Son of a Blitch

Ep. 54 - Mark Haslam: Examining Southern Wildlife Management and the Legacy of Conservation

George Blitch Season 1 Episode 54

In the latest podcast episode, George Blitch hosts Mark Haslam, a seasoned outdoorsman and deer management sage, as they delve into the nuances of managing a 1,900-acre property and wildlife management, in general.

Haslam's journey is a testament to the dedication and passion required to sustain and enhance the natural habitats of the South. This dialogue opens up a treasure trove of knowledge, revealing the complexities of deer management, from habitat enhancement to the timing of doe breeding seasons.

Haslam shares his background, growing up in a hunting club and eventually taking on the management of his family's farm. He speaks of his transition into land stewardship, influenced by the principles of Quality Deer Management (QDM) and the National Deer Association. As the episode unfolds, listeners gain an understanding of the gradual learning process involved in land management. Mark recounts his first forestry practices, which involved the clearing and thinning of pine trees to improve the habitat for wildlife.

The conversation also explores the importance of collecting data for deer management. Haslam discusses the social and entertainment value of having a skinning shed, the science behind tracking breeding dates for does, and the impact of such data on hunting strategies. Listeners are offered a glimpse into the meticulous record-keeping that serves as a powerful tool in wildlife management. Moreover, Haslam addresses the challenges of deer overpopulation in the Southeast, emphasizing the necessity of QDM practices to maintain healthy wildlife populations.

In an enlightening chapter, Haslam recounts his experience launching Southeast Whitetail during the pandemic. His desire to fill a content gap for Southern hunters and land managers led to the creation of a platform tailored to the Southern hunting experience. His involvement in conservation and mentor hunts is a thread that runs through the episode, illustrating his commitment to the heritage of the hunt.

The episode also introduces the new direction of The Southern Way podcast, with Haslam at the helm. He outlines the show's focus on hunting tips, tactics, and interviews with a range of hunters, promising a rich blend of content centered around Southern hunting culture. The upcoming content is set to cover a wide array of topics, from land management and predator control to food plots and the sharing of wild game meals.

Conservation efforts and the cooking of wild turkey also make their way into the discussion, highlighting the challenges of managing these birds across Georgia and South Carolina. Haslam shares cooking techniques for turkey and reflects on memorable moments from past hunting seasons. This chapter underscores the significance of land management in supporting healthy turkey populations and the joys of preparing wild game.

As the episode draws to a close, we hear heartfelt tales of family hunting traditions and land sharing. The importance of introducing youth to hunting and the communal aspect of the sport is celebrated. The focus remains on responsible and ethical hunting, with an emphasis on stewarding the land for future generations.

In summary, the podcast episode with Mark Haslam offers a deep dive into the world of deer management and Southern hunting traditions. It's a story of stewardship, strategy, and respect for the land, resonating with both seasoned hunters and those new to the outdoors. The episode stands as a valuable resource for anyone looking to enhance their understanding of wildlife management and embrace the conservation ethos that is so integral to the hunting heritage of the South.

SoutheastWhitetail.com
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Speaker 1:

This is Mark Haslam from Southeast Whitetail, and you're listening to the Son of a Blitz podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a Blitz podcast. I'm your host, George Blitz, and today I got to sit down with Mark Haslam. You guys might know him from hosting Southeast Whitetail, the podcast, or even his website, southeastwhitetailcom, where he shares all sorts of articles, tips and tricks, quality deer management, information, conservation efforts. He is just a man of great knowledge, loves to share. It's no wonder he was also named the deer manager of the year from QDMA in 2020. That is now the National Deer Association. It used to be Quality Deer Management Association. They formed a deer alliance to be the NDA. He has been doing a lot of work with his local chapters out there running a lot of information sessions on his own property that he manages. He's got 1,900 acres that he's running. He talks a lot about just the deer management, also the turkey, the quail, all the different management systems in place for that habitat for the wildlife out there. We had a great conversation. We ventured into talking about the new podcast that he's hosting. It's not a new podcast but for him being the host of the Southern Way Hunting podcast, he's just now taken over at the end of January, running those shows on his own. He hosted a few of them. As the interim guest, the interim host. Now he's running that on his own.

Speaker 2:

Some wonderful, wonderful conversations, Great guests coming up. He's got a really you know Southern heritage and hunting culture is very rich. I think at the epicenter of it. He's got a finger on the pulse of it. He's the one to really be able to talk about that more. There's always something you can learn, no matter where you're coming from. When you have someone that has been this involved and knowledgeable, you're going to learn something. So you don't have to be from the South, Tune into this and learn something you can take back to your own property, your own public land, your own lease, whatever it may be. There's something for everyone here in this conversation and I think you guys are going to greatly enjoy it. So, without further ado, here is the podcast with Mark Haslam. Enjoy, hey Mark. How are you doing today, man? Good George, Thanks for having me on Appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

I'm really excited. So, listen, you've got all sorts of great stuff going on. I definitely want to kind of walk through what you have. You know you got a new podcast that you just took over you know the helm of, and obviously you've had your own before. So there's so many things I want to talk about, and I think the best place to start is kind of at the beginning. So why don't you kind of walk us back to where you grew up, how you got involved in your you know outdoor lifestyle and your love of the outdoors and what kind of you know jump along your timeline from?

Speaker 1:

there? Sure, yeah, I'll try to keep this as concise as I possibly can. I'm from Savannah, georgia, that's where I still live, but I have always hunted in South Carolina my entire life. Savannah's right on the, as you would imagine, the Savannah River, the state border and South Carolina. We've just my family had just, you know really loved hunting there for quite some time. I grew up in a hunting club with my father and some of his friends organized, basically had some traditional timber leases and was able to form a little hunting club and we were in that up until about 2005, early 2000s, and that's when we bought the family farm in 2006. Also in South Carolina, a little bit further in about two hours inland, and that's really where I probably cut my teeth on hunting management and you know furthering my you know outdoor love.

Speaker 2:

So what kind of size property was like that, because you know I can run a 300 or run a thousand and there's a lot. I mean, anytime you're in the double digits, you got to work, you get into the triples. It's a whole another story. So I was just kind of curious what kind of you know for you know, listeners, what are you managing as far as the property there? Can you describe?

Speaker 1:

a little bit Sure. Yeah, that's, it's, it's. It's two tracks that are a couple miles apart and they total 1900 acres. There's a good mixture of agricultural fields that we lease out to a farmer. He will typically rotate crops of cotton, peanuts and corn Soybeans. In our region of South Carolina you don't see as much. You see some, but beans just get hit so hard before they're harvested that a lot of times it just doesn't make sense, depending on that immediate site. So we do have some some different land. We're we're in the Midlands region of South Carolina, so we're just above the coastal plain. We're starting to get a little slightly rolling hills not much, but we are thankful to have a swamp with some creek systems which helps helps out in some of the diversity.

