#485 Taking Kids Outdoors With Mission Outside – Aaron Towns

April 20, 2018

WTR Aaron | Taking Kids Outdoors

 

Through MissionOutside, Aaron Towns aims to introduce hunting and the outdoors to kids with little to no exposure to hunting at all. As a kid with no connection to hunting as well, he was only introduced to hunting after his college years and has loved it since then. Aaron talks about how he wants the kids to not only have memories but also have the tangible things to take back home after the camp. From failures to success, Aaron also shares his own experiences in hunting and what he learned from them.

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Taking Kids Outdoors With Mission Outside – Aaron Towns

We’re heading down to the Carolinas and were going to meet up with Aaron Towns. Aaron has got an interesting story you’re going to learn on the podcast. He’s a late bloomer into the hunting world and there are some good reasons for that. The thing that caught my eye about Aaron is he’s got something special for kids and he calls it Mission Outside. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Bruce. I appreciate it.

Let’s start right off the bat and talk about Mission Outside and what it is, why you grew it and where you want to take it.

To give a little context of why I created Mission Outside, I’ll give a back story for myself. Growing up, I was the typical kid that’s playing sports year-round. I didn’t have any family members that hunted so that was something I was never exposed to. Over time, I turned into a video game junkie and put myself into an introvert as I like to say, playing way too many video games. Eventually my mom said, “You need to get out and meet some friends.” In high school, I started doing that. Fast forward to after I graduated college one of my best friends, Brandon Thornton asked me, “Do you want to go on a duck hunt when you come home for Christmas Eve?” He’s one of those friends that he could ask you to sit in a prison cell with him and you’d want to do it because it’s a good time. I was like, “Let’s go do it.” We went out there and had a good time. We didn’t even shoot anything. We just saw some ducks but we enjoyed the outdoors and socialized out there.

He planted the seed for me as he opened my mind up to hunting. Fast forward four, five more years and a friend, Will Newton, had been asking me, “Do you want to go hunting? Go to my honey hole.” After years of him asking I finally said, “Sure. Let’s go hunting.” We had a successful morning and that seed that Brandon planted began to blossom. A month later, unfortunately, Will passed away. It was one of those out of body experiences where I believed his passion for hunting and obsession transferred over to me and from that point on, I became obsessed.

All I did was research, watch YouTube videos, read blogs and got enamored with how do I become a successful whitetail hunter. I’ve always had a calling to serve other people whether it was coaching basketball for middle school kids or doing charity work with my wife. I was like, “How do I take outdoors and hunting and give that to somebody else? Give that experience.” I had an a-ha moment where I was like, “I grew up not around hunting at all. Why don’t I try to go find those kids that have zero exposure to hunting and introduce them to that?” Maybe I could change one kid’s life.” From that, Mission Outside was born.

How do you find your kid? Is it through churches? Is it through schools?

I’m keeping it to a small group. I want to have no more than ten kids. Right now it’s between people I know in business where they said, “I got a ten, eleven, twelve-year-old kid that I want to get into hunting or at least see if they’re interested in it.” It’s purely through networking. I got the Mission Outside page and we’re getting disclosure there as well. Right now, it’s primarily through friends, family and business associates.

If someone wants to reach you on social media how would they do that?

They can reach me on Facebook at Mission Outside. Our Instagram is @MissionOutside and on Twitter, I have @BeginnerHunters that I created that years ago. I knew I wanted to do something to get back to the people getting into hunting but at the time I didn’t have a clue that it was going to be Mission Outside or a camp. I created that handle years ago and I have been sitting on it waiting until I figured out something to do with it.

You also have a shop I saw on Spotify, on your website. There’s this clothing apparel.

We’re doing several things differently at our camp. When a kid comes in, I don’t want them to just come to the camp, learn, have a good time then leave and go home not having any tangible items to take home and practice or continue to practice. One of the things differently is when kids come to the camp, they’re actually going to leave with a bow, arrows, a target, fishing pole, things like that and I was like, “I’ve got to fund it.” I know my wife is not going to allow me to spend so much money before I get to figure something out. My two-year-old daughter, when she was born, I was looking for onesies and I could not find any that related to how I feel about hunting. There’s one or two that Cabela’s has. With my zero design talent I decided I was going to create a couple designs and the MissionOutside.com launched. I’ve been selling onesies and shirts, but mainly onesies and toddler shirts for the past months.

