morning, I'm like, so Roy, do you, you remember, like, having kind of an episode last night? He goes, oh, he goes, dude, he goes, did I, did I, did I, did I, did I talk in my sleep? I go, did you talk? I mean, you stood up and, like, was full on yelling in the back of the truck. He's like, okay, if I do that, just hit me and tell me to shut up and go back to sleep. Because that's what Jill has to do all the time. I'm like, this poor woman. Yeah.

And it went on a lot after that because, you know, we hunted a lot. Yeah, yeah. You know, after that. So every time, I mean, you could count on Roy, right. And Dwayne Levitt did the same thing. Okay. Except Dwayne's dreams always involved women. You know, pink pocadded bikinis.

I mean, one time he just woke up and was just screaming pink polka dotted bikinis. But that was, you'd have to know Levitt. Yeah. But anyway, so yeah. So the next day we grab these packboards and we head off in there. And, you know, the whole time dropping in, I'm like, okay, I think I'm somebody. I've been, you know, every year my running was. seasonal, you know, and so I'd run and get in shape and stair master at the gym and, you know,

work out in the gym and get to, so we're all the way in there. I'm thinking, I'm going to, I'm going to pull my own here. Right. You know, I'm, you know, this is going to be competitive. You used to do pull-ups at the gym with 45-pound plates hanging and you just be knocking out pull-ups. I remember the first time I saw you in the gym. Yeah. I think I was doing dips with, and I'm sitting there, I'm all focused and, and I hear somebody go, what are you doing? I go, hey, Cam. And I'm just just working out. He goes, you go, I'm going to tan.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, I used to go over there just to go tan. Like I was, and I'm like, you just, we got to break for a second because the whole time I'm thinking, I'm got to work to be cool, right? And back then, I would think I was single. And, you know, I'm trying to look good. be somebody and everything, but you had me beat.

I don't think so. No, no, you had me beat because there's like, I don't know, I've said it before, but, you know, and you've never heard me say it, but there's like, you know, coolest actors I could think of in Hollywood at the time, like, like there's John Wayne and there's Ewell Brenner and Clint Eastwood, and then there's Cameron Haynes. No, serious. I mean, I'm serious as a heart attack. I always thought, you know, I'd tell guys, he hunt, he's like one of the best hunters I know,

and he's an awesome dude, but he could have went. he could have went with Clint if they were the same age and went down there and he had had a career in Hollywood because honestly there's nobody cooler than Cameron Haynes because you just had that mantra because I was just and after you walked away from that I'm like oh I probably should be I should be just tanning and and you dressed well too like I always had the same clothes I'd probably wore since ninth grade right right they didn't change they were just jeans and a button up shirt just like I am today same hairstyle you had different hairstyles at times You were wearing the, I didn't even know what designer was.

I didn't even know what it was, but I mean, you had it going on. And I just like, I need to pick up my game. I didn't look like Rob Lowe. Why am I working out? I need to just, I need to do what Cam's doing. But anyway, that's just a side note. But back to Roy. So we're dropping in there, and we get to that carcass, and, you know, we load up all that meat.

And we split that elk right down half. And, I mean, we're having to help each other up. We got neck meat, backstraps, tenderloins. We got all the scraps. We split it down in the middle, and we got a hind quarter and a shoulder apiece. We're heavy. We're heavy. Yeah.

You know, and I'm, but I'm young. I got vinegar, you know, my veins. I mean, I got it going on. And so we go and we get to the base of the hill. And Roy just instantly, we hit that grade. You know, I was with him to the grade. And, you know, if you've ever been in the Kiger Gorge, I'll say it. We hunted that as kids.

If you've ever been in the Kiger, you know, I think it's the, 3500 feet from top to bottom. There's no trails. It's marbles. It's volcanic rock. There's no soil. It's sagebrush. It's wire.

It's crap. It's hard to diverse. And we start up this straight up and downhill. We're going to go straight up and out the mouse. What we used to call the mouse trap. We're going to go out the mousetrap with this thing. That's a pole. It's a pole.

And I look up and Roy's 50 yards ahead of me. Another 300 yards. Roy's 150. yards ahead of me. Pretty soon, Roy's 200 bloody yards ahead of me. And I, as the hardest thing I could do to say, Roy, buddy, you got to take a break. Just let me catch up. Yeah. And I'm thinking, there's no way. Right. I mean, what is wrong with me? Then no, you start second guessing yourself, right? Yeah. It's like, like when we were up there, you know, hunting brown bear. Yeah. You know, Roy could pick those snow machines up because we'd get them stock, we'd roll them. Here comes Roy.

He just picks it up and puts it back on hard snow and goes, look, I don't care. I don't want to hear how you wreck. I just don't want you to do it anymore. Yeah, he told Nate Simmons he was a worst snow machine rider he's ever seen. Because that country was such a good teacher, right? But that country. He just loads you guys on the snow machines because Nate, I get there. Nate is, he is road rash on the side of his face.

I can see his collarbones road rash. He's all down. And I'm like, Nate, what happened? He goes, this is the thousand ways to do. Yeah. And it's not just like pretty flat snow machine is this country was insane. Well, that happened on the lake when you guys, because, you know, Ray just, you know, Nate had never been on a snow machine.

Right. Right. Yeah. So they started out across that lake and it's hard ice, you know. And they get to go and Nate's like, it just started to tip over. And he goes, I just thought it couldn't be doing this. It's a snow machine, right? Yeah.

He didn't know he had to lean with it like a bike. I know. It's a workout. And so he just goes over. And he was pinned with. it so he's sliding out across the ice, you know. We left him in a cabin. His snow machine broke down.

And so we took off and we said, okay, and that Hage River cabin way up there, it's like 150 miles from anywhere. And you said, okay, we'll send the plane after you. And it was like a daze. And we were off. I killed a bear. We were back at the other cabin. Nate thought we left him.

And he's like, is anybody coming to get me back here? And we, that's just, you know, that country is. You got to tell the story about you guys up there at the top. When Roy took you up because there was so much snow. So that was a record year. That was 2012. Yeah, we could get anywhere. Record snow year.

So Roy was like, you know, Roy. New country. Adventure, right? Yeah. Go where I've never been. Well, he took you up to a place that you guys couldn't get out of because you had to switch back up. And you got to go straight down with those snow machines.

It's not like you can like go over there. It's a straight shot down. Yeah. It's, we were at the top of this. mound that normally you'd never be able to get to. Right. Because of the snow, we could. And it was hard getting there.

It was like, there's these big holes and you'd have to like lean into the hill with the one ski and be going full speed just to get past that hole. Otherwise, you'd get sucked down in it. You know how it goes. Oh, yeah. And so we somehow got all the way up to the top of this mountain. This big, big mountain there. And we're looking for, you know, new country.

Hey, Promise Land. Are we going to get to where we've never been? Right. Roy had never been. He's hunting up there all the time. So we're at the top of that mountain. And what we'd do is Roy would go first and he'd go down and then you'd just be like watching, watching, watching. And however long it took him to come out of the bottom and how small he was is that's how far the drop was.

Right. Oh, yeah. He dropped off that mountain and we're sitting up there watching and he's like, nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally, I don't know how long it was, but there's a little dot that comes out. And I was just like, oh my God, that's so far. This is the biggest. And Nate goes, I'm not doing it. I can't do this.

And I said, well, you can't go back that way. No, no, I know. I said, you have to. And he's like, he goes, I don't know if I can do it. And I said, all right. Well, let me just go down. You follow me. Just hang on.

And so I go, look, so if I don't make it, tell my wife and my kids, I love them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, Nate, Nate was all excited to show me what you guys came off of. Oh, okay. Yeah. And literally it's Mount Everest. Yes. Yeah, it's literally Mount Everest.

I mean, it's like McKinley up there, but it's not McKinley, but it's close to it. You don't know if you're going to make it. And so I drop off, go down, I get to Roy. And he's like, we're looking way up there, Nate. And he's, you know, it's a long way up there. And Roy's like, what's going on? And I said, oh, I said, he's, I don't know. He says he can't do it.

He goes, well, he has to do it. I said, I know. I told him. And I said, I'm worried that we're going to lose a snow machine because the river was off to the one side. I mean, a complete drop off to the river. And I said, I go, let's go, let's go over, line these snow machines up just in case he comes off. And that snow machine goes bombing towards the river, we can stop it. Right.

And we don't lose a snow machine. So, Nate saw us go line up over by that cliff over there on the right. And he's just like, they think I'm coming off this thing. And, you know, he knew what we're doing. Yeah, no, he told me. He goes, this is a thousand ways to die show. Oh, God. He goes, he's just petrified.

Yeah. You know, and like, when I'm going to admit, you know, I, I, I, I, I've never rode a snow machine, but I grew up on a motorcycle and, you know, quads and grew up on a farm. So, I mean, you just knew how to operate everything. Yeah. And, you know, when I got there, you know, Roy told me all those stories, you know, when we were all in the cabin that first night, he's like, I think he even said that. He goes, like, he goes, I just have to, I just want him to stop wrecking. I don't care how they do it.

I just don't want them to do it anymore. I know. You know, I don't want to hear about it. I got, I got pictures of me with mine upside down and just stuff everywhere, everywhere. And it's like, God. You know, I could see Nate was just petrified. He was. Yeah.

And so he's the toughest kid, too. I know. Or not a kid. Now he's a man, but he's always been so freaking tough. In the lower 48, I don't know if you. Oh, no, no. But I mean, outside of a machine, he's. But up there, it's different.

Well, he's on a machine. I mean, Nate's, there's no fear in Nate, you know, put him on two feet. He's a great bowhunter. He's going to hunt the best backcountry. There is one of the best bohunters I know. Like I said, we've met a lot of kids. I mean, by far, Nate Simmons is one of them, humble, kind-hearted kids.

I got to tell you something else, you know, when I called him about the Kodiak trip, it wasn't probably three days later, Nate's mom calls me. And she goes, Wayne, she goes, I need to know everybody's name that is going on this trip. And I was like, you know, because I didn't know Nate's mom. I think I'd maybe met her once. And I'm thinking, okay, is somebody going to get in trouble here? is she doesn't want her son around somebody that I'm taking. To pray probably, right?

It was what it was. She goes, I'm going to pray for, I need to pray specifically for every one of you for safety. And I was just like, I told Nate, I go, how are you so blessed to have a mom like this? Yeah, great family. Great family. His dad was so awesome. But anyway, Nate, I remember, you know, Nate Simmons came into the bow rack. He was playing baseball at LCC.

Him and Matt Gustafin. Brandon Davis. I mean, they were all on that, on that baseball team. Good team. And Nate was kind of like a Wyatt C. Bright. Yeah. He was. I mean, he was at a different level. And just driven, you know, and loved every minute up, loved it so much that there's no way you were going to keep him out of a career. Right. And, you know, Hoyt guys got together for a sales meeting. This has been, I think, three years ago, and they were discussing TV, you know, who they should sponsor. You know, or is it TV, you know, we're sponsoring, you know, outdoor channel and everything. So they had this vote, you know, of who had the best show, you know, on TV and Nate Simmons won unanimously.

