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John Musgrave Game Seekers Outdoors to educate and encourage folks about the art and passion of hunting, trapping and experiencing the outdoors
Interviewer: Okay, here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This afternoon, we have John Musgrave, lead manager, pro-staffer at Game Seekers Outdoors. John, welcome to the show.
John: Thank you for having me.
Interviewer: Hey, we’ve been sharing some tales. Let’s just go right back to what we were just talking about, about that buck you patterned and how you were able to get ‘em. Why don’t you just bring us back about three or four minutes and start that story all over again, because that was a good one.
John: All right, well I started about three years ago when my wife got me a set of property. Went out, hunted the stand, first day hunted the stand, and had a nice, big [inaudible 00:00:50] come in behind me. No shot whatsoever. He takes off, bolts on me, and my heart just sank. I thought, “Man, there was only my one chance.” I’ve never seen anything else the rest of the evening until just right before dark and I had this nice, big four-point.
It was probably 130, 140-class buck, come waltzing in, give me the perfect broadside shot. Took the shot, and I’m not 100% sure why it hit him, but the ol’ golden rule is when in doubt, back out. I got excited. I’m like, “Nah, I’m not backing out. I just went out after it.” Then the landowner went after him, and lost the blood trail. I mean it just teetered out to nothing.
In this following year or later on in that year, I set trail cameras and started seeing some nice bucks on the trail cameras. Then they come this last fall, and started seeing this nice big eight on there, and I thought, “Man, this is the one I wanna take.” He looked like he was a decent-sized buck. Just liked the ways the horns were built. It looked like he was a solid three-and-a -half, maybe a four-year old.
So I patterned him and I had him down to where he was exactly the times he was coming in. Went in on November the 1st, crawled up there that morning, had a little four-point come in 15, 20 yards from me. Watched him play around a little bit and kind of enjoyed getting some video footage of him. That concluded the morning. Went and knocked out the afternoon, set up there in that stand, and wasn’t seeing nothing. I thought, “Man, this is going to be a bust evening, I guess.”
Man, I just happened to turn my head to my left, and I when I turned my head to my left, there this big boy was coming in grunting, perfect, just perfect textbook situation. He comes in, about 25 yards, gives me a nice shot, I take the shot, and I hit him real low. Unfortunately, I thought I had a good hit, but apparently not. It was a three-and-a-half mile tracking job. I’m thankful for the Raven Broadheads that we were using at the time for Game Seekers.
They got two-and-a-half inch cut on ‘em and they opened him up something bad. It was solid blood trail from the impact all the way until the time he dropped. I tracked him all night long that night till about midnight. Come out with my buddies, we had jumped him up in his bed. When we jumped him up in his bed, my buddy asked me “So what do you wanna do.” I said, “Well, the only thing we can do is if… well, I’m almost 100% sure that I can. Let’s go on up there. If there’s blood on the bed, we’re gonna get him out of here.” Sure enough, we walked up, blood on the bed. So I thought, “All right, let’s go.” So we leave.
I go back out the next morning alone by myself. Picked up the blood trail right off, and as soon as I picked up the blood trail, I walked 200 yards and there he laid dead. It’s my biggest buck to date with my bow, and I mean I couldn’t be more happier to get that buck.
Interviewer: Thanks for sharing that story. Let’s just circle back around. Let’s just talk about the genesis of Game Seekers Outdoors. How did you get involved in that and why you’re involved in that, and then we’ll wind our way through whitetails. We’ll talk about Whitetail hunting. Let’s talk about Game Seekers Outdoors.
John: All right, well, I’ve been wanting to get into the outdoor industry for quite some time now. I happened to stumble across the Whitetail Deer All Year, long page, and I had hit them up, asking them if they was looking for pro-staffers at the time. I said, you know, “I wouldn’t mind being a pro-staffer.” The guy says “Well, right now, we’re not looking for pro-staffers. Go ahead and get back with me in the following fall.” Then, this was in late 2013. I went and I just kind of held on, and I thought a lot, late fall, I’ll get a hold of the guy.
