What is Success In The Woods?

What does success in the woods really mean? In this episode, Reese Richards, Scott Hinnant and Eric VanFossen sit down at the campfire in West Point Mississippi to share personal stories from the hunt—those quiet mornings, missed shots, and moments that test your patience and heart. They open up about how their definition of success has changed over time, from chasing trophies to cherishing time with God and family in His creation. Through laughter, lessons, and very honest reflection, they explore how faith and the outdoors intertwine, revealing that true success isn’t found in the harvest but in the heart.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:43

What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Seek and Find Podcast. Guess what? I'm with Eric and Scott.

SPEAKER_03: 0:51

And we're sitting by the fire. And I just re start recording and start talking because if we don't, we're just gonna talk.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

We've been talking. We've been talking for three hours. It's about two hours. Two hours. We've been talking for two hours. Yeah. Could have already recorded.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10

You know how many times I've had conversations where it's like, man, I wish we would have recorded that. I wish we would have recorded that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16

We've had some good conversations. That's why I started podcasting. I'm not gonna lie. I started podcasting because so many conversations I would have, I would say here, like, you know how many people need to hear this?

SPEAKER_06: 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26

But then it gets dragged out into whatever.

SPEAKER_06: 1:29

Yeah, well it can, for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30

Alright, this episode we have a topic.

SPEAKER_06: 1:33

Somewhat.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34

And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:35

Coming out of yesterday's success.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37

What do you define success when it comes to Deer Woods? When it comes to basically whatever we end up now talking about this whole podcast, is about how we each define success in those topics.

SPEAKER_06: 1:52

Right. And yesterday we were, it was all about kind of preparation and how much effort that and that we put into it. And then we kind of get it got into the man, most of the people that I know that have super minor success are just just flat out lucky. And what's the you know, what's the reward for all the work you do versus enjoying the purity of hunting, which is going and just enjoying nature and and and getting in that stand that that that's been there for years or whatever. So we're taking that and moving into where we're at right now, which is how do you define success?

SPEAKER_04: 2:31

Because so it's funny because you said how to be successful in the woods. Right. What does that even mean? Exactly.

SPEAKER_06: 2:41

So we put in a lot of time trying to figure that out as how to be successful, but what is success for you?

SPEAKER_03: 2:47

I'm not gonna start it just because that'd be selfish. Well, dude, that that is not an airboat because that's been going up for about it.

SPEAKER_06: 2:57

That's gonna go that's oh it's going to Tom Bigby, so it's going back. It's too slow to be anything else, but yeah, they're gonna be.

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

But it's it's gonna be that loud or louder for the next 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_06: 3:04

Yeah, it's gonna be maybe maybe.

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

We've got a tugboat going by that is really loud to us. I don't know if you guys can hear it or not.

SPEAKER_03: 3:10

Yeah, I'll try and try and erase it if y'all can't. But alright, we'll start with Eric. Just throw me in the paper real quick.

SPEAKER_06: 3:18

I think and I mean I have it on my mind what's just the final success is like coming out of where we came from yesterday, the work you put into it, the effort, you know, that you put into trying to figure deer out, pattern deer, all of that. Now we're rolling into, well, why do we do what we do? Well, we want success. Well, what is success now? Does it it has changed for me from when I started out hunting? Of course, I'm close to 50. Obviously, it changes for everybody. Just eat some of this deer this deer sauce. Where let me just give a shout out. Where does deer sauce come from? The H H? H H deer processing. That's a spinnerbait.

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

There's a lot of bass on the H H, bro. Where's H H at? H H deer processing in Law, Mississippi. Yeah. I've had a lot of smoked sausage and I tell you, was that that's good? Two or three different kinds or that's two kinds. Yeah, there's there's that's onion. That's green onion. There's green onion and cheese in there, and then there's pepperjack.

SPEAKER_03: 4:20

My kids and Amber both agreed that the green onion and cheese was better than the than the Philly. Anyway.

SPEAKER_06: 4:26

Now success right here on that plane. That green onion is a success, bruh.

SPEAKER_01: 4:31

I got y'all a uh a pack of pepperjack to take home too. You said y'all. I'm talking to Reese. That's y'all.

SPEAKER_05: 4:37

That's one guy.

SPEAKER_01: 4:38

But it's for y'all.

SPEAKER_05: 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

His y'all.

SPEAKER_05: 4:41

It's my family, bro. Oh, his y'all. His family is my y'all. You can bring y'all from Mississippi. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 4:47

Okay, okay. So, success.

SPEAKER_01: 4:49

Um, I want y'all to get a dude next year. What's your name? Success. You you threw me in the you threw me in a spot like that. Yeah, I did, but this one's continuing, so success uh it changes throughout the whole process, really, because you go into deer season with these big dreams of this is gonna be the year. This is my year. Because if you didn't go into a season thinking this is gonna be my year, then you wouldn't go. What are your hopes? Yeah. Everybody's hopes is to kill a big deer. I mean, that's what everybody hopes. Exactly. Everybody hopes to to go kill the deer that they're after. And if there wasn't bad, would it be good? Oh.

SPEAKER_04: 5:24

If it wasn't bad, would it be good?

SPEAKER_06: 5:25

If there wasn't, it's almost biblical.

SPEAKER_04: 5:27

This is it is biblical, and that was a funny thing that I was trying to throw in there. In a sense of like that could be a whole nother podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:33

Yeah. Oh so as like you start the season off, you go put up trail cameras. That's kind of how everybody starts, right?

SPEAKER_02: 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:42

Oh, you start seeing deer and you get a buck, hopefully you get a buck on trail camera, and you get your heart set on that buck, and you go into season saying, Yeah, I want to kill that buck right there. And so in your mind, at the in September, in your mind in September, that is success defined. Is if I kill that buck, that will be a successful hunt. But then you start prepping, and you spend, like we have, in the last two weeks, we spent 20 plus hours in the woods sawing and dragging and discing and pushing and clearing food plots and clearing lanes and clearing walking paths. And those are episodes, I've been recording a lot of it. Hanging feeders, yeah, and a four-hour truck job turns into an eight-hour job.

SPEAKER_06: 6:30

And then would hold.

SPEAKER_01: 6:32

Yeah, and then everything starts falling apart around you. But anyway, so as this stuff rocks on and you've spent dozens of hours, tens of hours in the woods getting it all ready. Getting it all ready, then you start realizing, you know, just this work being complete makes you feel successful. I exactly agree. Yeah. When when you get in a stand and you look around, it's like, man, this is a pretty place. And you see a doe and a fawn come walking in. Yeah. And it's just got wants to smoke that fawn's brush. Oh, wow. They are tender.

SPEAKER_06: 7:14

But I will say the freezer, that's a whole, that's we're talking about success, we get in that whole other thing.

SPEAKER_01: 7:19

Yes, that's different. But yeah, uh, so to me it's success is ever evolving in, or it's ever evolving by how much work goes into it and what led up to a hunt. So if you actually get to go hunting and all your plans, that the everything is just how you wanted it to, you walk to the stand and you didn't break a limb, and you climbed up and your tree stand didn't fall, and you see a deer, that's solid. Bam! Success. To me.

SPEAKER_04: 7:52

That's solid. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 7:54

And it's so, yes. Here's a good way of putting it in my my train of thought is how rewarded you feel at the end of that hunt. If you sit there and all your worries for the week are washed away, yeah, that's a successful hunt.

