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Bruce: Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This morning, we have a really special guest, Zachary Overman — he goes by Zach — from Southeast Kansas. He runs a cow cattle [SP] operation, plus he’s very involved with New Generation Outdoors. Zach, welcome to the show.
Zach: Thank you for having me, Bruce.
Bruce: Zach, in talking with you, you’ve got a nickname called Melrose Marauder. Can you share with the listeners what that’s all about?
Zach: Yeah. Well, it goes back to the ’60s and ’70s back here in my home town. The families around here when harvest time is over — because we’re a farming community of course — they would all get together and play baseball. So there were several teams around the area from all the towns and they were known as the Marauders. That was their baseball teams for the local communities. And so naturally, we had the Melrose Marauders, but it even goes further than that.
As time went on, it just became the nickname for all the guys who grew up in my community and the Melrose Marauders stuck, and now, it’s a pride thing for me. I’m proud of that tradition, that heritage, passing down those stories where all of our uncles and cousins got together and played baseball together on our homemade field out in the middle of the wheat field.
Bruce: Well, traditions are important. Traditions are really important in the world of Whitetail, and that’s one reason why Whitetail Rendezvous exists. Let’s start right off and talk about the traditions of Whitetail deer that are in your life.
Zach: Right. Well, I grew up hunting. My father used to take me out before I could even walk and I can remember at five and six years old, him setting me in a brush pile near his tree stand and him sitting up there with his bow. I don’t actually remember him ever killing anything, because I was young and probably playing with stuff, messing around in the brush pile, but those memories stick with you through time and those are the ones that hold most prominent. My dad, he was an avid hunter and he always took me along. He coon-hunted around the country with walker coonhounds and I’m proud of those memories of things that I’ve shared. I grew up here in this local community, farming community and my Ag teacher in high school, he ran a Buck master’s club through his class and he was also into 3D archery. And he really is the one that got me into Whitetail hunting the most and I’m proud to say he actually writes for the Alaska Outdoor Journal now and he lives in Alaska. So those memories are what sticks with you through time.
Bruce: Yes, they do. Let’s talk about some of the best advice you got when you started Whitetail hunting and who gave you the advice.
Zach: Well, my Ag teacher, he would be the one who gave me the advice. You know, you’ve got to stay calm, you’ve got to keep your nerves about you. The whitetail they get my adrenaline pumped up. I don’t know about anybody else but they get my adrenaline pumped up and then I forget my basics. So he told me to just keep calm, stay calm and breathe and focus not on the whitetail but on making the clean shot and getting it done professionally.
Bruce: Now, what was your Ag teacher’s name? Is he still alive and teaching?
Zach: Well, he’s not teaching anymore but his name is Paul Atkins.
Bruce: Well, Mr. Atkins, thank you so much for passing on something that is lasting way longer than you might have thought. Sir, we appreciate it. Let’s talk about your first harvest.
Zach: Well, there’s not much to say really. Like I said, I get nervous, so of course my heart gets pumping. I had, it was a small little basket rack, is what we call them around here and he came up underneath my stand about 15 yards and I drew back my bow on him. I was shooting a Hoyt at that time. I drew back on him and I didn’t make a clean kill, unfortunately. He was hit in, I guess, the liver area and he ran quite a ways. He got guts and he ended up near a creek that we call Four Mile Creek here in the area. After lots of searching, following lots of blood, I finally got to him. It was about an hour later and it was one of the proudest moments of my life. It’s what got me stuck on whitetail hunting for sure but I focused on more ethical kills, that’s for sure.
Bruce: Sometimes no matter how hard we practice, it just doesn’t go right. It hits a branch, the deer will move, it takes a step, stuff happens. But the biggest thing is what we do after the shot and you did everything right and I bet you were excited. How old were you then?
Zach: I was 14 years old.
Bruce: Fourteen years old. Wow, what a thrill. Now, do you have kids that hunt today?
Zach: No, I actually do not have kids of my own. Unfortunately, I went through a couple of bad marriages. Fortunately, in that outcome, I didn’t have kids.