I had another guy that was involved with page that got away from it contact me and he says, “Hey, get a hold of Robert Kennedy. He’s lead manager over at Game Seekers Outdoors. Just starting a page, he’s looking for pro-staffers.” So I get a hold of Robert. Me and Robert talks out for a little while. He’s like “Well, I like to have you aboard, so you know, if you would come aboard.” So I got onboard with him. And at that time it was a small Facebook page, only a couple hundred likes at the time. I soon started, I took my knowledge of computers and building websites and things, and I made them out a website, email, YouTube, Twitter, made all that stuff for ‘em. And I just worked my way up through the ranks.
I went from just being a normal pro-staffer to accounting manager, then to lead coordinator, where I was coordinating everything that was going on with the page and helping the rest of the pro-staffers out. Then I went to just assistant manager, and now I’ve worked my way to lead manager, and shortly to be co-owner of Game Seekers.
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Interviewer: Well, good for you! What’s so bad about that?
John: Nothing bad at all.
Interviewer: Wow.
John: That was late 2013, when I got a hold of Robert, and I worked my way up in little over a year to lead manager now. We do all kinds of things from videoing to hosting a disabled hunt. We did one, we took a little girl down there to Texas where Robert is based. Andi Nail, who is one of our junior pro-staffers, we took her down for a hog hunt down there, and she killed her first hog down there as well. It’s been a journey and I just hope to continue my career with Game Seekers and see how things go with ‘em.
Interviewer: I hope our listeners are picking up what John did to get to where he is today. John, just break that down because we have listeners out there, guys and gals that really would like to be in the industry. What you just shared is well, I think, pretty much textbook, what you have to do to do it. So let’s just go back to it was 2013 I think.
John: Yes.
Interviewer: So you heard about Game Seekers Outdoors. It’s a digital company. Correct?
John: Correct.
Interviewer: So you heard about them so you knocked on the door. Then, what happened?
John: It just kind of snowballed from there. I just took my knowledge of website building and computers, and just developed from there. I asked ‘em, “What all are you wanting to accomplish?” They let me know, “We’d like to, one day, have our own television show as far as deer hunting goes.” So I thought “Well, to do those kind of things, you gotta have videos.” So I started ‘em off with a YouTube page, and then we’d built a website for that as well. The best thing you can do is if you got knowledge, share it with somebody. Find one of these small time outdoor people and get with ‘em and share your knowledge and help them out as well. It also helps yourself out if you’re out the industry.
Interviewer: Now, didn’t you say you knocked on his door then he said “Come back in the fall?”
John: That was Whitetail Deer All Year. With them, he just said come back in the fall, which I never did pursue that, just for the fact that I got hooked up with Game Seekers. So I just stayed with Game Seekers and that’s where I’ve been since.
Interviewer: You go to Game Seekers because somebody referred you to ‘em right?
John: Right.
Interviewer: So you’re doing a little networking. Or your buddies, or your crew, or your neighbors, or people at church, or wherever, kind of knew you wanted to get into the business and so one of your friends just came up and shared some information with you?
John: Right.
Interviewer: So listeners, it’s a journey. What John did, he just stayed after it. He pursued it and he just used all the tools that he knew of, kind of let people know what he was about, what he could do, and then the most important thing, once he got the opportunity, once the doors opened, he went to work. I’m sure he could tell us how much and what he had to do to do it and he shared a little bit about it. Just remember, when you get that opportunity, be the best you can be. And if you have to work whatever hours, it really doesn’t matter, because today John’s in a position possibly to have equity stake or ownership or however that’s gonna workout, but he paid a price. Would you agree to do that John?
John: Yes, I would.
Interviewer: Anything else you like to add?
John: Well, you know, just like you said, stay after it, don’t give up, put in the time, put in the hours. I know that I mainly work at Prairie Farms Ice Cream. So that’s an eight-hour job and then when I leave Prairie Farms, I come home. I’ve got a wife. I’ve got two kids, but I still, I dedicate my time to Game Seekers and I know it’s caused a lot of hardship with my wife, but she understands my dream of being big in the outdoor industry. So you just gotta make your wife understand your passion and your family. If they’re true to you, they’re going to understand. “Hey, this is what he’s true and this is what he likes.”
Interviewer: Can I ask how old you are John?
John: I am 35.
Interviewer: So you’re well on your way friend. Congratulations.
John: Yeah, thank you.
Interviewer: Now, let’s talk about the website. I’ve got it up here on Facebook, then your URL. Let’s talk about what you guys do there. What are your products? What’s your markets? Just spend a couple minutes telling us about the site.
