00:00:00
Speaker 1: That was wild man, no business being in those mountains and hunting.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: And we almost killed on that first hunt. Remember that.
00:00:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, messed up. And I wasn’t gonna say hey, hey, I don’t know if it was a fifty four yards.
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Fifty four and a half yards.
00:00:17
Speaker 3: We werebedded behind a stump.
00:00:20
Speaker 2: I didn’t see stump, but he was.
00:00:22
Speaker 3: I was a young man with visions.
00:00:29
Speaker 2: Out here.
00:00:30
Speaker 1: The stakes are real. Effective preparation starts with fitness, but it requires so much more. This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most. Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I’ve gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country.
00:00:52
Speaker 2: This is in Pursuit, brought to you by Mountain Knums in collaboration with Mayhem Hunt. All Right, father Stephen Gadbery here, Uh you might know him from Sean Ryan podcast. You’re a big deal now. I feel like we’re like low man on your podcast. Uh. He was just knew when he was just he was just father, father Stephen. Now his father, Stephen Gadbury. Is there a doctor in there yet? No?
00:01:20
Speaker 3: No, it’s it’d be fun to go back to school. It’s been since two thousand and six and since I was in school and seminary and everything.
00:01:26
Speaker 2: That sounds terrible.
00:01:27
Speaker 3: It’d be fun to go back, but that may last for three weeks of school, and now I’d be brady.
00:01:32
Speaker 2: I think I’d lose my mind.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: I have you know you have those random like nightmares where you’re back in school and you’re like, didn’t turn in homework or you.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Have those.
00:01:42
Speaker 3: Those man, I’ve had those where we turned in our homework.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: Depend depend on the class you watch. Billy Madison, Yeah, too many times is stressed out. You don’t have those like panic not panic dreams. But do you still dream? You too old? The Bible does say old mental dream dreams. You know, young people.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: I thought I was old men, right, I don’t know. But the Bible does say God poor his gifts. Son is beloved when they slumber. I’ve had like vivid dreams, like not too often, but like once every couple of weeks. I’ll have one when like I feel like I’m like running late for something and then I’m just going.
00:02:19
Speaker 2: In slow mode. I think it’s a similar.
00:02:23
Speaker 3: Drink, like my brain is my heart is just raising yeah, I thought.
00:02:27
Speaker 4: That’s probably past the point to where.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: I sleep deep enough. That’s what I’m saying, to be able to dream.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: How old are you know? Which turned foot? And like my sleep is like same thing. It’s like less and less every night, and I feel like I’m waking up every hour. And that’s that’s actually that’s been happened, like over the last.
00:02:46
Speaker 1: Year, Kid Acts two seventeen. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and ughters will prosify off the sid Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. So when no Jesus is coming back, when birds starts.
00:03:03
Speaker 3: Happened, he’s not coming yet, no dreams.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: He’s good everybody.
00:03:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh man, all right, yeah, so man, I think uh me and Steven, you’ve never been on bird didn’t get to partake in the old.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: Gunnison days. That was wild man, wild.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: No business being in those mountains and hunting.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: And we almost killed on that first hunt, remember that.
00:03:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, messed up. And I wasn’t gonna say hey, hey, I don’t know if it was a fifty.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Four yards fifty four and a half yards.
00:03:45
Speaker 3: He was bedded behind a stump.
00:03:47
Speaker 2: I didn’t see a stump, but he was bad.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: I was a young man with visions.
00:03:52
Speaker 2: Dude, all I know is we’re walking. We’re slow.
00:03:55
Speaker 1: So we used to we’d get up obviously, right right around dark. We’d kind of walked down, get into a spot. Listen, did we ever hear one real bugle there?
00:04:05
Speaker 3: I don’t, probably not. I probably we heard one real. First year with duds was like we got into this bugle fast one day and it was it was just insane. It was insane when you were there the first year, the very first year, and I was like, this is crazy, this is crazy. That’s when I came back. I was like, dude, you got to go there everywhere. The next year we went.
00:04:24
Speaker 1: Dude, on day three, we could have had one killed. So you know, we’d go sit, wouldn’t hear bugles, and then we’d slow slow hunt, which now I know it is a horrible tactic.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: You’re just gonna push elk everywhere.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: But you know when you watch YouTube two times and go, OHK hunt and you think bumped a bunch of hurts, we did, and so we’re just slow creeping and I’m like, hey, hey, he’s like what like right here, and he’s like where, and I’m like the video grab his head and I turn his head like like I’m tall in a trice.
00:05:01
Speaker 2: Telling them which way to look.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: And sure enough, this is at the point where I’d shot my bow a bunch, but not enough to like I was not comfortable taking a fifty yard shot and probably out to forty is about perfect scenario. And then in my head, I’m like, you know, Steven could do it. He’ll take the shot, and so like you take the shot. Stephen looks at me like really, yeah, this is a whole like four minute episode, and I think what happened. Maybe there was a stump. The angle I was at was behind you. There was no stump, and when you tried to just like find the shooting lane, you stepped on a stick or something.
00:05:37
Speaker 2: And dude, boom gone. And we only saw the one bowl. They were like to all over the place.
00:05:42
Speaker 3: They were everywhere, stampeding out of our dreams.
00:05:45
Speaker 2: Right there right over. I can still if I close my eyes, I can see that thing.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: Like looking at down, looking down like left to right, yep, and just staring down the hill, looking around, pressing him sticks.
00:05:55
Speaker 2: At least he was.
