Special Edition: GRASSROOTS with special guest, Matthew Morris, The Host of The Bowyer Podcast.

Special Edition: GRASSROOTS with special guest, Matthew Morris, The Host of The Bowyer Podcast.

Matthew is a life long outdoorsman, hunter, and family man.  He was was introduced to traditional bowhunting only a couple of years back, and decided to jump in head first with the craft of bowmaking simultaneously. Since then Matthew has started the side passion at @songdog_stickbows and is the host of The Bowyer Podcast.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Code of Traditional Archery, brought to you by Primitive Stone Archery and the founder Grant Richardson.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Code of Traditional Archery podcast. I'm Grant Richardson, your host, and a big welcome to all the new people joining us, and a thanks of appreciation to those who have been following and supporting us so far. The Code of Traditional Archery is dedicated to the legacy I was raised with under the former Ontario Bull Hunters Association. The efforts and work to create, implement, and forge the original primitive weapons and archery seasons in Lawson, Ontario will never be forgotten. You can find this podcast on Spotify, iTunes, and Amazon Audible, or wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you like what you hear, leave us a comment, rating, and review. Our original intent of this podcast was to bring back traditional archery and bow hunting to an older era where hunting ability met archer, and together the two formed a bow hunter. Shooting and hunting with recurves, longbows, and self-bows is more popular than ever. However, the approach is much more so an art and skill set, not a product, but a process. We're introducing a new format for the podcast, interviewing grassroots bow hunters to talk about their own lessons learned in the wilderness as it relates to the code of traditional archery. This episode we chat with Mr. Matthew Morris, a lifelong outdoorsman, hunter, and family man. He was introduced to traditional bow hunting only a couple of years back and decided to jump in head first with the craft of bow making simultaneously. Since then, Matthew has started the side passion of song dog stick bows and is the host of the Boyer podcast. So I want to welcome Matthew Morris to the Code of Traditional Archery from Song Dog Stick Bows. And Matt, I'll let you kind of kick it off and give us a little bit of your background and who you are and what you do and all that great stuff, and then I can start picking your brain.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Hey, brother, thanks for having me. Um, you know, it still tickles me that I've I've been able to do a couple of these on somebody else's podcast now that anybody thinks that I'm cool enough to talk to. So I'm uh I'm flattered and I come here with humility and appreciation. Uh so thanks for for having me on. Um yeah, so lifelong hunter, you know, was a military and then a government guy for you know roughly you know 20 years combined. Now I work, you know, within a space nerd, I guess, um as my kids would say. Um still spent a lot of time out of doors, hunting, fishing, live out here on a river in North Carolina, and uh picked up a compound bow when I was like 14 and hunted with a compound for I don't know, 20 years or so or more. And within just the last few years, I uh attended a bow making course uh through organic archery, uh hosted by Corey Hawk, who's a great friend of mine and a bow making mentor. And uh that kind of changed my trajectory with hunting, where I, you know, built my first longbow made out of hackberry and dove right into making bows. And now I I guess I approach that with with some humility and say I'm an aspiring amateur bowyer. Um, but I have a little side hustle where I make bows for for gifting, but also I sell a few here and there through song dog stick bows. And uh early this year, I was talked into starting a podcast by the guys over at OCAISHunter. And uh we now have a podcast called the Bowyer Podcast, which releases a new episode every Wednesday. So that's me in a nutshell and as cool as I can make myself sound.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

That's awesome. So you got you must have a unique connection with Corey because he's got service member background as well, correct?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah, he's he's a fellow jar head like me. We're both Marines. Uh, you know, I worked in the intelligence community. And he was a, I think he was, man, he might have been an artillery guy. I can't remember. Um, but we both had you know several deployments under our belts. So we we throw out some big words from time to time, but we're mostly doing uh grunts and scratches and and you know, nodding and eating crayons as and when we have our fellowship and conversation.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, you could probably make some money off of uh some sort of crayon stick bow, sort of self bow of some kind.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