John: The site right now, it’s just a small time site. We’re not selling anything on as far as just the website itself. We don’t sell anything. It’s just kind of somebody can just go there look at, to see the individual profiles of all the pro-staffers. I’ve got our intro video on there as well. The Facebook page, we try to post tips, pictures of just different sayings, anything to do with deer hunting, anything to do with fishing, the outdoors. We’re a family-oriented, I don’t know what you wanna call it, maybe a group, I guess you’d wanna call it. We wanna get it out there to get the family involved with everything.
Interviewer: Okay, forgive me if I’m wrong, so it’s not a digital store then?
John: No, no. We’re not selling anything as of yet. We’re still trying to get to that point. Right now, our other lead manager is dealing with some individual things that he’s got to take care of, some personal issues, and eventually we hope to be able to sell our sponsor’s products and help them out as well. But now, it’s just basically promoting the sponsors of who we have.
Interviewer: Okay, looking on your website page here at Game Seekers Outdoors on Facebook, let me get this here. I’m hitting the wrong buttons, John. “We here at Game Seekers Outdoors are here to educate and encourage folks about the art and passion of hunting, trapping, and experiencing the outdoors.” That sounds like your mission statement right there, John, isn’t it?
John: Right.
Interviewer: Now let’s take a look at the youth. You mentioned that you’d done some things with the youth, I think with Wounded Warriors and let’s talk about that for a little bit. Let’s talk about your programs or how you helped people in the community that needed a hand up.
John: Well, we’re not working with Wounded Warriors as of yet. We’re getting to that point. We haven’t made it there yet. We’re working with Helping Handicapped Hunters. It’s a national Facebook page, and basically doing things for the handicapped in the outdoors, trying to set up hunts for ‘em to where they can come out and hunt, maybe not have the same opportunity as you or I do, and just trying to help them out. One of our junior pro-staffers, Andi Nail, I’m sure everyone has seen her on Facebook and stuff. She lost a limb and she shoots a compound bow with her mouth. Really great girl, wonderful, and shoots a bow, I’m almost gonna say, she shoots that bow better than I do. But we’re trying to get that out there to where, just try to make it to where something like you or I can’t go into. They don’t always have the same opportunities as we do.
Interviewer: And how about your working of getting women in the sport? You do have one pro-staffer that’s a lady, a junior pro-staffer. Do you have any women programs that you have to educate or enjoy, learn how to enjoy the outdoors?
John: Well, we try. We offer any advice. We get messages from ladies and females all the time, wanting to know different things and how to get in. We’ve had a few women pro-staffers on board and some of them have worked out and some of them haven’t. But it’s been great being able to educate those ladies and then they take off on their own, which is good to see. Using Game Seekers as a stepping stone as far as trying to yourself out there.
Interviewer: Let’s spend a couple minutes, we started the show with a hunting story. Let’s share one of your aha moments from the last couple years that you just couldn’t figure out what that buck was doing or how they were running, and then all of a sudden you’ve got it figured out. Can you share a couple of those instances with us?
John: Well, let’s see. I’ve got to think here for a second. I’ve had a instance where I had a really nice, nice eight-point. I’ve seen him several times, and this had been several years ago. I’ve seen this thing a [inaudible 00:17:27] of times, never had him within bow range, never ever had him within bow range. To be honest, I never got him figured out. I would sit in one stand, I sat on the edge of a field, and I could see him down by my other stand, that morning. I’d go over there that evening and sure enough he’d be at the other stand. I’m like, okay, I’ll hunt that stand in the morning and hunt this other stand in the evening. When I tried that, neither one of them worked, and I’m like “What in the world.” Like I said, to be honest, I never did get that buck figured out, until I figured out aha, guess what. He’s playing the wind. So I started playing the wind, and when I started playing the wind, I started seeing him a little better. But I never did get a shot off at it, unfortunately.
Interviewer: So your stand was set up where you couldn’t have him on your certain wind or you just realized how he was moving with the wind?
John: I just realized how he was moving with the wind. Yeah, the wind had blown one way and he’d be at the other end. Some days, the winds would switch and other days they wouldn’t switch. One of the days that he didn’t switch, he’d get within 100, 150 yards, but he never would get close enough for me to even get a shot at him.