SPEAKER_03: 8:12

For real. See, and that's where the podcast, the last podcast we had, that can kind of go into that, uh, add to that, I guess you could say, because um really that that's that's ri I I thought this was gonna have a different spin to it, but in reality, that's when we were setting up all that the whole time, I have not once thought about myself today. And my whole mindset was when we were putting that shooting house where it was at, and where y'all had that vision of looking down there, I just imagine, because my son, he always he uses the word beautiful a lot, and I love it because every time he talks about nature and sees something, he'll be like, he'll sit and no, he'll be like, you know, that thing's beautiful and this and that, but like I see him sitting in that shooting house, and I see him just great green grass coming across it, and just seeing how just saying how beautiful it is, and like those kind of things, man. I I could sit at the cabin all week and they could do that every single day, and to me, just it could literally start success could start out 100% on just knowing Scott. Like knowing Scott as a human.

SPEAKER_04: 9:32

You got success if you know me, I promise you.

SPEAKER_03: 9:35

Don't make me take my words back, but um, but yeah, that that's just something like you know when you have somebody like me that grew up in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

That was a stuff I like.

SPEAKER_03: 9:47

No, I grew up in Michigan and then moved to Florida when I was 17, and then my roots kind of came back and I started hitting the woods again, and then it gets to a point where it's like, you know, when I get an opportunity to even go out of state, let alone somebody that says treat it like your own, and then you start realizing like what you share with somebody, that to me alone, you know, what Eric was saying, it is it's starting from the very beginning, just your tree stand not breaking, you not snapping limbs, you're not, you know, even though this morning no deer ran off, and I was like, man, this is gonna be money, and I didn't see nothing, but like that was success because like when you take every little grain of salt as a blessing in your life, that is 100% to me this morning. Yeah, yeah, a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_06: 10:39

No, well, yeah, it was. By the way, when we got to that tree, we I let it done get a little bit of daylight, and Eric realized why. But he he he stood there for a minute and I thought, I'm gonna get I I'm about to go we need you need to post a quick video.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

I don't know, have y'all y'all have y'all feeled that that would be? We have pictures, yeah. Okay, well you can.

SPEAKER_03: 11:00

I don't know if we posted some stuff, but I don't know if we've actually got it on seeking finding. It's a tree, it's an oak tree. It's not that bad, man. It grew out the side of a creek. It's not that bad. An oak tree. If it's wet, uh maybe you can walk out, walk out to the end of this tree, and when you look down, you're probably about 20 feet up, but there's nowhere to lock off, and you're walking across a log. It's super cool. We came across it when we were looking for shark's teeth. We decided to hunt it that evening, and that just happens to be like what did I say to you about getting it? It would be cool to post.

SPEAKER_06: 11:34

We literally said we're gonna have to have some light to walk like we've got to be able to see what we're walking out on. Scott took Eric to it this morning, and well, I said this is one of them spots that I don't I don't know how often.

SPEAKER_03: 11:47

You'll never see it again.

SPEAKER_06: 11:48

Well, you've got to have a safety harness on and you don't have to climb a stand. And like, what? Oh yeah, we gotta walk out. We walk.

SPEAKER_03: 11:55

You're walking horizontally over somewhat horizontal.

SPEAKER_06: 11:59

Yeah, it it's like horizontal and then it does turn up a little bit enough to make you kind of nervous, but it's when it's dry, it ain't bad. It's just that initial y'all went up Well the the thing is is you're you're looking down at look what looks like 40 feet when you're walking out there. If you're looking at the ditch.

SPEAKER_03: 12:17

I mean, if you slip off that tree, you ain't going nowhere but down.

SPEAKER_06: 12:19

You're hitting the tree because it's behind you, like if it behind you, you ain't got 10 feet. You're if that maybe gonna bounce off like Scott did on the edge. But if you're looking at that creek walking out there, it's a little bit intimidating. Right? And there's moss on top of it on top of the mosses. Like it's like it's like the moss.

SPEAKER_01: 12:36

There was a coon turn.

SPEAKER_06: 12:37

There was a coon turret microphone on top of it. Don't step in that, you be a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 12:44

Well, but it is a cool freaky spot, dude. I'm a firefighter, and on my days off I build houses, so I'm used to I used to be on a framing crew. Walking ridges. I'd walk up roofs all the time. Yeah. Sometimes steep roofs. See this? But this bothered me.

SPEAKER_06: 13:02

It did. I sat I I got out there because I'd done it before and I knew it was dry, so I wasn't that worried about it. And I went over there and I sat down and I literally was like, Eric might not come out here for just for a second. I thought, we might have to go back, because you can sit on the bank right there and shoot a dude, ain't no doubt. I told you that. I said, why don't we just sit there?

SPEAKER_03: 13:23

The deer that we saw come up that edge.

SPEAKER_06: 13:26

Yeah, it'd be I mean it'd be right by you. Yeah. And uh, but I I really wanted him to come out there, but I didn't want to.

SPEAKER_01: 13:33

And that being said, we finally did get out there. We got tied off. Uh Scott took a little bit of video, but I don't know if we'll post it or not, but uh what'd you take it with?

SPEAKER_06: 13:41

The main camera. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 13:42

Big camera, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 13:43

I have a photo that I took of selfie out there one time.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

It's a cool spot, man. Walking out there, and it just the the whole setup was a really cool place, and there was zero prep went into that. No, none whatsoever. It's like, hey, I know a place we can sit on a tree that doesn't have a stand in it. Nothing. But nothing. This is just we just you walk down, you walk down in the woods, it's not much of a trail. Well, it ain't much of a trail. Yeah, it's not you're definitely just hiking. You just walk through the woods, walk out on this tree, and sit down on the tree and hunt. And we saw a deer this morning.

SPEAKER_06: 14:18

We did.

SPEAKER_01: 14:18

That was a successful hunt.

SPEAKER_06: 14:20

Exactly, because that's what I was getting to. The whole point of what I was started that is. I don't know if you were getting in much. No, when when we were talking about success, you literally said it.

SPEAKER_01: 14:29

I did say it this morning.

SPEAKER_06: 14:30

Yeah, you said, I feel like, because I I was actually fixing to tell him a story. Like I was talking like mid-conversation, and I don't even know why. I was talking to him because he's to my right a little bit, and I looked to my left in conversation and I stopped. And I said, There's a deer. I just happened to, I don't know, you know, sometimes I wonder if your ears don't hear stuff and you don't realize you picked it up, but I looked over and it's like there's a deer instantly and I I go to point it towards him and he finally sees it and he says, Dude, I I feel I don't know exactly what you how you worded it, but it was like you felt like we had a good hunt just because the hell I I seen that deer right there. You know, it was like I feel like we had a successful morning. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

The deer probably wasn't 40-50 yards. Nah, it was a little more than that.

SPEAKER_06: 15:18

But I mean, we didn't know And you could only see it through little.

SPEAKER_01: 15:21

Yeah, it was just glimpses, man.

SPEAKER_06: 15:23

It's it's early season here in Mississippi, everything's thick, but uh you but we didn't know if that deer was gonna turn and come right down the trail below us or what. So we kind of had to, you know, 15 or 20 minutes of looking hard, but the whole the whole success idea where we started out is like that that defined that hunt this morning was it was a it was a pretty morning. We got up there and one when once he finally got the uh the nerve.

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

You're making me sound, first off, you I had to point you had to point the deer out to me. I was scared to get on the log. You making me sound like a uh pansy? Pretty much.

SPEAKER_06: 16:00

I wasn't trying to I mean So really What I'm saying is Success Once we got out there and you saw the deer, it's like you literally said, I feel like we had a good hunt. And we did. We didn't get to shoot at nothing, but we saw a deer and it was random. How how random can it get? I mean we we ain't got no cameras.