Yeah. Not one Hoyt rep voted for anybody else, but Simmons. That's impressive. Yeah, it's impressive. And, you know, that's just, it's just a giant accomplishment in itself because when you watch Nate's stuff, it's just different level. It is. It's next level stuff. So good.

He's so passionate. It puts all his heart into it. one of the best boh hunters you'll ever meet, comprehensive about every single step of it. You know, if you went with Nate, he's going to know the whole law, whether it's federal law for filming or, you know, fly times. It doesn't matter what it is, you know, equipment restrictions. Nate knows it. Yeah. He is. He's quiet and so smart and so tough. Well, he was an electrician. He walked away from a electrical career as electrician. Yeah. You know, to go to work for Eastman's. Yeah. Yeah. As a cameraman. I know.

the beginning. He was your cameraman. Right. Just incredible, incredible dude. But anyway, yeah, I could, but, but, you know, Nate, that was, you know, and so Nate was excited because when I showed up, you know, you were done. You'd already killed two bears. Yeah. And so, you know, Nate, Nate was like, oh boy, you're going to get your eyes.

And I got to tell you, the first couple times, you know, Roy would just jump off over the edge. Simmons would ride up there and he goes, okay. this is probably one of those drops, you're not going to like this. Don't hit the brakes. It goes faster. Because Roy would give you any other stretching at all.

Roy's just like, Roy saw that I could ride. He's like, oh, yeah, forget it. You know, he doesn't need anything, you know, but I didn't know, you know, anything about snow machines other than I, you know, had rode a bunch of different stuff. And so, yeah, you dump off one of those cornices.

We went off a cornice. Yeah. And, you know, Roy's like, okay, this one could be bad. I think this one's got a cornice on it. but just just stay back on the snow machine and don't get too far forward because it could pogo stick and then you'd roll. It's like,

so you dive off of it. Straight down. And then you're in mid air for a little bit and then you hit again. Yeah. It's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. You know,

but when I, when we'd spotted my brown bear, you know, he came out, he was just walking across, but he was close to a hibernation hole, you know, and we're ripping to get over there.

And I had this snow machine that would just die. I mean, it would just die for no reason. I, those, those machines knew Roy. He'd come back and open it up and mess around with a bunch of stuff and it would start again. So I was in this, we came around and we were trying to get up this hill and I was almost to the top and it spun out.

And Roy comes back and he's like, how did you do this? I'm like, what happened do you not want to hear about how I did it? Just don't do it anymore. Right. And he goes, are we going to have to roll around in the snow? And I'm looking at Roy. And he's been out there with you guys. His nose is peeling.

His ears, he didn't want to wear anything over his ears. His ears were peeling. You know, and I was just looking at him. He's looking a little grumpy. And I go, look, I go, it's going to be no competition. I go, you could just bury me out here in the snow. Let's just get this thing out. Right.

He goes, we got to get on this bear. He goes, you can't be getting us stuck. I'm like, died. Just, no. So then we're opening it up and trying to get it running again. Yeah. Finally got it going and we're back on it. And I actually was able to get a couple arrows in that pair.

Yeah. What an adventure. Oh, that was wild. But, you know, such great people. I mean, that's like I said before. I mean, how in the world we were so blessed that we just landed in a place that, you know, we could be around so many good people. Yeah, I know. So many. I mean, not just the toughest people. It's like, how does this happen in this little area? Right. He's truly legends. You mentioned Mark Ludwig. He was like his own special freak specimen of an athlete. He was. And he was just, if you've ever known somebody at his funeral, Nick, the pastor Nick, you know, he characterized him as an otter. And I'm like, dude, you know him.

Yeah. You knew Roy. And in his service, and I mean, you know, I was just broken because, you know, he, he's, He tried it once before. Oh, you said, you said, Roy, you mean Mark. I mean Mark. Yeah, right. He tried to kill himself once before, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I went to Mark, and I made him promise, you know, I made him promise me. I go, dude, just call me. Don't do this again. Just call me. You know, and Mark had it all planned. I mean, he thought it was what was best for his family. He had a couple life insurance policies, and they would pay out like 60%,

even if he did. And he waited right up to the day that they were good. He had three policies, and he did it. He thought that that was what was best for his family. I know. And it wasn't, they needed him. I know. And we all miss him.

I mean, he, I think we were talking the other day, told the story about, you know, he would, he would show up and he was so much fun. But he was 12 years old. Yeah. And he was the most obnoxious 12 year old. You've been around your life. But he was 30 some. He acted 12. No, no.

But he was never going to be 13. He was 12. Yeah. You know. mentally, you know, and so he showed up and he was just like, show up on a Friday, what are you doing tomorrow? Well, I'm going to go to this 3D shoot. I'm going with you. Oh my gosh. So you had to get mentally up for the trip. And he took Beverly with him one time and the whole time, he's rolling the windows down. I had this old Toyota forerunner. He's throwing in a neutral. He's pulling up on the

emergency break. We're going full on down the pass. And he's turning the radio up. You know, he'd, he, he, he, stick his finger in his mouth and put it in your ear. It's like, Mark! Right. Just stop. He was unbelievable. He was unbelievable. And then he'd walk in and he's just like, oh, he left a lasting impression with

old Lisa, you know, the first time she saw him. Oh, my gosh, he was just freaked out. I bet. He'd walk in the shop and he'd go, woo! He goes, he'd take his hair and he'd pull back. And he's like, yeah, what are you looking at? I know what's you looking at. You're looking at me?

And you're looking at me because I'm so bloody good looking. Then he just had that voice already. And big smile. Big smile. He always had some kind of caffeine drink. Yeah. Couldn't drink liquor. No.

You know, no way because he had Native American blood in him. He was a mess. And he'd tell you, he's like, I am not drinking liquor ever. You thought he was crazy sober? Yeah. But at the same time, that guy would show up, what are you doing tomorrow? Yeah.

I'm pouring 38 yards of concrete. I'll be there. And he'd show up and work all day. Wouldn't take any money. Yeah. Would never, like, dude, like he did that so many times when I, Mach 6 was the latest bow.

Yeah. And I went to see him in the hospital. I took that bow in there. And I threw it on his bed brand new. And I'm like, this is for you. And this is because you have people that love you. Mm-hmm.

And I'm one of them. And I don't want you to ever do that again. Yeah. And he broke that promise because he didn't contact me. the second time. Yeah, that was, you know, he was, I love that man. I know.

I love that man. Me and Roy, when we, after the first time, we went and saw him and he was crying and he said, he goes, you know, I fucked up, I fucked up. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. We're like, well, it's all right. Yeah, it happened. What's, you know, whatever, whatever we got to do.

But just the biggest personality, I think probably still to this day, I mean, we both went to the same tiny high school. And he was one of the such a good athlete. He went and played in the Canadian Football League. Well, he would show up to our, we were going to have an alumni game against Loll. He shows up there in a baby blue Porsche with the fur coat on. He's like, what?

We're out in the stick. And he's a pretty good looking guy too. I mean, he knew it. Because, I mean, everybody that knew him. And he is a male stripper. Is a stripper? He was a stripper. And you didn't have to guess.

I mean, he knew he was good looking and he was. I mean, he was Mark Ludwig. I mean, he was just broke the ball every way. He was a legend. Complete legend. But yeah. To this day, it'll never, ever happened. It's never ever happened.

He would walk in and he'd mess with me so much. We'd wind up wrestling in the archery range. I'm a grown man and I'm wrestling. I mean, I'm 27, 28 years old. And I'm wrestling. Well, business hours. I mean, he would come in and he would just like, come on, come on, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. And he'd remember, he'd always grab your head and pull you down.

Yeah, I know. And he goes, come on, man, you've got to lead with the head. Yeah. And he'd just mess with you so much. And I was just young enough and stupid enough. I'd look around and people in the store are supposed to be professional. I just couldn't take it. Yeah. I know exactly how that, you know, I worked with Roth's construction for a while. And Roy was the same way. up wrestling under houses because we had to break out basements and do all this and we'd be under a house like with a sledgehammer breaking our old foundation and then just start wrestling and we're just you know headlocks and of course he was so strong I was like a rag doll but we had some pretty

good fight then you get mad sometimes yeah are we going to fight I'd get mad at I'd get mad at Ludwig yeah and he'd just laugh and I just get madder you know but he's this like the whole time but yeah great. In at the otter crest, I worked with Roy down there because I could run a bobcat and they needed a bobcat operator and all the beams underneath that thing were rotting. Okay. Because we weren't treated. So you made a, what, a ramp under the... We had to dig all these logs and everything and bobcat was the only way we could even get in there. So, yeah, I went down there and worked with Roy and then worked with him off and on on little jobs,

you know, because I was starving to death and he knew it. I'm like, Roy, I'm having money. Trying to run this archery shop, well, come to work with me. And so Lisa had run the shop. And it was just great times, you know. We were, we were supposed to. They picked the hardest jobs in the world. And then we would work super hard in the morning and then go bait bear. And just be gone hunting all the time.

And it's just like, I'd have sandwiches and whatever we'd use sandwiches for bear bait. We're like, no, we're getting McDonald's. And then we'd go try to kill bear. Yeah. And you guys always had the same thing for McDonald's, right? Two bear pets. Just plain. Just plain hamburgers, fries, yeah.

Yeah, just meat and a bun. Nothing on them. No, yeah. He would have ketchup. Remember how he loved ketchup? Oh, ketchup. Peanut butter, ketchup. Yeah.

Oh, man. Peanut butter, ketchup, hot dog, and a hot dog bun. God, I miss that guy. I know. I miss that guy. Well, so we talked a lot about the old days. Yeah. I'd be curious to hear for today,

today's boll hunting world, archery world. How is it? I mean, how is the bow rat now compared to it was back then? And how is the industry? It seems like it's more popular than ever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's such an awesome time to be in the industry because, you know,

structural integrity of everything. I mean, back when I started, sites, bows, rests, everything broke, quivers. I mean, how many times do we have all our quivers all duct tape up? I owned an archery shop and I had a duct taped up quiver, right? Yeah. Everything broke. Nothing breaks today. Right.

Everything has a lifetime warranty. And the equipment, I mean, back then, we were happy if we could get, like, we used to grate our arrows and try to figure out which ones would actually hit the target. Yeah. You know, and the strings, I used to not want to shoot my stream because it was going to stretch. Yeah, so I'd like, it'd get dialed in and I'm like, I can't practice. I can't do anything. I got to hope that one more shot hunting at last. Right.

That's what we got into Mark and Cam so much because, you know, we would put marks on the cam because remember when I was building strings and had those white, goofy strings that had make them. everything. Oh, right. Yeah. We'd mark the cams and you could figure out like in a tournament, like I was shooting a lot of IBOs back then. And I'd watch my cams and like, oh, it's moving. I know it's going to shoot to the left.

