In this episode, Bradley Boatman of Red Oak Hunting talks about hunting oak trees down in Arkansas just as it is real people in real places. Bradley and his friends wanted to catalog their hunts, funs, misses, and missteps and came up with Red Oak Hunting. Get his insights on the different strategies he uses when public land hunting, as well as private land hunting and why he uses different strategies between the two. Bradley shares stories from his childhood and how his father and grandfather taught him the hunting tradition, from hunting to processing the meat, and the joy that hunting still brings his family today.
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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Red Oak Hunting Unleashed – Bradley Boatman
I’m excited to have Bradley Boatman on the show. He and his buddies started Red Oak Hunting. What is Red Oak Hunting? Down in Arkansas, they hunt the oak trees, but more important than that, they love showing the hunt as it is, real people in real places. They hunt does and they’ll take does every year to feed the family. They started simply because they wanted to catalog all their hunts, all their fun, their misses and some of their missteps. All in all, he talks about private land hunting and public land hunting. It’s going to be a great show.
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Bradley is with a Red Oak Hunting and Production Company. Bradley, welcome to the show.
I’m glad to be here, Bruce.
I am, too. We got together on social media and thought this would be a fun show. You were telling me about your first filming session. Let’s start right off with that and bring people up to speed on how you and your brother, Brandon, said, “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.” You went ahead and did it.
Growing up, we always watched videos. For us, it was monster bucks videos and stuff like that. We talked about when we’re kids, “Let’s film each other and whatnot.” At 2:00 AM for the opener in Arkansas, we’re sitting on the back porch and I said, “Let’s do this. Let’s run to Walmart and buy a low cheap camera. I’ll build a camera arm and we can do this.” We got a camera. I makeshift this little low junky camera arm with a bow hanger. We showed up out there 30 minutes late to this stand. We had no hope thinking we’re going to kill something. The arrows go off in fifteen minutes after we’re there. We both look at each other and I’m like, “This might be meant to be for us to do this and have fun with it.” It’s how we got started. One of the best parts about that story on how we got started was we have two lock-on stands that we’ve put up. The stand, there’s no wooden ladder stand below us. That’s the stand me and him drug out there by ourselves in our own family land. At the age of ten years old, he killed his first deer off the stand and I killed my first deer alone on the stand. This is some kind of feeling like, “This is meant to be,” deal for us.
Let’s go back to when you were children. You put some 2x4s and some wood, some nails, screws, plywoods, and all that good stuff. You built a stand and dragged it out to the 40 or 50 acres of land?
I own it now and it was my great grandfather’s land. Nobody hunted it. My grandfather and my dad were big public land hunters, so we built this stand. It was a ten-foot ladder stand out of makeshift wood, those planks lying around the house around my grandfather’s shop. We dragged it out there and we put it on this ridge. For some reason, we picked this little white oak and it was a great spot. I killed deer there probably from the age of ten, every year. It’s my go-to spot. Now that I’m older, I think about two young kids, 10 and 11-year-olds, dragging the deer stand 40 acres out there. It’s cool for me. It’s a surreal deal.
You’ve said you have a hang on there or lock-on?
Yeah. We went back in and we put lock-ons above the stand. We never took the stand down. It’s still there. It’s still got three nails that we’ve put in the tree. It is falling apart, but you can still tell it’s an old stand up there.
A lot of you have those types of memories and I’ve got one myself. We call it the point stand. We pinned it to the trees with screws and nails, but the tree kept growing, so that stand is no more because it kept falling apart or it gets torn apart. Be safe with those. There’s no reason to hunting platform stands unless you just built that up. If they’re five years old or older, do yourself a favor and your family a favor. Don’t get into that stand. That’s my two cents. What do you think, Bradley?
We didn’t buy box stands. The box stand was not heard of around our part of the world with my family. Grandpa found a nice tree with a fork in it. We throw a pallet up there. Now, I look at it and I think, “We stayed on some sketchy stuff growing up, but that’s just what we’ve done.” Like you’re saying always, that’s something else I’ve learned. I took a tumble down before. Always have a safety harness on you. I can’t stress that enough either.
Let’s talk about where you are and what you do with Red Oak Hunting Production.