SPEAKER_01: 16:20

That's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_06: 16:21

I mean, we ain't got nothing, no bait, nothing. It's just going out in the woods in a spot and there's a deer, you know, and it's and and that was success for us. So back to defining success, it's different for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_03: 16:37

And that's what it is, I guess, when it comes to but when it comes, where's your where's your heart and where's your faith though? Like that that's the thing. Us three, I'm realizing that our definition of success is very, very similar. But if you have an atheist sitting next to us, their success might be different when it comes, and I don't know many atheists that hunt, but I could tell you right now, like, we got vape right there. No, it it has to, because that's that's the truth, man. Like, if you put somebody else that is not spiritually not pure because I'm not, but that's that's spiritually in tune, right, to nature and and to God's creation, their definition of success will be about that kill. And I'm not gonna say it may or may not be. It is there is no connection that connects them just to nature alone, I think, let alone killing them. I think what you're saying is our faith defines success.

SPEAKER_06: 17:34

Well, for us, because we look at it differently, but I'm not saying there's not other believers.

SPEAKER_02: 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 17:40

Faith will people out there that don't define it differently because they want to have success a different way. They may it may be defined in that that deal that they've had photos of. And I and I say that because their their picture of success is perfectly fine. The reason I bring up success is because your your vision of success and how you define it and what you want, that's fine. I can't say there's anything wrong to it. I can give you my opinion. I can give you my my my thoughts on why I think we overcomplicate it. But that's me. But then would that come that's my heart.

SPEAKER_03: 18:19

But would that come back to then where is well okay, that's your heart, and that's my heart, and that's Eric's heart, but still wouldn't that make you kind of like don't get me wrong, if I have a deer on camera, I'm gonna like I'm gonna wanna go out and kill that deer. But at the end of that day, I'm like, man, I didn't get to kill that deer, maybe, but for the most part, I'm like, that still was a nice hunt. There was a nice breeze, and like I guess, so I don't really feel anybody would think any different if if they weren't spiritually sound when it comes down to it, man. I mean, it it's it's all about what like you talking about them leaves yesterday when we were on the pipeline. Like that right there to me is like if you are that in tune to where you hear a little bird when you're sitting in a tree stand and you're just like, you know what, that bird is sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_06: 19:09

Like this this is that could be we literally said it.

SPEAKER_03: 19:14

And if that's not your definition of success for your hunt, and oh man, I didn't kill something, where's your heart?

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

Well Yeah, that was that was one of the things I mentioned this morning. I there was a screech owl cutting up down there by us. And man, I love hearing screech owls, they make some noise, they make some cool sounds, and I love hearing them.

SPEAKER_03: 19:30

Where I'm getting at is I think I think there needs to be a heart check. If your sole purpose of success for a season is killing your biggest buck of a lifetime every single year. Like that you're doing it for the and we get caught up in that.

SPEAKER_06: 19:47

I'm not gonna lie, that's our opinion of it, and and and I don't disagree with you.

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

That's what I was saying, that's how we start the season. Right. That's how that's the direction we go in.

SPEAKER_06: 19:56

And the reason I bring that up is because I don't want to knock anybody that that thinks differently. Maybe they want that that deer, and that's how they define it. Because I I would say there's nothing wrong with that. But I would argue that. But from our perspective, I'm trying to get I'm we're trying to bring that that purity of honey, right? That success is defined not by the actual harvest, which look, we're all out there trying to harvest. We're all trying out there trying to seek and find.

SPEAKER_03: 20:24

What are you seeking and finding?

SPEAKER_06: 20:26

We're trying to get that deer. We're we're putting in the time and the effort, and and look, Lord, how much time have we spent the last two three days, two weeks really, if you want to get down to it, you know, preparing for this.

SPEAKER_01: 20:39

Exactly. I've been getting things ready to come back.

SPEAKER_06: 20:41

Yeah, so I mean, we we put in all this work, so if we put in all of this effort and all of this work, and we end up at the end of season, when is our deer season? Up here it's different, yeah, it's two weeks longer down south. So October 1st is here and then October 14th right now. And we hadn't killed it, we have not killed that deer that we had on camera, and we hadn't had that that buck that we've been after all season. Well, at that point, do you go, man, it was not a successful season, or do you go, man, it was successful, because I enjoy every minute of trying. I enjoy every minute of being out there. I got three or four doughs, I got the freezer full, so that's where we're going with the whole define success thing is how do you see it in the deer woods? And and and the only reason I think personally, this is my perspective, again, I if for the people listening, I have no problem at all with somebody disagreeing with it, but this is our perspective. And uh, you know, success being defined a little bit more as man, we enjoyed every minute of what we did, whether we got a blood trail or not. You know what I'm saying? You know, obviously we want it and we're seeking it and we're trying to find that deer, and we're trying to put in the time and the effort to to, you know, harvest a good deer. But if it don't happen, do you tell somebody, man, I had a terrible deer season, or do you tell somebody, man, I had fun trying? I enjoyed every you know, second of it. I uh and even more on another level I I could get way deeper into this. I define success more I put somebody on a deer. They killed a good deer, I didn't. But I put in this time and effort and I was able to have a buddy of mine come and harvest his best book ever, even though it wasn't my best book ever, it was his. Whether the standards are different, it doesn't matter. That guy had the buck of his li, you know. It's it's it's it's it's personal. It's very personal, it's very presence over performance. Well, everybody's different, man. It's like, you know, you bring somebody from South Florida that's never killed a big deer. And they come up here and kill the deer, and it's like, man, you know, your buddy Eric, I'll just bring him up. The deer that that he killed. To my standards, I wouldn't have been tickled about it. But what'd he do as soon as he killed that deer? I'll never forget it. He text his wife and sent a picture and said, Look at this. He was stoked, man. He was fired up. So in his mind, success. Now, for me personally, that was success for me. Because I'm thinking this dude had a great time. He came here, I was able to put him on a deer, whether it was a deer I would have chosen for him or not, that's irrelevant. It was when he killed that deer and he sent a picture to his wife, whether I think it was big enough or not is irrelevant at that point. And and that's my opinion. That's how I feel. Now you may feel different. You may you know, you may think that deer just wasn't big enough, that ain't success. You know, and that's fine. But you know, year after this a certain caliber of a deer or a certain age of a deer, a certain number of inches.

SPEAKER_01: 24:16

Well people get caught up so much, and we preach that like and so and it's I think it's actually it's starting to calm down now. Maybe a little, yeah. But several years ago everybody got so caught up in uh in like if it don't score that's a good thing. Well they do score up, yeah. And still, look y'all, last year for probably I don't know, since I started using trail cameras which has been years and years, 'cause I I started using them when you had to go get the film out of 'em and take it to uh uh the Photoshop in in town and wait on your film to be developed.

SPEAKER_04: 24:57

I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_01: 24:58

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 24:59

You gotta be as old as it. I ain't I ain't that old as that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:02

Yeah, man, you used to have to go pull the film and you had to be careful with it because if it wasn't all the way done, then you would you would expose your film trying to get it out of the woods and then that that whole roll was ruined and it was a big deal, man. But anyway, I've been using trail cameras for years and years. And last year, for probably only the second time in that whole I don't know, twenty plus years of using trail cameras, did I kill the the bug that I wanted to kill. The the buck that I got on camera in September last year. Right. I had pictures of him, you know, every few weeks. Every few weeks he passed through my property, and I finally got him late, late season. Yeah, it was like in January, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_06: 25:49

Yeah, it was. You had no expectation of actually seeing him.

SPEAKER_01: 25:54

I actually I did have an expectation I hoped. But the thing was the buck had disappeared for two weeks. Rutting. I thought he was gone.

SPEAKER_06: 26:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 26:04

And then somebody posts a Facebook, makes a Facebook post, they're videoing the deer from the road from my pasture from the road. And y'all, Facebook blew up because this thing on film looked he looked wild. I mean, he was huge on film. When he was running that doe, oh man, he looked 150 inches. Yeah, he looked 150 inches on that video.

