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Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Today we have a real pleasure of putting a couple of young men, actually a crew, together out in Wisconsin. They’re called Heartland Pursuit. Eric and Jordan, welcome to the show.
Eric: Hey, Bruce. Thanks for having us. I’m here right now with Jordan Farrell. We’re part of Heartland Pursuit and what Heartland Pursuit is, we’re out of Wisconsin. We hunt mainly in the Midwest, also travel out west if we can in fair chase of large game, big game animals, also hunt small game, turkeys and stuff like that, so pretty honored to be on the show today.
Bruce: Well, thank you and again, so I can get everybody’s name down, Eric, what’s your last name, please?
Eric: Crum. Eric Crum and Jordan Farrell.
Bruce: Okay, and spell Jordan’s last name.
Eric: F-A-R-R-E-L-L.
Bruce: Okay, great. So how did you and Jordan start Heartland Pursuit?
Eric: Well, we’d just been talking a lot and my dad, me, and my brother both had started filming deer hunts and we were talking, me and a few of my friends. We’re like we should start doing that, putting it on YouTube, stuff like that. And then one day we all just decided to go for it, see what we can make it. And so there’s six of us in the group, and then just all sort of talking, what are we gonna do, what’s it gonna be called, all that stuff, and we decided Heartland Pursuit was a good name because another word for Midwest is heartland and then we’re pretty much just pursuing animals, mainly in the Midwest, so that’s how we came up with the name. And we’re all really big hunters, so it all just is working out pretty well so far.
Bruce: Eric, when did you get started hunting whitetails? How young were you?
Eric: I was in sixth grade when I shot my first whitetail with my dad, second season shotgun in Iowa, but I’d gone with him multiple times before. My brother and I had gone with him and so my first deer was in sixth grade, and I’d been hunting since I was four, I believe.
Bruce: Wow, how about you, Jordan?
Jordan: My first deer was in sixth grade also. Me and my dad were out for the [inaudible 00:02:53] and I had a little [inaudible 00:02:58] and I took him out.
Bruce: Pretty exciting time, I bet.
Jordan: Yeah, it was pretty exciting.
Bruce: Give us some of your background, Jordan, about Heartland Pursuit. Eric’s given some high points. What’s your thoughts about what you guys are doing?
Jordan: I think it’s pretty good, just trying to get some videos out, trying to get our name out, teach people about hunting and get them into it, take out some younger kids and get them into hunting.
Bruce: Let’s talk about that a little bit more because that’s a central theme that runs through all my interviews is people, old and young, are concerned about what we’re not doing for the kids and concerned about the kids that are just on smartphones and iPads, and they’re in the digital world. How do you think hunting can help rectify that?
Jordan: [inaudible 00:04:03] that we came from, like how we didn’t have the electronics and everything, we were just…we had to live without it, hunters and gatherers, and get out into the woods.
Bruce: What do you think is some of the lessons learned by just being in the woods? What did that teach you?
Jordan: Patience and [00:04:33].
Bruce: Anything else?
Jordan: Quality time spent with the family, moments that you’ll never forget, I guess, means a lot to both of us.
Bruce: Well, let’s share a couple of those moments. I know we’re going quickly through the show because you guys have got to get back to work, but share one of those moments that is in your memory bank and will last there forever.
Eric: Well, my favorite memory was me and my dad, it was actually me and my dad and my buddy Skip, [inaudible 00:05:14] my first hunt, and I remember I shot a doe earlier that day, earlier that morning, and then the afternoon, went back out trying to get me a buck. I’m in sixth grade, not looking for anything big, just trying to get one on the ground, and it’s getting to be pretty dark, shooting hours [inaudible 00:05:35] and my dad looks out the shooting tower where we were at and he’s like, “Aw, Eric, you know, there’s a buck there,” and I was getting really antsy and all that stuff and I shot the buck, got it all on film, and it dropped in its tracks. And one of the things that my dad said to me right after I shot that deer, he looked at me and he looked at my buddy Skip and he said, “I’ve got another one.” And what he meant by that was my brother, older than me, was a really big hunter at that time already, and when my dad said that to me, it made me feel like I’m almost accepted into the hunter world because he said, “I’ve got another hunter in the family,” and he’s really looking forward to the memories and everything that can come out of that.