Bruce: All right. Well, let’s open up New Generation Outdoors. Tell us how you got involved in that because from my reading and research, it’s opportunity for men, for women to get involved and bring in kids into the outdoors. And from where this man sits, our tradition of hunting is under fire in the best way that I know of to bring it to the forefront and continue our tradition is through the use of our country.
So Zach, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about New Generation Outdoors.
Zach: Absolutely. I’d love to, Bruce. New Generation Outdoors, that’s exactly what we’re about. It’s about the heritage, traditions of everything outdoors, not just hunting. It’s fishing, it’s farming, it’s anything that has to do with outdoors. We want to get involved with activities like 4-H Club, FFA, anything that we can get involved in, that is what we’re trying to do. It’s youth oriented, that gets kids outdoors. This day of electronics keeps the kids indoors too much and I think they need to get out and enjoy stuff and we need to pass on the traditions of things like my Ag teacher and my father did to me. And that’s what we’re all about at NGO.
Bruce: Now, how did you first hear about NGO?
Zach: I actually found out through Instagram about NGO. They were just putting out a normal post. They’re a new organization, they were looking for members. So I like their mission statement, which is youth oriented; we want to pass on the tradition. I decided to contact them and ask them what they were doing and how I could get involved. And that’s the start of it. I became the State rep for Kansas and then now, the regional director for this area.
Bruce: Who started New Generation Outdoors?
Zach: Our founder’s name is Russ Perdieu.
Bruce: And where is he from and why is he involved in this?
Zach: He lives in Naples, Florida now. He’s from Indiana and he started this there in his local area with his kids and then his family and friends in the area. And the mission has grown out from there.
Bruce: Now, when he started, what was his overall aim to take this nationally? A lot of people have ideas but he seems to have grabbed the bull by the horns, as they say, and moved this thing forward. So can you talk a little bit about his desire and the vision of the company?
Zach: Well, of course we want to grow. Right now, we’re small and it starts with our local communities and our directors like myself are representatives. If we get involved in our own communities and get the kids, just like he did, in his home community of Indiana with his family and friends, his friends’ kids, I don’t have kids of my own, but I can get involved by my friends’ kids and things like that. And that’s what his vision is for this, is to start small in our local communities and we want to grow up from there. You have to start somewhere and it takes somebody stepping up to pass those traditions on and to get other people fired up about that mission as well. And he just did that.
Bruce: I see that you have 21 representatives throughout the country right now. What type of person do you look for as a representative for NGO?
Zach: Definitely, it needs to be somebody who is heavily involved with some sort of outdoor activity, some sort of outdoor function such as farming and cattle operation like myself. And then I am trying to get more involved in the hunting industry. I’ve worked at hunting lodges and things around the area. We’ve done youth clay pigeons shoots and those are the things we want to get involved in. And that’s what we look for in a State representative is somebody who is involved in those things already that can help pass on the word about NGO and get more people. It takes members, and that’s what we need. We need people to join NGO. And like I said, it’s from all facets of outdoor activities; you can be a kayak fisherman or just an old farm hand like myself.
Bruce: Now, when somebody calls you and says, “Hey, Zach. I’m interested in this program,” do you have a manual that you send them or you use YouTube videos? How are you informing people that this is a great operation to get involved in?
Zach: Well, we have protocol. We have a contract that you sign up. It’s free memberships right now to the public, so that’s a bonus. But basically, all you have to do is get a hold of us, send us an email. If you get on Facebook, we’re New Generation Outdoors. If you get on Twitter, it’s @NGO_2014 and we have Instagram and we have everything. Just look up NGO, New Generation Outdoors and get on there. We have an email, it’s [email protected]. And we have a list of what we’re looking for, things that would be required out of you as a member, things that you would get as benefits. I can’t really go over a lot of that in detail until people actually start trying to find that.
Bruce: All right, so that’s membership. How about your State reps or regional reps? What type of people are you looking for in those capacities?