SPEAKER_05: 26:28

And in South Mississippi, that's that's world class.

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

So there's people parking in the highway in front of my house trying to get a glimpse of this deer calling me, like, hey, are you are you hunting that lamb behind your house? Can I go hunt back there? Like, no, man, I'm trying to kill that deer too. But anyhow, I did end up killing that deer a few days after that dude made that Facebook.

SPEAKER_06: 26:47

How rare is that too, though?

SPEAKER_01: 26:48

Super rare.

SPEAKER_06: 26:49

I mean, but when you sent me that photo, matter of fact, when your dad killed that deer, he killed a big deer out there.

SPEAKER_01: 26:54

Yeah, we thought it was him.

SPEAKER_06: 26:55

It was like looking at the photo, I was like, I don't think that's the same deer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:59

And what was it, a day or two later you killed him? It wasn't long. 48 hours almost to the T. But anyway, uh, what I was getting at is everybody asked me, hey, you killed that buck that that dude posted on Facebook, didn't you? I said, Yeah, what'd he score? First thing everybody asked, what'd he score? What'd he score? Because like we said, everybody thought he was gonna be 150 inches looking at the video. But and everybody is so disappointed when I tell them 120. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 27:23

They're like, what? That's what we're really getting down to though, isn't it? Though it's like, what you know, what do you how do you define success? Is it a number? Or is it the expense? So what is it for you? Because I define success as dude, I need I need a couple of days for the freezer.

SPEAKER_01: 27:41

It's it comes down to satisfaction.

SPEAKER_06: 27:43

It is. It's what you know, so everybody's that's what opinion of success is different. What are you going out there and seeking? But I will say if you don't get that deer, don't you still have some don't don't get discouraged, you still have success. Like I d I d I guess i in my opinion, again, this is my opinion, and I think ours. I think we get too caught up in that and and and the size of the deer and and the deer that we had on camera, that what we've been chasing all season, and did we have a successful season or not? I think it depends on did you get to go chase it? Did you get to enjoy it?

SPEAKER_01: 28:22

Did you you know I kinda hit on it a minute ago. And it's I guess it's come back around with what you're saying. I'm probably gonna say the same thing I said at the beginning of the show, but and I was gonna reference the Bible or something, all this we're talking about. I I I looked for that. You found it? No? Okay. I was gonna say, uh my pastor back home used to at least once a month preach on satisfaction and being satisfied with the blessings that you've received. Yeah, but don't yeah, don't compare yourself to other people's success. Exactly. Because their success and your success is two different things, and you have to be satisfied with what God's giving you. And satisfaction and success really go hand in hand. Yes. I mean they they're measured the same, whether w anybody wants to admit it or not. Because if you're satisfied, then you're successful. Contentment.

SPEAKER_06: 29:19

Contentment.

SPEAKER_01: 29:20

Satisfaction, contentment, the same.

SPEAKER_03: 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 29:23

So I looked this verse up because it was something we were talking about about your trials and persevering, basically in the sense of like, if you don't get that buck or whatever, like what are you searching for? But James 1 consider it pure joy. We've all I mean, I'm not gonna say we all, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters. Whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And that gets to the heart of Why we feel that when we sit here and have a beautiful morning, whether we see nothing, whether we not, it's we just we literally are just content and we persevere, not lacking anything, when we get down from that stand, we are like, we're complete.

SPEAKER_06: 30:21

We're like, hey, it's kind of defined before you even get to that stand. What is your goal? What are your what is your goal here? And I I think you know, as long as we've been doing this and chasing these deer and trying to have success by the number of inches or the the success with the the number of shots that we've had or number of sightings we've had, you know, going to this stand, that stand, trying to get this deer, you know, defining success as in did we just like you said within that scripture money, are we satisfied with uh the outcome of maybe maybe we didn't have success by actually getting it, but we had success in so many other ways. Right. And we want people to understand that that we don't want you to be disappointed in your hunt. We don't want you to be disappointed in the outcome because uh like I said, I think I said this in the podcast yesterday, there's no unsuccessful hunt. I don't care how bad it is.

SPEAKER_03: 31:19

Bring hunting back to what hunting used to be. Hunting used to be I'm gonna go out in the woods, I hope to kill some venison, but if I don't, I'm gonna enjoy it.

SPEAKER_06: 31:27

There's no unsuccessful hunt, because what did you do today? Well, you got out in the woods wherever it may be in the world, and you went after that deer or that hope, and whether you got it or not, and again, if you got it, great, man. If you if you killed that deer you're after, great, that's success. But if you didn't, don't define that this would be my opinion, don't define that as a failure.

SPEAKER_02: 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 31:56

Define it as, man, this was a great time. It was it was a you said this morning, we put you in the look, we had trail how many that's the thing. Eric and I went somewhere where we had no camera.

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

No stand.

SPEAKER_06: 32:09

Nothing. Nothing. We went off in the middle of nowhere, got set up and saw a deer. You went to where we had 1400 picks of deer coming in there, you know, constantly. I'm thinking to myself, every time the phone buzzed, I thought, that there's a reason he done shot one. He's he's he's got one on camera. You didn't see a thing in the hottest spot that we got on the whole property with a great wind and a cool morning. It was a cool morning. I didn't hit anything. I could say, Bernie, you didn't have success today. But did you? Oh yeah. When you came back here and we got ready to go and do our work, you said, man, the first words I said when I got off the e-bike, I was like, dude, that was a beautiful city. Exactly. So all right, that's it.

SPEAKER_03: 32:55

That's we're going from how you want, but we're going from defining success, and we're gonna go into what Eric probably has never heard that I missed five deer with my bow two years ago. Nine. Sounding like five. Five deer with my bow. It sounded like you said five, but he meant nothing. So I've had a three-year streak of nothing in Mississippi. Yeah, if he drew back a bit. Look, can I get into my story, Scotty? Scotty. So, I mean, there really isn't a story. So I had some private property, 60 acres. I don't want to say that it was the it was the bow that I've never shot, but because I'm a Botech and people know that they're gonna be like, well, that's no excuse.

SPEAKER_01: 33:46

But there's a there's a vast difference. Oh, let's say between target shooting and yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 33:52

Let's say um I had a whole bunch of deer. Three deer that I completely missed, one deer that I hit that my dad actually ended up killing the next morning on the back side of the 50 acres.

SPEAKER_02: 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:07

And then two more deer, I got to a point where I said, I'm gonna move from the stand and I'm gonna set up a blind and I'm gonna start hunting that blind because I'm gonna be more set. And I literally put so T-Bone, uh, not our friend T-Bone, but my other friend T-Bone from Bone Collector, he he always talks about when you're putting feed down, you put a log in that feed, and that log make it perpendicular with you. So if you're looking at your shooting lane, put that log going straight down right on top of your corn. Because deer will not straddle that log and eat the corn. They will come up and butt up against that log and eat the corn, giving you completely broadside shot. So I literally was like, I'm gonna get in this blind, I'm gonna I did exactly no joke, and I have this on camera, I don't think I ever showed it. Doe completely, this was deer number five, completely and I did it, yeah. I did it at exactly 20 yards. No joke, exactly 20 yards. That deer came in, it was like clockwork. Came right in, 8 o'clock in the morning, completely right on that log, eating that corn, completely broadside. Aimed for the heart. A foot and a half over its back.