We'll donate that to some record organization next year, and it'll be have all the colors stuff from a uh you know basic crayon box.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, just put don't eat on it somewhere where the specs are on the bow.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Well, then my bookshelves I've got some of those, the the the chewing gum crayons, you know, that says like don't that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Uh so like the code of traditional arts here originally, like we did a uh story kind of teach-tell lessons learn format with it, almost like an AAR kind of format. And of course, a lot of times, you know, and then I built my book around that um and really kind of you know built upon that quite a bit more. I was a lot more involved in the book, of course, in the podcast, but um, the written word, of course. But all that being said, it was really bent around that heritage and process that I find the traditional community is known for. And I started seeing a couple of things that kind of bothered me because I had my all my kids have shot a bow. My oldest son has hunted with me. Um he's going, uh he's an amateur MMA fighter going pro here shortly, and he's busy with that stuff. And then my middle daughter's a singer-songwriter, and she's she loves turkey hunting and and hunting, shooting her longbow. But my youngest daughter, she was just like like crazy about it, like absolutely like maniacal. It's almost like you know, her bow was under a pillow at night kind of attitude. And um, you know, but I started sort of, you know, seeing what she was looking at both on YouTube and and other, you know, social media things, and you know, the impression she was getting things, and she'd be like, how come that guy shot at that bear? Like it was walking towards him. I'm like, well, I don't know. You know, and I started sort of seeing this, and it's a conversation with my father, and I started really realizing we'd kind of gone into a product over a process approach in general, not just with traditional bows. So a lot of folks get the wrong impression that I'm kind of some sort of elite thing, but uh, it's not about that. It's about um the failure. I mean, it's like fly fishing, I use that analogy. You can't walk into a store, grab a fly rod and expect to walk into the stream the next day without hanging it up in the tree at the best of times, or even you know, getting your tippet tied on, let alone learning how to cast. So there's a process. Um and then and I I'm kind of trying to you know navigate that process without the product and that elitism attached to it. Like in and like fly fishing became a big elite thing at one point too, right? And it's funny because I use a lot of vintage bows. I still do. I'm I can't wait for Josh, my friend, who's bought Damon Howard Archery and he's pushing it now. He's a solid guy, he's a great guy. I can't wait for him to come out with some of the new, especially the Dreamcatcher Convection, Josh. If you're listening to this, got to get that bow out. So I shoot like a vintage 72 high speed. Very cool. But people say, you know, why do you shoot that bow? There's so many other options. I'm like, well, I'm a Damon Howitt person, always having. It's like kind of like my little baseball mojo thing, like baseball player mojo thing. But on the other hand, um uh apart from that, uh, it's like my old Fenwick fly rod my dad made when I was eight years old, a glass, brown glass fly rod that looks like it's been shut in 50 car doors. I I've caught more fish on that than I have the Lumus Graphite that costs 350 bucks. It like it still does the job. And you're making self-bows. You know, so other than quarry, like so you know what we talk about is weapons proficiency, ethics, and conservation stewardship. But from a weapons proficiency point of view, you've got a different perspective as a bowyer. I tried making three bows. I remember uh Dean Torges and I had talked when I was in my 20s a long time ago. And so I went, I jumped right into it and I ruined the first two bows. I chased the rings too way too far. And they even in the first tailoring, it was I was impatient. I did not give it time. And so the third one I built, it was uh removed from my person. I have no idea who has that was the only one. But so, like, I have a lot of admiration for that, but I digress. Tell me a little bit about weapons proficiency with a self bow. Like, talk to me a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

I I think it's like uh I think a good comparison is when you harvest your own food, whether it's in your garden or a meat chicken or your eggs or from wild game, you know, your bounty that you find in the forest or the field, when you're cooking that meal, a lot less goes to waste and you have a little just a stronger appreciation for it. And whether it really tastes better or if there's a placebo effect, you like in your your heart and soul, you feel like it tastes better and it's more special.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Um, and having like your kids involved is it makes it that much more special and meaningful too, right? You're you're less willing to discard it to you know to the compost or whatnot. And I look at some of that same, you know, a similar comparison through making self-bows, right? Um, I'll probably never have enough finesse to make like you know, high-end glass bows um and and recurves and all that stuff because I really appreciate the journey of having a single piece of wood and using majority of hand tools and finding a bow inside this log somewhere. And when I first started this journey, I was like, I'm gonna make a bow that is you know 64 inches in length, it's gonna be two inches wide with the fades, and it's gonna pull between 49 and 53 pounds. Well, that's like what and like insane hubris that is, because that that wood tells you what kind of bow is in there. You don't you don't force it because if you do, you're probably gonna regret it, right? You're gonna you're gonna break your bow during the tillering process, you're gonna make a bow that comes out way too light because you tried to force it into something that it didn't want to be, or you're gonna break something during the QC process. You know, I I before I will gift or sell a bow, I'm gonna shoot it 50 to 150 times, right? Um just over and over and over and over. And um it's just one of those things. So you appreciate the wood and the the journey of that bow, you appreciate its limitations. I think maybe you take care of it a little bit more uh as well. And then I think it gives you a little bit more heart or or desire to be proficient with that tool. Um when you make a bow yourself and you you know it's simple by design, shoot off the knuckle, um, long bow, you you have to work a little harder to be more proficient with it. And let's face it, any long bow or recurve bow is difficult enough, right? And then the self-bow is just midge more difficult when it comes down to it. And I've never been like, oh, I'm such an awesome hunter. I I can't, I move, I transition to this path because I'm too awesome at the other things. Hunting's not challenging anymore. Like hunting is still hard as hell, regardless of tool, platform, whatever. It can be less challenging throughout the spectrum, but I think it can be as challenging as you want to make it, right? Um, that being said, it's the journey has been that much more special. So I'm I also say, like, I'm a hunter first and a bow hunter second, right? Like I like to hunt with a rifle. I love look, it's rifle season. I've got a bow in my truck right now, and I've got a little lever action 35 Remington in there, the same tick time. And I probably don't know what weapon I'm gonna pull out right now until I get to my destination. Like it's sure, it's just I'm also like we're halfway through the season, and I've only got one deer on the ground, so I really want to get a few more. So it just depends what my mood is in or my motivation that time, or maybe the wind, or what stand I'm gonna use. Um but but also with that, you know, using like the self-bow, you're just you're gonna find a way to to where you can pick up that tool a little bit more frequently. Um and what make bow making helped me do is love archery. Like I always loved bow hunting, but I never really loved archery. Like I'm still not like, oh, I'm gonna go to some foam festival and uh you know, all of these things. I don't, I know it it it's it helps you gain proficiency and with fellowship, but I'm never gonna be a guy that goes and competes at like 3D TARDIS shoots. Like that's not appealing to me. It's about as appealing as golf. And I also don't play golf, right? Um, but I love to shoot out that with my my friends and my kids in my backyard and and and all that good stuff. What making bows did for me, and then in turn traditional archery, it also made me love archery and not just bow hunting, right? And it's just I don't know. I I know I didn't give you a black and white answer, but I don't think it was really a binary question. But no, that's kind of the the touchy feely of uh my response.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, that's like for me, it it is really it really isn't so much a binary question. And the whole purpose behind re and this is not a reboot, this is a progression for me in this podcast. Uh, quite frankly, I wanted like the ethical predator we have on the app, the ethical predator really goes and defines these things on an individual personality basis, but it doesn't talk about the lessons learned so much. Process. And what I wanted to do with this was have grassroots bow hunters come on or bowyers and talk about their own lessons learned and the failures. I mean, like I said before, I cannot believe how difficult it was for me to and I was younger when I was trying to build those self-bows, so I didn't have that patience I probably do now, 35 years later, you know. Um but I think it's that that little bit that that accompanies that that's important, you know. Um because I I can't imagine having that patience transfer. Like I remember you talked about the 3D and the foam thing. So I I shot a lot of 3D traditional quite a long time ago, and I shot for Damon Howitt when they were part of Martin Archery still. And they sent me two bows, they sent me a hunter, and they sent me a dream catcher. I I had the chance to buy the dream catcher. I sure wish I would have. My daughter would have loved that bow. Um but all that being said, I did fairly well. And I'm not gonna say how well I did, because then you know you'll say I'm bragging. If I told you I didn't do well, you'll say I'm lying. So the thing is I did very well. And I saw I sent the old owner back who had never been a bow hunter before or anything like that. He's sort of gotten into it from the compound side, and hey, this is what happened. This is look at this, this is what's going on. And people, you know, people would go crazy over looking at those bows because they're beautiful bows, they're very functional. And he's like, We don't have the interest in Canada, send the bows back to us if you don't want to buy them. That was it. I'm like, what did I just do for two years? This is crazy. Wow, yeah. How unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I mean, you know, like when it comes to money and finance, like, right, like it's I'm I think that it's growing here in the states, but that doesn't mean it's growing in place of the high-tech easy path, either. I think it's growing, but it's not commensurate to the same level that people are putting, you know, uh these Garmin sites with their compounds that do the range automatically and the crossbows with high-end optics and all of this stuff, either, right? Like I fully acknowledge that I think traditional practices for whether that's traditional archery, even like flint locks and muscle loaning, I feel like is growing, which I'd love to see. There's something nostalgic and special about it. But I also still think like on the other end of the spectrum, it's still probably growing faster because it looks cool, right? You can have some dude that does CrossFit or some OnlyFans babe out there holding a big big deer head with the the uh $2,500 compound, but with all the bells and whistles, and it's gonna get a lot more support, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah, 100%. What you mentioned about weapons proficiency, there's actually uh a camp that's uh I guess up near Perry Sound that I know very well. Uh and this guy now uh restricts all of his usage in the farm season to muzzle loaders. So he attracts people that are muzzle loader hunting and he doesn't let them use inline and he doesn't let them use scopes. He has his own restrictions he's placed on that. And a lot of people get ticked off. Oh, you know, well, you don't have to go hunt there and pay him to hunt on his property then. So, you know, it and it's harder. People get out there and they're like, you know, there's a there's a buck 120 yards away, and they're like, uh, I can't shoot at this thing, you know, you know, shooting a 50 cal money ball or something, you know, like it it's a lot harder, you know, then you have to, as they say, keep your powder dry and it rains a lot and all that other stuff, you know. So he's what he's done, he's really got a little niche for himself with that camp that he has now that he runs and he rotates people out of that up there in that, you know, they do two-day hunts or something like that, and then the three days, I don't know how he runs it, but uh it's interesting you talked about the weapons platform because it's and I said it in the book, it isn't really I don't have a problem with a weapon, I have a problem with maybe how it's used in some cases, especially in the social media uh, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