I have to start aiming to the right, sure enough. And I had it down enough to where like I could judge by how far it was stretching. That was in a 40 target 3D shoot. I know. You know, now it's like if you get a little peep rotation, and we didn't dare, you know, try to, you know, do anything with peep rotation. No. And even if your serving started to separate.

Yeah, you're just like, no, I'm going to write it. I don't even mess with this. Don't touch it. Don't touch it. I won't shoot. We can't get it back. It's shooting good right now. Yeah.

No, no, none of that. I mean, you know, today, I mean, the strings we sell, you know, the bows we sell, the quivers, quivers, everything, aerotechnology, you know, broadheads. I mean, broadheads are just crazy deadly. Yeah. The level of lethal capability. You talked to me in to the grim rapers. Whoa.

Yeah. And at a different level. That is. And, you know, everybody. and guys are just going to lose their, they're going to lose their blessing over me saying that, that honestly, you know, there is technology out there that I think is corralled

pretty much by Grim Reaper on mechanicals, in my opinion. It's my opinion. Yeah. But, you know, I went to Maui the year before it was legal in Oregon. It's been legal. I think this is our fifth year that we've been able to shoot them. So I didn't know anything about them. I shot, you know, Muzzy Tro cars and Exodus.

And they're fantastic heads too. you know but I shot all these fixed blades for years and didn't have an opinion on them and so I went over there because you can kill a lot of animals yeah and I tested a whole bunch of different ones oh my gosh because you you know you can go in a good day you can kill a lot of stuff you know goats pigs you know axis deer access to year access to you're hard to kill and so I did some testing and I just came home with my head spinning over these grim reapers I was like dude these things got it going on I shot an axis buck he can go anywhere and it just stoned this thing. I shot another Axis buck, a smaller one, not a good shot, just stoned it.

Yeah. Not a good shot. They caused damage. They caused damage. And so, you know, just that kind of thing, that's just small things, you know, like that. It's just made such a difference in the industry, you know, and, you know, I'm, it's just a proud time to be in the industry. I mean, you know, and then so many new people. I mean, there's, there's fitness people that have gotten into archery, you know, because of, you know, drawn by food and nutrition, which you've had a big hand in that, you know, big time because, I mean, you kind of set the stage for that. I mean, guys would come in. And it's undoubtedly, you know, men are prideful.

You know, pride comes before a fall. I had to learn that the hard way in life, right? And, you know, so I would hear it all the time, you know, I'm like, look, I don't care what you say. I go, you know, the message cam, and this has been years ago when you're just first starting, and you know, the message he's sending, I love it. I go, it's fitness. I go, you know, it was, it's what I've always done being a backcountry guy from a kid, you know, because like growing up, you know, dad always had the worst horses in the world, right?

And we were backcountry hunt. He was a backcountry hunter, rifle hunter, but, I mean, we'd pack up all these horses and go off to the Eagle Caps or the Winahaw or, you know, strawberry mountain wilderness, wherever it was, we were going to pack in, put in this big camp, and we were going to hunt. I learned right away that there was no humor in riding on a horse and getting bucked off after the thing got kicked by another horse down across a bunch of switchbacks. You're 12 feet in the air and you land in a windfall. Right. As a 12-year-old kid. I didn't see the humor in that.

And I learned real quick that I had legs and I could use them. And my dad would always like, oh, this guy, I know this guy, he's got the best horses ever. He's got great mules and horses. and this other guy I know him and he's, it was never us. Yeah. Our horses were the worst. We had rodeo, talk about, you know, Brisbane. Yeah.

You know, he likes rodeo. Right. I hated rodeo. Yeah. It's not your goal when you show up and unload all these pasture green horses. Not in the mountains. No. At a trailhead and all your gears on there. And they just, you know, you hit one yellow jacket nest in the trail and they're strung out.

And my dad was just used to it. Right. He had all the stuff. He carried all his life. leather working stuff. He just put all the packed saddles back together and the saddles and everything that horse is ripped off and I was just used

to it. It was like a way of life. I'm like, there's got to be a better way. You wanted to use your legs. So I learned I could walk. Yeah. And dad, he'd like, son, you want me to take your riding horse? I'm like, dad, I'm going to walk. So I got to hike and I'm like, that felt great, you know. And it just worked. I was

safe. Yeah. I didn't get kick, stomped, bit, anything, you know. So we did the llama thing for a while. You know, gosh, I think I had llamas for 10 or 12 years there, you know, and they worked great too. But then it just got to where, well, let's just dig in and really focus on fitness and get to where we can just bone these things out and get them out. You know, rather than monkey around with livestock or any of that, we can just, we can make this happen. Yeah. And as long as you got, you know, three guys is decent.

You know, Brian Richardson and I have done some wing ding packs over the years. We're not that smart of guys. I mean, you know, we just, like how far in here? where are we? Oh, look at that ball. Richardson, you ready to pack meat? I was like, I think we're like 13 miles in here. You know, it's a long ways out and wind up at some other trailhead that's a 45-minute drive from the trail that we came in.

Went all the way across. Yeah. But, you know, the whole backcountry fitness thing, I mean, guys would come in. I'm like, you know, when you started it, I'm like, I love it, you know, because it's where we should go. I mean, you know, I think hunting's definitely cultural, right? you know, our hunting's cultural, no matter whether you're here. You know, we grow up around what we're doing here, and it shapes and molds us, and it shapes

how we think, and it shapes our passion for how we hunt. And you go back east, and I remember the first time I won a Morel, like we sold the most, they had a regional target competition where if you sold enough targets, you won this free hunt. Well, I went to Alabama, and they took us back there for free, you know. and DeWyle and Nathan Brooks and they were on the hunt, they were on this hunt too, you know, and if you've been in the target, you know, realm any amount of time, those are great guys. I mean, we sat around and great shooters, stand around and talk, you know, nothing but tournament stuff.

But I called the guy ahead of time and I kind of talked to him. And when I got out there, he's, you know, because I'm like, well, is there any spot in stock? Or, I mean, is there, can I just go rattle? And he's like, no, no, no. and so when I get out there, he already had his belly full of me calling him like a couple times because I'd never killed a white tail. I'd never been white tail hunting.

Yeah. And after the trip, I still hadn't killed a white tail. But, you know, it was kind of comical because he gets a hold of me and he's like, look, he goes, you ain't going to do no wandering around out here

because you start wandering around. You're just going to wreck it for everybody else that's here that's hunting. You stand at tree stand, son. You hear me? You stay in a tree stand. And he goes, I'm going to put some corn out over here. And if did D&A not come, he goes, you know nothing about it. And I'm just like, what?

And so I get in this tree stand, sure enough, some doze come in. And I'm not shooting those. I'm not shooting those. I mean, you and I grew up, we don't. Yeah, we don't kill those. I mean, we got cougar and bear and everything to feed. I'm not killing doze. So he comes in and he says, well, what happened?

I'm like, well, some doze coming. You didn't shoot them? I'm like, well, I talked to you on the phone. I really want to kill a good white tail. So, Bach, I'm not in, okay, that 86th me for the rest of the hunt. From there, he put me at a four-way road junction. Gar-hole. And a tree stand.

And like, the first day puts me up there. I'm like, there's just traffic. I mean, there's actual traffic. Yeah. And I'm like, what am I doing? And he comes and he gets me and he's like, what did you see? And I'm like, I saw a Pindo. There was an old Cadillac that went by.

So I crawled out of the tree stand. I went down because I could see the old boy fishing at a waterhole. Yeah. You know, so went down, I talked to him. Yeah. I was trying to get information at him on hunting. But anyway, totally different, you know, hunting style. Yeah.

I couldn't fit into, you know. I think like, and since then, I've done a bunch of tree stand hunting and it's great, you know, and you have to be smart with it. And I've killed black tails out of tree stands. But, you know, from my perspective, I'm this backcountry guy to think that, you know, I can't even, I can't even feel like I'm anybody unless I've got a heavy pack on and I'm going in like we did when we were kids. Yeah.

I mean, there's a bunch of old photos. We've posted them so much. Nobody wants to see them anymore. Of us packing in, you and Roy and Levitt, Brooks, and we're all,

you know, big guys, you know, we're all packing and we're going to be big, bad bow hunters, you know, but we feel like,

you know, we have to traverse, yeah, you know, three to five thousand feet, you know, every day. You know,

got to earn it. You know, got to earn it. That's, I had that same problem when I first started with Eastman's, is I would get back there and I wanted to hunt all day. Oh, yeah.

And it's like, they're worried about spooking animals, pushing animals here. And I get it, you know, but I'm like, well, just leave me out on a ridge so I can glass or do something. I'll just, I don't want to go back to camp. And I ended up, I think I got fired one time from Eastman's got hired back. Everybody was mad at me because I'm just like, I just want to hunt. And that's, that's all we want to do is I'm not really good at these rules. Right.

No, you can't walk. You can't do this. You can't do that. It's like, no. We're used to like, we're hunting on our own. We do what we want and we just go. Remember the first time we hunted together, you and Roy were all running to the glassy spot. Yeah.

And we just like slide in like it's baseball and we're like, we're looking at the hillside because it's getting daylight. And oh my gosh, there's a buck. There's a buck. You know, it's like, I never forget. You're like, okay, that one's mine. And you killed that buck. Yeah. You know, that's a power of positive, you know, speech basically.

Got lucky. Positive thinking. you go, that bucks mine and you killed. It's right there. It's that one right there. That one right there. Yeah. It had the velvet on when I killed it, but it's that one on the left.

Yeah. What a great trip that was. I did not. I mean, how luck, you know, I'll just say this was, you grew up hunting here with your dad. Right. You know, in the Steen's Mountains. I didn't know anything about backcountry. I'd hunted killed some things around here, but this is way different than going in the

Kyger. And so I didn't know anything. I could go up, I could walk up a hill pretty good, though, and I saw that buck. And so come around the top, you mentioned the rim rocks earlier when you're talking about over there. Same thing. Buck was the base of the rim rocks. And I think Jeff Brooks was over across the canyon. You and Levitt were together.

Me and Leavitt were together. And so just by happen chance, I picked the right spot, and that buck was right there. So I'd go to try to shoot straight down before bino harnesses. My binoculars hung down on my string, ripped my binoes off, and that arrow went whatever. And that buck went out. And I didn't know how far he was, but I'm like, same as you. It was like, I was using my 50-yard pin. He might have been 80 because it was pretty downhill.

Yeah. So I held 50 and I hit him in that shoulder. You remember, broke his shoulder up. And then he went kind of around the hill and then we got up on. Yeah, Roy and I caught up with you on the recovery. Yeah. I got that one pictured somewhere where he's bedded, he's hurting. But he looks big as hell.