SPEAKER_04: 35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 35:32

You don't have that. I about gave up. I called Scott, I was like, Scott, it's been this many deer. I text Eric, the other Eric, and Eric just laughed at me. And uh I and then I actually came to Mississippi that about a few weeks later, came to Mississippi and asked. I was like, I'm not touching my bow. Hey, burnout. I was like, I'm not touching my bow. I said, I'm done with bow hunting this year. So what cold? So this all comes down to You know, success. What we're I I wanted to tie this in because that year, I got to a point where, you know, first sit of the season, beautiful. First cold front, beautiful. First cold front with the leaves on the ground, good wind, beautiful. But then the shots start happening to where I have opportunities to harvest an animal, and next thing you know, what does my perspective do? What does my heart do? What does my faith do?

SPEAKER_06: 36:32

You're thinking you're not having success.

SPEAKER_03: 36:34

And next thing you know, I'm like, man, I missed a deer. Okay, good. Okay, I I know what to do next time. I'm not gonna use my 20-yard pin at a 15-yard shot and aim in, you know, center mass. I'm gonna and that progressed to five deer. And I was I I got to a point where I was just like, define success. And it was like, man, I could tell you, I got to a point, and this is why I'm bringing this up because I don't want to sound like our hearts are so pure that every time we just see a leaf fall, we're just like, that was a beautiful sound of the leaf falling on the ground, um, or a squirrel, like whatever. I want you to know that I had a personal experience of a full year of a complete washout of harvesting numerous, numerous animals on private property with feed, with a bow, and it happens. I mean, I don't want to say it happens to the best of us because I'm not the best at all, but I can tell you right now that I tuned that bow, I shot that bow at my house, everything was on all the time. I even dude, I actually took my wife's bear bow that's been shot maybe 20 times, and I tuned it to myself, and I missed my fifth deer with that bear bow, and then I came here, and then Scott gives me his son's bow to then start shooting, and I'm shooting on with that, and then I never got an opportunity with that bow, but I can tell you I went to three bows, had all these ex- Dude, I'm telling you, there are some seasons that if you have had this season to where you have missed deer or you have wounded deer and you just want to give up, I can tell you, last year I killed the biggest deer that I've killed. Well, that was with gum, but that don't matter. Um, I killed a nice doe here. I killed a deer in Florida, and it was all of a sudden, now I feel like I'm back to successful, and then this year comes, and now I'm looking at just putting in seven hours of work in a field is success at this moment. So it starts out as like you were talking about with you see that trail camera picture, then you see that buck, and then you're like, you know, I want to harvest that buck. It starts out right now, it's starting out as dude, just sitting in a stand with a beautiful green field is going to be my start of the season as success, and who knows, I might miss four deer, and next thing you know, success is defined completely different.

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

But uh a couple years ago, uh, I had a season like that. I don't I d I didn't miss any deer that I can remember that year. But I had gone thirty-six years of killing a deer every single at least one, usually three or four. But thirty-six years straight killing deer at some point during the season I broke my street though a few years ago. And I didn't realize until the end of season. It was like my season down there on my side of the the highway down there doesn't end till February fifteenth. And about February 10th I realized I hadn't killed anything. But I mean it w mine wasn't as bad as yours, but it it just dawned on me with five days left in season. I haven't I haven't taken a deer. My sons had both killed my my oldest son had killed a nice buck that year. My youngest son had killed a pretty decent buck that year. And my dad had killed a couple of pretty decent bucks. Matter of fact, uh No, that wasn't the same year. I was gonna say it was the same year dad killed that buck up here, but it wasn't because I killed an aphorn up here that year that was close to my biggest one with a boat.

SPEAKER_04: 40:21

Yeah. That was two years ago.

SPEAKER_01: 40:23

Yeah, it was two years ago. So yeah, three years ago I had that that season that I broke my my 36 year streak. And it it hurt my feelings once it set in on me.

SPEAKER_03: 40:34

And that definition of success changed at that moment. So do you look at that as I think?

SPEAKER_01: 40:39

I kinda did, but I didn't I didn't feel unsuccessful. I still felt accomplished because man, the the older I get, I don't know. I hate to I hate to sound kind of weepy and sound like I'm an old guy, but I've become more simple. I've always been simple minded myself. I've become a more simple person. And now every time when I'm walking into the woods, like I'm being super careful trying to watch every step and not make a sound and I think about my scent heart. And the whole time I'm envisioning this giant buck coming in and me taking the perfect shot on a giant buck. And then 10 o'clock rolls around, it's time to get down out of stand.

SPEAKER_02: 41:23

I ain't seen it.

SPEAKER_01: 41:24

And I'm like, and I hadn't seen a single thing. And then at that point, I think to myself, you know what, thank God for this hunt. Exactly. Thank thank you, God, for all the things that I got to see this morning. Thank you for keeping me safe. Perspective. What did you do?

SPEAKER_06: 41:41

What did you do while you were there? I mean, uh it it you know, kind of like we said, leading from the podcast yesterday, all the prep, all of the the trail cam pics, all of the effort, Lord, the last two days, let alone two weeks ago when we came up and did the same thing. I mean, how much prep have we put in that green field today? Just a day. Eight hours of grinding. Now it has been fun.

SPEAKER_03: 42:06

I don't want people to sit here and think that, you know, I I I don't lie to my wife and say that, man, all we've been doing. She knows me. She knows my heart, and she's like, it's it's enjoyable. I text a buddy and he's like, oh, so you're having fun. Exactly. Like he understands that like you put in that work and it it's just it's the camaraderie, it's the fellowship. Like I said, if if it was not the two people that are sitting next to me that I was doing it with, I would not have probably lasted as long. I probably would have if I lived down the road, I probably went home at two o'clock.

SPEAKER_01: 42:38

But I'm I'm it's different, man. Yeah. I hate to be this guy, but I'm gonna I'm gonna separate enjoyment and fun for the last two days because maybe, yeah. I have greatly enjoyed the last two days, but I have not had fun.

SPEAKER_04: 42:54

There's a difference, man.

SPEAKER_03: 42:56

Well, I've came nine hours from south from from Florida. I've came nine hours to here, and I mean it's 85 degrees, and I I'm thinking that it's it's beautiful outside, but I'm sitting here I'm looking at these hills, I'm looking at the different trees, something as simple as the 18 different trees that are here in North Mississippi compared to Florida that I don't normally see. So those things that y'all are used to, I come here and I'm like, dude, I don't care what I'm doing. Right. I could be walking seed across sand that you just dissed, or I could be sitting in a tree stand with my bow. To tell you the truth, I'm having a good time just enjoying being around you guys and doing whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 43:39

I was being a little I was being a little sarcastic. Uh yeah, I I have greatly enjoyed the last few dry sarcasm. It's dry sarcasm. I've enjoyed the last few days, but uh I it I'm a bad pessimist. I I really am, Scott. Scott rides mean all the time. He's like, why are you so negative? Why are you so negative? Y'all, if y'all knew the things that had gone on the last two days, like if it could break, yeah, it has broke. If it could not work, it didn't.

SPEAKER_03: 44:12

It doesn't help that it's all your stuff too. I guess I didn't really uh I don't I didn't have that that that's selfishness, man. I didn't think of it that much, I guess, that like all the stuff that's going wrong has nothing real it has to do with me because like I'm I'm kind of involved in it, but you're the one that has prepared it. You're the one that has put the money and the time and the sweat to bring it here, yeah, and we're just putting our hands on it to put it in place.

SPEAKER_01: 44:39

All the stuff that has broken or and I'm not gonna go too far into it, guys. We got some stuff stolen the other day. Yeah. Oh all the stuff that got stolen. I mean it's we'll have him on the podcast next week because he's gonna be sky special. Yeah, we found we we found out who took the stuff, and it was it was an honest mistake, guys. Uh it was it was a really weird circumstance, but somebody got a lot of our stance. It's one of the things you get mad at first, but then you kind of like oh and they got one of my cameras, and anyway, anyway, so that's about 12 hours worth of square.