I I just think there's there are seasons for the appropriate weapon, sure uh is all. And I'm not an I'm not an anti-compound guy by any means. I'm not, I'm definitely not an anti-compound guy. I'm not anti-crossbow. I just don't think it should be used during our short archery season. Um but you're like, I don't know, that's just me and my my opinion, and I'm I'm kind of curmudgeony today, maybe. But um, I just feel that there there are there are appropriate seasons with appropriate tools and applications. Yeah. And I would love if we could embrace that instead of, I guess, feeding the machine a little bit too often, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah, we have I had a couple of folks I trained in the last year to pass the bow hunters hunt test. And in the app, we actually have a uh traditional bow hunting boot camp. It's extensive, it's like it's like six weeks long, and it's a go at your own pace. It's great. And and it and a lot of the folks that were beat they have to beat hunt tests in the state they're hunting in, right? To hunt with a bow. And these two guys were die hard. No, I'm gonna pass hunt test with my recurve. And they're like, I said, Well, what do you mean by that? Well, there's guys that show up and they just pass around the same crossbow that's sighted in and then they go hunt with their traditional bow. I'm like, say what now? Like, I I was just I floored by that. I'm like, what? You know, like I couldn't even believe even some of the compound guys, because they didn't all they had to do was pass the hunt test, and if that weapon came in there, and they went and did it, you know, and and they and they passed. They they got through it. I thought, you know, that that was good on them, you know, because they were all being watched by everybody there. They're only people there with recurves, you know. One, you know, one dude in New Jersey and another dude, you know, elsewhere. It was crazy that they went through that. But I thought good for them, you know. Yeah. Small percentage though. So moving on, let's move on to the ethics piece of that, you know. I mean, I know it's a personal thing. I mean, I think that's it is, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

