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Bruce: One. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. And I am so excited to head down to South Texas and have Nena Murphy Hale, on the show with us today. Nena is involved, in South Texas, with conservation groups such as DU and the Coastal Conservation Group. She sponsors local fishing tournaments through her company, Pink Marlin, and most importantly, grew up hunting and fishing in South Texas. Nena, welcome to the show.
Nena: Hey y’all, I’m happy to be here.
Bruce: Hey. As we were just talking in the warm-up, share with the listeners, basically, your personal philosophy of conservation, regarding hunting and fishing and bringing youth and other women into the outdoors.
Nena: I think conversation plays a great part in hunting, because it helps educate people who weren’t aware. We have, us hunters, people
know about hunting. It’s like this big, bad hunters. They don’t realize that conservation plays a great part in what we do, in that hunting
and that goes towards conservation. It’s just education, it lets people know misconceptions and directs them in the right view of what we really do as people that hunt. So I think anyone who does hunt, I think they should get involved with local conservation groups, because without the conservation, we wouldn’t have hunting. They help educate where laws will be changed and to where people understand that it’s not just people running out there shooting animals. It’s a lifestyle. It feeds people, and it’s a way of life for lots of people.
Bruce: Thank you for that. Let’s jump right into the hunting tradition. You’ve lived in South Texas your whole life. Tell the listeners who was most instrumental in getting you hunting and fishing?
Nena: Well I grew up in South Texas on a little island. So it was a fishing community. So you’re born into it, whether you like it or not, you’re going to end up fishing or be around it. So that’s where the fishing plays a part. I was just born on the island.
And as far as hunting, this is something that I grew up doing with my dad. We hog hunt a lot, and we would deer hunt for food. And I was always around it, and my mom would help. My dad would harvest animals and then he got to the point where I felt comfortable enough where I wanted to do it. And then we take the deer and hogs home, and my mom would help us go through it, and then we cook it. And it was this long process of just something we did with the family, and the food was better than going and buying food from the supermarket too, because you were eating organic. You were eating food that’s not been genetically altered or what have you. So it was something I just grew up doing with my dad.
And then I met a man that was okay with a woman who liked to hunt and fish. And my husband introduced me to bow hunting and waterfowl hunting. And it just gone from there.
Bruce: So, share with the listeners why you personally hunt?
Nena: I enjoy the challenge. I enjoy being in nature. I enjoy being able to … every aspect of it, from the prepping, setting up trail cams to feeders or food plots, buying the gear, trying to figure out where the animals are coming from. It’s just the whole process of hunting is absolutely exciting and rewarding to me. Harvesting my animal, bringing it home, the whole process is something that is challenging and probably one of the most rewarding things you can do.
Bruce: What would you say to our lady listeners, the gals out there that are hunting now or would like to get into hunting? What are some of the things that you would say,” Hey, make sure you do this, this and this.”