00:05:56
Speaker 3: Solid we had even though like we didn’t didn’t kill anything on those hunts. We were just doggub had so much fund we don’t need hard.
00:06:05
Speaker 2: We learned a lot, learned, fourteen miles a day, just.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: It was fun stuff. I still still laugh about the GoPro and the snowstorm.
00:06:16
Speaker 2: That we split off from. Nelson was there. Billings were there, so you know, they weren’t going with us. And so it’s seventy.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: Degrees the first three days, day four, it’s like fifty little chilling there and you’re like, huh. We sit down to have lunch and all of a sudden, it’s like dipping dots start.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: Falling out of the sky.
00:06:35
Speaker 1: Like oh, it’s kind of brisk, you know, it’s a little chilly sitting there looking over the under and we’re like, all right, we’re gonna we’re gonna hunt a little bit. So we just take off hunting and it starts snowing, keeps snowing, and we.
00:06:46
Speaker 3: Were a solid few miles. I don’t have far, but it was a good ways. It was like away.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: So we just decide to we decided to sit underneath a tree.
00:06:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, well let it let it pass over.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: Two and a half hours later, it’s like six inches of snow. Yeah, at this point absolute we got to go.
00:07:05
Speaker 1: And so Steven’s like, yeah, yeah, well we’ll hunt our way back. And I’m like cool, because you know we’re up, We’re down the ridge. We’re on the top of this ridge probably five four or five miles and you know, we’d side hilled all the way to this point, and so we’re like, well, side hill all the way back and go up.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: We get about what four.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: Hundred yards in It’s slick, you can’t see game trails, you can’t see anything, no blow down everywhere.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: We’re like, let’s go back to the top. So we get up to the top and I’ve.
00:07:31
Speaker 1: Got a garment in reach, like a good like the screen. This is kind of before ONYX really took off. I think you had on X, but we didn’t mark enough stuff. And so we get up to the top of this ridge and we keep walking to Stevens going over the ridge instead of taking it right and going that way.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: Everything in the in the.
00:07:47
Speaker 3: Snow was just so disoriented and I’m like, it’s this way.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: He’s like you think.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: So I’m like, well, we shouldn’t be going down again because we’re on the top of the ridge. He’s like okay, And so we’re walking and you had to pull your hood sideways on your face because the snow is pelting you in the face like it was that hard.
00:08:05
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, Stephen goes.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: My go pro and he’s like, where’s my GoPro And he just starts stripping his clothes off.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: Like the snow, and he is freaking out about this.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: Go annoyed about it. I’m like, I gotta get this.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: I gotta get this gobro. And I’m like, what, it’s a go pro man. We’ll give you another go pro. It’s not mine. Its churches. I was like, well, by Jesus, go pro man.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: And you know, you hear those stories of people like hypothermia losing their mind. I was like, Stephen.
00:08:35
Speaker 3: Losing you know, I was gonna walk off a cliff.
00:08:39
Speaker 2: I don’t think.
00:08:40
Speaker 1: I think you maybe come out here once before that beat we hadn’t hung out an extended period.
00:08:43
Speaker 2: I’m like, this, dude’s losing.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: And we end up getting back and Billings and Nelson and Marlin I think were the others, and they were all huddled up.
00:08:53
Speaker 3: Jones was there.
00:08:53
Speaker 2: He bugged out out. They’re sitting in the trailer.
00:08:58
Speaker 1: This is before we had Curtis’ MZ camper and it’s just an is where Curtis found us and got the idea or gave us, gave us the our our trailer and it’s a non insulated trailer.
00:09:08
Speaker 2: Plywood, plywood, walls free.
00:09:11
Speaker 1: But they turned on the gas burner for the.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: Oh like hot to cook the stove, and that was the heat in there. I thought were all gonna die.
00:09:20
Speaker 3: We watched Batman, Yeah, I remember watching Batman iPhone or something like that, and.
00:09:25
Speaker 2: Dude, it just snowed what was connection before that.
00:09:29
Speaker 3: We’d met at the Game Games in seventeen.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: In seventeen, Uh, you were the chaplain’s head, had come out as the chaplain, and we just kind of became friends. Knew we knew each other, liked elk hunting and had gotten into it. You’d gone the first year, I’d gone to Montana that the year before maybe, and so I was like, let’s go, and so we just kind.
00:09:50
Speaker 4: Of is that the only year you did.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: That kind of help until COVID for this chaplain thing and then hunting that we did two years of hunting.
00:09:58
Speaker 1: Two years of hunting and then you were going to come the third year, and then I forgot what happened.
00:10:03
Speaker 2: You couldn’t come the third year school when.
00:10:05
Speaker 3: We actually killed yeah with Curtis broke my heart. It was fun. Yeah, So we did that. After that, we met at the Games. It was the fall of seventeen. I came out I think like January February for a level one oh dad yep, stayed at at Hell’s Airbnb, and then came worked out at the barn and just like the rest of this kind of history from there out.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, we stayed in touch. We’ve done lead bill together. We’ve hunted a bunch, hunted.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: White tail some here man. Yeah, those rifles. Like the last week in a rifle season, and we killed a button buck.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: We were sitting under a tree. We were just chiming it up, just sitting there like like two little gossipy women, just chit chatting and everything. Even took his tooth thousand No, it fell out. I had this fake tooth out here that it broke. It broke, and so I like I would just kind of stick it in there and just kind of hold it in. We’re talking then, like in the middle of a word, like I spit it out. I’m like, oh gosh, my tooth, tell the story talking about it, and then I’m like, hey, there’s a deer.