Speaker 2:

Sure, and you guys just kind of are wrapping up your whitetail season and I think I had heard you talk about the number of like. Y'all are at like 78th you had to take. Now there's a certain number that you know you're getting in. I know in Texas we work with our wild game biologists. They're local. We're sending a bunch of data throughout the you know, august, september months to be able to figure out what we have, what ratio we're looking for. So I kind of wanted to talk about you know as far as how you and your state are getting that recommendation, that data. What are you sending in? How are you getting a certain number and what is your goal and your ratio on your particular property there.

Speaker 1:

Well, our data and our target goals are really coming in-house, they're coming from us. Okay, you know South Carolina has a very liberal whitetail season and pretty much my entire life, I mean, it's been baiting's been legal, you know, corn feeders, and it's the longest deer season in North America. Yeah, it's been very long and somehow we're still able to kill large numbers of deer. So, without being said, we obviously have a big population. You know, I was just we were looking at our numbers this week and a lot of times when you look at it, when you're trying to search for deer populations or deer densities in the South, when you're looking online, even state by state, a lot of times you don't really find much information. You know, you'll see a typical average of, they'll say, like 20 to 40 deer per square mile, which might seem like a lot of some people, might not seem like a whole lot. Of course it's all subjective, it all depends. We have been averaging the past couple of years around 27 harvest per square mile. So we're killing anywhere on average, about 27 deer per square mile, whereas a lot of the you know South Carolina, what they're saying a lot of the larger densities are 40 per square mile. So right there, you know there's something grossly off, but what you can find is a lot of universities, especially in the South. There's so many different universities. Texas A&M, out where you are, does a phenomenal job, but they do. Those universities have a lot of extension centers and they have a lot of they did a lot of deer density studies, you know, looking at depredational crops or whatever, and those places I have found have a phenomenal resource. They publish a lot. It doesn't really hit the mainstream hunting media outlets but if you just Google it or search these universities you can find it. Clemson, they've got a great wildlife program and their population densities match up pretty closely to our numbers, which they're saying that we're on average of our part of the county, about 170 deer per square mile. So and of course that's going to fluctuate a little bit, but this past season, like I said, we were still average about 27 harvest per square mile. Our fawn recruitment increased a little bit. It went up slightly and our average deer seen on the stand not killed but average seen on the stand hunter observations went up as well as average doe seen and our buck to doe ratio went up slightly from about two and a half Does to one buck, it's about three does to one buck. So right there it's.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, we're obviously we're not winning the battle on dough management. We're kind of almost breaking even, but we're not quite breaking even just yet. So I've been wondering, george, past year or two, because I've always been a big proponent as far as management, as far as bedding, thickets and cover. Of course you got to have everything else, but I like to have, I like to control but have more bedding. I'm kind of wondering now where we're at a point where maybe we have a little bit too much because we can't grow soybean.

Speaker 1:

I mean we had, you know it was almost, it wasn't embarrassing, but I'm glad I had seclusion cages because this past August we hosted the NDA, dear Stuart II course, and so it's kind of a showcase. I mean you know they're host, we're the host, but they're putting in on their teaching it. So but we're kind of showcasing our property and I planted about 15 acres of soybeans in one kind of general area over several fields all tied together, and the deer just blew it up and thankfully I had seclusion cages, because if I didn't have seclusion cages they would have all thought that I just didn't plant it right. I planned to see too deep, not deep enough, too late, too early. It was too wet, but with the seclusion cages you got to see the height. You know four or five feet tall beans the deer couldn't get, but everything they wiped out.

Speaker 1:

So I say all that to say that you know this next year we really need to ramp up our dough numbers. And you know I mentioned earlier about having a long season. It's like what more can we do? You know we're hunting, we're shooting doughs early and often that's why I'm thinking maybe, outside the box, do we need to alter our land management? Maybe we have too many thickets and sometimes, yeah, you can't have too many deer, you have too many deer, then that will start. It will eventually start to hurt your quail and turkey population. Sure, sure, because you're just eating at a house and home. So it's like, on one hand, you've got a healthy herd, because you've got dough fawns that are getting pregnant it's six months old, which is a good sign but if we have this many deer, that can't be good. It's just it's a lot unpack at times.

Speaker 2:

So when you have, you know you got this property here. You're there in 06 and you're running everything. Are you? Was that something that you already had, a lot of this information kind of being able to unfold, or was this like a whole discovery process for you? And I mean, I know, as years go on, you're going to discover more, you're going to learn more, especially with a one particular piece of property. But walk me through like what was your knowledge coming into that and then being able to kind of hit the ground running and be able to develop, you know, a quality management system, and then we'll kind of run into, you know, a little bit more work and what you know. Eventually, you became the quality deer manager of the year in 2020. So walk me through those years of being able to kind of build up that educational principle and foundation to be able to then showcase this often. Hey, this is what I've learned and practiced over the years.

Speaker 1:

Sure yeah, it's our, my family's knowledge as far as land management and everything you just said was very little, you know, 06. So we were coming out of being in a hunting club in low country South Carolina since I was in kindergarten, I was out of college, and so you know, if you're in a hunting club you get to do a lot of things, but there's a lot of things you can't do. These were timber leases, so these were well, yeah, some of them were. There were many tracks that were owned by timber companies. So they timber companies. They're not doing it as much anymore, but they would buy land, you know, grow trees on it and eventually sell it. When it makes sense, buy something else. Well, if you're on a hunting lease, you probably can't manipulate the land. You can, you know, do food plots where there's openings, but you probably can't create openings, and where there's openings in the South isn't might not be that much. So we couldn't really do much. We couldn't. We, we weren't burning, we weren't doing any kind of TSI work. It was really just food plots and feeders. And you know, that time it was, I was cutting my teeth on deer sign and that type of stuff. But you weren't really, we weren't building the knowledge of where the deer really coming from and all that intel.

Speaker 1:

So when we eventually moved on to acquire the farm on the sixth, it was a very slow process, just kind of starting out, putting stands up and then over time, over time, learning the property and then bettering our management. But what we did have was a QDM background and in our hunting club with my father and some of his friends Billy Chisholm being one of them, they were Billy was connected with Joe Hamilton, which is that time. This was that club started late 80s, right right around 90s. So QDMA was firing up and Joe Hamilton was just beating the streets, meeting with hunt club owners or hunt club presidents and hunt clubs in general like ours, and try to get that movement going. So we were very much a QDMA hunt club and that was the content.