It's definitely a personal thing. And I think it's good to to caveat that as like the disclaimer. Um, but I think ethics are in like more than just like appreciating the journey and the harvest of an animal in its life, right? I think that your your practice that makes ultimately makes proficiency is important, right? I right like I'm not the best archery shot, like whether it's a compound or a trad bow, like I'm never gonna claim to be like that guy that's you know, king of the mountain is offering all these shooting lessons, all that stuff. I'll never be that guy. I wish I was. I'm not. I'm just I I accept my limitations, but because of that, I probably have to practice a lot more than than other people. Yeah, um as I tell the people that work for me, I'm like, I'm never the smartest guy in the room. That's why I hired all of you. You know, if you're the smartest one in the room, you've outgrown your space. Um, I'm always gonna be one of those guys that that has to shoot more often than not, um, whether that's a recurve or a longbow or a self bow. And uh, but that's also part of that journey that makes me feel a lot better in the woods when I'm making a shot on an animal, you know, a living sentient being um that has a life and a soul and feels pain. And uh I think that is part of the journey, right? I think within the ethic ethics is how you partake in fellowship and are a steward of your craft and your trade, whether that's making bows or bow hunting or hunting in general or fishing, is being a good steward with you know your peers and people that are prospectively coming into the sport of hunting and harvesting game. And for me, what's which is really important is with my kids is how I inform and mentor and shape and influence their habits and psyches and thought processes when it comes to taking the life to sustain, right? To harvest wild game, to put food on the table. And you know, I've said this probably a number of times, but when I've had people, particularly non-hunters, have said, like, oh, what's it? Well, I know you love animals. Look, I've got three dogs, I've got four chickens and a rat. Okay. And I got no authority in my house, right? They just bring stuff home and I just kind of just here I am, right? Um, but I love animals and I love wildlife. I love taking photos of wildlife. I pass more deer than I shoot because I love watching them. I still think bears are the funnest to hunt because I love watching bears. Um but I also love taking wild game. And we can say it's harvest or taking or whatever, but we're we're killing something, right? I I I really enjoy killing a beautiful animal knowing that it's going to put food on my table. But what I also tell people that's equal parts joy and equal parts remorse, right? Like if you don't feel a little bit of guilt in that process, like maybe you aren't taking it seriously enough. And again, ethics are personal. So this is my personal thought or my personal feelings. But if you don't have some remorse in there, um then maybe you need to reflect a little bit more on the process and the journey and what the end state is. Um and we're work relatively spiritual in this house. You know, I get down and I I thank God, I thank the deer, I thank Earth, I, you know, we, you know, we put tindergrass and the pig or the deer or the bear's mouth for its final journey. Like it's a whole big ceremonious thing. Sure. Um, whether it's myself when I'm by myself or with one of my friends that I'm trying to introduce in hunting or with my children. And I think for all and parties involved, it weighs a little bit more heavily that way. That any of that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

It does. Dave Teslaff and I talked about this in the audio book uh we did. We talked about this a lot offline too. Um, you know, of course, he's the you know, the co-edor of Trad Ball Magtrition Ball magazine. And Dave and I we really came to, you know, a lot of people we talk about predators in general, you know. You know, if you watch any predator, whether it's a big cat or anything, they will not, they're not successful, no, you know, at all. They're odds, and even a young falcon, an accipiter, like a hawk of some kind, they miss, they collide with things. They are there's you know, there's that part, that difficulty in that raw nature that kind of we've kind of been won't name the company, but conditioned to sometimes. Um, and I my youngest daughter got pushback on that in grade school by saying, um, yeah, for this particular movie, uh, the deer actually mate in the fall. They don't mate in the spring, and they are actually very cantankerous for a certain amount of period of time. And like, you know, and well, how would you know that? She's like, Well, I saw, you know, I've seen a doe beat its yearling off with its hoofs so it could get the apple versus the yearling. And the teacher's kind of like, what? You know, I mean, and that's sort of that part of anthroporphosizing creatures that you know some people have tended to do to try to connect with them like that. And I always like to say, well, we've been connecting with creatures and appreciating them for hundreds of years, thousands, I should say correction, thousands of thousands of years by hunting them and learning about them, and in doing so not being successfully like you know, I had a guy ask me about the legend, which is actually um in in the book that it's one of my it's a story I didn't want to tell because it was so personal to me. Because I let this old guy pass a couple of times, and when I had a chance at him, I didn't have a buck tag, I only had a dough tag left. And I I saw him his last time I saw him, and I got to compress it for the story. But you know, when I found his bones and I found where he bedded down within 20 feet of a tree I hunted him in seven years earlier and never got a chance at him. And he was bedded down there, and I found him curled up, literally curled up, bedded down, and he obviously died in his sleep. His one brow time was broken off from a pretty bad fight. He had scars all over his skull. And um I th I sat down with that deer for about an hour with a skeleton. And that was in the spring. I'd lost some arrows shooting at grouse early that year there, and I was going looking for them. And it was uh I was mourning him and I tried hunting him for 10 years, you know. And you know, and my mother said, you know, that's quite the um that's quite the the you never told me about that. You told me you found him. I said, Yeah, I took his skull and I have it in the back room, and it's almost like a reverence thing, you know, like you know, uh just to his whole life. Because I thought, you know, all the things I knew a few, I knew of a couple of poaching attempts on him because we caught them on camera. We caught them in the back pit. We put a trail camera up to try to see who was doing it. We knew they were poaching back there. We found deer hair, we even found a casing one night next morning after a night. So we put this up and you know, and I thought, you know, he was so tenacious, you know, the life he lived and the things that he taught me and the things he did. You could put a human nature tag on him, but you know, a lot of people say you should have dropped him that last day you saw him when he was old and decrepit. And I'm like, well, you know, Ontario aged his jaw at about anywhere from nine and a half to eleven and a half years old. Wow, what an old man. For a in a northern climate like us, you know, I think that our average temperature in December here can you know, we're I think the coldest I've wanted is about minus twenty-four Celsius off the ground. And like, I mean, I thought, you know, he survived all those years, and you know, and the and I and the last time I saw him, he obviously had had some sort of injury, his his back was up and kind of looking funny and something had happened. But my you know, I was happier finding him and his skeleton than I was if I'd shot him. You know? Yeah, I mean that's a long amazing life, right? The enclosure was a lot different than if I'd arrowed him and I had, you know, like he was a pretty darn big buck. Like he was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Oh, and I'm sure he had been going downhill in size for the past three years, you know. So yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