00:11:03
Speaker 2: Shot a little. I thought it was a doe at the time. In my defense, I was early on a white to hunting. Yeah, I didn’t check his head and he had just little nubs. But he shot him.
00:11:12
Speaker 1: He took off and we tracked him, got to him, and Steven decided to finish him off.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: He was still standing and like by this time, we bumped in a couple of times, and so it was like at that point, it’s like, Okay, he’s been shot. There’s blood, and like just put him in until he gets down. And I get a text his heart shot and I just send it and all yours.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: Turnover. Doe calls. That’s what it sounded like. But it was all like an amplified like it was so bad.
00:11:45
Speaker 3: We carried him back, just covered blood, hot and sweat covered.
00:11:49
Speaker 1: Him blood and it’s fun because you shot him in the guts, shut.
00:11:53
Speaker 3: Him through everything. I think all that was left was like one front quarter shoulder and that was it.
00:11:58
Speaker 2: It was a ham and a shoulder left.
00:12:00
Speaker 3: He was Yeah, he was ground beef already at your sister’s garage there. That was fun.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: No wonder we have no bucks here. Well, there’s the rule now you have to it would have been a good one next year.
00:12:14
Speaker 1: He’d have been a good one in like five years. Yeah, that’s why we added the rule that you have to kill one with a bow.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: At the house if it has antlers.
00:12:23
Speaker 1: So but yes, even so, I think, man, I think you’ve kind of like you were. You hunted a little bit as younger, but not you got into it later, Like yeah, I did as.
00:12:34
Speaker 3: A kid, grew up on a farm. So like the basic hunt was like turtles and like robins and cardinals. I got the the Grand Slam of uh well, and there like cardinals a group. And I’m just saying, like a kid maybe would have done that hunt.
00:12:49
Speaker 4: Like, are there other priests that hunt?
00:12:51
Speaker 3: You know? There there are some. It’s a small, small group. So some guys it’s like and then you get the ones that are like like the outdoorsy type and that’s an even smaller group. Can’t be many, No, it’s not a lot, but they’re out there, are out there. Yeah got some freeands?
00:13:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so you you got it into it later in life, And I would did.
00:13:12
Speaker 3: A gator hunt and this this this October right with two other priests, with two other priests from Louisiana, one from Alabama, one from Illinois.
00:13:21
Speaker 2: They have Jesus Louisia.
00:13:22
Speaker 4: There’s huge Catholic I’m just kidding because it’s Yeah, there’s a lot of Catholic churches and very like Michigan.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: Michigan the same way.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: All a lot of twelves and twelves at the Ennis State.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you got into it later and you kind of did it the way I did it, opposite of most that live in the East. Yeah, we started with Western you know, most guys that live are from the East or from the Midwest. I’m was born in the Midwest, but lived in Tennessee. Everybody white tail hunts, right, and then they get into elk hunting or dabble in elk hunting, where we both I think I had to go.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: I had to.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: When I first started hunting. I think you’re the same way. We have a touch of of the A D D. And sitting and waiting is not as appealing as going after. To me, elk hunting is a lot more going after, more offensive, I guess. And and now that I’ve learned it is way more Uh there is obviously way more sitting to it, but h.
00:14:19
Speaker 2: And so that appealed to me.
00:14:20
Speaker 1: And then in the process of you know, falling in love with western hunting and elk hunting, I’ve also.
00:14:26
Speaker 2: Fallen in love with white tail hunting. Yeah, so you’re kind of similar, so maybe speak.
00:14:29
Speaker 3: A little bit. Yeah, so in particular archery hunt I love. We all love archery hunting. I mean we were equal opportunity killers.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Like I don’t want to say that I only I love gladly.
00:14:39
Speaker 3: I got a rifle in my truck right now. Use Yeah, so yeah, whatever is in season, I’ll use. But like, my default is to do something to handicap me. And and all the guys that we run around with are the same. Like you can take the easy way or you can take like the fun hard way. It’s probably gonna kick in the face, but it’s gonna be a cooler story at the end, and like we just kind of default to that. So I like archery for that eason. It challenges me. But also I live in town. I live at the church. There’s a little parsonage or rectory where the priests live.
00:15:08
Speaker 2: And I do.
00:15:08
Speaker 3: I do full time ministry there in Little Rock. But you can shoot your bow in town. You can’t. Really, it’s not a good idea to shoot guns in town.
00:15:15
Speaker 2: You know so.
00:15:17
Speaker 3: Well where I’m at.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: And I was about to say, you’ve sent some pictures of some.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: That’s a pretty like ghetto thing. But every year on July first and July fifth, January first, in July fifth, I rock. It’s like I’ll do a two or three hour rock because I just find all these these shot bullets and casings and bullets themselves on the bullets. Yeah, yeah, it’s actually pretty easy. They’ll land on the driveways or the roads and they’ll roll down to the curb. So I just walk down down the curb and they’re there. It’s pretty pretty wild.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: You people just start shooting them off in the air.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: Huh yeah, I guess cheaper than fireworks. Yeah, so did that. And then, like you know, the these Western hunts are fun like the but they’re intense and and like you guys are family men, so you know even better than I. Like, I’ve got a church community, we got a school, but it’s hard to get away for these long times, and so you do it. And that you’re hunting experience, but then you’re like, okay, that that kind of tickled the urge a little bit. I want to hunt more. So then luckily out here we have long white tail seasons with archery and so same thing back home, and we’re you know, Tennessee a lot like Arkansas and Alabama, Mississippi. They’re just there’s so many white tails and so if you can hunt, they want you to kill all that you can. And so we do it for like because we enjoy it, but also like we share meet with everybody. It’s it’s a lot of fun. So kind of yeah, and then out of that of the western game, the elk and then the white tail, it’s been fun exploring different animals.