I was like, I think you might have said, there's your buck. And I was like, what? that buck? Yeah. That is a giant buck. I had blocked out how big it was, but when he was better against that Rimrock hurting and I had to get in there and shoot him again.

But he looked huge for us. For us. And he was. I mean, he was a great buck. I mean, you know, it was those were just the glory days. I mean, we were just kids basically, you know. But it molded us culturally as hunters.

And, you know, that's something that's rich because, you know, since then I've had a chance, you know, to hunt. out of state quite a bit, you know, and a hunted Kansas, you know, Rick Carone, hunted Missouri in Kansas with, you know, with Whitney Friedman and Rick Caron. And, you know, those were all tree stand events and stuff. But, you know, when I was younger, when I went on that Burrell thing, I was like, if I got a hunt like this, I think I'll take a button collecting or I'll go knit a sweater or something because I just can't do this. So different. Because I just, you know, when you're a kid and

you're young, I'm just, I just, like, my heart's just pounding. I just, like, I remember, I killed a good buck with Rick Corone in, in Kansas, and Rick killed a good buck in Missouri, but I was in that tree stand. And so in the morning, these kids, awesome kids, David Allen and Alicia Allen, they own, it is hard to believe, they own like 260,000 acres in Kansas. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I mean, we would drive for, you know, my. and miles and it was all their property, you know, and they're big, big farmers, but, you know, Alicia came up and went to, well, I used to have that kid's archery booth at the fairgrounds, and I was running kids through there, and she goes, well, I'm not a kid, and she looks like a kid.

She goes, but can I shoot? And I'm like, yeah. So then she calls me, and she goes, can I come do some archery lessons? And I'm like, well, absolutely, you know. So she comes by, and, and I do some archery lessons with her, and she goes home, and, and Jeff Dahl, who was, He's a local guy here. He's going to church with Jeff. He's awesome dude. And anyway, he was with her, you know, and she was actually, they were opening.

She was with a college music major, and they were opening for casting crowns, and she was on tour. Wow. So she, in turn of events, she winds up going back home, and her now husband calls me, he was her boyfriend.

And he goes, hey, we got this, we got this ranch. And we have a lot of big white tail. And he goes, How would you like to trade, you know, a bow for a whitetail hunt? And so, you know, I go, well, let me think about it. So I hang up. I call Whitney Friedman.

I go, Whitney, because he hunted that part of Kansas. And I go, I tell him what's going on. He's like, dude, he goes, I'll pay for the bow. If I can just go. Nobody gets to hunt those ranches. And I'm like, really? And he goes, yeah, yeah. And so we wind up going down there.

And they had the tree stands all up. And they had some pretty fancy stuff for Rick and I when we got there, you know. And Rick was just recovering from a, another round of chemo. If you don't know Rick's story, there's another incredible individual that I just fell in love with that you and I both have had the pleasure to know.

Just an unbelievable individual. Yeah. And Rick was getting way, I mean, he was getting better every day, you know, and just like nothing, you know,

like you just wanted to believe nothing was wrong with him. And he was getting so healthy. I mean, we just came from Adam Rolo Roches, place down there, and Adam just like entertained us for one whole night and put us up.

And if you've never been to Adam's place, He's a great dude. Yeah, he's a great dude. And he'd put us up down there and man, what what a incredible ranch that they have there. And just watching the camaraderie of those ballplayers, you know, they all love each other and they loved Rick, you know. And, you know, Rick was a catcher.

And it was just such an awesome time for me to spend with Rick. But when we got there, first day we're up in trees. And there's just deer everywhere. But I got little bucks, but there's a fence corner. And there's not much tree. in Kansas where we're at. There's an occasional tree. They call it river bottoms. It's an occasional cottonwood, right? And these, about nine or ten o'clock, all the deer would just disappear. They just go lay down. And then about three in the afternoon, boom, they're all up. Well,

there was this fence corner, and there's literally 14 bucks go by this fence corner. I'm like, and there's a tree there. And it's about a half a mile. And so all morning in this tree stand, I'm like, I need to be right there. And so we move it that afternoon, crawl up that night. and there's two bucks fighting at a waterhole like 150 yards from me. Everything I can do to stay in that tree stand. I want to get out and go shoot one. And everything, like Rick would just, Rick would just pound on me.

Rick was dyed in the wall. Stay in the tree. Stay in the tree. Yeah. So, you know, when you're in Rome, you do as the Romans, right? Yeah, that's right. It's tough. It's tough.

Yeah. And these bucks are just killing each other. I'm like, oh, I could go shoot one of those so easy. I know I could just slip in there and arrow one. And so then your mind starts. wondering what would Eddie Craypool do? Yeah. What would Larry Jones do?

You know, what would all these top bow hunters that have always written, you know, that you've read forever? What would Chuck Adams stay in this tree? I don't think so. You know, so this is going on for like 40 minutes and I'm just sitting there like, who am I? You know, what? Cameron Haynes would be out of this tree. He'd be down there shooting these box. Are they going to break up and is the one even going to walk my way?

Well, sure enough, they break up in the bigger one. and I've never really taped him, but I would guess him like 165 or something. He's a good buck. And I was shot smaller. I've never shot a white tail to this point. That's a great buck. And so here he comes.

And he comes down, he waters, and he just walks right up, and I just pound him. And I'd always watched all those videos, you know, so I'd actually made pretty heavy arrows because I knew, you know,

I was going to be back there with Rick. So I'd some full metal jackets, and I pumped him up to like 525 or 540 grains, kind of heavy for 26. seven-a-half-inch draw. And I think I had my bow pumped up to like 75 pounds. And, and, you know, I just figured I want to shoot them through shoulders because you watch all those videos and you see all these guys shoot White Tail. And it's like, nothing happens. They buck and they're gone. Right. I'm like, I'm not doing this. Yeah. And so I shoot them right through the shoulders and just

break them down. Yeah. That was it. It was just awesome. And so like, I was like, wow, I just killed a white tail, you know. It was a first day in Kansas, you know, and it was just great. And, and what was better than that was David and Alicia, you know, and being down there with Rick and they were just such awesome people, just this awesome host. And they're just salt to the earth people, you know, and then, you know, Rick with what he was going through, it was just like good medicine. And when I dropped him off with Brian Stevens, yeah, I dropped Rick off because he was going to hunt with Brian in eastern Colorado for those mule deer. Yeah. I mean, Rick was just like on top of the game. I mean, men that we've lost like that, that were just, you know, just princes.

I mean, they were just here, like, almost like they were angels and God just gave them to us for a period of time because he loves us. Yeah. And he just shared them with us because that was just such a crazy turn of events on how we even met, you know, Rick. Yeah. It was here at a Luke Bryan concert is when he first came here. Yeah. But, yeah, it turned into just like a great friend. And they were just out at the farm, you know.

So that's how I mean. He would come out and stay with us. I think Rick came out four times and he would come out and he'd stay for a month and it was just good. So easy to be. I mean, he'd just sit in here and just talk just like part of the family. Yeah, exactly. And if you didn't know Rick, I mean, you know, baseball career with what the white socks. And then after he got hit with a pitch, crushed his wrist.

And so that ended his career. And then he was coaching and mentoring kids and had a big batting cage coaching thing going on, hitting, hitting practice and everything. that and then um started filming started film he was filming for willie robberson for the butt yeah buck commander yeah and he was producing that and pulled up sick and he was already in stage four pancreatic cancer which is not and and lived the next five years and really lived he did really lived that show they had that show going sheep shape and that's how i i think that's when he was out here and i wound up yeah yeah and you know it just just love the man. I mean, so talented. He could sing.

You know, he's funny. Funny. Oh, the girls just loved him. He just had such a, did have a heart of gold. Yeah. It's just such an awesome. And his whole family, his brother, you know, and all his friends are the same, same way, you know, just, just awesome people. But, you know, all that to say, what's new in the industry is what's old in the industry, is that we're family. And if there's something that's new, in the industry that I see that grieves me a little bit is, you know, there's bohunters that make mistakes. I mean, you know, Jesus, when he was in the middle of his ministry, the Pharisees, and they, you know, all the people, they catch this woman in adultery, and they drag her before Jesus.

And they said, you know, the law of Moses says, we have to stone her. What do you say? And they're trying to trap him, right? And, you know, Jesus is the son of God, he's God, he made us. he's the creator of all the universe and he loves us and he's here as the savior of the world and he's being asked this question and you know Jesus is drawn on the ground and they go come on man what do we do what you know and he says he who is without sin let him cast the first stone and it started with the oldest to the youngest but the oldest the wisest dropped the stone and walked away first. And when they were gone, you know, the woman's still there. And she looks up and and he says, woman, is nobody condemned you? And she goes, no, no, nobody condemned. He goes,

I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more. So, I mean, there's our example. There's, there's Christ giving us example on how we should live. And, you know, it grieves me a little bit, you know, because the industry is quick, and I'm not going to say I've ever been without sin because I haven't. And I'm not going to say that anybody else that's made mistakes in the industry, but what grieves me in present day is that we're so quick to kill our wounded. You know, there's been a lot of people, and we could go through naming them, and there's no use to doing that. And there's no reason to ever do that.

But they're wounded, but they're part of us. They're part of a brotherhood. They're conservationists. they love the outdoors. They're attracted to God's creation. They're just attracted to everything we are. And they want to be the best they can be at it. And they make mistakes.

Or they try too hard. But there's no forgiveness. And granted, some of them are bad people. You know, some of them aren't good people. Some of them are bad people. We've had some in history that we're doing it for all the wrong reasons. And yeah, they deserve probably what they got. They reap what you sow.

I mean, you sow a bad, you know, so bad seeds, you're going to reap a bad. bad harvest. But at the same time, there's some that, you know, I'm just grieved because they're dynamic people. And they just love bow hunting. And, you know, they love hunting. And, and they make a mistake. And they're, they're just 86th forever, you know, and there's no forgiveness. And we just shoot our wounded. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's like if we're all on the same team and we need to be because hunting is being challenged, right? I mean, we're sitting next to a state. that may be the first state that outlaw is hunting and fishing. The state of Washington, they're in horrible shape.

And Oregon's not too far behind them. And believe me, if you want to get on the bandwagon of just killing all the wounded, yeah, just keep doing that because, you know, a kingdom divided against the self can't stand. Right. And so, you know, this whole thing is threatened, culturally threatened, because somebody will make a mistake. And rather than saying, okay, yeah, you know, I can see how that could happen. You know, I, you know, I honestly, there's probably not a hunter alive that, you know, hasn't made a mistake.

You know, maybe unconsciously that they made a mistake or consciously they did something that they made a mistake on. But yeah, we shoot the wounded. Yeah. You know, we're the first ones to go. I know. That guy did this and he's a dirt bag. Right. No, no.