I can only imagine when he was at six and seven. Right. You know, so and we see there's two or three bucks that run that swamp that look a lot like him. They have that genetic frame that he had that it's kind of cool to see that. But I digress. So, you know, that sort of accompanies the the um conservation and stewardship side of the house. I really kind of I guess approach that with that. But you know, you were talking about um you know, sort of that camaraderie, that campfire thing. And I find um when it comes to the conservation and stewardship side of things, like I've really gotten my kids involved in the prep thing way earlier with either habitat remediation or things like that, or even you know, trying to get them to identify certain things, you know, in that process of bow hunting or or hunting of any kind. And so a lot of the time you hear me say traditional bowling, traditional bow hunting, but I also flip that and like to say hunting traditional, you know, that hunting traditional part because you can hunt traditional without all of that product with any weapons platform, with any with anything. You know, I mean my grandfather's he hunted with a 32 caliber lever action, he would walk out and you know what I mean, and he'd go for a walk and that was hunting to him. He would go for a walk and sneak and stop, and that was hunting to him, right? Um and he was like it was that Woodsman kind of effect, is guess of what I'm talking about, that accompanies that stewardship. And you know, talk to me a bit about that. Talk to me, give us an example because I always want to do this with this podcast. Give me an example of something that you failed at and learn from. Because that's something that's gonna accompany this too, as a man.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I mean, I I'm constantly failing. I fail at making bows, and uh I was just I think it the I think I just published this morning. I was I was on a you know, I had Dan Santana who is is a master bowyer and really just cool as a cucumber. And and he he has a great YouTube where he gives tutorials on making bows, and you know, he's like, Oh, you know, I don't really break bows anymore unless I mean to. And I'm like, yeah, that must be nice. Um, you know, I still probably break, you know, one out of five during the building process, you know, at this point. Um, but also just just hunting, like I to be honest, man. Um, I don't think I've talked about it on on the podcast, but uh I had a buddy in recently who's been hunting. I I first introduced him to hunting in 2018. We we went out antelope hunting uh with another friend, and uh I got a nice antelope with my compound as my first spot and stalked archery antelope. It was it was super proud of it. It's hanging on my wall over here. Wow, and uh but the thing is we went out the night before, and we all tend to like bourbon when we're drinking, sitting around the campfire in the middle of Wyoming. Yeah, and uh and then when we got up, we're gonna drive to our destination. We stopped by the gas station to get like Gatorades and coffee and stuff, and he managed to get a gas station hot dog that had probably been sitting on that burner for days. And about halfway there, we've got to pull over for several pit stops that he's and um when we got out to start doing stalking, he was he's like, Oh, I'm gonna sit in the back and uh in the back seat, I'll I'll catch up with you guys. And look, I've I probably had 10 failed stalks at this point because yeah, slope are daggum hard to stalk in on and um with with with archery tackle, and I ended up getting this buck, and I had it was a little less soft in the middle then and a little bit broader in the shoulders, and I had carried a bag about a kilometer and a half on my shoulders and uh you know, field dressed, and my buddy is asleep drooling against the window in the back of the pickup, and I knock on the window and he, you know, he about peas his pants, he gets scared, you know, he scared him. He goes, You didn't wait for me. And I was like, and it but you know, it sounds so ignorant, right? But somebody that's never done this before, like just it just sounded like it's such a naive thing to say, but we laugh about that, right? Because it's not how it works. Um, but in turn, that guy has put out so much pressure, he lives out in Colorado now, of trying to learn how to elk hunt and all these things, and he's gone out like every year since then to try to bag a mule deer or an elk and has not sealed it, but he still goes out and spends seven to ten days in the backcountry, sure, camping, hiking with guns, hiking with his bow, and does this thing. Well, he came out here, and I say it's bear seed. Bear scene just started on Saturday. Well, unfortunately, two weeks ago, we got this weird heat wave, and it's 80 degrees Fahrenheit right now, and everything's going nocturnal despite being in the rut. Like it's it's hot and miserable, and the mosquitoes have come back out because we live in the south. And I was like, at very least, I want him to bag a deer or bear. Like it'd be awesome. That would just make my whole thing, it'd be special. Man, I ended up shooting at honestly, it was a spike buck at that, which probably makes this whole story worse. Uh, on Saturday evening, uh, about 40 minutes before last light, was very confident that I got this deer. Yeah. When I went out there to go track the deer down, um, there wasn't hardly any blood. There was actually a tuft of a bit larger tuft of white fur, which for whitetails that usually means a low shot, and you probably got underneath the belly, like between, you know, that I got a shot too low. And we spent two hours tracking. We found two drops of blood the whole time. Um, and then even came back the next morning, you know, didn't hunt the next morning and didn't. But man, I I haven't not recovered an animal for well over a decade, I think, at this point. And yeah, I am I'm still, I don't, I mean, I'm I'm I'm uncomfortable talking about it. Um sure, of course. Yeah, it's just one of those things, right? Like, and and you owe it to the animal to do your due diligence, try to find them. Um, you know, I think all the guys on TV or YouTube are like, oh, it's it's okay. I know that you know, I we looked hard, but I know it's walking around alive. I have no idea, right? Like I have no clue. I went out there yesterday. I didn't see crows or buzzards flying around or anything like that. I re-walked in the woods and there wasn't a smell or but I it still weighs heavily on me. I in no way do I am I more or less confident that he is alive walking around or is not alive walking around. Um that's man, that's that's failure right there. That's very raw still. Um, but part of it is is also letting people know that this does happen and it's unfortunate, but you try to make sure it doesn't. And if something like this does, you're always doing your due diligence to try to find and recover that animal. Um, but man, sometimes it just doesn't have a happy ending. No, and I I wish I wish it had it ended differently. I wish I'd have gone out there Sunday morning after a cool night, and all of a sudden we just didn't see him because it was too dark and he was laying there 20 yards away. Yeah, but that was not the case, and um yeah, I don't know. I'm still kind of coming to grips with it.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yeah, it's uh it's it's something uh actually, and not to bring the book up again, but this is what the podcast is centered around. I actually wrote a chapter called The Inevitable, and my all of my friends in the bow hunting world's like, dude, you're making a mistake. Do not write about losing that animal. I'm like, well, it happened. And no one seems to want to talk about it. And it made me, you know, I'm I know I anchored that animal. It was irregardless that it was gotten by a pack of coyotes, and our northern coyotes, they can be a little bigger dog. They are for sure. They're, you know, I've seen them up 60, 65 pounds here because there are a lot of them are crossed, right? And uh when I found that skull with his antlers two days later, uh, a farmer found him actually. And I let the farmer take that skull and antlers and put it on his barn nearby where we hunt. And we drive by there, my daughter would be like, Can we go around the back way? I want to see where those are. It's like this little reminder now, you know, and that was a long time ago. I think probably she was only three years old when that happened. She's 14 now, but um, it's the same thing when I talk about spot and stuck turkeys. People think for some reason you're bragging about spot and stock turkeys. Well, I've got a couple of areas that are not ideal for calling them at all. It just will not work. And I because I've sat there and it was watching turkeys, not hunting turkeys. And so I'm like, well, I've spot and stocked everything else. I'm gonna get on this. How do I go about this? People are like, Well, you know, that's incredible you got a bird that way. Well, you're not hearing about the 35 or 40 times that I failed and busted them for years before I connected. And a lot of the time, as you're aware, it's a happenstance, and that's like that happens with losing an animal too. They're tough, they're tough creatures. They are not like they don't live on your TV on YouTube and the hunting programs, they live out there where you're, you know, like one of the guides I knew from Utah who I knew all the time, he said, You don't want to come out here and work. I'm like, why not? And he goes, There are a lot of the guys we got come out here. It's not hunting, it's about keeping them alive while they're out here with us. So I'm like, oh my god, you know, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