00:16:51
Speaker 2: Gator this year. Gat.
00:16:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I’ve been to Texas a lot. I love hunting Texas.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Texas is awesome.
00:16:58
Speaker 1: It’s a hunting in Texas yet, have you It’s cool and hill country is it might be one of my I you know, I love elk hunting first, but access deer hunting was awesome last year.
00:17:09
Speaker 3: I love it because so most antlered animals will late winter, lose their antlers early springs, start growing. New ones grow through the summer. They harden up in the fall. Okay, so they get one cycle a year with axis deer for whatever reason. Some have a winter cycle, some have a summer cycle. So there’s always hard horned an they.
00:17:28
Speaker 1: Get the doze will throw one calf per no four calves.
00:17:34
Speaker 2: For three years.
00:17:35
Speaker 1: So it keeps the bucks in this ever, like you know, cycling process, which is pretty awesome.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: Round.
00:17:44
Speaker 3: So when you get that little that itch in the spring or the summer whenever. Like turkeys are cool, but like I kind of want some red meat.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, turkey still is a love of mine, but.
00:17:54
Speaker 3: I’ve never got one. I’ve never killed a turkey.
00:17:57
Speaker 2: I’ve killed a bunch of chase. Sure, Tom, I’m not the most patient. Yeah, yeah, I’m not. I’m not the most patient when it comes.
00:18:06
Speaker 3: We need have renamed five for mountain, either Buck a Button Buck.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: Mountain or Jake Jake Mountain. I killed those Jakes in the valley down in the valley.
00:18:13
Speaker 4: Down in the lease, you know, just adolescents.
00:18:17
Speaker 3: We went up there last year as no, it was right after the New York I think it was January or something. We went to the least got those those two domes with triest There was two or three, mate, No, maybe there was three.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: It was a lot of price.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: So we load them up in the side by side.
00:18:33
Speaker 2: We get back and it’s you know.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: Down here, and we’re coming back to the house on the side by side. It’s, yeah, it’s cold and wet. By this time. We stop at the back of the property to gut them, like, hey, let’s get them here. So we don’t do it at the house. So we ridge parks the side by side. I jump out and he jumps out, and we’re like, they’re gone.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: The tailgate fail down and we’re on this logging road everywhere popping them.
00:18:59
Speaker 2: So they come drop me off.
00:19:00
Speaker 1: So I cooked dinner and then I’m like, Trice, you want to go near with Uncle Stephen.
00:19:04
Speaker 2: He calls him Uncle Stephen. He’s like, I’ll go with Uncle Stephen.
00:19:07
Speaker 3: We go back and uh yeah, poor Trice. Like so we find the deer and everything, and he’s all excited, and then like it’s by this time, it’s a muddy, it’s messy. One of the the deer like falling off the side by side and then like fell down into this little ravine under a fallen tree, and Trice is up there and he just eats it like he slips on this wet log and just folds up around the tree. And I’m like, oh, that one hurt.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: But I mean.
00:19:34
Speaker 3: Like like the like the the dad instinct, the uncle instinct. And he’s like, oh, Dad was awesome, dude. And he’s like he’s grinding he but he’s he hears me affirm in him and he’s like, oh yeah, yeah, I’m good. Yeah he Jeff’s in and we come back.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: They come back. Trice is covered in mud. I’m like, what did you do?
00:19:53
Speaker 1: And he’s like, well, it fell out, tries like a feller on this log and fell in a mud puddle. All been logged and it’s just trash down there. But man, it’s the stuff Trice. Dude, he just loves that stuff.
00:20:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we killed those down there at that least at least last year.
00:20:09
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you’ve done Gator Trice. Trice loves anytime you send the gator. This morning, so I showed him the gator video. They’ve not seen that gator video but like a month and a half, a month and a half ago, and they remembered him saying, oh, I’m walking the dog because he’s got it on a on a rope, but they remembered that, you know, like the kids, they love that stuff.
00:20:30
Speaker 3: With Trice this morning get ready for school, he walked down, he said, why did you call that alligator a dog?
00:20:35
Speaker 2: Like, how did you remember that?
00:20:37
Speaker 4: Even?
00:20:37
Speaker 1: And now that he said that, I’m like, oh, yeah, he did say that, but it’s so weird. So yeah, it’s cool that they get to see that and be a part of that.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: It’s fun.
00:20:46
Speaker 3: It’s fun to see them excited, you know, to hand it on because those seeds are being planted. And it’s same with like, you know, with Violet, she’s so positive about it and Lake you’re talking about like the other day you were hunting and she was just kind of affy about it and then she then she sees the block and she then she was in.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: She was in for sure. Man. I wish we could have made that happen, which we might get a chance this weekend.
00:21:03
Speaker 1: So you know, with you being a priest, that’s your day job, your life job. I wouldn’t even say day job.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: Only work on Sundays.
00:21:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which everybody’s coming to you for everything. Really, you know, you in September, I think you were how long were you going?
00:21:22
Speaker 3: This was the longest westernhund idea. Yeah, it was Colorado.