If the good Lord gives you an opportunity to have the animal, you take it. Share on XWe’re in North Central Arkansas, it’s cool. For some people that might start following us or follow us, you’ll hear us talk about the public land bottoms. I can drive twenty miles each way and I can be in the hills or I can be in bottomlands. It’s a unique situation where I’m at. If I want to go hunt mule deer or I want to hunt the bottom of fields or bean fields. We’re going to concentrate a lot on some of our bottomland deer. We’ve laced up a couple of hundred acres with one or two more cows in the fields and we’re proud of what we’ve established on the amount of deer and the growth. It’s a unique situation. It’s the duck capital of the world. We don’t even duck hunt. I get the best of both worlds. I get to mule hunt when the red oak run ridges or I get an early season and late season down in the bottom.
You talked in your bio, “I tell people my public land and private land way of hunting might not kill a pope and young, but you will see and kill a deer. Isn’t that what our old-timers talk us about?” You’ve mentioned it a couple of times about people in the past and how the hunting tradition came to your family. Let’s talk about that hunting tradition because you revere it. There’s no question about it. It’s your grandfather, dad and the rest of the family. Let’s talk about Bradley Boatman’s hunting tradition.
We grew up and everybody in our family hunted. My dad and my grandfather are one of those people. I can’t remember my grandpa taking a picture of a buck he killed or mounting a deer he killed or my dad. I never remember him killing a small buck or doe, but they always killed nice deer. One thing that I realized now was my grandfather told me when I was about 18 or 19 years old, I got into the mix of, “Let’s go make 150-inch to 200-inch deer.” There’s nothing against that, but he told me one time when I let a nice deer walk, “Son, you’re crazy. Was your heart beating? Was your adrenaline up?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “That’s what you’re there for. Don’t take that for granted.” Until this day, I believe that if the good Lord gives you an opportunity to kill an animal, you take it. That’s what you’re there for. You are there to provide, and you’re there for that adrenaline rush and that heartbeat.
They taught me a lot of that, but he would tell us when we were growing up, we’d walk into natural refuges and he would say, “Boys, what do you think about this spot?” He would give us the guidance to be a good hunter, but he let us be our hunter. My brother loves hunting the field edges. My grandfather loves ridges. I love thickets, but we all make it work. He would step us along and help us. My dad, I can’t say enough about the man. We’re playing high school basketball or little league in a school year. When they go hunting come up north, dad was there. He was picking us up, the camper was full and we might be driving 2.5 hours. We’re going to kill deer. We grew up, my grandfather’s too old to hunt and can’t get around. My dad is the same way, but you can still see what they get into when fall comes around. They go to ask, “How’s the summer doing? How are the pictures going? How are the deer looking?” I still enjoy seeing those two guys get pumped up even though they’re not going to be out there with us.
Do you guys archery hunt, rifle hunt or shotgun hunt? How do you hunt whitetails?
We’re mostly archery guys, but I’ve put in for a couple of permits for public land. It’s drawn in Arkansas and we’ll hunt the first weekend. We have a younger brother who is ten. When the youth season comes, we’ll go with him and take him to youth hunt or vice versa. He will go on the hunt there towards the end of the year because we’re 2 to 3 guys that work 60 to 70 hours a week. We try to make the most of every opportunity we have. If I get one day to hunt for the next thirteen days and it’s gun season, I’m going to take the gun with me, but we try to stick mostly with archery.
What about shooting does?
On my lease, I know every deer I have on there. I enjoy preseason, but shooting a doe is a hard subject for me because I’ve had a bunch. I will take a doe in the opening morning of the bow season in Arkansas. A big nice doe walks by and I’m going to shoot her. I’m going to take that first deer of the year. My family’s ready for venison. I’ll kill two does a year. I’ll kill one early and I’ll kill one late. I will buck hunt through the middle of the year. I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you’re a guy that’s working every day and you enjoy hunting with a bow, you’re in the stand on public ground and you found deer and a nice doe walks by you, you kill it. If that gets your heart racing, that’s what you’re there for, take it. There’s nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. I don’t believe in going out and slaughtering. The state of Arkansas has a doe hunt and I wouldn’t say I’m against it, but it’s a private land doe hunt. I do think a lot of does are taken that should be, but if it’s one of those deals that if that’s what you’re there for, take it. If that’s what you put your time in for, take that opportunity.
How many deer can you take in any one year?
In Arkansas, you’re allowed to antler deer. It’s six altogether, two bucks and four does with archery equipment. I’m not positive on the muzzleloader. You’re allowed one with the muzzleloader gun. That tells you how much I muzzleload-gun hunt. I don’t fill my tags. I go by feeling when I’m on the stand, that’s how I fill my tags.
Do you put up the meat yourself or you have somebody process it for you?