Zach: Leaders. We need people who are willing to get out there and spread the word, people that are going to events and are already around youth that can tell them about our mission. We want to get more involved and eventually start sponsoring, making our own events, have our own club going. That’s what the goal is. We want members that we can grow from and build a club of our own, so that more people are passing on the traditions. But the State reps are definitely leaders. We need leaders that will be willing to step up and take that initiative.
Bruce: Thank you for that background. Let’s get back to Whitetail hunting. We talked about your first harvest in the last couple of years. What are some of your aha moments, things where you’re trying to sort out about Whitetail hunting and then all of a sudden the light bulb goes on? Can you share a couple of those with us?
Zach: Yeah. I never used to be a believer in cover scent. I didn’t believe that the Whitetail really was that spooked by our human scent because we’re surrounded, our communities aren’t not that far apart. We don’t have 75 miles in between a community. It’s more like 5 to 10 miles between the community. The deer see a lot more people. My aha moment one time was walking through the woods and I spooked a deer and she was close. It was a doe. It was not one that I wanted to harvest luckily but I didn’t have a cover scent on and the aha hit me in the face when the only reason I could have spooked her — and I did — was because she had picked up my scent. Ever since I have been a believer in cover scent and I could get close to them now and not have that problem.
Bruce: Now, which one do you like, cover scent?
Zach: I like the Dead Down Wind.
Bruce: Now, do you use the carbon clothes, the scent blockers, the scent block? There are hundreds of them out there. Do you use those types of scent control?
Zach: Yes, I do. I do. I have a scent blocker suit.
Bruce: Now, how do you think that helps you be a better hunter?
Zach: I think it filters my own odor in a way, like you said, the carbon filtration or whatever. I’m not exactly sure on the technology of all that. I’m just kind of a simple farm guy. I know that if I don’t use it, it seems to affect the way the deer respond to me in the woods. They can see me and not smell me and I don’t get the same spook out of them that I do if I’m not using those products. And I can obviously tell they smell me. And then that’s what causes them to spook.
Bruce: Now, what are you wearing on your feet? What types of boots do you wear?
Zach: I actually just wear a normal GORE-TEX line hunting boot, just the regular hunting boot.
Bruce: So have you tried high rubber boots?
Zach: I have and my feet get hot. I have yet to find a pair of rubber boots that I can really sit comfortable in. I can’t wear insulated boots of any kind; my feet just get way too hot for it.
Bruce: Even when it’s cold out?
Zach: Oh, yeah. Definitely, they get so hot and then they sweat and they’re freezing.
Bruce: Oh, well, that’s not a bad problem to have if your feet are heat generators. I’d like to have feet like that, I think.
Zach: Yeah.
Bruce: Let’s talk a little bit about the one thing from last season that you tried a new technique or discovered a new technique or understood how better to use your gear, that you’re going to take forward to this year?
Zach: Well, a technique. I’m not really sure, Bruce, on that one. I’m not really sure on that. I’m not really sure on what I would change for next year. I’m definitely not sure about techniques but I was picky last year. I decided to trophy hunt and that’s a mistake that I regret. I’m going to definitely go into next year not trying to get the biggest one out there in the woods. I’m a management-minded person and I don’t just shoot at the basket racks anymore like I did when I was 14 but I’m not going to wait until the last minute to score that big guy.
Bruce: Let’s talk about that a little bit. What changed your mind?
Zach: Well, I passed up on two for sure, shooter bucks mature. They were four and a half, five years old. I should have went a little bit longer maybe but I knew there was a bigger buck in the woods. I had seen him, just hadn’t gotten close enough to shoot him and I waited until the last minute and passed up on those two bucks, those two different opportunities that I could have harvested one and I ended up not killing a buck this year because of it.
Bruce: Now, what time of the season did you see the two shooter bucks?
Zach: The first one was early in the season. It was pre-rep and then, the second one was right about the end of rep this year, in November.
Bruce: So during the hot time . . . in Southeast Kansas, when are those typical dates when the bucks are really running?
Zach: Well, it’s changed through the years actually which is kind of a funny thing, but we’re starting to get earlier in the year. Late October, we’re starting to see pre-red [SP] action for sure and the first of November, they’re running hardcore.