Speaker 1:

I was consuming their materials and not so much. I never really got into the hunting TV shows, the sit on a food plot, shoot the buck at the very end and that grip and grin. So we did have that background. We just weren't implementing that stuff. And then over time we started to do that on our farm and when it really changed was our first forestry practice. We did our first forestry cut clear, cutting some, thinning some, planting some trees, and then that really started to open our eyes as far as land management.

Speaker 2:

And what about? That was eye opening for you guys.

Speaker 1:

Well, what was eye opening was probably just forestry practices for wildlife, because coming up and I'm not saying that, I'm not saying no one covers this, but at least I wasn't, really I wasn't learning this growing up from other hunters and I wasn't seeing this in market materials is in pine trees. We're pine tree dominated all throughout. Most of the deep south is pine trees. There are some openings and, of course, ag fields, but pine trees and if you have wall-to-wall pine trees that are all the same age class, all the same age, wall-to-wall and entire property, it's gonna be a certain level of hunting. But if you start to manipulate that and kind of clear cut this section and thin this section, you start to manipulate the land and you're creating more options for wildlife food and cover naturally, as opposed to feeders and food plots. So once that started to come up, that was really eye opening about how we can use that, use that work as we're growing trees and trying to generate some income but then also help our deer hunting out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then you know, I was just reading the 50th Legion by Colonel Tom Kelly and talking about, like this idea of there are certain areas that were so thick with that canopy that you know the sunlight's not getting through to the ground and whenever you're clearing out some of those things, the magical effect of that is that you're seeing a lot more forbs, you're seeing a lot of things and now you have maybe some more bedding areas, some kind of intermediary brushes growing and things too. And I think you know, you know we're talking about two different areas. Obviously, you know, in the South, southeast, you know there is a whole different style of hunting that completely is different than the West. So for a lot of people who are listening, who may be out in the West and you know, kind of listening about what we're doing here, it is different, obviously, different land and landscape, but a lot of the same principles of, you know, quality deer management can apply in different areas, of being able to have those open spots where now you can have, you know, those forging areas. I mean we cleared out another 30 acres not too long back on our property and it's night and day difference man, the bird and the herd man, we're seeing the deer, we're seeing the turkey come out in those areas because now that there's things that are growing on that floor bed before they can't be closed it off.

Speaker 2:

So you know, there's all these things that you're learning through QDMA practices. Well, qdma now is Quality Deer Management Association, is now National Deer Association. But a lot of those principles of you know Quality Deer Management apply and what you can do on your property. And I was kind of curious what you may have for suggestions for people who maybe you know that are that have leases where you were like talking about too they might not be able to manipulate the land as much, and what are some of the things that you might tell them that they need to maybe look at or research to be able to do the best for that property to have the best you know. Maybe, if you can't work on the habitat the best you know wildlife you know possible as far as population and healthy population, and there are some things you may give to those folks who are, you know, in that kind of seat as opposed to like landowners like you and I who can manipulate freely.

Speaker 1:

I would say, george, one of the easiest practices someone can do is just implement just basic Quality Deer Management principles. I talked earlier about statistics and you know I cover a lot of that on the stuff I post on social media and I've kind of realized that I need to start probably explaining a lot of that more, because it's not as complicated as some people think. And my in these statistics are coming from two places hunter observational logs, where you're done hunting and you're right down what you see, you know where you were sitting, you know time, all that and then what you saw, broken down by bucks and does and fawns. I've got to put fawns in there. And then you have the data from the skinning shed and I realized everyone doesn't have a skinning shed. We didn't have one for for a while about think. Think 12 years ago we finally put one in and that that's one of the best things to have it. Just it, just as a side note, for so many different reasons socially entertaining, camaraderie. And then also your skinning your own deer and someone's not doing it for you and you're handling the meat yourself, which can be a lot of different bonuses as far as quality of you know of the meat and all that.

Speaker 1:

But if you don't have one and taking your straight to processor, hang around for a little bit. Give them a. You know, pull the jaw bone before you bring. It's very easy. Have them weigh it. If you're not scale, you know they'll weigh it for you and you know. So you get this information and you can find out exactly what I was talking about. What's your butt to toe ratio? What's your fawn recruitment? If your fawn recruitment is trending down are pretty low, you've got a problem that maybe you can. If you're in a lease, maybe you can't do much, but maybe stop shooting as many does. Or maybe, like what I mentioned earlier, maybe you need to shoot more does. There's a lot of different things. They can tell you in the show me things, george. They can tell you about bucks and that's the thing. Like it's not just you know how many does the shooting, this and that it's like if someone's really like they just kind of want to cut the chase and they want to learn how to kill bucks, it's.

Speaker 1:

I put out an article, I think in December, about dough data and you know, late December dough kills If someone's in a season where they can kill those, you know, if your season still open, I should say late the season after those are bred, when you kill that dough, and if it's been bred, there's there's some very easy ways that you can take statistics to figure out when she was bred. And so when she was bred, you started to, you know, compile different data points and you started to get a pretty good baseline as far as your average dough's being bred. And I even put that in my article about people hunting public land. Man, if people are hunting public land, now I get it. It might take a little bit, but if you have buddies or you start to shoot a handful of does over a couple years, you'll figure out when they were bred. And then that week before, that's when you need to be in the woods, that's when, that's when you need to be rattling, you need to be doing all these different things to kill those bucks. So and that's something, man, all that takes, george, is just time. That in it, and I tell you it seems like it is easy in. It is easy. But sometimes when you're hunting, you got guests or you shoot something. It's easy, easy to forget to write down. But just detail everything. It doesn't matter, it doesn't. You know, you can write it down. There's certainly apps, and then we have a website that we use. I think it's like a 20 or $25 membership a year. We have all these things. You can do it yourself, but you can pay a $25 membership and put it in and it gives you all these and stats and that alone, that alone, can't help you out.

Speaker 1:

Now one last piece, like a hunting club lease type thing that you asked virtual question, where what I'm about to say can get a little tricky, a little hairy sometimes, is that if you're on a private land, lease that's owned on, you know, would be private land, obviously, but if it's owned by an individual, as opposed to like a timber company, that individual may be open to doing certain things to increase the value of the property. Maybe you talk to him about hey, maybe we burn this over here, we create a little thicket over here, or maybe maybe you allow us to start doing different things with the game management. That will improve the wildlife. That will inadvertently, I'm sorry, directly improve the value of your property. Where that gets hairy is you might price yourself out of the lease If you start making too many recommendations, start killing too many big bucks and too many turkeys and this, and that they might say, hey, we need to bump you up on the lease, or other people catch wind and they bid you out of the lease.