No, dude, he's not. Made a mistake. Made a mistake. He made a mistake. There's people with malaria. intent and that might be different but you know as you said I mean when you've hunted long enough I can think years ago in Colorado you have to have your hunter safety card with you right and I had changed packs and I had took all my stuff out do this forgot my old wallet that had my hunter safety card in

so I got stopped by game warden said okay can I see your hunter safety card I'm just like looking in my pack I'm just just like yeah my god it's it's in my other pack I said I just changed packs he goes well you have to have it on your possession i said i know i know and this was you know people would love to be able to say that oh i was a poacher i did this or did that so this is going to be bad and i said could i call my wife right now and i can you can listen i can tell her it's sitting on the the table and i mean i can i'm not lying so i called and i said hey trace is my wall was sitting there that stuff from out of my pack she's like yeah i said could you open is there an orange card in there.

She says, yeah, your hunter safety card. I said, okay, could you take a picture of that and just text it to me? Yeah. Anyway, the Game Warden could have gave me a ticket. Right. And then I would be a poacher. Oh, yeah. No, exactly.

And what I mean? And what did I forgot to transfer my thing and I had it and it was just an honest mistake. Yeah. That's different than going out and, you know, some big poaching ring. Right, right. Yeah. No, exactly. It's like, we got to build a look at this, you know.

And when, when the poaching ring is there, You're a criminal. You're stealing from everybody. You're no different than any other criminal. And a lot of that always came with, you know, like any criminal. There's drugs involved. You know, there's probably drinking involved. They're going out.

They're shooting bucks at night, you know, with a light, you know, wasting everything. You know, that's criminal activity. I'm not talking about that. Right. Let's clarify that. It's people that have made mistakes. Yeah. You know, and they didn't know.

Right. And then from then on, you know, it's just shoot the wounded. And I think everybody has, like, just like that, that oversight. or you didn't sign your license. You know, that's another one. I know it. Or proof of sex. Yeah.

It's like. Or I've got one. You know, we went in a back in 07, um, uh, Byron Davis and Brian Richardson and Guy Harris and I, we're all, we drew unit in, in Wyoming, a good unit. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're pumped. Yeah.

We're pumped. And boom, we're there. And, you know, we're hunting. And, you know, we, I, I kill a good bowl. I kill a good bowl. And, you know, Guy and Brian and Byron kill Bucks. I was the only one did kill Buck.

You know, lots of bucks, but I just was like so focused on elk, you know, and it was hard. I mean, it was a hard hunt. There was a lot of activity there because it was a type 9 tag. And if you know anything about Wyoming, type 9 tags. Yeah. Yeah. They don't get to go back and shoot them with a gun.

Right. You have all the local guys are there right with you. Yeah. So we learned the hard way. Archery only. Yeah. No more archery only. No more type 9.

And so that's the key to Wyoming, by the way. That's just a pro tip right there. No more type 9. So anyway, we're coming home. And I mean, CWD was just something that it just came into existence, right? We didn't know anything about it. I mean, we're just stupid dudes that just got done with a long summer of work. So what do we do?

We got everything up on top of my bow rack toy hauler. I got bow rack all over it. We got two big L kids up on the rack on the top of the toy hauler and the heads. And we're going across states. We didn't know. Right. We didn't know anything. I mean, this back in 07, it just clicked in. Well, they just had all these new laws. And I mean, we're breaking those laws. Yeah. We didn't know that. Right. I knew when I got home, man, I scrambled to make everything right. I mean, we accrued those babies and yeah, we couldn't keep them. Yeah. You know, it was a harsh fact. And that's just we can't be so quick to cancel each other and, you know, just basically shoot our own, as you said, over things like that. Something like that. That's just a mental lapse or didn't know.

Maybe it's just an honest mistake. Totally increase. And that's different. So we need to be able to look at that because, honey, I don't know, our egos are so involved in it. We love to knock people down,

it seems like. And instead of showing grace, I mean, I've been showed grace. You've been showed grace in life. It's like we should be doing that for each other. And I think if there's an honest mistake, it's okay to show some grace.

because as hunters with a smaller group of numbers, basically compared to the whole population, we can't really afford to eat our own. No, no. And the thing is, you know, we need to be, you know, we need to promote, you know, ethical practices. You know, I do on a regular basis. I've been involved with, you know, Oregon bow hunters now for, I think, over 20 years.

Tomorrow we have our fundraiser. We're going to auction statewide deer, you know, deer tag. You know, last year we set a record at $87,000. All that money, goes into conservation and that's something else that kills me too. So governor's tags. I have just, you know, social media is just loaded with, you know, oh yeah, if I had that kind of, okay, this is a deal. This is a deal with bashing governors guys. That's what your game hunting is worth. Your deer is worth that. Your elk is worth this. Your big horn sheep's worth this. You know, your antelopes is worth

this. Why? Because they put a monetary value on it. And then all that money, that they spend goes into access and habitat, creating areas for your opportunity and conservation. I mean, last year, we get a portion of that. Oregon Boweners is a 501C3. We bought over 25 cell cameras last year for OSP and proud to do it. Right. Instead of bashing those guys, how about thanking them? Thank you.

Thank you for paying this much for that tag. Yeah, and there's so many names out there, guys that just are proud to support that system. And yeah, they have money to burn on a campfire. but look what they're doing with it. They're supporting conservation. They don't have to. They don't have to. No, they could be on the other side of the fence.

You know, for years, you know, we have some history with Ted, Uncle Ted. Ted Nugent's awesome. He's such an awesome dude. He's such an educated guy. He's such a strong voice for, you know, for conservation and for conservativeism. You know, he's 2A. His wife has turned into just this totally awesome Christian, righteous chick. I mean, she's just awesome.

She's queen of the forest. She's queen of the forest and everything. And I just love everything about Ted, but, you know, there's that factor out there. Okay, would you want him on the other, would you want Uncle Ted on the other side of the fence? No. No. Thank you, Jesus, that he is on our side of the fence. He can rip anybody to shreds if he wants to.

He's so good verbally. Yeah. He's well educated on every subject. You know, he's, I remember when we took him hunting when we were kids. I do. Yeah. And Roy set that all up. Yeah.

Sutherland goat hut. I know. And the old boy that has all these goats, he's, well, you guys aren't going to kill me with bows and arrows. I've been shooting out of my gun, and they're all wild as heck, and they're all just running off.

And oh my gosh, we piled them up that way with old kid. Yeah. It was so awesome. Loaded up the old Toyota with those. That's right. But remember he had a laptop. Remember he took us up in the top of the Hilton?

Yeah. He was right in a blood trails. Blood trails. Yeah. We'd never seen a laptop. No. And he could type. Yeah.

Like he wasn't just a hunt and peck. He'd taken keyboarding. He could type. He was so good with his fingers. Yeah. The dude's the number one guitar player of all time, right? Yeah. So what can't he do?

Right. But, you know, he was just incredible overachiever in every way, you know. And he was just an incredible dude to spend a day with. It was. It was impactful. So we're all standing there. And we've all got these goats shrug up there. And remember that little tiny goat is running across.

across the hillside, just sprinting. Ted just pulls up instinctive, leads that thing, and smokes it. Yeah, yeah. And until then, everybody's like, well, he's just shooting no sights. You know, we're just like these sight guys. And he just pulled up,

he had that old Martin Gonza. Yeah. You know, Gonzo Safari. And he drills that thing. Yeah. And we're just like, you got to be kidding me, right? I know. He's a wild man, wasn't he?

We had a goat that was flipping around. He just put an arrow through it, and he looks around. I get this old video, I think I lost it in my fire because I had a fire in 94 and I lost all my, everything I had. I lost. But anyway, I had this old footage. Ted looks around and he's like, does anybody care if a firearm goes off around here?

And I'm like, no, I don't think so. I'm sitting there with my camera and he pulls up. And he's carrying. He's carrying. I didn't know he was. He pulls out and he goes, bubub, blah, blah, blah. He dumps his whole cliff into this goat. I was just like, okay, this is next level stuff.

you know, because we're just these kids. I mean, we couldn't have been 26, 27 years old at that. How old were you? 22? Yeah, young. Yeah, 22. You had your old blue toilet

with an arrow for an antenna. Yeah, that was an 88 pickup. Yeah. I had a 92 forerner. Yeah. Yeah. So it had to be right in there a 92 pro, because that's probably new when you got it, I bet. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was touring with the damn Yankees. Yeah. Because that's the first time, I think, yeah. Yeah, because it was the first time he was out. We got to go to the show and, oh, this is just awesome. He came to the bow rack. Oh, I know.

I still got those pictures, obviously. So Leavitt and Brooks and I are up there. And when, I mean, we got the whole range full of people. And of course, they're not bohunters. Most of them are just 10 fans, right? Yeah, rock fans. Rock fans, yeah. And so when he said, okay, he goes, I'll sign whatever you got to sign.

Jeff and Dwayne and I, we have our feet on the targets. And we've got just like a regular table. And it's flipped over. We're trying to hold people back. I stood up like three times and said, look, everybody's getting squished up here. You got to take a step back. And I remember afterwards, Ted's just kind of like, well, if you ever do an event again and you have somebody of my caliber, he goes, you got higher security.

Right. He goes, that's a madhouse. He goes, that's when bad things happened. He goes, it could have really got ugly. That's a madhouse. It was an awakening for, you know, because we're just all just totally ignorant to any of this, you know. We don't know. We got Ted Nugentu coming.

Hey, did everybody come? Such a big day for us as young bow hunters. It was. It was. It was fun. I didn't remember that kid's name Derek Carlton. Oh, Derek Carlton. Oh, yeah. No, Derek's a heart rod. Yeah, so he's always killing, taking great photos. So these are these young guys. Derek takes a lot of other people that are successful too. Right. He's always out. Yeah. So it's like you get those guys, they're kind of like us back, you know, probably even better than we were. Evan Cunningham's another one. He's these guiding now and he's good fishermen, you know, good hunter, you know, fishing. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. I. I. I. I. I still want to take you fishing sometime. I mean, I don't hardly get out anymore, but, you know, I part-time guided, you know, when I was younger when I was going to college, you know, and did it for like seven and a half years.

And it just used to fish all the time. But when I bought the shop, guillotine, still got my boat, all my gear. I love it. You know, it's fun. You know, it can get crazy addictive. And anymore, I don't care about fishing. And I really don't. I like to take people that have never.

fish before. Like I went a couple weeks ago and took old Jobin Jarvis and Cameron Saxon and Saxon caught steel head before but Jobin really never had, you know, so it was a good eye opener. We just smashed them. Oh, man. I've got a river that I fish and just got private put-ins on it. And it's just selfish because the owner and I are, you know, he's a good brother.

Yeah. And he lets me fish. And it is incredible. And they're all natives and they just tear you to shreds and steel head anyway. I like killing bulls. Yeah, I know. I know. I do too.

And when it came, people always ask me, like, dude, you used to fish all the time. And I'm like, yeah. No, I still hunt. Yeah. Because, you know, if you had to weigh that scale, I mean, them scales are going to be tipped, you know, pretty hard. How is the, like, the influence. Now it seems like bow hunting is kind of a cool thing now. Right.