The hunting tradition is about being around good people, having a good time, and bringing a little meat to the table for the family. Share on X

Are they all camo?

No. Not one of them is camo. I’ve been keeping it pretty basic. They are onesies that are white. Mission Outside shirts have different colors but it’s basic at this point.

People come and they buy some of your stuff.

We launched a couple of spring onesies and up to five t-shirts for turkey. We have one that says, “Spring Fever,” and then there’s one that has initials that’s more customized with the Easter bunny. We’re selling those right now and trying to help raise funds for the camp.

All the money that you raise, obviously you’ve got to pay for the goods, but then it all goes to the camp.

It 100% goes to the camp.

If somebody said, “I like that and I want to support, Aaron,” how would they do that?

They would go to www.MissionOutside.com and there they can purchase products. Secondly, I’ve had other people reach out to me via one of the social platforms and they’ve said, “I want to help out. I’m willing to donate. I’m willing to give you certain gear to help go towards the camp.” That’s the other way that people have been reaching out. It starts a conversation for partnerships because they say, “We like what you’re doing. We want to get kids in the outdoors. How can we help?” That’s been awesome to see the outreach from the hunting community.

How about crowdfunding? Have you tried that?

No. I had not tried crowdfunding and I didn’t even think of something like that, to be honest.

You’re a natural. One, people know you. Two, you have a social media presence. There’s no failing in crowdfunding. If you got a dollar, you’re ahead. There’s enough interest and you could do fun things with that to generate some interest. Especially if you said, “We have ten kids for five days. All in, it’s going to cost me $20,000,” whatever the number is. That’s for peanut butter sandwiches, bows and arrows or whatever. You can lay it out that way and say, “Here’s what we like to do. My wife and I will chip in $5,000, and now we need $15,000 to do it.”

Why not? That’s a good idea. Certainly, I’ve been going the hard route in reaching out to people at this point and that’s a good idea. I’ll have to look into that.

WTR Aaron | Taking Kids Outdoors

 

Sometimes we don’t ask and that hampers us. We just don’t ask.

I’m in sales professionally, I don’t have a hard time asking and I’ve been listening to the industry trying to reach out and find the right players. It’s what I do in life. I’ll eventually get in front of the right people. At this point I’ve been asking, “Can you give me a discount for one camo shirt?” I’ll put Mission Outside on it, give it to the kids. I was willing to pay for it but I was hoping that maybe I can get a discount price.

There are a lot of good people out there obviously in the outdoor industry. A gazillion people are looking for handouts and looking for stuff that they’re trying to hit all the time. I get that. Kids resonate with everybody because they’re the next generation. They are our future of hunting and if we don’t get them involved, it’s not going to be nice. You’re 32, 33 years old.

Yes.

You seem to have changed this in your own old life. It was a tremendous amount of change in my life. We’re going down this trail because we need to get involved in kids’ lives. Whatever that looks like, however that works for you, we still need to do that. On the one-off, you get with the programs like Mission Outside. There are lots of programs and you’ve heard some of them on this show. Give it a thought and let’s go back to your hunting tradition. You mentioned some of it where a couple of buddies got you involved. The hunting tradition, what does that mean to you?

One thing that I’ve learned from getting introduced to hunting is I believe hunting lives deep down in our DNA, in our soul. It’s just a matter of bringing that out. I never in a million years thought of being a hunter as a young kid, but once I got taken in and exposed to it, to me it felt like a natural thing to where that’s all I wanted to do was hunt. From a tradition standpoint, I have a big group of friends that we plan our schedules around trying to hunt together whether that’s whitetail hunting in South Carolina or there’s a group of us going to Idaho in September to chase some elk and bear. It’s being around good people, having a good time and trying to put a little meat in the freezer and bring to the table for the family. That’s the way I feel about the hunting tradition to me.

Other than the two guys you’ve mentioned, were there any other people that were instrumental in giving you a field?

Yes, there are a couple of buddies. Joey Page was one. He’s given me access to property here in the Carolinas and I always ask him questions about how to be a successful hunter. I’m constantly reaching to him and asking questions. Another buddy, Josh Prowler, he and I probably hunt together the most. We plan our schedules on a weekday. Anytime I go back to Tennessee, my best friend, we always find time to get out in the woods together and have a good time.

What gear do you shoot?