Speaker 1:

So that's one of the things that happens all the time, but people don't really talk about you know so. But the QDM records I mean. That alone, I think, is the easiest and doesn't cost any money. It's time. All it is is just time.

Speaker 2:

No, I think it's very key. You know any kind of things you can relate back to factual accounts, scientific data, things that you can actually build something on, not just like a hunch. Oh, I didn't see any, you know dough this weekend when I was out there. Well, you know, did you account for the fact that? You know the acorns were all falling and they're over there underneath those trees that didn't come out to this spot because of that Like, there's so many things that are just kind of black and white on that.

Speaker 2:

But I think, having all the data points and be able to look back on them, especially year to year, be able to see things. You know, when I took over this property in Central Texas, a lot of the bucks people were shooting them at, you know, two and a half, three and a half years old. As soon as they'd see something with horns, they got excited. They get their deer for the year and they're done, instead of like being like okay, let's let them grow and then let's see what the potentials they could be at five and a half, six and a half, and it's a night and day difference and what we're seeing as far as, like you put on the hit list now compared to 10, 15 years ago and there's a lot of different improvements. And now we've been able to kind of see those things over time and visually see that, ah, that did work, but without starting someplace and being able to have some data points and taking the jawbones, and that it's really hard to maybe track all those kinds of you know records and growth of your property.

Speaker 2:

You know, I kind of wanted to jump back to on. There's a certain point where you kind of launched your own Southeast Whitetail in 2020. You had kind of an article based website, podcast medium platform. You had a little bit of everything and then you started doing a lot more guests appearances on different other people podcast. I mean, you've also been a freelance writer with meat eater, with wired to hunt, and I just kind of wanted to talk about the genesis of then, like you, exploring that next level of you sharing that information. What inspired you to start Southeast Whitetail and, you know, kind of talk about the beginning stages of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. So. I started working on the idea of Southeast Whitetail during COVID. It was the spring of 2020. And so I mean I was, you know, my main, my career is in real estate and when the spring of 2020 happened, initially real estate just really just pumped the brakes and no one's doing anything now. That summer, that market fired up and then just never really slowed down until maybe, maybe, like a maybe 22 sometimes.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, I had some time, like a lot of people did, at home, and I was kind of I was doing more and more things in my social media. That point, instagram for me became an outlet for just showcasing what we're doing, the farm hunting stuff. And I was doing more doing a lot of mentored hunts with different conservation, like third party related mentor hunts where people are coming in that I don't know that I'm doing, you know, clabbing with different conservation orgs. We've always done that. Our property, you know, you know, hosted new hunters, both young and old, but they were typically friends or family people we knew started doing more stuff like that, being more involved with QDMA, now NDA, and so I just I was kind of just I kept that momentum going and at the same time I, you know, being a student of QDM, I felt like there was definitely a shift in hunting media and especially, you know, you know QDMA. I mean, you know, during right then, during that, during that COVID period, they, you know MERS with National Deer Alliance and form National Deer Association, kind of more of a broader range of deer hunting across the country.

Speaker 1:

And also me, being from the South, you know the deep South. There's such a rich history in which hunting culture in the South, but I've always felt like hunting content, if you really break it down, a lot of it across the board, whether it's management videos or, you know, management people or buck hunters or bow hunt, it's, it's so much, so much of a is based in the Midwest. It's, I mean, just content. And whether it's marketing materials for new camo or articles or videos, so much about the Midwest. You know, pinch point of funnels and a lot of that does does not translate to the deep South, doesn't translate to pond country, and I felt like there was a void in Southern, in Southern, you know, land management because, you know, with the explosion of social media which we didn't have, I mean, you know, was it 2012, 2010 social media really kind of blew up and, all of a sudden, everyone had in the pocket a video recorder and they had a device. And there's, all of a sudden, there's always all this free apps, you know, instagram, youtube, all these different outlets where people could create content. So there's a lot more content out there, but so much of it I didn't think was really just based in the South.

Speaker 1:

So that's why I started with Southeast White Tail and launched it in in 2020 and wrote some articles, and then I was doing some guest spots along the way, like this people were having me on. My wife ended up buying this microphone for me just to sound a little bit better. And then, a year after I launched Southeast White Tail, I just recorded a podcast solo by myself, same desk, just sitting down, freestyle, and then I was like you know what the heck I like, what I had to say, who knows, I just put it out there and it was pretty interesting kind of the feedback and I just started doing it and I selfishly I enjoy it because I get to interview people and I'm, you know, thankful I'm gonna have you on a couple weeks, but I get stuff out of it and then I feel like I'm just it's trying to create content that's specific to my region, essentially.

Speaker 2:

Well, and now you have kind of stepped up into another level, to your tap to. You know, take over there as an interim duty with Southern Way hunting podcast. Obviously, Dan is starting that off. Why don't you kind of maybe for those who aren't familiar with that why don't you go ahead and kind of lay out the groundwork of what, now that you are the host, what you have planned, what the kind of formulation of the idea of the show, what you want to focus on? I know, you know you sent me some information, you kind of got quarterly plans there too. But, in a nutshell, if you were to give the few paragraph, you know, pitch to somebody about what the Southern Way is about, why don't you go ahead and do that? And then we'll kind of dive into that a little more too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So. The Southern Way has been around since, I think, 2018 on the Sports and Empire podcast network, and it was originally Southern Ground. Parker McDonald was the host of that really cool podcast and he went on to do something else another podcast, I think I'm not really 100% sure, I don't really know Parker all that well and Josh Rayleigh filled in the takeover. I think at that point was when they changed the name to the Southern Way and Josh was doing it for a while. He really liked doing it, but he's getting more and more busy with his work. He also has another podcaster too that he does.

Speaker 1:

So it was just a lot of it. Just he needed to step back from that, and that's when Dan Johnson nine finger Chronicles. He's the bow hunter with nine fingers. Sometimes somehow he's able to do it. He and Josh thought about me and so asked me to host it. The Southern Way is really just kind of deep rooted in Southern hunting culture, and so what we're going to talk a lot about is just hunting tips and tactics, interviewing different hunters. There'll be a lot of people that people, a lot of familiar names, and there'll be some people that listeners don't know exactly people I know or people I connect with, and so it's going to be more focused on that Southeast White Tail podcast. I'll still be doing more sporadically, but that'll be more entrenched with research, biology and land habitat management.

Speaker 2:

Got you, and so who are some of the guests that are coming on in this next couple quarters? I saw a list. There's quite a few names that I think people will find fairly recognizable and some leaders in that industry. So why don't you go ahead and just kind of give a little teaser of what's to come in these next couple quarters?