You know, back in the day, there were some bow hunters, but not very many. Right. Now it seems like, I guess, with Rogan bow hunting. Oh, Joe's made incredible influence. Jacko, all these kind of big names. And it's like being a bow hunter is cool. How has that impacted you? Well, we thank you for that because, I mean, you've gotten those guys in

and you're the influence and you and I think Adam Green Tree had some influence with those guys too. You know, just really, you know, got a lot of people into bow hunting. But, you know, guns, I mean, when I was a kid in high school, everybody had a gun on their gun rack. Yeah, I did. I mean, we sold guns out of our lockers. You know, we'd trade guns. Every shop class and metals class, you know, we had a clumsmithing metals class. I would take it to the program.

I would take it to school because I'd go hunting after school so the gun was in my truck. Everybody. Everybody. Yeah. And so we're in a different world now, you know. And so now, you know, archery's cool. You know, archery's, you know, still probably by far, you know, socially acceptable. Because everybody thinks archery's, you know, and it is.

Archery's cool. In every way, it's part of us. It's in our ancestry. No matter who you are, it's in your DNA. No matter who you are, archery's in your DNA. Basically, I think Donnie Vincent, you know, one of his, you know, who we are. I think I love that video. Yeah. You did such a good job with that video. You know, and it's like, it's, it's, it's part of us. I mean, you know, you can't, it's like candles or a fireplace in a house. I mean, we don't need them, right? We have electricity. You know, you could, you could, we have gas to heat. with, you know, you don't need a fireplace in a house. I mean, you have furnace, right?

But you still have a fireplace. Why? You know, why you have candles? I mean, you have lights. You know, why do you need candles? Well, it's part of your DNA. Right. You know, women go wild over candles.

I mean, Lisa, my wife, I love her to death. She's just total sunshine in every way. She sells candles at our shop. I gave her the hardest time about that for a long time, you know. But unbelievable how many dudes buy candles. Yeah. You know. It's just, yeah.

You said it's just part of you. It's written in us. And so that's part of archery. And so with that, I mean, you can't beat that out of you. Right. You know, it's just a part of us. And so, yeah, it's it's entrenched with us. So, yeah, it's crowing.

There's an amazing amount of people that want to know where their food comes from, you know. And I was lucky I grew up on a farm. My dad used to brag. He was like a foodie before there was ever foodies. My dad went through the depression. And if you've ever been around, you know, old boys have been through depression. We're losing them. And there's not very many around anymore.

It changed those people. I mean, they knew what hunger was. They knew what, you know, they knew what having no money was like. You know, it taught them hard work and dedication. And they canned and they did food storage. And so I grew up with canning and food storage. Right.

And so. It's kind of coming back now. It is. Like that, where your food comes from, what your meat has gone through before it makes it to your plate. Right. And then I think we've had really good people

explaining the process. Like Rogan does a good job of explaining the hunting process, why it's important, what it entails, and that's projecting that information out to, you know, however many millions listens to it,

it's a podcast. Right. So we've had media kind of on our side of telling this good story. He seems, he's the number one media in the world. Right, right.

So what an effective voice that is. Because before, when we first started it, it was like you'd write in a hunting magazine or read a hunting magazine. Well, that's just how their hunters reading it. Right.

It's nobody knew reading it. So now we have this medium with Rogan's podcast and others and other media that's people who don't hunt are like, okay, well, yeah, that makes sense. In the last three, probably three years, I bet I've had over 150 people come in the store, buy a bow and tell me that they saw you and Rogan talking about bow hunting and then they watched Joe talk about elk hunting and, you know, and his whole, you know, you know, know, diet and lifestyle and everything with wild game. And they want to do it. I watched a Rogan podcast. I listen to a Rogan podcast. I, you know, I want to do this.

I want, you know, and so what, you know, what influence that's been. Yeah. You know, and it just sparks what's already there. And those 150 people who knows who they're talking to about it. Right. You know what I mean? So that's how it grows. But yeah, it's, it's been pretty special to see because now when you say you're a bow hunter,

it's just like, oh, oh, that's, man, that's cool. tell me more about it, you know, instead of being shonder, whatever, for being a hunter or being like part of this outdated tribe, basically. It's like bow hunting is now kind of more socially acceptable, as you said. Right, right. Yeah, no, and it is.

And honestly, you know, as far as like the future, the future looks bright for archery. I mean, because I mean, we, you know, outside of the old biases, you know, there is some old biases there. And I think you know, a couple years ago, you know, with Oregon Fish and Wildlife, I love

working with those guys and everything, but I think that there's just some, some deep-rooted biases on archery, you know, and it's always going to be there. You know, you can't help that. You know, there's just guys that are opinionated, you know, and I've, you know, ever since I started bo-ho, you bow-hunters, you know, my dad.

Yeah. When I started bo-hunting, I mean, he was not thrilled with me, you know, because died in the wool, you know, very prejudiced against bow-hunter. They get out there first, and, you know, he was old school, and, you know, they are wounded animals,

and just all the old cliches, you know. And when I brought that buck home, he came and he, it was, I got to tell this story. So Brooks and I, we come rolling in. I think I'd drop Jeff off and I had that buck in the back of the truck. Well, like three years before that, him and I were supposed to go to the snake on a rifle hunt. And I drew the tag, dad got sick, he gave me this mule. He had this mule. Talk about bad stock.

So I go on Cow Creek and I'm going to go up over, you know, I went up over Raleigh Gulch, which is straight up. in the deep creek. Right. Well, you know, I get this mule unloaded, and things just started really bad from the start. And I get up on top, and I hunted for a couple days, and there was a bunch of pressure up there.

I wasn't really seen any elk, so I'd spotted some elk across cow creek, so I was going to come down on fingerboard prairie. I had that mule. Well, I get down there, and that thing takes off and gets on top of me and starts jumping on me. Oh, man. Yeah.

And somehow I get away from it, steep enough I got away from it. So then I get a stick, and I got to try to keep the thing away from me. But every time, like, I could lead it for a while and it'd take off and it'd try to get on top of me again. And these old boys, I got in the bottom, and it hurt me so bad. I couldn't go anywhere. My ankle was, he got on top of my leg and, you know, smash my ankle and I couldn't hike. And so, long story short, it took me a while.

I was there for three days. Finally, he limped out of there whole thing, the whole time, the thing's trying to get me. I get home. My dad's old school. Son, you have no idea what you were doing with that animal. you just don't know what you're doing. That meal's awesome. I'm like, okay.

So fast forward two years. Kill that buck. Coming home. Excited to show Dad. Pull in the driveway. And he's walking in from out by the old barn there. He's walking in. I notice he's all wet and he's dirty.

He's all muddy. He's dirty. But dad worked all the time. I mean, he's always had his, you know, old farmer overalls on and everything. And he comes walking up. He's, that's a pretty good buck. Did you shoot that with that bow? And I'm like, yeah, he goes, he killed that buck, huh?

Like, yeah, he goes, can he arrows left in that quiver? I'm like, yeah. He goes, go shoot that meal. And I'm like, and I look at him. And I really hadn't looked at him, you know, because I was all excited to tell him. And I really, other than I just noticed he was all wet. And I look at him, she's bleeding out of both ears. Oh, my gosh.

And about that time, my mom comes flying out of the house with her purse. And she goes, honey, she goes, your dad's been a terrible accident. She goes, I got to take him in the hospital. And I'm like, well, what happened? I go now, I'm like, what in the world happened? And he goes, well, I was going to ride that mule. He goes, I was going to go on a ride up in the Cascades. I thought I should take him out and ride him a little bit.

He bucked me off. And he goes, he got on top of me. And he goes, I had to crawl down to the pond. And the only way I could get away from him is I crawled into the pond. Oh, my. Thing was possessed. Yeah. I didn't shoot the meal.

Really? No. No. That'd be tough to do. You could sell them for, you know, chemical works, dog food camp. So that's what dad did. That thing was messed up. He was like missing some links there.

Probably a good mule guy could have probably got it out of them. But, you know, but yeah, that was quite the deal. But that's, you know, my dad. And then so then, you know, after that, you know, after I killed that buck, I mean, bow hunting was pretty cool. But that's how deep his prejudice was. I mean, he was very upset with me that I started bow hunting. Yeah.

And basically, you know, it wasn't because. I wasn't going to hunt with him. You know, I was, I mean, he took me hunting. I was kind of like you in Eastman's. I mean, dad would take me, okay, son, you're going to go up here, you're going to go here? I'd just take off. Yeah. I'd go shoot something way off and 10 buck two and he'd be mad about it.

One time I seen this buck and I just beat feed it over there and I missed it and he was really close to it. Oh, he's so mad. I bet. But I was just uncontrollable. I was just like, he was always mad at me, you know, hunting. What I, what I love about what we've been doing late. and having you involved in the Liftern Shoot series

has been incredible just because, as I said, you're so wise and so much experience. But when we can go out to the farm and people can release that arrow and watch it fly to that arrow. Yeah, like Amala did the other day, and it went out of the camera on the top because it's arch so far up there, and then drops down and breaks that balloon.

You can't help but love that. Oh, bless your heart. It raises your spirit. If you're watching it, if you're doing it, if you're, I mean, the gift of arch Right. Is something I think I love presenting other people and so do you. And I'm so thankful you've been involved in what we're doing here.

Yeah, yeah. And Lil Amala, I mean, it was excited to, you know, see her, you know, and Tulsi. I mean, you know, you've got great people coming through. They're all awesome. It's just been an awesome opportunity to be involved with those people. I'm just a blessing, you know. And for her, you know, just struggling with the eye dominance and stuff. That was a challenge.

I saw you put the tape on the sunglasses. That was pretty awesome. It worked. Yeah, she's a great little gal. I know. So smart. Yeah. I mean, she's going to be a star.

I don't know what she's going to do, but she's got a bright future. Oh, yeah. And Tulsi, too, who knows? She might, you know, she ran for president already. I mean, so smart. And now we got them, you know, this is Tulsi's bell right here. I'm going to send it to her. Oh, sure.

We have them in our world and sharing what we love. And it's just like, that's all we've ever really wanted to do. Yeah. I mean, maybe not at the beginning. At the beginning, we didn't want any of competition. But now we're like, no, we want to share this. It's changed our life. Let's see how it can impact yours.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's super important. And, you know, gosh, if I could share something that's impact my life, I mean, I probably, it's probably been about three, four and a half years ago. You know, I kind of had a little awakening in my life. I think I talked to you about it one day on the hill. I think I ran into you, you know, and actually I think I told you I was praying for Joe Rogan.

Just out of the blue, I mean, you know, and I'd kind of had something happen, and I just kind of wanted to share with you. It's kind of a life-changing thing, you know, and, you know, I'd given my heart and life to Christ early, like when I was 18, and it was just a, I already mentioned that earlier. It was a dramatic experience. And I knew I'd had a change in my life because I was the rottenest, worst kid ever growing up. I mean, nobody wanted to know me. I wouldn't be alive today, honestly.