I shoot a PSE bow. I bought that one on Craigslist when I first wanted to get into it. Since then I’ve upgraded to a newer PSE. I have been shooting that. I killed my first doe with it. I’ve had a lot of tough lessons to learn since then. I practice probably three or four times a week. No matter how good you are shooting in the backyard at 40, 50 yards, it’s funny when that deer is in front of you, it can play tricks with your mind. I got it a couple of times.

What is your mood or do you get target panic?

One, I jumped the string. I’ve heard it a million times about them jumping the string. I just didn’t think that it could jump it like that or when I was shooting, I didn’t factor for its jump. It definitely knew I was there. It was on high alert and it went right over its head for about a time it didn’t duck. The second incident, I didn’t factor in the winds. It was a 40-yard shot, he read the script and the wind was blowing like 35 miles per hour and I ended up shooting too far back. I blood trailed him, jumped him up three different times and eventually got to a point where we got to a land that we couldn’t access to continue the chase. That was unfortunate.

The mental part is the hardest part to get over in hunting. You got to go in there with the right mindset that’s for sure. Share on X

Let’s talk about those situations. There’s a good teaching moment here. The last one got some wind, you let go and it hits a little further back. You could see that right away. Do you have feathers on your bow or anything showing the wind and how hard is it blowing or not blowing in the directions?

No, I don’t have a feather on my bow. I’ve heard of some other people using little wind indicators, but I’ve never thought about putting it on there.

Next time you go duck hunting, get the downy feathers, not the solid heavy feathers. Take that, find a thread and I used to glue them in. I don’t shoot a compound anymore because my body is beaten up but when I did, that’s what I did. A breath of wind will tell you exactly where it is. You get to know if it moved an inch and the wind is about this much. If it goes out straight to the outside, it’s going 20 to 30 miles an hour. It shows you the thermals and it goes up and down. It’s a good trick and it’s simple that would cost you absolutely nothing. You get a feather, you get a piece of black thread or you could use yellow thread, it doesn’t matter and then you glue it on there. You don’t have to tie it on because there’s no weight. There is some weight, but it’s minuscule and then you can see the draft and then you say, “At that angle, I’m not going to shoot my bow at that distance.” As you go through and process, you pick up little tricks and you go, “Here’s my go and no go.” Probably if you realized it, you wouldn’t have shot that arrow.

The wind was howling pretty good.

It’s understood, but those are little tricks that all of a sudden you say, “No, he’s going to walk,” because it just isn’t the right situation. We’ve all injured deer. That happens in archery hunting for a lot of reasons. I’ve injured an elk. I hit him too high and I hit it perfectly. I hit him on top of the lungs and he didn’t bleed a lot. He went to a different ranch and you know the story there. That’s the way it happens and you think about that. What was the other situation where you jumped your string?

There were a couple of does. The first one busted me and second one kept walking and then all of a sudden she stopped. She alerted the first doe and looked right at me. I was at full throttle and it was a 25-yard shot. I had the moment on my bow and she dropped and it went right over her back.

Isn’t it amazing how they do that?

That is unbelievable to me that they can do that. I can’t get over it. I’ve heard about it and seen it on TV. You don’t think they drop that much when you’re in the tree. It’s mind-blowing, to be honest.

We’re predators and they know one way to get away from predators is to do that. I don’t know who teaches them though. That’s the thing I don’t know. Do they go to school or a YouTube channel or what? Think about it, who teaches them that when they hear a thunk or whatever, you got to drop?

They have Bruce on Whitetail Rendezvous that’s teaching them all about hunting hunters and how to avoid them, I guess.

I guess so, I don’t know, but that would be interesting to ask a deer. I don’t think they’ll tell us. My best story on that whole thing was mule deer hunting. I was hunting in Colorado and I was in a good trail. Everything was right. I was in a treestand. You can use a treestand out in Colorado and it doesn’t have to all be from the ground. It’s no secret, but guys have been doing it for years. I could see he’s coming up and I see his horn. It’s a nice four, eight-pointer. He’s coming up and I’m locked in probably 40 yards. That sucker knew I was there. I don’t know how, but he knew I was there.