Bruce: Now, your weather is mild or do you get some cold nights? Let’s talk about the temperature and the moon as it affects what you see of red [SP] activity.
Zach: Our temperature, our weather, it’s fairly mild that time of year. We actually kind of have Spring like falls where it’s probably 50 degrees on average, 45 maybe at the coldest during the day time. At night time, the temperatures can drop anywhere down into the negative 10.
Bruce: Oh my goodness.
Zach: We’ve gotten as low as negative 15 at some points but it can be that cold during the day here, too. We get a lot of wind but as the weather changes and fluctuates so differently here, we’ve had 80 degrees in November here, I can remember back when I was younger, back in my teenage years. And it fluctuates a lot but here lately, we’ve been having pretty mild winters, I would say. In the fall times, the red activity, we get big full moons here. When it’s big, there are usually harvest moons a lot. We get a lot of those orange-colored ones but it definitely affects the deer activity. They seem to want to come out and play when the full moon activity is going.
Bruce: Now, do you keep a hunting journal?
Zach: No, I do not.
Bruce: Some guys do and that’s an interesting thing to talk about. I’d like to talk about the last book about Whitetail hunting that you read.
Zach: Well, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t really read books on whitetail hunting. I read magazine articles, several of those.
Bruce: Okay, let’s talk about the last one that gave you some pretty good insight that you hadn’t thought about before.
Zach: I can’t really think of one off the top of my head, Bruce.
Bruce: All right. That’s fine. Do you watch shows at all? Do you watch hunting shows at all?
Zach: No, not really, not typically. I don’t watch much TV. I spend most of my time outside and on the farm doing lots of stuff. I mushroom hunt and I garden. I’ve got the cattle and I train and shoe horses. I dabble in a lot of things outside, so, no, I do not. Occasionally, I catch an episode of Buck Commander or something.
Bruce: You sound like you’re a pretty busy guy.
Zach: I try to stay busy. I like to be active and it keeps me healthy, it keeps me young.
Bruce: You just got a new 100-acre parcel close to your home, close to Melrose there and you know there are some bucks on it. Between now and hunting season, what are the five things you’re going to make sure you do to have that property ready for hunting season?
Zach: The first thing I would do is go in and scout. I would want to know what the deer are doing, how they’re doing it, where they’re going, where they’re eating, where they’re bedding down. I’d put up trail cameras. I have several that I run. I manage some wildlife food plots and things on the ranch that I take care of, as a matter of fact. We keep some food plots. We have clover patches, we have wheat we planted last year. We change it a little bit from year to year just to keep things interesting. But I would go in and scout the area first. That’s definitely number one and put up trail cameras, so that you can get some long-term scouting done, then I would see about where I would want to hunt from. Once I figure out what the deer are doing, then I would want to figure out where I’m going to put my stands, where I’m going to put my blinds out, how I’m going to approach and ambush the deer, I guess you would want to say, as they’re coming and going from their places. And those are definitely the two main things I would go for.
From there, I would move on to thinking about food plots and trying to figure out what’s going to grow there the best. Shady area, I’d want to cut shooting lanes from my hunting spots, I’d want to clean up the area but it’s a managing process. You start with the scouting and then move in to bigger and better things from there.
Bruce: When you’re deciding where to set up your stands, are you doing that July, August? What month are you looking hard at where you’re going to put your stands?
Zach: I’m looking right now at where I want to put my stands for next year in my new spot. If I was sitting in a spot last year that I’d put up, and I was not completely satisfied with that position, I’ve already got it in my head where I want to move that to for this coming season. And this is the time of year the weather is the best here, so this is the time of year you want to get out and get those things done before the deer start moving real hard and heavy through the changes of the seasons and get closer to hunting season. You don’t want to disturb that activity as it gets closer.
Bruce: How many acres are you running right now, hunting acres?
Zach: Hunting acres, we have about 160, I believe; not quite 200.
Bruce: Now, is all that wooded? Let’s talk about the terrain and what’s on that land right now.