SPEAKER_03: 45:09

Crowd you, Eric, for speaking this way right now. I mean, that's it's a true prediction.

SPEAKER_01: 45:13

Because I was I was not I was not in a good place yesterday. Well, anyway, anyway, that that being said, guys, I don't want to go down that road. I don't at all want to go down that road, but uh but yeah, like like I said earlier, what you said, Reese, when I'm not here, and I mentioned it earlier, when I'm not here, I'm preparing the stuff for here. Right. I'm I'm searching Amazon, I'm searching eBay, I'm I'm ordering stuff. How much stuff did you bring stuff together for here? Oh man, I've brought three truckloads of stuff up here. I'm telling you, yeah. And it's been I have worn myself out researching and right reading reviews and putting stuff together, and but that's why I got so frustrated yesterday.

SPEAKER_06: 45:55

But if you tell me differently, that's fine. Right here we like What's successful? The success is what me, you, your dad, Reese, when he's here, whether it be Wally, whether it be my kids, your kids, the success is defined as what we're doing right now. We're sitting around a campfire on the Tom Bebee River.

SPEAKER_01: 46:18

Oh, dude, we said it last night. Yeah. Last night, even as bad as yesterday aggravated me and ticked me off. This is like you didn't mention nothing last night. Last night, no. Last night when we walked in the door, me and Scott looked at each other and said, Why can't we do this for a few weeks every year? I know we didn't say why can't we say imagine if we could just come up here and stay for two straight weeks every year. That would be unreal.

SPEAKER_06: 46:43

I don't want this to sound conceited by any way, but this is just how I am. This is this is what makes me happy. This is how I define success. I I, you know, I got a couple buddies that want to drive, one of them nine and the other one three hours, uh, to come up here and put in work on my property. Because I love having them here. And I want them to come and kill a deer. And when we're when we're planting these green fields and setting these stands up and doing all the, you know, whatever we're doing to try to have so-called success in the deer woods, my heart goes to, man, I want I want them, I want, I want people to come here and have success. And I want to be able if if I never shoot a deer this season, but you and your dad or your son and and Reese and and his family can come up and they can harvest a deer, man, that is success. That's just my that's me. You know, I might be different than there, but that that's success to me. And I bring that up because there's there's nothing wrong with you having success on a personal level and you go put in the time and effort for yourself. I I'm not condemning it, but I'm just telling you that if you've never tried that, if you've never experienced what it's like to go, I have access to all this land, I have access to all of this property, and I can take somebody that I care about, somebody that I'd love to sit around a campfire with and just experience the moments of the campfire scene and hear their hearts and and hear where they're at, maybe maybe even get deeper. But if I can do that and they can come here and they can harvest the deer, and we can raise that deer up on, you know, on that skinning rack over there, and we can take pictures and they're giddy about it, dude. There ain't a buck big enough in this world to replace that.

SPEAKER_01: 48:47

There ain't. Okay. You could tell. I agree. All that work we put in today, I have zero intentions of ever setting foot in that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06: 48:56

We did all that work and we ain't gonna sit there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 48:58

I I probably will never sit in.

SPEAKER_06: 49:00

Y'all had the vision.

SPEAKER_03: 49:02

That's that's what that's what blows my mind about hearts, though. Like, you have that vision of what it can be for others, and you put in the work for it without at all seeking any kind of your success from that would be, man, if some little kid or my wife or my kids sit in that and they enjoy themselves on a 20-degree morning and they're warm a little bit. I was gonna say like that will bring a grown man to tears thinking about that stuff.

SPEAKER_06: 49:31

Your boys ain't using them. Well, you got one, it probably is. I got one that's still used. Yeah. And he ain't never been here. I don't know how much of a hunter he is, but oh he loves it. But you know, if if if Reese brought his family and and Jace was, you know, he went and sat in that shooting house. The grasses up that we sowed today, and all the work that we did here. He's it gets excuse. It doesn't matter what he kills. If he killed a spike, it wouldn't matter to us. Anything hanging up over there. Yeah, if if he if he harvests a deer out of that stand, you and I are both gonna just instantly be like success. Like the the most, like, like I said, there's not a deer big enough in the country in our minds. Now this is again, this is our opinion, this is how we feel about it. You may not feel that way, but I feel like that would be more than anything I could ask for in the woods. I could I could go and hunt, I could keep this whole property to myself and say I'm not gonna let a soul out here and I go after these deer and kill the biggest deer I've been after. I've been, man, I've been watching this deer for four or five years, man, and I finally got him. Let me post him on Facebook. I ain't got a problem with you doing that. I'm not I'm not condemning it. Your boy kills a spike on the spot that I just we just put out. I feel like I've had more success than if I'd have ever put in all that work and killed a 200-inch. I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_01: 50:51

Exactly what Reese just said. There's more of a blessing in that to me. That's that's different people's hearts. Exactly. I mean That's just how some people are, I mean. And some people are s are greedy like that.

SPEAKER_06: 51:03

I mean, that's just Well, success is all about perspective, right? I mean, what do you see as well?

SPEAKER_01: 51:09

It's it's it's contentment, satisfaction, that's success. I mean, but we can make it what satisfies us.

SPEAKER_06: 51:16

Exactly. And I guess the whole point of what we're going, the direction obviously you can tell we're going, is you know, when you when you define success, I guess if our if we had any advice to give would be if you'll make it about others instead of yourself, and you'll you'll try to give as much as you take, you'll you'll define success differently. If you if you look at the harvest of deer, the the time that you put in, the money you spend on stands as in blessing someone else, you will define success differently. And that's that's a that's a God thing. That's a gospel thing. That's how the Lord you know teaches us to serve and and to and to and to love others, but that's a whole nother we're getting off in something deep there, but that's how we define it.

SPEAKER_01: 52:02

Really not though. I don't think you're getting off on the another that you know I've noticed listening to this podcast before y'all let me get on it. And since I've been on it.

SPEAKER_04: 52:15

We probably talked about these things a lot either.

SPEAKER_01: 52:16

Well, y'all don't try to direct people. No. Yeah, you try to give people perspective.

SPEAKER_06: 52:22

Yeah, that's that's all that's perspective. It ain't I ain't telling you this is the way you should do it. I'm just telling you this is the way we do it.

SPEAKER_01: 52:27

Well, what I was gonna say is something for everybody to think about. Actually a challenge. It's not some something for somebody to it's a challenge. I challenge anybody listening to this to pour your time into making somebody else a successful hunt.

SPEAKER_06: 52:45

You know, I when you say I dare you. I think about your dad. First time I ever went fishing with your dad, I had my son on the boat and trip your son on the boat. And your dad bought this boat. There ain't no cheap boat. I mean, he done spent thousands of dollars on this boat. Ain't no telling how much time and effort he's put into this vessel to get us out there, time and effort into where we need to go. And when we got out there, he didn't fish?

SPEAKER_04: 53:17

Bruh, he just y'all on me shall be fine.

SPEAKER_06: 53:19

He didn't want to like he did not give two cents about picking up a rod and trying to rip a and there was fish blowing up everywhere.

SPEAKER_04: 53:26

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_06: 53:27

We rode up on a school of fish.

SPEAKER_04: 53:28

He wanted y'all to just grandson not us, but the two boys.

SPEAKER_06: 53:33

Yes, and it was like that is success to him. And so, you know, if if if you can get to that point where you realize that he was laughing out loud.

SPEAKER_01: 53:43

How do you define success? Yeah, he was.