I got set up and he’s walking right behind the shoulder, right exactly where I want to be and I let it go. That sucker spun, so I hit the off-shoulder. The left shoulder became the right shoulder and my jaw dropped. He completely spun by the time it took from the arrow to get A to Y, 300 feet per second-ish at 40 yards. That’s no time at all but he completely spun. The arrow was flapping. It didn’t penetrate, and then he went back the way he came and went and found the arrow. He just walked off. I’ll never forget how fast that deer spun inside out and the shot was good. I hit it right where I wanted to hit it. Think about that. We’re talking about predators and how they know what to do. That guy knew something wasn’t right as soon as he heard that thunk. He probably was shot at before. He spun in place inside out and I’ll never forget how they can do that. Elk hunting, talk to me about that.

WTR Aaron | Taking Kids Outdoors

 

I went elk hunting years ago. I got completely obsessed with being out in the mountains, being on public land going down that road. It’s been something different than the whitetail world. I went with four guys then. We’re returning plus adding two more. We went to the Sweetwater National Forest. One thing I love about it is that I wasn’t necessarily in the greatest shape until my wife gave me for our anniversary my first elk hunt. Ever since then, health has been a big thing to me and I believe it. It all started with that mountain hunt and ever since then I’m working out all the time doing legs twice a week trying to make sure I’m in shape for those hard hills in Idaho.

Where is the Sweetwater? What’s the biggest town around there?

We fly into Lewiston. It’s about an hour and a half away from there, then it’s quite a drive once you get into the national forest. Elk River is the nearest city. That’s where all the people live there. We’re looking forward to it. We’re going the Shattuck Creek Outfitters, that’s a family-run business. My buddy, Joey Page, has been going for years. They’re an awesome group of people and family. They know their business and it’s nice to go with them and learn the ropes of the Western hunt since I’m not that familiar with it.

Be ready to get your butt kicked.

That was an eye-opener, that first elk hunt. That’s for sure.

It’s funny to watch these guys. They think they’re big and tough or smaller and wiry, it doesn’t matter. If you haven’t experienced it, I don’t care how good of shape you’re in, mentally it kicks your butt because it’s so hard.

The mental part is the hardest part to get over. You’ve got to go in there with the right mindset that’s for sure. One of the guys I know, he’s got one of this “can’t quit” attitude and he does well. You could tell he’s in pain, but he won’t quit and he keeps powering through it. If you have that attitude about yourself and mental capacity, you’ll do fine. That’s one thing that I’ve learned out there.

The best thing is the longer the hunt, the better your odds. People physically break down. Instead of having six guys in the field, you’ve got three guys or two guys and then you get their whole thing. They go, “This guy can hack it. We’re going to go over to Jim Bob’s honey hole then we’re going to see if we get an elk out.” That’s the truth. A lot can be said to that on the whitetail’s side. If you think about whitetail hunting, I don’t know if you’re in suburbia, but there are some critters. Probably not too far from you, there’s whitetail deer. We take them for granted. Many people take their 40, 80, 160 whatever for granted and they don’t hunt it like they paid $10,000 to hunt that land. What are your thoughts on that?

I completely agree with that. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of access around here. I was reaching out for permission for hosting the camp and I was even struggling to get access for that. We drive an hour to go hunt and that’s about as close as you’re going to find a good property to hunt and that’s typically timberland, timber-owned properties. Many people that own 40 acres go over to the same spot every single time. They don’t think of strategies of how to best utilize that 40 acres. I had access to 37 acres with my friend, Joey, and it was interesting to watch. You can come up with a strategy for that 37 acres and utilize the whole thing to become successful and harvest the deer. That was interesting. I’ve always had a 1,700-acre strategy and this was the first time I’ve got the option to hunt 37 acres.

I was talking to a guy in Wisconsin, Cliff Hanlers. He owned 40 acres for twenty years or something. Every year he takes a 150 buck off of that 40 acres. Out of the 40 acres, almost 30 acres is all sanctuary. Where the sanctuary is, that’s where the food is too, but it makes it easy for them to live. He only hunts one or two days a year. That’s what he does and the rest of the time he takes care of his deer. I submit to you Aaron and all readers, think about your 40 acres and strategically figure out how you can maximize for the biggest deer near the area. It may not be a 150, 125 might be the biggest deer and that’s okay, it is what it is. I go back to people who spend thousands of dollars coming out west and hunting. I was talking to a guy. It was $6,500 to hunt on his ranch in Kansas for one whitetail. It’s worth it. He’s got big deer and everything, but hunters spend a lot of money.