00:21:25
Speaker 1: Save up all your kind of yearly whatever you Uh, it’s almost like a sabbatical for you where you go out west.
00:21:33
Speaker 3: And almost no vacation through the spring and summer and early or winter spring, late winter, spring and summer and then come fall time. I use as much as I can. When it was two and a half weeks, so the time was in Colorado half it was a new having a lot of number of days to take off. We get, yeah, I get a month a year. We’re a lot of a month, but to actually get to take the month is hard to do. But yeah, we’re allotted. You got to say bird, Yeah they have system. Yeah if if we or oh polio, he’s a Chicago but it’s good man. So it was two weeks out there. The first the first four or five.
00:22:16
Speaker 4: Days you were by yourself.
00:22:17
Speaker 1: Yeah solo, dude, Like more power to guys that can do that.
00:22:21
Speaker 2: But I I would lose my mind.
00:22:23
Speaker 3: Well the first four or five days is like mine lost, Like it’s miserable. It’s like a detox from the noise and everything.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: It’s terrible.
00:22:31
Speaker 3: But once you get over that, humph, it’s just it’s phenomenal. You get so in tune to the Lord. I mean you you you pay attention to stuff you didn’t pay attention to. You don’t waste time on things you wasted time before, whether it be like on the phone, or even the thoughts we think about or the stuff that, you know, the mental gymnastics we do are like that’s not important, you know. And it’s good too for like leadership of like such a big church in school, it’s one decision after another and usually like in the heat of the moment, and I’m I’m good at that, good at that kind of administration. But it can take a toll. And so like these moments to get away and unplug and process. It’s so good for leadership.
00:23:11
Speaker 2: You know.
00:23:12
Speaker 3: Like silence, I think is an essential thing that every good leader needs to intentionally choose. And it’s hard and it should be hard.
00:23:20
Speaker 2: And that.
00:23:21
Speaker 3: I remember coming off the off the mountain this is you know, left Colorado. Of course I stopped at get some gas stations and stuff to get gas. But they were you know, just quick transactions in and out after the week in New Mexico.
00:23:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, see went Colorado and New Mexico, Mexico week in each yeah, ten days and each Yeah, it.
00:23:39
Speaker 3: Was drove out, have a little camper, pulled the camper out. It was in southeast Colorado or south central Colorado and kind of like central New Mexico. So it’s more like the desert like roly Heill kind of juniper pinion areas, which I loved, so fun.
00:23:54
Speaker 2: A little bit former than what we’re using.
00:23:56
Speaker 3: Saw more elk than ever. Couldn’t couldn’t kill one, but.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: You did so you compound bow, but you also did traditional bow too.
00:24:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really got into that last year and it was fun. And a lot of these places it’s so thick anyways, your shots are twenty yards or less, and I mean I feel as confident with my recurve and my longbows at twenty to twenty five yards as I do with my compound. So just fun and it’s a lot lighter to just get a.
00:24:18
Speaker 4: Little stick talk through, like I guess that whole grind so as like practical as you could, So like first four or five days, is there like practices you do like make sure is your phone off and then even post that. I mean, like, yeah, I’ve seen pictures of you like you do sacraments on mountain, all that stuff, the.
00:24:43
Speaker 2: Mass force one year on the mountain.
00:24:44
Speaker 3: Yeah that was cool. And then damn yeah that was fun one morning, real early Sunday. So when you go on these hunts.
00:24:51
Speaker 4: Like there is like you for any other person, Like you can prioritize these things, you know what I mean. So you could go out and just be like, yeah, I’m just gonna hunt, right, and you say, well, I’m gonna get a little bit.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: More out of this as well. Yeah, So going into this, and I was pretty pumped up because I was I was kinda I wasn’t burnt out, but I was right at the edge. It’s just like I was cooked. I needed a break. So I was excited for the break. So that kind of momentum got me the sixteen hour drive out, got me into those first couple of days. And but but I from previous experiences, I know that like these highs and lows come like this adrenaline burns off midday or in the evening when the sun is setting, and then like anxiety can come in. You’re like, man, like what’s going on? And then so just like a big thing for me is like this trip going out, I was like every time that I stop, I’m gonna read scripture. So I have a little bitty leather bound edition of the Gospels, and I had in my pack with me, and every time I would stop for water or to take a break or to do a sit, I would just open it up and read like one little paragraph for a few verses. And and that in itself was just like a really thing, really cool thing, just getting into the word. Also journaling, just righting out the thoughts and stuff that helped to process a little bit. So that’s like two little things that I did.
00:26:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, I like, how do you how do you not spiral by yourself? Because I think you know, each of us go through different stuff and when we spiral out there at least we’re like and with the group, you’re all spiraling together. You’re never gonna like give up and quit, like that’s just not who we are. But you’re gonna like talk about how miserable it is and how much of a weird year it is, and how it’s never like this crazy and it’s just crazy. Like yeah, that’s like the main you know, it’s it’s just never they’re usually moving more or you know, bugling more, and so that’s luckily we have that joke with each other, you know, like when we’re with a new group of guys that we don’t know and those words start to come out again.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: It’s my favorite.
00:26:57
Speaker 1: And so you know, at least you’re with other people, you can kind of like we’re spiraling, but we’re not really spiraling. If I was by myself, I think I might actually spiral, you know.