Speaker 1:

Yes, so we'll, I'll continue with. I've got some South Carolina hunters coming up. Last week I had Mike Nadaski. He's a huge upland hunter and he just recently purchased Ugly Dog hunting company really cool bird gear. I will pretty much probably just stay on very much themed type, rather like seasonal type guests, about transition into more well, so it covers more bird hunting. But turkeys and turkeys are about to fire up for us. I mean really down here in the South. I mean we are people, are people are getting kind of cagey waiting for, waiting for turkey season. So we'll, we'll have some of that.

Speaker 1:

As far as guests, I've got some names that are recognizable. Larry White is about to be on. I interviewed him again. Really really outstanding wild game. Wild game gourmet is his, is his website. He's great. The other guest until our, until our record I'm really reluctant to say it just in case we don't our schedules don't sync up. But you know I'm going to keep the Southern way. Like I said, it's going to be familiar names people recognize and then it's going to be average people that just aren't on the social media radar. So kind of keep it. You know, keep, keep it going both ways.

Speaker 2:

Keep it in real. No, it's great. It's good to have, I think, all sorts of different perspectives and definitely you know folks that are in the industry and then folks that are working that you know might not have any spotlight on them, but they're the ones who are doing the work and can give you some kind of you know day to day data of what's happening. And they're they're, I guess the other thing. I kind of one of the things you, you were doing systematically is kind of and I've done some of this but I need to probably focus a little more on is kind of the seasonality of things, like the different kind of land management, turkey quail you know predator, maybe you know control, and then you got warm season, you know food plots and kind of kicking them in the summer, hunting tips and tricks, and then you got you know the actual the end magnum opus is the meals that you can share with your friends and family.

Speaker 2:

And so you know you talk about, like Larry White, I've had him on as well, and what an amazing chef. And so you, you have something kind of highlight all the things that people can see on the property. Do I kind of want to dive into turkey hunt with you and just ask you about. You know what that looks like in your area, on your land, in that region, how is the turkey population doing? What are you seeing on the ground right now and what are you looking forward to in your area, in your county, in your state? You know how many birds you allotted and what do you normally take each year and maybe go ahead and give us some you know delectable ideas of what you're going to do with it once you have it in your freezer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you know, george, Turkey Wild Turkey is, it's, they're just, you know, it's like some, some people have them and some people have robust populations to where they can absolutely kill more than what the state is going to allow them to. And then there's some areas that aren't that far away where they don't have that much. Just in general, I'm talking about general areas, not specific properties, general areas and so much of it. You know, so much of it depends on, I think, a lot of for-shoot practices. You know, while I mean just like what, what, what, what most people know, but yeah, I mean throughout Georgia and South Carolina. You see, you know a, a, a, a start, very, you know, varying degree. That's probably, that's probably consistent, you know, with most of the most of the footprint that the Eastern Wild Turkey has. And you know it kind of brings about that question of as far as wild Turkey conservation. There's so much across the board that's been hitting, hitting, hunting content in the past five, eight years about Turkey conservation, different research projects. But as far as management, I mean it's tough because these states have, they're managing over an entire state. That's just a boundary that someone created a long time ago and you know, at least in South Carolina, there used to be like 14 different game zones, I think, or 20 different game zones, when now there's four. Okay, and so you're managing. These game zones are vast regions that just encompass way different areas. And I say that because it is. It's got to be tough, because they're trying to manage these turkeys over areas where some areas they probably shouldn't be shooting any, to be honest, and there's some they could. They could probably shoot way more than they possibly could and they're still fine.

Speaker 1:

Our properties we've got we've got way more birds where you would think, around the spring head, the spring fed creeks, the swamps, and you know it's interesting, one of our main properties that is, it's about a third. A third of it is in agricultural farm. You know farmland and we've got you know pond country but we burn. We've got turkeys, but it's just the very infrequent. The past couple of years we've had one, one bird gobbling, so I I didn't want to kill them. I was one bird that we heard. We have far more quail. That's the anomaly. That just doesn't make sense. We see more quail, we hear more quail throughout the entire year, not just during season. So it's my theory on that is that I think we have wild quail. They will flourish, but wild quail, I think wild quail do better hiding from predators and basically surviving.

Speaker 1:

Turkeys are a lot different and turkeys you know quail, they're on the ground. We have a lot of more thickets, so but that's you know we're looking to. You know we're looking to shoot anywhere from three to four birds any given year. And as far as cooking them up, man, I know I know people like frying them, frying turkey nuggets, and they're good. But I love smoking. I love smoking a turkey breast, brining it. It doesn't take that long but smoke it for a couple of hours. Or I've been doing some teriyaki turkey where I just simply marinated it and do it like hapachi style on Blackstone with some fried rice and veggies.

Speaker 2:

So what are you doing with the legs? So I mean, is that something that you're doing, the slow cooking and then doing any kind of teriyaki or smoke, or is that inclusion, or is you just talking breast meat there?

Speaker 1:

That's your with the legs A lot of times I'll just, I will slow cook those like pressure cooker, try slow cooking and then just pull them apart. Maybe, you know, almost like a pole, like pulled turkey tacos, I've tried smoking them and it just, I mean, I've gone through before and just cut out every like tendon and smoked them and you get some meat. But it's almost like smoking white tail ribs. You know you get some good meat but sometimes the juice isn't worth a squeeze. So you know I save them, I don't waste them, but I'll try to. You know, pressure cook them. Or, you know, put them in a crock pot full, you know, full of juice. Cover them up. Yes, that's what I found. So if you cook them legs, it's almost like putting some, some venison in a crock pot. It's got to be covered in in liquid, or if not, it's just going to dry out, yep.

Speaker 2:

Yep, 100%. And when I first started doing that and like a slow cooker I think, I pulled it like the three or four hour mark and it was just nope. It needed like almost twice that amount of time. You know low and slow for a long time. But I'm really excited about the turkey season coming up, kind of recapping your last season. What were some of the highlights for you in the field? It could be you could be, you know, seeing someone get there first. You know big game, animal or whatever it may be. So just lay us out with some of the things that were kind of memorable and, as you're kind of looking back on the season behind us, yeah, man, a couple of highlights I would say.

Speaker 1:

We had a family friend of ours. It was their daughter and I think it was their last kid. I think all their kids have shot their first deer in our property. Their daughter, seven, shot her first deer and that deer was like over a hundred pounds, twice, twice as big as she was. You know, we observed some pretty cool things. There was, like I said, we had several fondows that were harvested in December that were got pregnant in early November, which means, and they were 77, 70 pounds, so they were healthy enough in early November to get pregnant, not, as opposed, a lot of times they'll go and they'll hit the first heat cycle in late November, taking my son hunting my daughter. She likes going hunting with me but she likes more eating candy and, just, you know, having fun. So we still do that.