You and your crew collectively are going to spend a boatload of cash and God bless you. I’m thankful for your wife to let you hunt. You think about what impact we have on local economies but you bring it back home. If guys would think about where they hunt and not just, “I’m going to go out to the stands in a sit here for a couple of hours and see what happens.” That’s a wrong mentality in my opinion. We talked about jumping the string and I don’t have a solution for that except don’t let them know you’re there. Hunting in the wind, there’s a couple there. What about some of the other lessons learned that you’re taking forward and applying?

One of the lessons learned for me is finding success. I know that’s not necessarily hunting that’s going to make you kill more deer. That was one thing I learned. I had my own definition of success and you’ve got to make sure you don’t judge other people’s definition of what success is. It may be the first deer that walks out in front of them or maybe it’s a booner. Social media can hurt people and make them think they have to kill a booner. When you hunt in South Carolina, the biggest deer in the property is a 137-inch. That was one lesson I learned. For me, I had to get over that piece. I’m a stickler about winds. I remember one of the first years of hunting, the stand would be good for wind but I wanted to take the shortest route and the shortest route wasn’t the best way with the wind. I couldn’t get over why I couldn’t see any deer. I remember I was like, “I’m going to change this up,” and I took the long route where the wind was always in my favor. It never was going to blow to where I thought the deer was going to come from and it was crazy to me the number of sightings, the number of deer I saw once I changed that little bit of strategy in my hunting.

Typically, successful hunters are persistent and out of the box thinkers and those things all play in to being a leader. Share on X

Isn’t that amazing? They know you’re there.

They do. I believed they do. They patterned us as we patterned them. I’m confident.

I like the point you brought up. There are some hard ways into the stands and easy ways in the stand and the best way into the stand. You have to sort that out. I’ve stopped hunting some stands. If it isn’t right, I’m not going to hunt that stand even though I know there’s good deer in that area. I’m not going to hunt that stand because I’ve had too many deer bust me or you see them cruising through but they’re not even close. I can’t get a shot.

If I have A, B and C where I like to hunt and know there are good bucks, if the wind’s not right, I’ll go to a new spot and sit on the ground. I don’t have to stand there so I won’t mess up one of my primary spots. It’s important. People try to force the subject like, “I’m out here. I’ve got to go hunt where this big buck was on camera three times,” and it doesn’t typically work out for them.

No, it doesn’t and I’m guilty of it. If I want to go hunting, you get all juiced up and say, “I want to get out there,” and that might be the wrong thing to do.

Sometimes things are not in our favor and it’s best to take a day off. In my case, I’ll spend it with my wife and two kids. I almost hunt 60 plus days when I didn’t have kids. Since I’ve had them, I had to be a little bit more selective. My wife is friendlier and more forgiving than most wives. I still get in over 30 hunts during whitetail season and probably another fifteen during turkey. I’ve learned to be a little more selective of which days I’ll go. If it’s hot, I’ll pass. I’d rather burn that day another time when the weather is more in favor of the hunting.

You should probably put that out on social media. There are a lot of guys and girls too, passionate, focused lady hunters that are on fire. You get deer fever and everything else go out the window. Unfortunately, that might not be the right course of action.

My wife, she’s quick to let me know if I have hunted too much. She’ll be like, “It’s time for you to take a day off too.” She’s not afraid to tell me that.

You’re in your 30s. What are the three or five things that you’ve already learned about hunting that are helping you at work, helping you develop relationships with other people? What are those things?

I sat in front of a board at a wildlife club. We’ll take it back to the kid aspect because from my perspective there’s a lot to be learned there to become a hunter. I travel around and meet Fortune 500 executives, $100 million to billion-dollar companies as well. A lot of them are outdoorsmen and a lot of them are hunters. To become a successful hunter, you’ve got to fail. There are a lot of failures involved in becoming a successful hunter. You don’t just get to go out there and harvest a deer every single time you go. There are strategies and if you fail, you try to learn and figure out what you need to do differently.

There are aspects to it. There’s persistence. Typically, successful hunters are out of the box thinkers and those things all play into being a leader. In my case, as a business person, I truly believe it helps me. Lastly, it’s the networking aspect of it. Hunting has helped me network in my own professional career. Being an outdoorsman has helped. What can be wrong with getting kids into the outdoors? That’s always when I have parents say, “I don’t think I want to get my kid in.” I mentioned those things about failure, success, persistence, being an out of the box thinker, being a strategizer and then networking. It’s interesting, typically I can see the light bulbs go off in the parent’s head and I’m like, “I can give you real business people that are successful hunters and it could directly correlate to success in their own career, whatever that may be.” Whether you’re the manager of a mechanic shop or either vice president of supply chain for a Fortune 500 company, it directly correlates.