00:27:08
Speaker 3: Like, well, I’m not gonna lie I do, Like I mean, just the stuff hits the fan and these like you get thoughts and feelings and emotions that you’ve I’m not gonna say you’ve never had. They were there the whole time, but would you we’re just on go all the time, and so it’s easy to compartmentalize that stuff and yeah, pushing them back out of the way and so there you’re forced to stay in toe to toe with them, and that creates a spiral. But the beautiful thing of our Lord is like that’s when like it’s out of the ashes that that we He raises us up, you know, and so it’s like it’s through the death, he died, the resurrection. Then after that that you know, makes eternal life possible and.
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Right and perspective.
00:27:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of it is like also temperament too. Again I mentioned like just all of us as a group, like we’re not we’re not we’re not special in any way, but like we can go to some dark places. I mean physically, we do that every single day, and that plays out in the mountains.
00:28:05
Speaker 2: Now.
00:28:05
Speaker 3: I know a lot of guys who can go deep physically, like go to a dark spot, but they don’t have the mental capacity emotional capacity to do it. They just melt down. But I think us pushing ourselves physically while still having a deep faith life, strong family values, strong family life, and focusing on things beyond us every day, remembering that, Yeah, Lord, I’m not as holy as you made me to be.
00:28:29
Speaker 2: So I just yeah.
00:28:30
Speaker 3: And so it’s just this ongoing thing, you know.
00:28:33
Speaker 2: That’s just.
00:28:36
Speaker 1: I know we’ve talked about like trying to link back up and hunting out West.
00:28:40
Speaker 2: I just cannot.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: You know, there’s some guys listening to this that love doing the solo thing, and I would be fine as long as there’s one two other people mm hmm.
00:28:48
Speaker 2: That’s just by myself. I mean.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: One of the most fun camps we’ve had was this last camp. We had man, and it was you know, we hunted in groups of twos and threes. You’d come back and you’d hear stories of eight, nine or ten of us of like close like my cousins, My uncle Curtis was there, Watkins was their Billings was there, and so you know, like we didn’t really know Jimmy before this all the way and now we’re like friends with him.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: And so it was just so much fun.
00:29:14
Speaker 1: That’s to me, that’s like the ultimate hunting trip, right, is where you hunting groups, you maybe shake the group up a little bit, but then you come back together either in the morning you’re talking trash or evening you’re you know, talking about what happened. And that’s just like peak, right, and that’s what I look forward to. And so going by myself, man, I just it’s so hard for me around my brain around can you. I mean you were you’re a little bit more Like we talked about this, neither one of us are introverts. Neither one of us are really extroverts, but we like like a group of my people.
00:29:44
Speaker 2: I want to be around those people, right, So man, I just being by.
00:29:47
Speaker 4: Myself, Yeah, I don’t, I mean, I don’t like to be by myself.
00:29:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and once in a while I need that like a.
00:29:53
Speaker 4: Day yeah, but still it’s just like at home, like I don’t want to take a week.
00:29:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, and y’all got wives and kids, so that’s a complete game changer. Like all the people that come to me on a daily basis, they’re like they’re my flock at the church, but they’re not my biological kids.
00:30:08
Speaker 2: Or everybody needs something from you exhaust you know. Yeah, there’s no benefit, there’s benefits.
00:30:15
Speaker 1: Sorry I shouldn’t praise it like that, but man, it’s just like everybody needs something from you.
00:30:20
Speaker 2: It’s exhausting.
00:30:21
Speaker 3: You can kind of get defensive and that that’s how I know when I’m getting burnt out whenever, like someone will be walking up to me before the fifty hal marge, before the exactly to the church, you know, like I’m it’s already in my mind, I’m thinking, what does she want? Like what is he going to ask? Yeah? And then yeah, God is so humbling, I mean like he like our journey with the Lord is so humbling. But back to what you were saying, like coming back at the end of the day though, is like the storytelling is like that’s such a fun part of hunting and again connected with the faith. That’s a key part of our faith. I mean, the grind of the day and the story telling at night. That’s that’s what we do, like carrying the cross each day and then calling to mind the greatest story ever told, that of Jesus Christ and like and so it’s no wonder that that that just really resonates with us. When I’m out there alone, It’s like it’s a good reset for me. It’s a good reset. And I think of like my family and my friends when I’m out there, whether it’s healthy or not. When I go out, in my mind, I’m thinking, I don’t want to let them down. I remember maybe two or three years ago I was doing I was in Colorado. I went back to that same unit that we went to and you were like and you were like, why do you keep going back there? And I’m like, because I’m not going to lose here.
00:31:38
Speaker 1: I’m going to go back eventually, but I want to learn as much as I can about everything else before I go back to that.
00:31:43
Speaker 2: Spot, and probably with a rifle.
00:31:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember just telling you guys like, man, I’m just like, I feel.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: Bad pals there that time.
00:31:55
Speaker 3: Nothing. I heard the grouse flying up and scaring the hell out of me. But just I remember like talking with you guys like a little bit later, like man, just letting you down and.
00:32:05
Speaker 1: Like you went back, dude, Yeah, no, I mean you get I get spun up in that.
00:32:11
Speaker 2: You know.
00:32:11
Speaker 1: The hard part for me is, you know, I’m taking a week away from my family and to not come home with anything. You know, you don’t really, Yeah, it’s like a weird My kids we were talking about this the other day.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: You know.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: We have a rule here at the house that I was saying earlier that you have to shoot a buck with a bow and.
00:32:29
Speaker 2: It has to be at least an eight point And it was about.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: A week ago and the buck comes in and I’m looking through the binoses right before light and I’m like one, two, three, four.