Speaker 1:

My son, he is four and I've been taking him for two years now and so this year he really progressed on blood trails and it's kind of happened organically. He just you know, he to where you know, like he's, he's fine with blood first and he's trailing it and kind of learning that way. So I've really I didn't know where we were going to go where I was going to go with my kids and outdoors. But what I think is happening, or what is happening, is that we finished our second season together. He's nowhere near pulling the trigger on a rifle or gun or crossbar or whatever, but I think what's happening is that he's learning the ropes. He's learning, you know, how to sit still, because I don't. All of our stands are kind of open stands. Yeah, we got cover and wraps around them, but it's not a redneck blot, it's not a make all the noise you want. So he's learning how to be quiet, walking in, walking out blood trails, way before he pulls a trigger, which I think is good.

Speaker 1:

And that was probably some of the highlights for me. I shot a very cool six year old buck and it's just. You know, I've used a lot of data that I've been pulling and it was kind of one of those where it was, you know, hunting mobile in a climber and it was one of those where everything just kind of worked out. But it all made sense, it, you know, it all made sense how it did. So, yeah, we had a very good season I think we ended up with. You know, I estimate the meat based on the venison yield, averaging of a white-tailed deer. But yeah, we think we ended up with 81, we finished off after youth weekend with 81 or 82 total deer and we donated well over a thousand pounds of meat to different organizations and friends and family. So to me that that I think that's more probably one of the cooler sides of, you know, land management. Yeah, you know bucks are cool in this and that, but you know, taking people hunting I know you've had Doug Durant on, he just won a deer management year and he's big on that Absolutely, it's just sharing the land. That's what we do, that's what we've always done.

Speaker 1:

And also the venison man, because it's just most people. If he asks people they want venison, they've had it somewhere to restaurant or whatever and they want it, but they don't know how to ask for it and they don't really know. A lot of people I don't think they understand that in general, especially in the South. I mean, you know you're in Texas. You see in Texas too, a lot of land management. You're having to to to harvest way more deer and venison that you can personally eat yourself. Sure, it's got to go somewhere, yep. So man, just I mean it, it's. It's amazing how many people would thoroughly like good quality venison ever. You just ask them.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's, that's been kind of. I'll go out to the property and I'm like, okay, I know I'm going to try to take two or three dough this weekend. I'm calling friends and like, hey, when I give you the call, start driving this way, you know, or like, whatever it is, I'll quarter it up for you. It might be missing one backstrap that happened to fall into my cooler over here. But as far as the rest of it, here you go and that's happened, you know, many times over where we're always trying to to share that out with friends who might have been like, oh yeah, I used to have that one as a kid and I'm like, here, we'll try this. Oh, what do you have? Here's some recipes.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know you and I have met enough people that we can have some recipes, at least points and people in some good directions to be like, hey, go check this out. Or you know, this one might be one if you've got this cut of meat or whatever. And you know it's the same kind of thing too you talk about like sharing the land. There's a lot of folks coming in to our property, the learning and just having fun exploring that and then putting in some work and some sweat equity and then they get to enjoy some really fresh venison for them and their family and then learn about cooking it. And, you know, hopefully some of the shows that you know, like you or I have done with some of these chefs and cooks can be able to kind of be a resource for them to tap into and learn more and be able to kind of maybe bring that into their own lifestyle or teach the kids, as many circumstances have been, and I just find it to be such a rewarding thing. The camaraderie of you know and fellowship of your friends and family is just it's second to none man. And you know just kind of think about sitting around the campfire after some of these experiences and or under the skinning shed.

Speaker 2:

You know it's nice to be outside of the weather if it's raining, but you know, being able to chat and kind of it's something that it's a part of our heritage and our hunting culture, and especially in the South, and I think that's great that you're a voice of that kind of heritage that we're trying to continue to, you know, pass on to our future generations. So I definitely tell everyone that you know is listening right now to go check out your podcasts well podcasts and check out your website. Your article is great. I was even reviewing one this morning. I was getting an oil change about.

Speaker 2:

You know now is a great time in the winter months and you know right now it's the end of January. Recording this and talking about going through your property and being able to see, you know, the game trails where things, you know where stuff's moving through, and that's one of my favorite times. If you want to maybe just touch on that, maybe that article that you wrote to and what people might be doing is best to you know, kind of pre-scout or even the post-scout of things in this time of year and why it's an important time to get out there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up. I know I wrote the article but I really like that article. I mean, you know I've put some out there. They're just kind of basic articles, but I thought that one, because that just kind of that idea kind of came up and it seems basic and most people say, yeah, yeah, mark, I get it, you know, off the woods and scout, but what I was getting at is that, like that bug that I killed I mentioned that six-year-old bug, that bug the reason why I was in that tree on that trail was from walking the woods right now.

Speaker 1:

So what I've been doing the past I think three seasons now is that I shut the trail cameras off during the season and you know I'll run them. You know, throw the off season and then I'll go pretty heavy. Kind of late summer, usually around you know July, you start to see the antlers, kind of what they're probably going to be, and then try to run them up until sometime in September when pre-rush shifting and the bucks have already kind of you know starting to shift where they're going to shift after the velvet peels. And so I say that because what I found was when we were going back to, you know the QDM records and whatnot.

Speaker 1:

When I was running cameras throughout the season, we were not I mean statistically. Our dough numbers were just plummeting. We weren't shooting them and the reason, I think, is because we have these bucks on camera and it happened to friends and family that they get invited up to hunt with us, or even me and my brother and father. You have these bucks on camera and you're like you know what? There's five doughs out. It's getting late how I could take out one, but I know there's these bucks that are around and maybe they're just going to pop out in any minute.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right. And so there was one season where our dough numbers got down. I mean, I was shockingly low, I didn't realize where we were, so it wasn't really on purpose. But it's also time management. You know running cameras, even cell cameras, it's time consuming. It also became not fun and I know people are going to say listen, I love trail cameras, just like everybody else. But when you become or at least I shouldn't say that, when I became obsessed with bucks and I would name them, I give them really cool wrestler names. You know the coolest names, and then you don't kill them.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's hear some of them. You know I reluctantly named, I didn't want to. I saw Ravishing. Rick.

Speaker 1:

Rude was probably one that may. He was like our property was definitely in his core area. I mean, I'm sure it overlapped a little bit, but I got them throughout the summer, the off season, during the rut. I could just never catch up to him. He would drive me crazy.