I wouldn't be who I am, and I wouldn't be alive today if I wouldn't have that encounter with Jesus. And then, you know, for my eternity too. But, you know, moving fast forward, you know, you can just get busy in life, you know, and get busy with your passions and everything. And I had a neighbor, Carl Wolley. And a lot of mutual friends.

And then Carl's, you know, kids were in my archery class. And he was my neighbor, and he had Wolley logging. and he logged. We had some timber property out on Poodle Creek, and my family did, and I owned it with my sisters and my kids, and it was a big trust, family trust. And so Carl came out and logged for me out there.

And so I knew Carl, a super good-hearted guy, you know, just always a giver. One time he had a bow that fell off at one of his gates, you know, and it was a hoit. It was like a pro-tech or ultrotech. And he found it at a gate. It was all arrows were.

all in it. Like somebody drove off and it fell off of their truck or something, they left it. We never could find the owner of that. So after like two years of trying to find the owner and had had the bow up in the shop and nobody ever came in and claimed it, I told, I called Carl and Carl, you need to come get this, you know, and are you sure? I'm like, I'll just set it up, fitted it to him. Used to come to all our, you know, we used to have our big get-togethers and stuff. Yeah. You know, barbecues, he'd come to all of them and just a great neighbor, awesome dude, hard worker, you know, big logging outfit.

And anyway, I heard he, you know, I think Scott Whiteley, you know, call me. He's like, hey, you know, Carl's sick. He's got cancer. And he's got colon cancer. And I'm like, oh, wow, you know. And just like a month before that, Carl called me on the phone. And he goes, Wayne, he goes, I got a cougar in my backyard. He goes, can you come over and try to kill this thing?

And I'm like, okay, never works, you know, because I'm like the worst lion hunter ever. I've had it happen, right? but it's like cougar hunting's like trying to make lightning strike on command 34 yards in front of you right yeah it's it's just hard yeah you know they're not always going to come to a call it's not like calling coyotes or anything you know so but but like a month before i heard he was sick you know Carl I'm over at his house and he's like yeah he goes the cat went right through here and all the neighbors saw it and I'm sure it's on the hill right there and of course I didn't call it in but we had a good good talk and just a super good

natured guy and um in any way he uh so, you know, I heard he was sick, and then I saw him driving. And so I talked to Scott again, you know, because I hadn't ran into Carl or I should have probably just called him and talked to him, but, you know, I hadn't had any communication with Carl. And I called him to Scott and Scott, so he's doing better. He's back to work. And so I saw him at Mathers getting fuel with his work truck and stuff.

And so, you know, some time went by. And it was probably about three or four months. It was summer, you know, 12, 13 hour days. I was tired. I was going home and, and you know, and this is where people are going to go, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to click this off because this guy is out of his gourd, but Lord just spoke to me. And I mean, if you listen, you know, if you seek the Lord, Lord will speak to you.

And Lord just spoke to me, and this was unequivocal. I mean, he said to me, you stop tonight and we need to pray for Carl. And I'm going through Cedar Flats, and Carl lives right there at Cedar Flats, him and Sherry. And I'm just like, I started arguing with God. I'm like, that's going to be awkward. You know, that's going to be awkward, you know. And I heard he was doing better, Lord.

I'm just like, I heard he was in remission. I saw him driving the other day. You know, I'll make it all these things. I'll do it. I'll do it. But I'm not going to do it tonight. You know what? I'm tired.

I'm going to go home. You know, and so I went home. And the next day, I'm getting ready for, did my workout, run, everything. Everything's in the morning. And I did everything. Got everything gone. I've showered. I'm getting ready to leave for work.

My phone rings us widely. And so I answer it. Scott's going, hey, did you hear the news? And I'm like, you know, what news? And he goes, he goes, Carl passed away. And I'm like, okay, I got to go. I'll talk to you later.

And so I did ask him, I asked Scott. I go, Wendy passed away. He goes sometime this morning. Okay, I got to go. And it's like one of the, this is a life-changing moment for me. And, you know, I was just like instantly on my knees and I'm like, Lord, you know,

I blew it. I blew it big time. He knew me. He knew me. He needed me that night. He needed me there. He needed to know. And I struggled with this for the longest time.

And I mean, I told everybody about it. And Ron Sour, you know who Ron is. Yeah, a long time, you know, minister, you know, youth for Christ. Just everybody loves Ron. Ron came in the shop and I was broken. and I knew I could find Ron, you know, and I got Ron off the side in the archery shop there, and I'm like, Ron, hey, I got to tell you what happened.

I told him, told him the whole story, and he leaves. And, you know, about a week later, you know, Ron comes in, and he's like, Wayne, hey, I've got some awesome news. I got awesome news for you. And I'm like, okay, I'm into awesome news right now. And he goes, yeah, he goes, you know that night. He goes, you were going by there. He goes,

there's two friends of mine. He named him. I didn't know him. He named him. He goes, they were with Carl. Carl gave his heart and life to Christ that night right before he passed away. Wow. And I was just like, and it relieved me, but it also changed me.

I mean, it was, it was a stamp. It was, it was, it was. And so since then, I mean, I'm listening, you know. The Lord's like, look, if, if you don't, if you don't obey me, there's not going to be that many more times for you, right? because, you know, this life is short. I mean, you're on the other end of the hourglass, son. You know, you might think you're 19,

and you may try to live like you're 19, but you're not. You're 61. And the only thing that's going to count, so none of this is coming with you. And I've given you a lot of gifts, and I've blessed you with a lot of things. And if you are not salt and light to this world, then you're no good.

And you'd throw salt out that's no good, or you throw it on the dung pile, you know, because it neutralizes it in the old days is what they would put. If you're not salt and light, you're nobody. And you need to like man up. And so, you know, from that time on, probably some of the most exciting things, you know, for me, as I, you know, my wife, and she's not much of a supporter on this,

but I got into street ministry. Some of the most, they took Washington Jefferson Street and they cleared it out. I was, I'd go down there and I'd print up flyer. pizza and socks, you know, in the summertime. I'd run around in the morning. You know, I'd go for a run. I'd go run, you know, the Butte down there. And then I'd run.

I'd put out flyers and just like, hey, it's 7 o'clock Thursday night. I'm going to have pizza socks and jump up. And some of the most exciting stuff I've done in my life is jump up and share the gospel with those people. And then I had just more, more of a challenge was Broadway and Olive, the corner there. They cleaned that out. year too because of the world game so Eugene cleaned all that out and and so there was no gathering so

I had a whole summer of withdrawals this year because you know I did some individual stuff but I didn't have like the corporate because you show up at the corner of you know yeah a Broadway and olive with six pizzas six extra large peaches a lot of customers there's 75 people there right and I call them the antifa kids they were kids I mean some of them could have lived in the south hills and you just go hey, I go, can I share this food with you? And can I share a word of hope? And they're like, dude, you do that? These are for us?

I'm like, yeah, dig in. I go, and I just jump up and share the guys. This is some of the most. And I've got a different way of doing it. You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm just loving on them. I mean, I'm just, I'm just sharing, I'm just sharing my heart with them. You know, I'm telling stories. There's an awesome story.

You know, it's a parable. And I jump up and I share that. parable, and I roll it into John 316, you know, for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe with him, should not perish, but have eternal life. And I roll that into, you know, stories on the cross, the thieves, you know, the two thieves, you know, malefactors that were crucified, you know, with Christ. And it's just some of the most exciting stuff I've done. And now, you know, I was praying, I prayed like a year ago, Lord would use me with, you know,

my hunting background. You know, how can that be? And, you know, Brent Murphy down at Hillside Church in Creswell calls me up. He's like, hey, would you come do a wild game banquet for us and speak to our men? And like, absolutely. And I just like, in Jefferson Baptist Church, I went up, they have a men's ministry. In fact, I did a sports show up there and had Nate speak. But I did a men's breakfast and they have a men's breakfast like bi-monthly or whatever and they have speakers. I'm going to one tonight in Salem and and you know they just asked me. They go, would you come talk to our men? And, you know, so I kill them with, you know, all our weaknesses on archery and bull hunting and everything and then I were just rolling into my testimony and share the gospel with

them. And I mean, it's so rewarding, it's so fulfilling. And I just, you know, God just moves in those men's lives and and you know it's just it's just been an awesome opportunity to to share and and it's changed me but that episode just changed me it imprinted me and I will never be the same is that is that is that what you told me on the hill that night is that what that's the example that involved that yeah yeah but I told you I really you know I know where Joe stands I I've I've listened to his podcast you know and I know where he stands on Christianity but there's so many people that he's affected and he's even know it how he's affected them you know for Jesus you You know, and all the people, the people he's out on there is guests.

And, you know, I really think he's going to give his heart and life to Christ. I really do. And he's a dynamic man. And, you know, years, there's people like him and others like Kate Brown. I mean, Lord just said to me one day, who's praying for Kate Brown? I mean, who's praying for her? I wasn't. I was.

Thank you. I was told too. Because, I mean, those people, I mean, really honestly, I mean, you know, if we don't have love in our heart for those people, I mean, I could, you know, I could care less. They're lost. Yeah. They're lost. It's a good point.

They're lost. And I mean, if they're not, you know, if I stumble on to somebody in the woods, I remember a story that Rick Wilhite told me. Rick was a big high country hunter. Yeah. And Rick was up there in the backcountry one time, late season, November. And he says he comes over this ridge and there's a woman. And she's not got much clothes on.

There's snow on the ground. And she is just out of her mind. She says, he goes, she's white. You know, there was a lot of activity going on. up the McKinsey there because of drugs and the hot springs and everything. And he just runs down her. He's like, lady,

what are you doing? She's lost. You know, and if Rick wouldn't have showed up, I mean, she would have died. Yeah. And I know so many stories like that.

Well, you know, it's like that in real life. I mean, you know, right now we have leadership in Washington and they're lost. I mean, it's not,

this is a spiritual thing. I mean, it's a totally 100% spiritual thing. It's a battle. I guess a lesson, you know, like we, with what we said about Kate Brown,

and you can't just pray for your friends and people you love. I mean, so you're a great example of putting that in action. Yeah, well, you know, the Bible even says if you just are praised by the people and loved by the people and love you, I mean, what good is that?

Right. I mean, you have to reach out, you know, to others. I mean, you know, oh my gosh. You know, Jonah, I mean, he's like, dude, I'm checking out. I'm going to Caribbean. Lord, you can just let, you know,

you can let the people and none of it. They can just die. I'm not into preaching to them. I'm taking this ship. I'm going on vacation. Good luck with that. Bad storm comes. They're like, he tells him.