00:32:40
Speaker 2: Oh, he’s got four on one side.
00:32:41
Speaker 1: He turned the other it was eight and he’s tiny, like two and a half year old, maybe.
00:32:47
Speaker 2: Eight, a good one in like four years.
00:32:49
Speaker 1: And I’d text Angelo because we were kind of texting back and forth, and told him.
00:32:53
Speaker 2: He’s like, oh, I’d take a small eight.
00:32:55
Speaker 1: And so he was at thirteen yards and he kind of went out about one hundred yards and then he worked his way back at twenty five and my head, I’m like, you know what, I’m taking him?
00:33:04
Speaker 2: And so I shot him.
00:33:05
Speaker 1: Watched him go down ten yards fifteen yards from where he was go back to the house, and just to see like how fired up Trice was.
00:33:13
Speaker 2: I’m like, all right, that makes it. You know.
00:33:15
Speaker 1: He’s it’s like not outside his ears, he’s nothing. But Trice is like that’s a bit because I was like, hey, come on, guys, see, that’s kind of the ritual. If I kill something, I go get the kids if they’re not with me, and I’m like, all right, we’re gonna go clean it. And you know, they’re all part of that. And they love it, man, they love just coming out there and being a part of it. And I’m so like, yah, I shot a little buck. And we get out there and Triyce’s like, it’s not a little buck. It’s a big buck.
00:33:36
Speaker 2: You know.
00:33:36
Speaker 1: That’s all he’s seen his dose being shot here. He’s never really seen a buck. And he’s like, hey, Dad, can I have his head for my wall? And I’m like, yeah, you can’t sun tell everybody you shot it, you know, please, And he was fired up, and so man, it puts things into perspective. I know, like I’m not a trophy hunter by any means. You know, I’ve had friends that are like, oh, you know, why.
00:34:00
Speaker 2: Do you do you post whatever? I’m like, man, do whatever makes you happy, shoot whatever you want.
00:34:04
Speaker 1: And like Chase Hillary’s cousin’s got a uh he’s like a tall, cool seven at their property and he’s never killed anything with a bow.
00:34:11
Speaker 2: And he’s like, you know, all my friends are like, hey, should I let him walk?
00:34:14
Speaker 1: I should let him walk for a year and blah blah blah. I’s like, Chase, would you be happy to shoot that deer? And he’s like, yeah, I’ve never killed anything. I’m like, then shoot it, dude, don’t do it for anybody else. And that it’s hard now social media, right, like you put this pressure on yourself.
00:34:29
Speaker 2: Of oh, it’s got to be big.
00:34:31
Speaker 1: You know people, you know, people are gonna what are they gonna say if I post this little dinky deer or whatever.
00:34:36
Speaker 2: It’s like, man, who cares?
00:34:36
Speaker 1: Whatever makes you And and then you have the whole other like don’t post it if you killed it, if you’re you know whatever. So man, it’s just we’re in a kind of this weird, weird spot.
00:34:45
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I tried on the social media stuff, like when when people put up their their animals, especially if it’s like a small buck or a dough or something, especially them hef it’s a young person, a lady, some guy just getting into hunting. Almost always like try to make a compliment and just like, dude, that’s an awesome spy. You know, a man that’s a big o’dote, just like like like like you said it. Like Fred Beherr, he speaks about this all the time in his books and the different writing or recordings and stuff that he did, the audios and the videos of like any dead animals worth celebrating. Like once, once you’ve put it down, that thing is worth like just being pumped, whether whether it be a slickhead or or a you know, a six by six bull or a ten point deer whatever like And I just really try to do that with people, just like heck, yeah, awesome, awesome animal.
00:35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah man, I think it’s you know, we’re in a there’s already enough noise on the outside. Yeah, And it’s like what we do in CrossFit too, It’s like there’s already enough. Division, man, celebrate the wins, you know, like let people who cares.
00:35:45
Speaker 2: You know. I had a friend that was like, oh, man, I went on a went on a hunt.
00:35:49
Speaker 1: It was guided or it was on private property, not a high fence, nothing, And he was like, I want to kind of you know.
00:35:55
Speaker 2: Help them out and whatever. He’s like, should I tell him? I’m like, dude, the people are gonna be off. We’re gonna be pissed off.
00:36:01
Speaker 1: People are gonna want to, like, you know, say something negative. That are even you know in the hunting community are going to say something negative. And guess what, the people are even think it’s awesome. We’re gonna think it’s awesome regardless. So just post it or however you want to post or however you want to handle that. So yeah, it’s a tough, tough thing.
00:36:16
Speaker 4: And there’s stories behind everyone too that you don’t get, no, you know what I mean. Like I killed this eight point. He wasn’t big, but he was like swamp of Louisiana. He was an old deer and like that was the best deer on that property.
00:36:31
Speaker 2: And a hundred.
00:36:32
Speaker 3: Years those old tanks are just like.
00:36:34
Speaker 4: A hundred years to get that deer and he’s not big, but he ain’t no big deer there either.
00:36:40
Speaker 3: Not a story with it though.
00:36:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, and finally got it. Yeah, like he would show up on camera once a year.
00:36:46
Speaker 1: But I mean that’s this little guys, Like it’s the first bow I’ve had, our first buck, I’ve had within bow range. I’ve had a couple of doze. He’re just like, man, I’m taking it. Yeah, made a good shot. Like that’s what I was happy with. I was like, all right, execute shot. You know, you got to get some experience shootings.