I do process the meat myself. That’s something we’ve all learned growing up. My dad taught us how to process. I have a big industrial grinder, meat saw and all that. I’ll process everybody in the family’s deer for them and pack it up for everybody.
That’s one of the things I miss about Colorado. I came out of Wisconsin and we go hunting either out west or hunting on the farms there and get a whole bunch of deer count. We’d spend the next 1.5 days making sausage and kielbasa, the chops and the grind. That was half of the fun on the hunt because we’d be talking about all the different types of stuff, watching the Packers game and all of that. I missed that because I can remember the stainless steel tables and we had an assembly line going. It was fun. If you have never done that, figure it out. Get in with some buddies and figure it out because it’s something about putting up the first killing and harvesting your deer and then turn it into pure organic food. Why do you like hunting thickets rather than ridges or the edge cover?
I’ll break the seasons down into a couple of different seasons for me. You have a preseason, which is what I enjoy most and you run the cameras. In the early season, at any point in time if you could stay where the foods at and fool their nose as best as you can, I believe you have a great opportunity. In my opinion, it might vary for some people. In Arkansas, most of the public lands, there’s not as much pressure as private land hunting. When I do my private land hunting, I will bump close to those thickets. The deer for me, where I’m at, will travel to the thicket. In late November, they’ve been shot every day. They’re not going to walk right down the middle of that beautiful ridge. They’re going to stay in the nasty thick stuff. That’s why if I find a nice thicket, if I find a ridge or shelf next to it, I’ll bump off that thicket 30 to 40 yards. Where I’m at, how I hunt my public land is a deer is going to travel to the thickets. The rut is different for me. I will hunt on a ridge on the rut. That’s about the only time I hunt on ridge or shelf. I haven’t had great luck with it. I believe deer are using that thicket. If you’re moving and you’re on high alert, you’re not going to walk down the middle of the main street. You’re going to stay covered and sneak around. They feel safer in a thicket.
Do you take stands in? How do you hunt it? What time of the day do you get in there?
In public land, I will sit all day. I have fourteen different stands on two different sections of public land. I go and hunt. In my private land, my lease is our family land. We always had the same stands in there. With trail cameras, nowadays, it takes the excitement out of it. From October 31st until December 1st, I will sit all day. In the early season, I will get in with camera equipment and everything, 1 to 1.5 hours before dark every day. I will sit up to 10:00 to 11:00. In deer rut, sometimes, I might not start hunting until 9:30. I might not go in, but I don’t hunt in the 9:30 to 1:30 and 2:30 range when I’m buck hunting. I’ve had a lot of success in that. If you are hunting in a high-pressured area, you’re going to lay down. If a deer is working at night, for me, I feel like I’m going to be more able to see him on his feet during the day, in the middle of the day when he thinks things have calmed down and there are not many people running in and out. The roads are not hot. That’s where I’m at on that part of it.
I’ll go hang my stands a month before the season starts. I’ll get them established because one thing I see a lot of people do on private land is they want to check cameras every weekend. I don’t believe that’s the right thing to do. I believe that you’re showing deer that there’s more pressure. You might have a nice deer coming in, I’m only getting in twice, stay out of there. Because it’s summertime, don’t tell me they’re not alert because they are. When I hang my cameras, I run my mineral stations every three weeks, it might be two weeks because the deer knows that they’re going to be there. They slip in and slip out, fool their nose. I’m big on the scent, on fooling the deer’s nose. If you can do those things, you can be successful. They’re going to move different early season. They’re going to move late or they’re going to move rut or preseason. They’re not going to be spending in a soybean field on September 1st. The soybean field is going to be gone. I call it the four seasons of deer season. You have to adapt to those seasons and we’ve done that. We’ve been successful in doing that.
What are your four seasons?
I have your preseason, doing a lot of scouting. You got your early season and it’s like pre-season. You can keep them on their schedule. They’re more on schedule. You have your rut and then your late season. I enjoy the early season and late season more than I enjoy the rut. A lot of people think that’s crazy, but I can pattern a deer a lot easier early and late. Find the food and fool their nose. If you can find the food and fool their nose, they get to eat. They’ve got to eat at some point in time.
Let’s talk about why that’s critical for your hunting success.