Zach: Well, 100 acres of it is field. It’s farm ground and then the rest, the remaining acreage is timber and a little bit of hay meadow.
Bruce: Any creek bottoms?
Zach: Not on this property, no. We have one that runs the fence line of the neighbors right next door but it just goes right around.
Bruce: How do you use terrain to help you figure out where the deer are travelling?
Zach: Around here, we have a lot of dips; we call them draws, the washes basically between high spots and the ground is pretty flat around here, we don’t have what I would call any hills but the water does have to run somewhere to get to the rivers. And those little valleys the deer tend to stay low in those because where I live we’re blocked up in mile sections. There are 648 acres in a square mile and we have exact square miles almost for the whole entire County.
So you can drive all the way around every mile section of ground out here. So the deer stay in those low areas and move from section to section to get from feeding to bedding areas depending on where they bed and what property has where they feed at. But they stick to those low ditches, those water running areas.
Bruce: Now, if I was standing in the bottom of one of those little ditches, how much of my body would you see?
Zach: In most of them, depending on what end of it you were at, they start high and they’ll run low to get to the water, to wherever the bigger creek or the bigger watershed is. Typically, in most of them, you could stand there and not be seen from the county road. It would be over your head.
Bruce: So I’m going to stop right there. Hopefully, listeners you’re taking notes because even though if it looks tabletop flat out there, there’s enough terrain, undulations, draws, what you call them, dips, did you call them dips?
Zach: Yeah.
Bruce: Dips, out in Kansas and Oklahoma, Nebraska, Eastern Colorado, Dakota, I’m forgetting the other States, but just because it looks flat, it really isn’t. And until you spend some time on Google Earth and then put boots on the ground, we understand that whitetails do look like, in frequent quite often, these small differences in terrain. Would you agree with that, Zach?
Zach: Absolutely, 100%. That’s what provides them with the cover in order to move from place to place without being seen from . . . like around here when we have blocked up in square miles where you can drive all the way around it. Unfortunately, there are problems with poaching around here because of that, too. The deer is going to stay in those low spots so that some idiot doesn’t shoot him from the county road.
Bruce: Now, do you have any sunflower in your area? What’s the typical crop people are growing?
Zach: Around here, our main staple is wheat. We started over the past few years with the higher prices in corn. They started growing a lot more corn around here but our staples are wheat and soybeans.
Bruce: Thank you for that. Now, Zach, we’re at the point in the show, I know you’ve shared a lot about NGO, but at this point, let’s talk about the specific URLs. Let’s talk about the best way to get a hold of you as a regional director, how to get a hold of the home office. Last few minutes here, Zach, take it away about NGO.
Zach: I’d be glad to. NGO, if you’re interested in joining NGO, you can contact me at [email protected], just send me a message. I check them pretty frequently. So I will tell you everything you need to know in order to join. You can contact Russ and the rest of us at NGO through [email protected]. Of course, we’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Look up New Generation Outdoors, look up NGO. You’ll find us, it’s @NGO_2014 for Twitter. It’s @newgenerationoutdoors on Instagram and we are New Generation Outdoors on Facebook. And like I said, if you’re interested, we’re looking for people to help us get this off the ground running.
We need members, we need representatives, we need people that are willing to step up and take some initiative and help us get these traditions passed on and get more kids involved in the outdoors than what there is. Like you said before, we don’t want to lose these traditions and we’re in danger of that in these times. The best way to get a hold of NGO: [email protected]. You’ll get a hold of our main office that way and then we can go from there. We’ll be more than happy to discuss anything with you.
Bruce: Ladies and gentlemen, our traditions are under fire and it’s only because of organizations like this and similar ones throughout the whole country where people are saying, “Hey, when I was six years old, seven years old, somebody took me hunting, somebody took me to the outdoors, somebody taught me how to catch a trout and shoot a BB gun, shoot a shotgun. And now, that isn’t happening in our country. So if you love the outdoors and you want to be part of it, this is one organization that can help you do that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous and Zach, welcome to our community. Have a great day.
Zach: Thank you.