I mean, I've talked to guides and stuff, they're certainly experienced that. Um, but yeah, man, I mean, but life is about failures, man. Like people, uh same buddy that's out here, he he doesn't have any kids, but he he's he's you know, I'm not gonna say his name, but he's uncle, whatever his name is, right? To my kids. Sure. Um, one of my best pals. And he's like, You guys are doing such a great job. Like, you guys are a great couple, your kids are so well-mannered and well-behaved. And I'm not bragging because I'm gonna turn this around for a second. I'm like, man, parenthood is just about making sure everybody's alive at the end of the day. Like the like every day I'm screwing up as a dad, as a husband, as as a as a as a professional and everything else, but like that's that's also life, right? I think um, you know, the good book tells us a pretty good story about a guy who promised everything would be perfect if if he was in control and we chose right. So sure. Um we're supposed to make mistakes, but we're also supposed to learn from them and also become better from it. Um, sometimes that's sooner rather than later. And it happens.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Uh, you can relate to this without talking too much about the background with it, but I had the a supervisor of my one of my trade courses years ago come up to me and I was like four days, no sleep. And he's like, Hey, Richardson, did you get anybody killed? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, we this happened, so it was just brutal. That's great, he said, like out loud, because it was you had to learn from making those calls. And if you're gonna make you know, they want you to make a call, whether it's you know, based on that certain set of circumstances, as you're aware, that you have to deal with, whatever assets that you're dealing with to make that call over. You've got to make a damn decision. You know, and Brian Burkhart and I talked about this a lot related to bow hunting. He said, you know, I said, you know, I have found in the last 15 years, I have dropped the string on a hell of a lot less animals than I would have in the 15 years prior, 20 years prior. Because I've gotten so discriminating against that now. I've really discriminated against myself on that whatever the animal's doing or whatever animal it is.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