A deer has to eat. A human has to eat. Deer are going to eat at some point in time. There’s nothing wrong with this. I’m not telling anybody wrong. I’m telling people what I have found successful. I’ve been more successful in finding deer in red oaks and white oak. They’re still growing up late in the year. It might be in the off-spot, 75 yards off the road, but deer are going to be there. They know those acorn trees are there. They know there are acorns on the ground. If you can get in there to where they’re feeding that, they’ve got to eat at some point. It’s hard enough going into a deer’s bedroom and beating them in their environment. Don’t complicate things on yourself. Make things easier. You don’t have to walk two miles to find an acorn tree or a persimmon tree. There can be one that’s 200 yards of your grid and you’re going to see the amount of deer walking for miles. I’m not saying either way is wrong, but when you’re hunting a bedding area, you’re going into their bedroom trying to beat them at their own game. That’s hard to do with a whitetail deer.
When you go to set up a late-season, are you setting up a hang-on stand or are you just ground blinding? How are you hunting them?
In Arkansas, there's not as much pressure in public land as there is in private lands. Share on XI will have a lot of lock-on stands. There are a couple of places around the house that are public land that has a lot of small pin oaks and CRP. You can’t get up in there, but it is deer heaven when you get there. Those little pin oaks are throwing them off. I will hunt on ground blinds at the end and I’ll carry in and out. I will not leave them. It’s simple enough to carry them in and out and then be successful. I enjoy lock-on stands as much as I do a lighter stand. One thing I’ve probably don’t run out of the box stand. It’s hard for me to shoot a bow and get comfortable in one.
I have a hard enough time in a pop-up ground blind. Even shooting with my crossbow, it’s interesting. I don’t need it when I have a buck or doe in front of me. I want to be in locked on and get it done, that’s for sure. How are you passing the hunting tradition? I know you and your brother are doing some filming. Do you share that with the people in the neighborhood? What are you doing with your film?
I have a baby brother and he’s eleven years old. I have a daughter that’s nine and every youth hunt, every chance, they’re with us. My daughter has yet to kill a deer and she’s a little soft-hearted, but she enjoys being in the woods. My baby brother is in that phase of, “That’s not a monster.” We took him and we set a box stand and some family members. A buck comes out and he got the jitters. He was jittery and he ended up killing the deer. He shot it, it knocked the deer and everything else. I said, “I don’t want to hear nothing about how big his horns were because you were shaking. It’s all beat out. That’s what you’re there for, buddy. That adrenaline is what you’re there for.”
He’s big in the bow fishing now. We try to take him every chance we get to show him how we learned or how grandpa taught us how to hunt and how to be successful with things. I want him to enjoy being in the woods more than anything. I don’t want him to see it like it’s a job. A lot of people make hunting a job, “I want to kill the big 140 and 160.” That’s great, but where I come from, we don’t have 25 Pope and Youngs running around the county. We got a few. Be successful, have fun at it and don’t make it work because when it becomes work, that’s when it’s not funny anymore.
I wanted to give you an opportunity to give some shoutouts to any companies that support you and your brothers and sisters.
I want to thank my brother. We’ve come a lot closer over the past couple of years doing this. Two guys we’ve met were Mitchell Farmer and Gavin Gentry. We’re going to plan and have a great year. They’ve been top-notch to us when we were first getting started. They were the guys who stood by us that whatever we’d done. Hawk Stands and IWOM Outerwear, they’re great people. I couldn’t ask for better folks that support us. We try to put on a good show. I’m hoping maybe connect to a few web shows and stuff like that. Regardless, we’re going to have a great time doing what we’re doing. We have no ambition of making it big time. If we do, we do. If we don’t, we’re going to sit back there on the ridge and keep doing our thing every year after year.
Bradley Boatman, this has been fun and I look forward to staying in touch with you and see how you guys are doing. I’m saying that on behalf of thousands of followers across North America to Whitetail Rendezvous. Thanks for being an awesome guest.
I appreciate it a lot. We’re just small-town guys and maybe people watch our show and hopefully, they do. Maybe I was a little erratic and everywhere. It’s the first time I had done this, but I hope people enjoy it for you.
I hope they enjoy it for you. You get to work. Be safe.
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Here in Whitetail Rendezvous, we love helping veterans, promoting teams that are out there helping veterans, and volunteering. These people aren’t paid. One of the guys that I’ve got on the show is Brett Bastian of Warriors Never Give Up and Cofounder of Warrior Arrow. What’s that all about? That gives you an opportunity to support Warriors Never Give Up because what Brett found a long time ago, he wants to give back. He wants to help those people that are struggling right now. It was awesome to hear about the testimonies on how his little group out there in Dakotas has changed people’s lives.
Important Links:
- IWOM Outerwear
- Hawk Stands
- Brett Bastian – future episode
- Warriors Never Give Up