Interviewer: How big is the acres that you hunt, day in and day out, during the season? What type of land do you hunt?
John: Right now, the only piece of property I’ve got besides public land is a little 10-acre track, butt up to, probably, 400, 500 acres of woods. In them 400 or 500 acres, I don’t think there’s a sole deer hunting, period. It’s just me and one other guy on this 10-acre track and we have both kind of gotten together and said, “Let’s hunt the mature bucks and not shoot the small ones. Let ‘em grow.”
Interviewer: And what type of terrain is it? Is it hilly, flat, brushy, timbered?
John: It’s partial timber, most of it is pastured. It’s just a big pasture, basically. It’s got a few fenced rows around it until you get to the back end of the property. Once you get to the back end of the property, than that’s where it butts up to the other 300, 400, 500 hundred acres. It is quite hilly there and on top of the biggest hill is a big set of pines, which is I know is where them bucks are bedding, and my stand is set. I’m just right off the property line, and so I could see him coming down that hill, out of them pines.
Interviewer: Now, how many trail cameras do you use in your hunting area?
John: I’ve got two trail cameras on that 10-acre plot and those are sat at both of my stand sites, just so that I know what bucks are running right through beside my stands.
Interviewer: Now, do you leave these stands up all year? Tell me how you work your set ups.
John: I leave ‘em up all year long. The only time they come down is if I’m gonna replace ratchet straps and that’s the only time I’ll pull ‘em down.
Interviewer: So I’m thinking they’re ladders stands then.
John: One’s a ladder stand, the other’s a hang on stand. I just recently, just last year, and this is the other thing, to go along with that big eight that I killed, recently, I converted from the ladder stand there that’s only 14-foot and put myself 20 feet up in the air. So in that way, because I planned on using a regular video camera to start videoing my hunts, so I thought get higher. They say you get higher, the less you are to be detected. So I got higher so that they wouldn’t detect. Maybe they wouldn’t detect me as easy trying to move that camera around by myself. So that’s the only time. And that’s just a hang on, is just that 20-footer is, but the other one is a ladder stand. Basically, the second one is just basically an alternate stand, if the wind’s wrong to hunt that other one, then I’ve got an alternate place to go.
Interviewer: Sounds like you’re making the most of 10-acres. Listeners, it doesn’t take hundreds of acres. If you’re in the right place and it might be a funnel area, do you consider the 10 acres a funnel area? Or pinch point?
John: Absolutely. I consider it a funnel. My dad went and hung that 20-footer with me last fall. And he says, “My God,” he says “What in the world have you got here?” He said “I think you got something set perfect.” I said, “I know I do.” It’s a good place. It’s just a funnel right where they come down.
Interviewer: What’s something funny that happened to you over the last couple years? It might not have been funny at the time, but you look back now and it was pretty humorous. Can you share one of those stories with us?
John Musgrave: Yeah, that I can. It wasn’t funny at the time, nor was it funny last spring. But during that first year that I hunted this little 10 acres, I mentioned that I shot the big four-point, that was 130-, 140-inch deer. I’m excited. I mean my adrenaline’s going. The landowner had told me, “If you killed one or if you hit one, you need help tracking him,” he says, “Come get me.” He says “I know all the property owners around here.” It’ll be a little better for me to go with you. Then, that way, if somebody says anything, I’m with you and they know who I am.
So I go up to his house, and of course, his house is he’s put right on this 10 acres that I hunt. I go out there and I’m talking to him, telling him about it. He goes, “All right,” he says “Well, how long do you wanna wait?” I said “Well, let me call my dad, let me get some of my gear off, and then we’ll get going.” So I call my dad. I’m telling my dad all about. Like I said, my adrenaline was pumping. So I go to switch my bow out of one hand, trying to convert the bow into one hand into the other and move the phone at the same time. When I did, my landowner’s got several concrete steps kind of like walking up to his patio. I drop that bow clean down on top of that concrete.
Interviewer: Oh, no.