I mean, I'll give a good example of that, right? It's like um I shot and completely missed two deer last year. Yeah. Um with trad deer and whiffed them. Um, one was because I hadn't comp I was shooting, I was in a tree stand, I hadn't compensated for the angle, right? I shot right over this young buck's back. And like as soon as I like, you know, you draw back, pick a spot, and then from an I always tell myself as far as my process, is like pick a spot, and then I say compensate if I know I'm out of a tree or if I'm shooting up. Now I'm in a flat coastal North Carolina, so I'm rarely shooting up at anything. Sure. But and uh, and when I was in Manitoba back in August, that's the same thing when I got a nice bear, like pick a spot, compensate, and aim it, so I aim a little bit lower. Um, and I didn't. I like man, I like deer boom, and it was like I was like, I as soon as I released that arrow, like it's in slow motion, I knew that I had not followed a process, not much less the process. And I'm just blessed that that the arrow you shot four inches over that deer's back. The other time I shot and missed a doe, and I I hunt this place. I got a pasture buddy in town, he's got five acres, and everybody in this neighborhood has anywhere from like three to seven acres. Yeah, and so large yards, but every time these deer would come in, it'd be four or five does at the same time. And it's a lot of noses and eyeballs and ears in your little bubble, right? Yeah, and I they were alert, they didn't know where I was, but they knew something was up. And I had an open shot, a very clean shot that I was very, a very capable shot, picked a spot. Um, but honestly, that doe ducked like belly to the ground, like she ducked that arrow with ease, and they all took off and snorted and everything else. Yeah, but I was talking, I was talking to my buddy Corey. Corey talk about it. Actually, he was like, I don't shoot since I started transitioning the self bow, I don't shoot alert deer, shoot at alert deer. Right. He was like, he's like, they're just like when you're shooting 150 to 190 feet per second with a self bow, which is still slower than like a recur, right? Um it's just like there's more chance for them to duck an arrow. It's a quieter bow, right? It's much of course, 100%. Um, but particularly you're in kind of these these suburban settings, those deer are there's there's so many flags, right? There's so many eyeballs and ears and noses when you're within 20 yards um that can be setting them off. So like let them come in and hang out for a while before you feel that you need to make that shot. And that's something that I'm which is probably why I've let so many deer walk in close range this year, as I'm trying to tell myself, like, make sure it's a calm deer. And and there's also that other point, right? Well, you need to make a decision. Like, well, sure, yeah, I need to quit watching that ball go across the diamond within the strike zone, too, you know. Um, but uh we'll we'll see. I'll maybe I'll get it right by the end of the year.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, no kidding. I always find it easier if the animal sort of just appears and I'm zeroed on it. And some of the farmland I hunted 20 years ago, you would start seeing the animal appear like 100 yards away. So by the time it got to you, we're pretty wired. Yeah, you were like sitting there, like, oh my god, uh biggest buck I got was like that. And I had to go through this whole box breathing process when he got to within about 30 yards of me. Because I'm like, what is going on? You know?

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah. I tell you, when I shot that bear in August up in Manitoba, I watched that bear for 45 minutes. Like I was sitting in my tree stand, and I got to the point where like I was at an awkward angle where like my back, my low back was spasming. Yeah, and I was like, oh man. So I actually like folded the seat and slowly stood up and I leaned against the tree with just like my bow and my arrow. And like I, you know, adrenaline had come and gone at that point after 45 minutes of watching this bear within 25 yards, yeah, yeah. And jumpers in a good shot, and um, that was like the calmest, like most collective like shot that I've made, regardless of weapon. It got sure, yeah, she was there just for so long, and um it's felt good, but hunting usually rarely offers that type of situation, too.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

The last thing I'll say about something that occurred to me was I missed a like the largest buck I've ever had an opportunity to really shoot, like really big body buck. And he and this I could see this dough, it was a really heavy cover, and I was going scouting. I wasn't hunting. I had my bow with me, and I wanted to scout this area because the back end of our place had been blown out by poachers that year. Back end of my mom and dad. So I'd paddle across and I It was one of those just dragged the canoe up with lots of noise, threw the paddles on the ground and grabbed my bow. Oh, there's a gross. Oh no, I know. And I was sort of just mushing along. And I sat down beside this little, it was this little uh sapling uh maple tree. And I was looking down at the deer run. I hadn't hunted over across this creek in a few years, and I heard this dough bleat coming towards me down this old dry creek runoff that went into this where the beavers had cut out from the creek. And I and it was tight cover, really tight cover. And I could see her coming along and she was bleeding constantly. I'm like, oh, she's she looks like she's in heat. And behind her, I heard this br-like kind of behind her. I'm like, and it turned into a hunt just like that. Yeah. Red plaid on and a pair of blue jeans and my old Irish setter boots on. And I'll it's perfect set. And he got that then you're loading it back on a canoe. I mean, how mad? I know. And it was this, it was like this non-scripted mess. And this, so I knock an arrow, and and I'm like, she walked by me at about maybe six feet. It was ridiculous. And she didn't even look at me. She just kept on going down to the creek to where the cover was, really heavy cover. And so I'm look peering through the thing like this, and you just see these, it was like a crown coming through the, you know, guiding through, and his nose was down, his tail was straight out, his his whole neck was just bristled. He was fired right up. And and he was like, I'm like, it was like Buckzilla. And I remember thinking, oh my God. And I pictured myself in that moment, you know, call, you know, waving to my dad across the creek. Dad, you gotta help me with this deer. This I pictured the the shot, I pictured me recovering, all this stuff flashed through my head. And he got about 12 yards away and he went in around these little alders. You know how alders grow in bunches?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