Speaker 1:

And you know, at a certain point people talk about getting burned out by hunts and it just get it. Just, it became for me became not fun. Plus, we weren't shooting enough doughs. So then it's like, okay, if you're not shooting enough doughs, you have these bucks. And that was the extra layer to where we're having all these bucks on camera. They're on our property but we're not seeing them. You got a problem If you're not seeing them, you can't shoot them, which means you you've got to restructure some things. So I stopped running cameras and you know I scout right now. I walk the woods right now and you know it's wet, it's rainy, it's cold, moisture's not drawn up. You can see these tracks. Oh yeah, you can see the fresh sign that just happened. The rubs, some of the scrapes, are still active by young bucks. They just can't get out of their system. But seeing all this fresh sign, you're seeing the bedding, you're seeing the trails and you're seeing this very high concentration of bucks sign, that's where you need to be. And then you combine that with your dough data, you know when they're getting pregnant, you match it up and you and you hunt. So that's, that's kind of that's when I do. Most of my scouting is right now going through turkey season. While you're turkey hunting, you see the stuff.

Speaker 1:

One of the cool thing I probably will mention this past year was I rattled in a buck on October 13th it was Friday, the 13th in October and I was rattling. I had been. I've been experimenting with rattling since I was in high school and for like for a decade or so. It just never worked. Then you start to kind of learn more about it, more about it, because most of the content I was watching was, was from Texas, and that's where I mean you know, that's where I'm preaching the choir here, but that's where QDM started in Texas, you know, without brothers, and so a lot of that rattling came from Texas. Well, that's the bar place, qdm, and so they, they know their stuff and rattling works when you have a good buck dough ratio.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, I had. I tell you something. I tell you something very quickly. I know we got started to go, but I did some of some of my best scouting, unintentionally.

Speaker 1:

Early October I was going into climb in one area. It was long set of a creek. I was gonna hunt this area, some fresh eggwars, and I got there and the thermals were all screwy. You know, early season, before it gets really cold, the wind just shifts. Every which way it's warm, there's thermals. I got in the spot and my scent was just screwing up. Good, the second spot, third spot, fourth spot, and I just I finally found, I finally just kind of gave up.

Speaker 1:

What happened was I was doing a lot of walking on my property At a time when I don't normally walk, you know, and when I was, when I was singing, I was bumping all this deer on foot, trying to find a good place to hunt my climber, and I ended up not finding a good spot. But I saw all these deer, I saw a ton of does that were filtering off my neighbor's property and you know, then I got on my aerial map and kind of realized well, mark, this should be a no-brainer, look at this. I had that conversation with you. Look at your aerial map. They're coming from your neighbor's property on a thicket and it's an intersection of paved roads. They're probably not crossing paved roads, they're going on your property. It seemed obvious, if you, but it wasn't until you visualized it.

Speaker 1:

And then before, right around, dark still, walking around, and I was on this fire-brake trail against a swamp, right going, you know, uphill, and right when I was trying to figure, right when I realized I was looking at a deer, it, you know it, it turned, looked at me. I could tell it had antlers and it was too light to try to throw up and she was too far away and I ran uphill, walked over there. He was working straight, looked like a nice buck, and I waited two weeks, went back and rattled him in, and so I already knew where he was and freak, went in. But then why would rattling work? Cause it was right on the cusp, right a week, about a week, 10 days, before our does were going to heat. And that's when you hear people, you know, you hear the biologists talk about, that's when rattling works, through the actual research. So that was pretty cool to and I went back where I was talking about seeing the does, I went back and shot three of the rest of the season individual hunts.

Speaker 1:

It's just, that's something I would never have planned to do. But I tell you, just walking the woods, bumping all those deer, I learned what they were doing and a lot of people wouldn't want to do that. But I don't know, I might do it again. You know, just wait some time and get back in, Because you know, deer, they're not going to leave your property. You're going to educate them, but they're going to kind of stay where they are. But they just, they just they just move around us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I'm at you. That was exemplified and I was listening to your podcast. You're talking about how all the rifle shots like in our property, we're always hearing people. There's, you know, some weekend warriors that are rocking it out and they're just doing plinking and stuff. They got their ARs out there and they're just, you know, having a good time shooting target practice. But it's constant, like, and especially during the hunting season, there's just people that are out there just practicing and you're hearing it and the deer kind of look up and I mean it's, you know a lot of people think, oh, you know you can sneeze and everything within 40 acres is going to run out and you'll never see them again. But you know you might bump a deer, but that doesn't mean they're not going to come back through that. If that's their area, if that's where they're bedding down. Like I, you know, I really suggest that people go out and explore the properties and I think this is a great time of year and like what you were saying too, and I think a point I was going to make is like when you were saying about the trails, and seeing where they're going through, doing those walks now may be able to tell you where to put your game trail cameras so that you can maybe get the most out of that data and information. And I also like your idea too, of shutting it down.

Speaker 2:

I've kept my game trails on one property year round, and then usually I'm focusing on one because there's a lot of people that are coming in and hunting that spot and so I want to educate them. Hey, this is a deer. That is this old. You know this. You know this rack may look huge but this is at this age class. We're letting this deer walk. You know this is not on the hit list, or this is how many doe? This is the size of the doe we're looking at Using this educational tool, right for that.

Speaker 2:

But there was another property that while I'm looking at this one, I'm not looking at that other one, and I found it to be really fun to kind of go in it, slightly blind. I mean, we'd still look up and just kind of see what's there, just to kind of see what's on camera, because we have it out there running. But I think, going into something blind too, and just whatever comes in front of you and what you're going to see, instead of going and like people are. I had a lot of folks who were like all they've been buck focused. They're like I saw this one deer, I want to go after that deer.

Speaker 2:

And hey, there was six healthy doe that came through that could fill your freezer just the same. You just passed on them because that big buck and amenity is coming out, you know, every night. So then what sometimes happens is you have people who go home with no meat in the freezer or they've passed up an experience for another, one that didn't ever show. So I think it's those are all very valuable points to talk about. I think I like how you're. You kind of mentioned that too is sometimes it's good to shut them off. You know, get your data points, but then you know, at the same point, you know, go out in the woods and just enjoy and see what comes out, and you know, just keep your eyes peeled and your coffee fresh to keep you awake.

Speaker 1:

That's right, or you know, at least put them on like passive trail camera sites. You know where, like trails, you know legit trails to where you're keeping tabs on them on your property, but it's like not that destination. You know acorn crop or you know food plots, cause I, you know something else would happen is you got a big buck in the area but then another buck comes out and you've got a guest there, a friend, and you know I'm sure you host, you have people to hunt with you, and so do I. And you know, if you're in the woods a lot, at a certain point, after hunting a certain period of time, you become well versed and you know, be on the judge dear. You know well and that's you know.