I can attest to that because I don’t know if I work like I hunt or hunt like I work. I’ve got my butt kicked more than once, but then you stay after. That’s the persistence part of it.

If you’re a hunter, you’re not a quitter. Some of the hardest working people I know are hunters. Those are traits that anybody, no matter what you do, it’s all positive traits.

Sometimes it’s really easy to stay in bed. I can think of the time in Wisconsin it’s below zero. I have some backup stands, I don’t have to go a quarter-mile from the bunkhouse but I’m in deer. I see deer every time I go back there. When you think about the persistence of it and them, you think about adaptation because whitetails will adapt to us. They’ll adapt to their terrain. In Charlotte, there’s deer in the city limits. I’m sure there are.

I see them in my front yard every few days. They’re here. Bucks are here as well. You can’t shoot them and it’s frowned upon in city limits. It’s crazy what you’ll see out here. I’m talking about giant massive bucks.

Put a trail camera out there. Do you have a trail camera out there?

No, I don’t and I should because I have a creek that backs up. I’m afraid that somebody’s going to steal it because kids will play through it.

Lock it in. Get one of the big lockboxes, bear boxes, but that would be cool.

I hung up a deer in my backyard and cleaned it out. My wife was like, “The neighbors are going to call the cops on you. They think that you killed one of these deer in the backyard.” I definitely didn’t do that.

Do you have anything more to add? Call me when you go out to Colorado at least to say hi. I’d love that. The other thing, I’ve done a little bit of hunting in the west if you have some questions. You’re on the Sweetwater River. You’re in the tough country, and it’s not an easy country though.

It was tough that’s for sure. I appreciate you having me on, bringing the exposure to Mission Outside and what we’re trying to do. I would probably close with two things from my end. For the whitetail hunters, there are plenty of us that are great in getting kids in the outdoors, but I do see on social media, “I’m tagged out. I’m done for the year.” I put it out there a couple of times and challenged them, “Don’t be done for the year.” Ask a neighbor, “Do you want your kid to go hunting?” Find a kid and take them out there and let them see wildlife. If they don’t want to hunt, just let them go out there and experience it. That would be one thing I would challenge your readers to do.

Secondly, from a whitetail perspective, the eastern half of the US is private land. We need to focus on public land as well even though we’re whitetail hunters and I’ve been hunting private land since I’ve been hunting. Let’s keep the public land access and opportunity in our mind and help support keeping public lands in public hands. I’m a member of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. They’re on the leadership board for the state of North Carolina that they’re starting up. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’ve talked to a lot of hunters here in the Carolinas and I asked them to help join in and they’re like, “I’ll never hunt public lands.” We’re all seeing that lands are going away. They’re building on every 50-acre, 100-acre parcel. If you find 300 acres, it has a For Sale sign. We’re losing access. I think about getting kids in and I also think about a few generations down. I want my kids’ kids to have access to public lands. I want it to be one of those opportunities that they have to hunt so let’s fight to protect that for generations to come.

Well said, Aaron Towns. This has been fun. I’ve enjoyed talking to you and hearing about your stories, about your mission and the type of guy you are. You’re welcome on the show anytime.

Thank you, I appreciate it. It was good talking to you and I’ll definitely keep in touch.

Coming up next is a good friend from Iowa, Brandon Dahms. Brandon and a crew of his started Trophy Bucks of Iowa. Go to Facebook and type in Trophy Bucks of Iowa and you’re going to see pictures. They’re not all wall hangers. It might be a doe. It might be a spike. It might be a young kid, mom, dad, grandfather but they’re all whitetail hunters and each and every photo is a trophy especially to them. We’re going to talk about that. We’re also going to talk about what’s happening in Iowa and the trophy potential that everybody knows about. There’s some trophy potential on public land and if you’re willing to do some work and do some DIY, there are opportunities there. Brandon’s not going to give away any honey holes but he is going to give you some insights you might want to think about. It’s hard to get a tag in Iowa. It takes four years or so for an archery tag, but if it will be a lifetime shot, Iowa is the place to go.

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