And he weaved his way around. So I'm timing it as he goes through the other alders, and I come to full draw, and he steps through the gap and stops. And I release the arrow, and the top limb hits a piece of the maple above me, and the arrow dives right underneath him, and he is out of there, like belly to the ground, scrambling away. And I remember counting as I came up to full draw, I remember counting his antlers. I wasn't even looking at the shoulder. I remember counting, like I think I stopped at like 12 or 13 or some stupid points or something. And I've refocused and I shot. And when that arrow missed, it's funny, there was that little heartbreak, but I was a kid again. And I wanted just to tell my dad about what had happened because it was not just the buck, it was the dough and the happenstance and the the whole mess of what I just kind of been airdropping into. And I thought, you know, you know, I went across that creek, Matt, no word of a lie. I must have gone across that creek the S of the season from first light to noon, like like a ninja, and I never saw another deer in there. Like I went across there. It was just that moment in time, you know. And I remember that I remember that uh it was one of the first Easton um permagraphic like classics they had. I remember that red turkey fletch just going right underneath his tummy of his foreleg, of his stomach, and and missing then having him blow out like he'd been, you know, jumped by a ghost or something. I'm I'll never forget that as long as I live, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Man, I that's that full full experience though, right? From the unexpected to seeing this doe, she was vocal, he was vocal, the whole process. I mean, that's that's a whirlwind of emotions and sensory, which makes yeah, yeah, the story that much better, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, anyway. Sat there for their better part of that year, and nope, nothing else. That was it. Never saw that big guy. It's all that God gave me on that creek side that year. Give me the whole thing. It's really been an honor to have you on. Uh this is the inaugural change to the podcast, and I want to talk to other, like I said, grassroots bow hunters and bowyers like yourself to get a perspective that I sometimes think isn't kind of brought out as much as it could or should be these days. Whether it's traditional bow hunting or any other hiding type of hunting, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Yeah, man, I appreciate it. Yeah, I've been hunting for a long time, but in the traditional space, I'm still very much a greenhorn in my mind. And I appreciate folks like you and the folks at you know, PBS and Comptons that I've met along the way, Compton that I've met along the way, because I've had some awesome fellowship that I haven't experienced in any other community. Um, folks that are willing to help piecemeal, you know, some advice or critique or share hunting stories or you know, drink bourbon around the fire, or the guys that I was just with up in uh Kodiak, you know, early in October, um, you know, Burkhart and team. I mean, it was just tremendous fellowship. And um, I appreciate you know that a you know, knuckle dragger like me is just welcomed into a circle of all these these fine folks.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Give me one sentence on Kodiak, because I didn't get to talk about that. Give me one sentence your whole experience on Kodiak, because that's pretty incredible. One sentence, man. There's a lot of even a description.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Give me a there's a lot of up for sure. Um it's weird, man. So like I've hunted, you know, in like high devil and Montana and Colorado, but like when you get off the skiff in Kodiak, it's immediately going straight up the mountain, right? But the vegetation is what's the tail kicker, it's not it's not the vertical, it's like everything there wants to grab you, trip you, or stab you right while you're trying to go up. So you're going through timber that's as through brush and thorns that are as tall as you, while you're also going up, you know, the steep incline of the mountain and trying to be quiet at the same time. So there's that. But it's the natural beauty, as far as I'm concerned, is also like uncomparable. So I it was worth it. I did not come back with a deer, only two of the eight people in the the hunting party, um, a lot of seasoned veterans with Tradbow and Hunting and Kodiak went up there. Only two guys came back with a with a blacktail. Uh, but man, I'm I'm already trying to figure out how to get back to Alaska next year.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

A buddy of mine that hunted Kodiak about 20 years ago said the best part about Kodiak for me was going through this brush off the edge of the where they were dropped off. And he said, Going through this brush and like 10 feet away, this grizzly head pops up. Surprise! Like, I'm in here with you. And he said, It was like, Wow, you know, um, never thought I'd see anything like that. Like he said, that was he was like, you know, I'm 10 feet, I can smell this thing when the wind when it stood up, and he said, you know, it got down and took off. But he's like, there was always that thing in the back of his head when he was in his sleeping bag that night saying, What if it didn't take off? And it was 10 feet for me.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

And I, you know, man, the closest I saw Grizzly when I was out there was about 250 yards, and he was a giant, humpback, silver-tipped hair built boar. And I was just like, and and that's you just turn around, you're like, I'm not going this whole section today. I was planning on hunting this whole mountainside, I'm not touching now. I'm going over this side, you know, um, because it they're so large. And I I've never really been like bear afraid, I'd say bear aware, but that was like my first encounter seeing big grizzlies, and that and you we saw them. I think for me, I saw them all but one day uh of the week, and to include boars and sows with cubs, and and you I could sit and watch them through my binos all day, but you're also very aware that when you're going through the the thick tag alders and stuff that are taller than you and really thick, that yeah on the bright side, there's also no way to work through that stuff stealthily, so you're probably not gonna surprise anything either. But yeah, yeah. Um it's it's very humbling uh to say the least, but it's it's also that's why it's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

That's great. Thank you so much, Matthew, for your time and uh good luck with Song Dog Stick Bows. I look forward to lots more lessons learned because I'm learning stuff from watching your stuff. I've forgotten most of what I've learned, so I love watching stuff. I think it's fantastic. So thank you so much. Hey, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

The feelings mutual, and I've got to dive dive deeper into the book, man. I I appreciate there's folks with big brains and and commensurate experience out there. They're putting the pen to paper for folks like me to gather something from it.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Yeah, that's pretty humbling for me. I'm an amateur writer, so it comes out, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Hey, I I still use crayons and you know, books with pictures, so we're good.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

That's that's awesome. Thanks for your time. Cheers. All right, buddy, cheers. Don't forget to hit the links to check out our app, both on Google Play and iTunes. And check out our free ethical predator newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly with tips and advice on all things traditional bow hunting and more. This issue we focus on bow hunting the rut for Whitetail. You can find the link for the app and newsletter in the comments. If you haven't already, check out Compton Traditional Bow Hunters, the national traditional bow hunting organization. Offering great membership benefits and ensuring the traditions of bow hunting with a stick and string is alive and well, not only now, but for generations to come. We're excited to announce our new Ethical Predator Legend t-shirt and hoodie line is out high-quality apparel designed for traditional bow hunters by traditional bow hunters. More than a t-shirt and hoodie design, but they represent those who follow a process of how close, not how far, hunting the hard way and a connection to the past that brings the pursuit of game and the heritage of family together. No sights, no problem. Hit the link to get yours today. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate all the positive feedback we've been getting from folks all over the world. This confirms for us the intent we have on our message based on the three pillars of the code of traditional archery, weapon proficiency with the stickbow, ethics to guide us on our collective journey, and conservation with stewardship in order to protect the wildlife, woods, fields, and waterways we hunt as our themes are resonating. Take the time to leave a radiant comment. Thanks for listening in. We encourage you to immerse yourself in the art of the stickbow. Shoot straight and walk the path of the ethical predator.