John: Yeah, smacked the edge, and course, it’s pitch black out and I picked the bow up. I looked at it real quick, I’m like “Ah, it looks alright.” I set it back in my case, and me and him go after it. Well, the next day, I go looking at my bow and I realize the lens cracked. But I finished out the rest of the season with that cracked lens. Fortunately, it wasn’t a real bad crack. It was just kind of a hairline crack. But as time went on, or as the year went on, it got worse and worse and worse. Turned around and I went into Pike County Archery here in Illinois to have it replaced. I go up there, and it’s a Mathew’s bow is what I shoot, and it’s not under warranty, so the guy’s like it’s going to be $300 to replace the lens. I said, “All right, I’m not happy about this, but it’s my fault, so I’ll go ahead and let’s get ‘em done. It’s better than not trying to buy a new Matthew’s bow anyway.” So I’ll have him replace ‘em. I drive back to Decatur.
And he calls me two weeks later and says, “Hey, it’s done, come get it.” This is on a Friday evening. So I call my wife. She’s at work, and I said “Hey.” I said ” I’m gonna take your car instead of taking my gas-old truck all the way up here,” because it’s about an hour-and-a-half drive up from Decatur. So I get my kids, I get the wife’s car, and I drive up there. I can see Pike County Archery, I turn into the turn lane. When I hit the turn lane, sure enough there was a L-bracket kind of like laying on the ground. I didn’t see it, smacked it with the front tire and ended up with a flat tire.
Interviewer: Oh no!
John: Yeah, I mean I can see Pike County Archery, and when I hit it, automatically, you hear it hissing. I slashed the sidewall. And my kids here in the back, they’re hollering “Dad, what we gonna do? What we gonna do?” I said, “Well, dad’s mashing on the gas.” I’m mashing on the gas. I can get there before the tire goes completely flat. Changed the tire out, and all we have was a donut. So the closest place is a 45-minute drive. A 45-minute drive turned into about an hour and twenty minute drive, driving about 50 miles an hour on the interstate when I should have been going 65. So the whole ordeal ended up costing me about $400 versus just the 300 or versus nothing of getting to excited.
Interviewer: I don’t know what the moral of that story is because getting excited is all part of it. I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Stuff happens, I guess.
John: Yeah, the bad thing about it was I’d worked all day when I went to pick that bow up. I’d worked all day, so my cell phone, three-quarters of the way dead. So when I get to the place to get the tire changed, my phone’s like 2%. So I called my wife because I know I’m not gonna make it home before she does. She’s gonna be worried sick. To where I’m at, can’t get a hold of me. So I leave her a voicemail and finally, I get on the road and I call her after I’ve gotten the cell phone charger from Walmart and tell her what happens and she says, “Well, you’ll guess you’ll learn not to drop your bow.” So I guess that could kind of be the moral of the story. Even though the excitements going, pay attention to what you’re doing.
Interviewer: I hear that and hopefully, our listeners hear that and maybe get a little chuckle out of it. This is the point of the show, John, that I give you a couple minutes just to give a shout out to any people that you sponsor or they sponsor you to your company and just anything else that you wanna share. So the time’s yours so have at it.
John: I wanna give a shout out to all of our sponsors for Game Seekers. They’re all great, wonderful sponsors, easy to work with. Anytime you need anything from any of ‘em, I don’t have a bad thing to say about any of the sponsors. They’ve all been easy to work with. Any time I’ve needed anything, I gave ‘em a call or shot ‘em an email, and bam, whatever it is I needed, it’s done, it’s happened, as far as even me ordering products to needing something for a giveaway on the Facebook page. We do quite a few giveaways. Right now, we have one going on for the Gears statue as soon as we reach 6,000 likes, we’re going to give this little deer statue away, and it’s a very beautiful piece. Matter of fact, it is our other lead manager, it’s his wife’s statue and she was not a very happy camper when it came to him saying, “We’re gonna give this, we’re gonna do this for the giveaway.” She shared that with me. She said “I wasn’t very happy when he told me that. But it’s going for a good cause, so at least it’s getting done.”
I want to thank you guys as well for having me on and giving me this opportunity. And just everybody, all you gotta do is just go to Facebook, look Game Seekers Outdoors up, and check us out, like and share the pages as well as the sponsors pages. Help us achieve what we’re looking to achieve. We’ll grow big in the outdoor industry.
Interviewer: John Musgrave, thanks so much for being a guest and becoming part of the Whitetail Rendezvous Community. We appreciate the stories and the chuckles along the way and wish you and Game Seekers Outdoors just the best in success and continue growing. Thank you again for being on the show.
John: All right, well, thank you for having me.