SPEAKER_06: 53:45

He was giddy. I mean, uh those videos and those pictures, I'll never forget them as long as I live, but it's the same way in Deerwood. So if you put in that time and effort to bless somebody else, and you realize that when they come, you can tell them go and have a good time and and harvest these deer. And and and I've had people many times over the years coming and hunting here, they go, hey, what you want me to shoot? And y'all know me. I rare a man on one finger, you can about tell how many times I've told somebody, don't shoot this deer, but it's like I I I used to be kind of like when I was younger doing it, well, we kind of trying to look for this, we trying to, you know, this age or that that many inches or whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 54:27

When we took vets hunting.

SPEAKER_06: 54:27

But it finally came down to, dude, if it makes you happy, kill that sort of when we took vets hunting at the greyhouse, we started that way.

SPEAKER_01: 54:34

We were like, look, we really don't want to kill this deer. We don't, don't, don't shoot that deer. Bruh.

SPEAKER_03: 54:39

But how hard is that though for people that like, for instance, for me, I'm from Florida. And I come here, and you have never look, this is how I've always been. So Scott and I, if it's just us at the cabin, there's never been one time that we've hunted separately. We've always hunted together from day one, minus Amber being here on day one, and and the kids, but 90% of the time, unless I Scott takes Amber, Scott and I are hunting together. Not once has Scott said, You ain't gonna shoot this size deer, this size deer. He says, if it makes you happy. Now, what happens is a deer comes in front that's a you know a six outside the ears, and to me, I would have killed that deer. But I also from putting in time and being here and listening to stories, I know the caliber of deer. So I also have that respect of, hey, I mean, dude. The doe episode, Seek and Find TV, we just released a doe episode. I literally turned around to Scott and said, You want me to shoot her? Like that shows right there where my heart was. Like mom what yeah. I mean, I never I mean you might think it's like a no-brainer, but to me, I look I asked you not because it was a doe and we were actually out there to shoot a doe. It was because you know the size of deer, and I do not want to shoot a doe that is too small or too young, and I respect it either way. If you would have said no, I would have had a successful hunt watching that doe walk past us. But you said, heck yeah, and guess what? That was a perfect double long shot, ran 20 yards, blood everywhere, died right there, and that was beautiful. And then Amber chimes in a second later, she chimes in from her and the kids at the house on that episode, or at the cabin, and they were here at the cabin waiting for us, and she tells the kids about me harvesting a doe, and that doe could have been a 20-point buck, it could have been a fawn, and it wouldn't have made no difference. Jace was shooting you with a uh Nerf gun. Yeah, many times. This I'm still picking up nerf bullets around the city. But that's like that's the whole point of this episode is like that is success. My kids, my wife, everybody was like, dude, that is awesome. If it was a big buck or a small doe, nobody would have known a difference in a sense.

SPEAKER_06: 57:11

No, when we first started Passion Pursuit Ministries and we started getting um, you know, disabled children, that type of stuff in the woods, and but we had a vet hunt out here. And this is before I moved to South Mississippi. This was uh there was a guy that came up. Matter of fact, uh I still know him well. We're we're still good friends. That came up here to hunt and and we were doing a vet hunt and it was three or four. I think it was four. Anyway, vets that we brought up here. Well, I put him in a stand. It was a matter of fact, it was uh uh Wally's one of uh Wally's favorite spots over there at at uh Turkey Ridge? Yes, Turkey Ridge. And I put him over there and he shot a full point. And it was it was basically just a little dink of a four point. And I'll never forget to this day that son of my still is almost like apologetic about it. Like, man, I thought he was so much bigger. And I'll never forget telling him, like, dude, I'm not in any way upset about it. Like, did you enjoy it? Man, I was so excited, I was fired up, and and and still to this day he feels like he's did something wrong. And I'm like, I want to tell him, man, that you didn't do nothing. Like wrong, that is the best thing that could have ever happened. Was it a small deer? Young deer? Yeah. But how do you define success? Did you don't don't get hit in the head, son of the hard head on there? But going, you know, how do you define success? You came, you got ex slap excited when you saw this deer. And you shot him, and you walked up on him, and you were disappointed because he wasn't big enough. I tell my kids to this day, if I could, if I could define success in deer in the deer woods, it would be to walk up on every single time you pull the trigger. If you get a deer down, you never be disappointed. If you, you know, ground shrinkage. That whole dude never walk up on a deer and go, oh, he ain't what I thought he was. No, I would tell you, my opinion would be absolutely not. You'd be excited, you'd be grateful, you thank God for that deer, you thank God for it. Because look, that's provision, that's a memory that'll have to that'll last a lifetime. That I mean, if you think about it and put it in perspective, every single aspect of that hunt, man, if you just really take it for what it is, you just made a memory for a lifetime, you got provision for the freezer, you got food, you know. I mean, why be disappointed because he wasn't as big as you thought he was? Well, look at the don't ever be disappointed in a do you shot.

SPEAKER_03: 59:50

Ever. That's it. We'll finish with this. The episode that another episode we just released on Seeking Find TV is Jace for the first time. Ever putting a rifle in his hand. And there was nothing but laughs and smiles. Well, minus a few like frowns from me. And some misses. But he had three misses in two nights. I will say it wasn't three. It was two misses.

SPEAKER_06: 1:00:17

I think he drew it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:18

He's never shot a rifle. He's never had a gun in front of him like that. And Scott was just like, you know what? Why don't you take Jay to the pipeline and put we had a rifle, put on a bog tripod. It was a perfect setup. And it was and it he had the uh it was a night vision scope, unfortunately, with that one. Daytime and nighttime. Basically, it had an LED, I mean a screen on it, so you didn't have to actually know how to look down a scope or nothing. So like it was the perfect setup. And we sat as the whole family on the top of that pipeline, and we had deer after deer. I'm talking a shot, and then three minutes later, deer coming out, and Jace missed every one of them. And did he ask me about it? Like, you know, but did he say it was up as that? He did not care. He just fired up. We all had smiles, and I kind of got upset because I was like, man, that's an episode of like three misses, and one of them I think we shot. And but in reality, like that is the experience that when you grow up, instead of that first deer being the biggest buck of your life. I guarantee he won't forget that.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:27

He'll remember that for the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:29

And we have that. What's amazing about technology is we have that now to look back on. We have it on our our you know channel, and that's something that you guys need to get with. That's another challenge. Get with your kids, watch that episode, and just witness how success actually is. Because some of them were misses, some of them were not, and they were just smiles of just the experience and just the the trials and the tribulations. Okay, you missed this time, let's see how you're gonna line up this time. And it was just like it was so it was really amazing just to kind of experience that.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:08

I think our opinion would be if we had any advice to give for you hunters out there that want to know how we define success and and we can give you any. They might get it now. I I think I would say don't define success in the size of the horns or the deer that you kill, but define it in the magnitude of the moment of the hunt that you get to last a lifetime. So whether you kill a spike or whether you kill a the buck of everybody's magazine drum, the moment, the magnitude, the the that you get to, you know, that memory that lasts forever, that's success. Whether you get to do it or not, whether you get to come back to the camp and say, man, I just missed the biggest book of my life, that's still success because you get to sit around the campfire and tell somebody your sob story. Hey, that's success to me. I mean, we get to sit around and talk about it and laugh.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:10

Well, we learn from those trials too. Like, if you have that perspective to where you literally could be like, you do come back to the campfire and you do have, let's say, five, six people that are around that are all kind of hunting in the same group, and you come back and say, Man, I just missed three deer. I just missed two deer. Like, okay, what did you learn from it? And you giggle and you laugh, and then you, you know, you have those sorrows and you have those set just like my five deer I missed. I didn't say I'm gonna give up hunting. I might have one or two times. But um, you know, that that year you were about ready to call you. But I came back the next year and I was ready to be able to do it. I'd be prepared. 15 deer, I'd be ready, I'd be ready to do it too. And I would just, I mean, that's the perspective. I was ready to go to the next year. I grabbed a rifle, and I guess was that the same year I killed that buck last year?