Speaker 1:

But some people can't. I couldn't do that at one point in my life. So I'm not not some. It's certain hunter stage you can't do that. So if they know there's this big, big, big giant bucks out there and then an actual two year old comes out, they might just blast away and not really know. So it's it. Yeah, it's just, you know whatever someone wants to hunt, you know how. However they you know some people want to, you know, pursue one buck and I mean I gotta tell you like I respect those dudes and the guys that do it and kill them, cause that's that's, that's, that's, that's pretty hard. So it's it's. You know, it's whatever someone wants to do, as long as it's legal right, indeed, indeed, it's right.

Speaker 2:

And no, it kind of think about that with, like, mark Canyon and even the element boys and talking about their focus on one particular deer and sometimes. You know, mark Canyon had an article I guess it was about a year and a half, many two years ago where he was talking about how he got burnt out by you know, I think the idea when you're at that level of content creation and stuff too, but it can be difficult. But he talked about how he wanted to just kind of rewind and I spoke with him about how that was for him when he took a different approach to it. And so you know it's never too late to change If there's something that you kind of getting burnt out, you know take a different approach. If you've been doing cameras and you're so enamored with checking the camera all the time, maybe it's a season or you know a month to take it off and just see how it is. And you know you never know.

Speaker 2:

But I think those are all valid points and you know I'm excited for to follow. You know you picking up with it with the Southern way and seeing. You know the guests you have on and things you have to share. You've been, you know, a great resource for many people you know, not just in your region to learn more about deer and quality deer management and habitat improvements and things too. So I appreciate what you're bringing to the table there and all you're sharing. I kind of had a question that you know probably relates to that as well is your idea of, like your own personal legacy in a professional setting and what you're doing and what you're sharing and personal like how is it that you hope to be making an impact and that you'll be remembered for what you're doing now in both of those avenues?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a deep question, George. No pressure, that's a good question.

Speaker 1:

You know. I would just say that I guess I never really thought about this as far as a legacy, but I would like to think that I may have made an impact on conservation efforts in the South and that was another reason why I started Southeast White Tail. I know earlier I mentioned hunting content, but the focal points of Southeast White Tail are habitat conservation and venison, and you know habitat, but in the habitat because it can get lost in the shuffle, because I've talked about it. I've talked about it. We have too many deer and people see deer in Walmart parking lots and there's deer in most suburban developments in the Southeast, whether you're coastal or you're inland. There are deer in that development that are probably having to be regulated eventually, so it can get lost in shuffle. We have so many deer in Walmart that there's a problem and it's like well, but a lot of these herds aren't healthy. We have, and you take, for instance. I mean if you drive down an interstate in the South, you know most places too, but high density areas. You drive an interstate. During breeding season there's deer everywhere and you know. You talk about quail and turkey. Those are detrimental to you know land fragmentation. That's what I'm talking about and conservation, all that goes together. I think there's a lot going on and the other part of legacy I would like to have made an impact on quality deer management.

Speaker 1:

You know QDM. You know Joe Hamilton. I did a sit down interview with him, video on YouTube. Joe Hamilton was a mentor of mine. He just didn't know it for so many years and I looked up to him and got to know him.

Speaker 1:

But you know, with him essentially bringing the QDM movement from your neck of the woods in Texas via our brothers to the South and you know pushing that because I don't think we would have seen the boom in a more part of the country than we did. Like you know, y'all are doing it in Texas. I mean, y'all are managing deer like cattle and that's essentially where it was started. But having that boom of these big bucks and everything, but now it's we can't. We can't let our foot off the gas, meaning we can't stop regulating does just because we got some good bucks and we're now shooting.

Speaker 1:

A lot of states are shooting more does and bucks annually Can't stop, just like what I'm saying. I mean we're, we're barely breaking even and we're not, you know, because the phone recruitment and everything else like that. So I would like to you know QDM is something, in my opinion, is never going to go away as long as you have deer in the landscape. So as you have deer in the landscape and with our ever expanding human footprint, you know we need to help habitat and conservation 100%, man, I'm right there with you and all that and definitely agree.

Speaker 2:

For people who are ready to follow your journey, learn more about you, tune into your podcast, why don't you give them all that information real quick and where they can you know, find you and follow you? Sure.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I'm primarily active on Instagram. A personal is at Mark Haslam and it's at southeastwhitetail South East whitetailcom and podcast, south East whitetail and the Southern way. So please reach out to me. I mean, if anyone would like to be on the podcast or have any ideas for me, I tell you it's you know what I'm doing is it's a labor of love, it's a passion, george, but it's the biggest kick I get because it's you know you can make some money here, you can make some money there, but ultimately it's not.

Speaker 1:

It's not going to replace your, at least what I'm doing. It's not going to replace, you know, my full time gig. I am doing some consulting work on the side, which you know helps fill in with my real estate, but it's just what I. What I love is just when I interact with someone. Whether I see a guy on the street that I've known and he mentioned something he's seen of you know article or podcast, or someone sends him a message. It's just cool. You know that someone's you know people are consuming the content and they appreciate it and they're acknowledging it.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a huge thing, man. I mean it feels like your time is well spent and worthwhile and it's not just you're sharing, it's not just coming in one way, because I know when. When I'm talking to you, I'm learning things. I'm talking to a lot of the other guests. I'm learning things that I can put out, but I'm trying to make sure that I'm being a conduit for that information for other people to be able to get out there or learn a little bit more, maybe get more invested in their local areas and their chapters or QDM or whatever it may be to, you know, conservation agencies trying to make sure that we all collectively keep this way of life. You know striving and surviving for our future generations.

Speaker 2:

That's kind of you know one of my goals and I think it did. I think we're, you know, two peas in that pot of just trying to make sure we're doing that part and we get to meet some cool people like yourself along the way, so I'm really glad you joined me, thank you. I'm glad you joined me today. I'm looking forward to coming on your podcast as well. And, yeah, everyone, go follow all those sites, podcasts that will have all the links below for you to check them out. So please go and look at those, follow. Give him those five star reviews that he has earned so diligently with your wonderful work, everything you're sharing. Mark, it's been a joy today and I look forward to hopefully doing this in person sometime.

Speaker 1:

That's right, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. This has been a blast and I look forward to having you on my podcast. I want some good Texas talk when I get you on.

Speaker 2:

I'm ready.

Speaker 1:

I'm ready, I've got some.

Speaker 2:

I've got some things for you, man. For sure, man, we've had quite an interesting season and last few seasons, so I've definitely got the content for you.

Speaker 1:

Cool man, you take care, you take. Thanks, melchized 원장과장. 뮤 scheid号.

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