He's like, they cast lots, but he tells him, he goes, look, I'm a guy, just throw me overboard. I'm ready to die. Fish swallows him, spits him up on the beach. He still doesn't, it's a racist thing. He doesn't, he goes, he's still,

he like walks in there. You know, he's, he's all probably bleached from whale gut acid. He already looks like, like crap, he walks in there, shocking. He's just like, fire and brimstone message, like you're going to die. God's going to kill you, you know, and they repent.

He still is, he's still pissed about it. Yeah. But, you know, it's what, it's God's compassion for us. Right. Everybody for the lost. I mean, and the more you can have a heart for that, you know, to me, in my life, you know, I'm passionate about archery and bow hunting.

I want to help everybody. But with that, you know, there has to be a message of life with it, you know. And so incorporating that just, it just completes the spectrum, you know, of everything. With you, with each guest, we go down there, you help them with archery, as you said. But then you also have a couple minutes with them at the end before they leave. And it's always- Natalie, what? Oh, my gosh.

I love her. It's always- She's so awesome. She is. Yeah, she's so full of vinegar. And she loves Jesus. I mean, we should just shouting Jesus right off the beginning. that she loves Jesus. She's been posting scripture on her story. She was reading.

Reading out of the Bible the other day. Oh, yeah. I haven't been, I've been busy, but I catch, I try to catch through her story, but no, she's awesome. And, I mean, she can affect millions for the gospel. I mean, it's just awesome people. And there's a big revival going on in this nation right now. And, you know, it's crazy because I heard this analogy was so killer. You know, they have a music awards where they worship the devil for two hours and God has a revival and it lasts for weeks, you know, and, you know, it's just, it's clear cut. I mean, we live in a time right now where we have all this gain of technology and, you know, we, it's just mind boggling, you know, what's going on in our lifetime. And my dad, you know, was born in 1917 and he used to tell me, he goes,

son, something's going on. Because I've seen, in my lifetime, I've seen things that no man has ever seen. You know, born in 1917, in 1917 and passed away in 2009. And we used to have long talks about it, you know. And he's just like, man. And he wasn't, you know, my dad, I hope I see him in heaven. I mean, I had a lot of time to say goodbye to him. But, you know, my grandpa was a pastor and kind of an evangelist and a farmer.

and my dad just rejected it wholeheartedly, you know, and didn't follow that route and actually preached against it with me. I mean, he made the statement, you know, when I got saved when I was 18, I just like told everybody, I'm like, God's real, God's real, and God's came into my life. And, you know, my dad, and, you know, God forbid him, you know, for saying it. But, you know, he said, I'd rather see my son get involved in drugs and alcohol and to get involved in religion.

And it hurt me, I mean, but it was a good wake-up call for me, too. because I'm like, look, this is going to cost me something. You know, and it cost my dad and I a relationship for a long time, but we mended it in later years, you know. And we were close in the final years and stuff. But, yeah, it's just taking me to a different place. And so for the time I have left, I mean, I really hope that, you know, those opportunities will come that I'll be able to share.

And I've got a good little, you know, I do the good little elk seminar, and then I just switch them, you know, side these poor guys that come for breakfast, they think they're going to get, you know. Yeah, El Cunning tips. Well, and they do, they do. I tell everybody, I think I can make you better. You know, I'm going to talk to you and, you know.

Well, you do take advantage of that opportunity with the guests we've been having coming through with lift from a shoot. And it's been, to me, it's been powerful to everybody else who watches it. It's been powerful. And I thank you for that. I, I mean, it's been a great discussion here today. And I'm honored to sit across the table from you. We've been friends for a long time.

We've, you know, been through a lot. Yeah. Been through a lot together. But it means more than I can say to have all these people come and learn from you. And I am highly blessed to have you as a friend. I mean, we've had a longstanding friendship. And you think about it, I've looked back on my life and I have some longstanding friends. And, I mean, I value every one of those deeply.

And you're one of them, you know, talk. of the list. I mean, it's, it's incredible to have people in your life like that, you know, that just there's just such a giant blessing, you know, it's, you know, friendship, something that, you know, I've never taken lightly. I mean, there's one thing that we can take away from this world is, is our friendships, our relationships, and, and take them into the next world. And, you know, the next, next one's coming. It's going to be fabulous. Well, you, I agree. And you, you owning the bow rack for so long when that's all we wanted to do hanging out at the rack that's all what we did every day me and roy and then to transition into where we are in life now

of course roy's not here with us but we're still carrying on we're still you know living his legacy every day and we're still impacted by him greatly obviously and i i mean the bow rack to me i can tell you the phone number to the bow rack is 541 746 9 711 i mean i know everything about the bow rack because because it's been part of my life and it's because of you. Yeah, and it became, you know, it became a lot of years ago. It was like, okay, I don't care about making money. I don't care about anything. I just care about this shop and the environment that this shop creates.

And it's about people. And when I, and there was a period of time. I remember Jamie Coleman came to me one time and he goes, because you're a jerk. And I'm like, and this was early, this was early 90s. And I was shooting IBOs. I was winning. I was winning some stuff. One of triple crown,

IBO triple crown. And I was just arrogant. I wasn't gaining any customers. I would go to those shoots and I would focus. I wasn't there to make friends. I was there to win. And it was impacting my business tremendously. Plus I wasn't there on weekends to sell bows and arrows.

Everybody's like, dude, there's a 3D shoot coming up. Do you want to go? I'm like, I'm working Saturday. Yeah. You know, and I switched it because, I mean, that impacted me when he said that. It impacted me. And I thought about it. I thought, you know, he's right.

You know, I go to these shoots and I'm not there to make friends. I'm there to beat everybody. And I got to where people were pissed and they hated me. And then I had some good friends there too, you know, Tom Crows and the Bob Gentries. Yeah. Now, I love Bob. Great shooters. Yeah, great shooters.

Guys that were just incredible. What about that Randy? Was there a Randy that was really good, too? Was it Randy? Mike Schlingard used to shoot. Mike Allen was a good shooter. I mean, all these guys, Mike worked for me. I kind of like was one of my stepkids.

I've had a lot of stepkids over the years, you know, sons. I remember shooting with some really good guys at those things. Yeah. Alan Ruddick came and Alan and Bob Gentry shot at that little cobra. We lost our butt. You know, Lisa and I, we got, I think it was 1996 or 97. We were going to put on this Coburg super shoot. And, man, we advertised the tar out of it.

We paid all this money. And we had a decent showing. but I think we were just flat at the end of it. It was like, oh, that was a great event. We paid out a lot of money. You were involved in that. You were in the finals. Yeah, it was just a great fun event.

And then we tank on it. Wow. We were such good business people. Hey. It's been a great run for us. I look back at those old pictures. I dug up some pictures. I think I sent them to you.

And I look back and I'm like, how am I blessed to be married to that woman right there? I looked at that and I'm like, oh, she's so. beautiful. And I was like, how has she ever thought? And that was like, you followed the, you know, how they talked about the wife just for a second. You know, everything that the bow rack is, is as much Lisa and sometimes more Lisa than anything. And I mean, she's so much fun. I mean, when I met her, I was in a dark place in my life. And I just had three kids, you know, one by a girlfriend

out of wedlock. I had a child support payments. And I was in a rough. place. And my daughter actually, my oldest daughter actually prayed for me. And she said, she said, Daddy, I want you to find an angel that'll love you. And I met Lisa a few days later. And I mean, we've been just like soulmates ever since. And she's brilliant. She's bright sunshine in my life. She has been forever. You know, I just, I just love her. She's, she'll give you a reaction every time. Like, and guys tune in on that. Like, they can come give her a hard time on anything and she's going to give you at least an eight if not a nine and maybe a 10 reaction she's going to react yeah you know like like brisbee was talking about he was extra large in the

arms yeah she's laughing she's like yes oh my her personalities yeah but yeah yeah back in the day i think that's why a lot of guys went to the bow rack i see lisa oh yeah guys would come in and fire us all up and get her all bickering with me and we got this bantering thing that we do it just works for us we banter at home we banter we're never any different we banter all the time, you know, and it's just, she's just so much fun. You know, I take her hunting, she's, she's like hunting with a job foreman.

What are we doing? Where are we going? You know, it's like, when we get to hunting, she gets all like serious. And she's all like, like, why aren't we war? Why aren't we? Like, I remember one time we were in desolation, it was in the burn, I've got 150 elk,

and there's nothing between me and them, but a bunch of birds sticks. And I'm standing there with one of these hold-up decoys. I've already killed a ball. I'm trying to get her a ball. Yeah. And she, and I'm just trying to figure, and they're moving slowly kind of our direction. And she goes, all of a sudden, she's like, what are we doing? Why are we just standing here?

They're right there. Let's just go at him. I'm like, well, I'm just trying to get a game plan here. I'm just looking the situation over. I'm not going to rush anything. Yeah. She's just go right at him with that decoy, and I'll shoot one. And there was a bunch of bowls.

So I'm just like, well, okay. And I listened to her for all the wrong reasons. Yeah. So we start going real slow and nobody's really paying attention. We're getting up like 50 yards. And there's a uproop right here. And there's a spike behind it. We walk right by him.

Oh, man. He'll see him. He barks and runs and everybody runs. But that's Lisa. I mean, she's just so much fun to hunt with. And her and Nathan together, you know, Nathan. That's cats and dogs. Oh, it's great.

We're in New Mexico. And I'm the bad guy. Everything's my fault. Okay. You know, if they're not coming in, it's my fault. Dad, don't, don't call. Oh, so they're on the same team against you. Lisa, like, Wayne, Wayne, don't call anymore.

I'm like, okay, we just called in like five bowls in the last few days. It's calling works. You know, let's just talk in on it. Let's just go silent, you know. Oh, my gosh. And then, you know, that day she killed that bowl is on YouTube. It's just great fun when she finally, she eros this bowl and, you know, and everything's, and then I'm a good guy.

I'm a good guy. because we kill both finally, you know. Up until then, I was a fired guide, you know. But no, I mean, the whole, you know, swag deal. I mean, all the ideas for the T-shirts, that's all her, you know. She does great with it. You know, she got a hold of you and Joe and the whole Rogan Haynes deal. I mean, that's just so awesome.

People all over, the UK, Germany, I mean, you know, France, she has mailed those hats and shirts everywhere. people will call from all over the world south africa wow australia she's did tons of them to australia you know it's just wild you know and then all your guests that come in they go oh you know want a rogan's hains shirt and a hat you know she's done a great job yeah and that's all her i would have never did that i don't even wear my stuff i wear your stuff in fact check this out oh nice yeah i wear your stuff original beast mud bone even yeah but i don't i don't i can't it's like it's like i can't wear my own stuff.

Well, you guys have been... I just love everybody else's stuff. I understand. She wears it. I understand. I mean, right now I'm wearing somebody else's stuff. But, yeah, you guys have been so supportive of me. I can't, you know, and I know...

Well, you've been supportive of us. It's been a good team. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate the time this morning, Wayne. Yeah. Thank you so much for being such a good friend. Sure. And we're going to keep killing it.

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