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:57

It was last year. It was the year before. So, yeah, but I I I would think this as many, and I've killed some really good deer in my life. I've been blessed, man, I've taken some really good bucks. And to this day, if we went hunting tomorrow morning and a big old doe walked out, and I went to I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna harvest this dough for the freezer. I I just I would be shaken like a leaf. My nerves would be shot. I'd be just excited as as if it was a 200 inch. Like I'm telling you, like I would be so nervous. I've been more nervous over some does that I've shot than I have some books I've shot. The footage was a little shaky on that dough, yeah. That's what I'm telling you. So that's the whole point of success. It's like, all right, so you what'd you do today? Well, I shot a doe. Okay, no big deal. But it was a big deal to me. Every second of it was success, man.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:50

So many of those hunting shows, dude. Like, I'm telling y'all, I'm not downing them, but dude, it is just some of these guys shooting these does, it's just, it literally is just like another, just like another day at work kind of deal. Like, but they kill a doe and it's just like, oh cool, but like when we're out here, man, it is like it don't matter, we've already said this, it don't matter what's hanging over there. That's venison, that's natural meat for our families.

SPEAKER_06: 1:05:16

It's it's success based off of the pictures you can post on Instagram and and Facebook of the deer you killed. And I'm not knocking it, dude. If you've got a big one and you want to post it, bruh, that's exciting. I love to look at it. I just don't want it to end there. I don't want you to not get that opportunity and define your succeed, you know, your season as a non-successful. That's where we're going. It's like, all right, that's great, man. You've got the deer you're after. Awesome. What we're trying to appeal to people is is if you don't, there's so much success sitting there that you might have missed out on. If you don't realize that, you know, you you harvested a dough. You you put meat in the freezer for your family. You you got to go and experience the outdoors. You got to do the work to put in these you got to bless a a a friend of yours that came and had you know success, whether it be a spike or a giant, it don't matter. You put him on a deer or her on a deer, whoever. That's success. And I just don't want you to miss that. Like the the smallest, the smallest things about hunting, we overlook. We've gotten to the bigger things about, you know, inches and things like that. Don't miss it. And and I'm not condemning it, because like dude, uh I'll be honest with you. If I get a picture of a buck that's 160 inches tomorrow on one of these gang cameras out here, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be hard up for you know going after him. But if I don't get him, do I say it was bad? No. I just I just glad he was there and I had a chance to go after him, you know, like and and I I took some deer that, you know, throughout the season, some does, and I filled the freezer. Don't miss the success of being in the outdoors, being with your friends around a campfire, putting somebody else on a deer. Don't miss those moments after that one, you know, big deer that scores a certain amount of inches and define your season as a failure. Eric, got anything to say?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:16

No. No, that's that's I pretty much spoke my piece earlier. That's uh just what Scott said. I mean, don't make sure you don't miss the small things. Don't don't overlook Don't o overlook the things that could be perceived as great just because you you have a a a preconceived notion of what you want your hunt to be like.

SPEAKER_06: 1:07:45

You got a picture of this deer and that's a whole season.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:47

Yeah, I mean it's it's great to to like I said, when I'm walking in, I'm I'm envisioning that giant buck walking in.

SPEAKER_06: 1:07:53

And that's the beauty of it, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:55

But when when it's you know, when the time comes around and it's time for you to get down and go back to the truck and go back home and go back to real life, don't get down out of the stand beating yourself up saying, well I should have done this, I should have done that, I I it didn't go right. I I'm I'm mad because I didn't see anything. This and that and Yeah, uh like I said, I'm a pessimist. I'm bad about getting being negative about things because I've I've had a lot of negative experiences, but I have had way more positive experiences than I think. If you really look at it, yeah, it's just you you got you guys don't get caught up uh don't get caught up trying to kill a bigger buck than somebody else or don't don't make yourself up because it's not a competition, bro. Yeah. I mean ground shrinkage is a real thing. Oh yeah, but y'all don't don't let that bother you.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:43

Don't walk up on one and ever regret it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:46

Ever. No.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:48

That deer's down. He's I mean, it's it's buck or dough, it it's in the freezer now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:53

Yeah, and that and that being said, hey look guys, I have managed properties. I'm talking like strenuous, I mean just crazy managed properties. Got with the neighbors. Like y'all, please don't kill this boy. And even after season, have pictures of the bucks that I wanted to make it. I saw them after season. They were still alive. Yeah. You know what happened the next year? Never saw them again. Never again. I can't tell you how many bucks I've let go that I've never seen.

SPEAKER_06: 1:09:22

I know this because I can relate to that. Because I've been the same way. I've had deer and I'm like, oh man, I'm gonna let this dude live one more year. He's gonna be a giant and have pictures of him two days before the season ends.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:35

And then you look back on the season, yeah. Yeah, you know at the end of the season, you're like, you know what? I probably would have had a lot more fun had I shot that deer.

SPEAKER_06: 1:09:42

As a matter of fact, you probably ain't gonna get deers, you know, pictures of that deer that next season. You're not gonna see him. That's a that's my life.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:49

I don't know about your life, but uh that's the way my properties go. But uh so that being said, I mean, if if a buck walks in and it makes your heart race, shoot that sucker. Shoot that sucker. That's it. Yep, get the get the dragon and and enjoy it. If a doe comes in all skittish and scary and she's looking up every tree and she's twitchy and jumpy. Oh, don't get us in that podcast. Man, they're making your heart race out there.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:16

That'll outweigh a buck in a heartbeat because they're smarter than I'm telling you. We're gonna get deep in that. But yeah, enjoy every second of every hunt because it's a gift. It's a blessing. I challenge you to bless others. I would dare you to take somebody and put them on the deer that you've been getting ki pictures of, that the one that you've been wanting to kill, take a friend that needs it, take somebody that you think it'll bless more than you, and put them on that deer, and I promise you that it that deer being on their wall will triple the amount of success that you feel like you had versus being on your wall. I promise you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:54

Pick a pick a kid at church or pick a uh a coworker that you work with that doesn't get to hunt much, and you you plan your season around making them a successful hunt. Plan your season around getting them a part of change the way you see it. It will change everything about the way you hunt and the way you prep and the way you see everything. Also, real simple. Y'all listen to the birds, listen to the insects, listen to the wind, enjoy everything. Watch the sun rise. Yeah. Look at those things.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:27

Yeah. Well, let's make hunting great again.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:32

Make it great again.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:33

That's it. Let's make hunting great again. We just lost everybody on the other side.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:38

Make simple hunting great again. That's what I was saying. But it it really is simple, man. We make it overcomplicated.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:45

Every step in the woods is a blessing, man. Every every day you get to go out and do what we're doing right now. It man, we might go through this. We didn't even started this season, really. I mean, what was we bundled one time? One time. So, I mean, look, that was this morning for an hour. I mean, we may not kill a deer this year. We don't know. May not. I already had success.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:04

I've already broke my streak, so I'm good.

SPEAKER_06: 1:12:07

We man, we've already had success. So, well, define it how you want to. I hope, I hope that you can enjoy every second of the outwoods, every inner the outdoors, every step, every twig you break.

unknown: 1:12:19

Smile.

SPEAKER_06: 1:12:19

Go into the air. Enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:21

Well, Eric, Scott, appreciate y'all. Appreciate you guys listening. Uh go check out Seek and Find TV. I'm sure you'll see Eric on a few episodes. Put a put a face to the name. Um, and we'll be we'll be together. Everyone. Name to the face, face to the name, face to the face. Oh, okay. Well, I appreciate you guys. Love y'all. See you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:51

And the door will be open.