00:37:03
Speaker 2: You know.
00:37:03
Speaker 1: I was in a saddle, had to like go under a tree while hanging off the side of the.
00:37:07
Speaker 2: Tree, and so there was you know, some wins in that for sure. You know you don’t think about it. But man, it’s a man, it’s just awesome.
00:37:15
Speaker 3: You’ve got it some deer this year, huh.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, slaying million birds just the guide, you know, good guide, good guide, good guide.
00:37:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean, honestly, it’s cool. I probably said this before, but like I don’t have to like pull the trigger or kill you know what I mean, Like she kills something, my kids kill something.
00:37:34
Speaker 2: It’s it’s way better.
00:37:36
Speaker 1: Than I mean, I’m I’m that way now too. Is like I obviously I love being the one behind the trigger. It’s my favorite obviously, But now that the kids are getting out there, if I can get one of them to shoot something, or even like last year when we got that one from Matt, not being the one to pull the trigger, but you know, helping him get to it, setting it up, doing the moa Like this is just man, it’s just fun to be a part of that process. And it’s awesome. Do you see Curtis’s son Noah killed to Cali yesterday?
00:38:01
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:38:01
Speaker 1: Pretty awesome kids. So yeah, I mean that’s what it’s about. It is like passing it on to the next generation. If we’re not going to take care of each other, then who’s going to take care of it?
00:38:10
Speaker 2: Moving on?
00:38:11
Speaker 3: So you’re asking about other priests going hunting. I really try to take a new priest each year.
00:38:16
Speaker 4: Is there like a Facebook group?
00:38:19
Speaker 3: These are just got local guys that that, uh that I hang out with. I’m like, hey, would you be interested in going hunting? And it’s just a lot of fun getting them on deer and then just let them just smoke one and yeah, then the whole the whole thing of like just like it was your kid or something like putting a little blood on their face and like blood on their hands from dressing it and everything. It’s just it’s really cool. It’s really really cool. It’s very heartwarming, you know, but it’s.
00:38:43
Speaker 4: So funny, like you because you and I mean you know this, but from the outside, like you lose the humanity.
00:38:51
Speaker 3: So like when you think about.
00:38:52
Speaker 4: A priest and then just doing like normal things that other.
00:38:56
Speaker 2: People relatable first as a yeah, it’s.
00:39:02
Speaker 4: You don’t you don’t think that way when you you know, yeah, it’s even having like PTO days.
00:39:08
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, it’s it’s uh, I wouldn’t call it.
00:39:11
Speaker 2: The P.
00:39:13
Speaker 3: Part of that is the lowercase P. Yeah, it’s just a t O is what it is.
00:39:21
Speaker 2: Time off from the church. Yeah. You know, a.
00:39:25
Speaker 3: Lot of our leaders, it can be easy to like compartmentalize our whole understanding of them to the one way that we relate to them, like a you know, a minister of a church, pastor of different swords, like to think, oh, well that’s all they do, like, oh, guy has race cars, Guy he loves fishing, this guy haunts he this guy’s a musician, and and then you get into their little bubble and yeah, yeah, so fun, fun stuff to be a human, to.
00:39:51
Speaker 2: Be to be a normal person human.
00:39:53
Speaker 3: That’s a big thing. That one of the reasons that I share so much of like the normal stuff that I do, working out or uh or the hunt stuff. That’s the two biggest things, the most the most recent is knife making and uhmith getting. I’m getting all right at her getting them all right, Yeah, but the working out, the knives, the you know, the the hunting stuff. I share those things because it does show that human side of of of me as as a pastor. And that’s exactly what God did. Like this God, who is beyond all things, beyond all time, beyond all creation, the one that created creation, the one that created time. He chooses to become part of that creation in the confines of time and to be with us. And so he breaks down barriers to to do normal stuff. He walked and talked and ate and laughed and cried, you know. And that’s what our Savior did for us. And so like why would we not like share that kind of authenticity, authenticity with you know, with other people. And it’s that’s been a big part of my life. Like I try to encourage people to be honest and spontaneous and like vulnerable, don’t be embarrassed to be who God made them to be. And it’s been really cool it the number of years ago I did Ninja Warrior and that did it for two different seasons and I liked it, like I’m not good at it, but I’m I’m pretty fit, gotta you know.
00:41:21
Speaker 2: And Bill and the Mountain bike race. What was the your time?
00:41:25
Speaker 3: Uh? Sub ten right right at.
00:41:32
Speaker 2: No easy test?
00:41:33
Speaker 3: It was fun, man, it was not fun.
00:41:36
Speaker 2: It was not the uh Ninja Warrior. Sorry.
00:41:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and so it’s just like this random thing, but it was just like like used to use whatever, like do whatever brings you joy and God to work through that, you know.
00:41:51
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, man, I know I’ve always joked as if Stephen was the Catholic priest here, I’d probably go to the Catholic church.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: How you grow up Catholic? But have not?
00:42:02
Speaker 3: You be the maintenance man.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: Maintenance man.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: No, you want my dad for one of the ushers, one of the ushers at you back, I’ll do that one.
00:42:09
Speaker 2: Well, Steven, I appreciate your brother. I think we’re gonna go hunt a little bit this afternoon.
00:42:12
Speaker 3: So let’s do it.
00:42:13
Speaker 2: Let’s do it. Keep being you, man. I appreciate you, I past love you. One of us love you, brother, Peace,
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