This is the video transcript. To watch the video for this episode click here.

GRANT: Spring is about to bust loose here at The Proving Grounds and that means it won’t be long ‘til we’re chasing turkeys at the home place.

GRANT: Not only will we be participating in these activities, but others will too. That’s why, about once a year, we open up The Proving Grounds and have what we call a Field Day – where we can share in great detail our techniques and strategies.

RICHARD: It’s the brow tines. Does anybody know why, at least why, I think that’s important?

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GRANT: During our Field Days, typically, everyone arrives Friday afternoon; we have a lot of activities and Saturday we go hard all day long.

LINDSEY: We’re gonna get you up in the Redneck Blind and there’s a blue balloon.

GRANT: This year, Friday afternoon, the GrowingDeer Pro Staff held a cool bow shoot.

LINDSEY: Good job. Whoo-hoo!

GRANT: We had several Morrell targets set up. We had a ghillie blind set up to practice a turkey style shot and a Redneck set up on an elevated stand to practice a deer shot.

LINDSEY: All right. This is Round 3. Let’s get (Inaudible).

LINDSEY: All right. Good job. Let’s give him a hand.

GRANT: The GrowingDeer Pro Staff did a great job of hosting that event and there were some cool prizes for the winner.

GRANT: Other attendees spent time visiting with professionals about the gear and equipment we use to manage habitat and hunt here at The Proving Grounds.

BRIAN: That way, we could turn this where we want… (Fades Out)

GRANT: After a full afternoon and even some live entertainment to cap off the evening, we were set to get in the field the following day.

GRANT: If you happen to hear a turkey gobble today, that’s just my neighbors. There’s no turkeys here, so don’t worry about that. Don’t ask to come back and turkey hunt. There’s none here. And…(Fades Out)

GRANT: Early the next morning, folks were grabbing donuts and some Hunter’s Blend Coffee and then we headed out for the first stop on our tour.

GRANT: My friend and professional trapper, Clint Cary, was waiting for us and give us some great instruction on sets for coyotes.

GRANT: Clint’s an extremely skilled trapper and he’s helped us balance the predator/prey population here at The Proving Grounds for several years.

GRANT: As wildlife managers, we don’t want to get rid of all the predators. We simply want to balance the predator and prey population so prey have an adequate opportunity to reproduce and predators have got plenty of food to go around.

GRANT: I fancied myself a trapper until I met Clint. And then I decided I wasn’t a trapper because Clint kills so much more critters – many more critters than I do. So, I’m not gonna take any of Clint’s time. I was gonna tell y’all. Unequivocally, Clint is the best trapper I’ve ever had the privilege to work with or around. I have recommended him to many of my clients and I’ve never had anyone say, “Well, that wasn’t a good referral.”

CLINT: Just to clear one thing up. I thought I was a good coyote trapper, too, though, Grant. Until I came here. You need to come here every now and then just to get humbled back down to The Proving Grounds.

CLINT: We’ve got 20 minutes for me to make y’all good coyote trappers. I still set my traps with my feet and I’ve pre-dug my hole here because I’m supposed to look like a professional.

CLINT: I like to dig mine out just like a mold. I dig out around here – make a circle, basically, for this. Then I dig out notches for these levers.

CLINT: Now, then. Once you get it in there, you want to be able to push on all four corners and the levers and the trap not have very little movement, if any.

CLINT: This is just polyfill, pillow stuffing. What that does – it goes up under your pan. And all that does is keep the dirt that we’re gonna cover that trap up with from getting under your pan so it will fall when the coyote steps on it.

CLINT: Okay. So, I’ve got that. I use peat and we’ll get a two, three inch rain and I’ll take off that top layer of dirt that you’ll see and that peat up under there will still be dry. If you just cover this all up with dirt, all you’re gonna have is just mud in there and it’s still gonna be hard for that pan to fall down. And what does mud turn into when the sun comes out? The pan will not go down.

CLINT: I’m gonna continue covering this up. And I like for my trap to be completely covered with the peat. And I just lightly – this is another reason why you want (Inaudible) about three pounds of pressure. I know what it takes to throw these traps.

CLINT: But, I still get caught plenty enough. You don’t want to leave it like that. You’re just saying, “Right here is where my trap is.” Okay? So. We don’t want to tell the coyote right there is where the trap is. So, all that you really have to do – then you feather that out. Okay? This don’t stand out any more than this whole area. Okay? Y’all got that? Half arm’s length each way. Whatever. You just want to blend this whole area in.

CLINT: You could do the same with peat if you wanted to, but I always like dirt covering with coyote trapping. As far as locations. Um, it’s, it’s pretty simple when you get started. Look for crossroads, “Ts” in the actual roads. Okay?

CLINT: If you’re walking an area, where are you gonna walk? Coyotes take the least path of resistance most of the time. Um, if this was a point out in the – this was an open field and this was a tree line and a point, go look at that point. Because 90% of the time, I always look at ‘em and there’s tracks headed by that point.

CLINT: And I explain it – if you’re standing on one end of the field and you’re trying to walk across it, you’re gonna walk by that point too. I guarantee you, you’re gonna graze by that point as you go across the field.

CLINT: Video game cameras now that you can get so easily accessible – that was another humbling point in my life. We were catching a lot of coyotes, but we were missing a lot of coyotes. You know, just trotting right on by.

CLINT: So, we found out that location may be important, but baiting and luring is very important. Okay?

CLINT: Bigger hammer.

CLINT: All right. We’ll take and we’re gonna waller out just a wobble hole, I call it. We’re gonna come right up here. And we’re gonna wobble out that one. And then we’re gonna come right here and do the same thing.

CLINT: You put one drop of lure there. The coyote comes up, urinates and it’s gone. That’s it. You get about one step. All right? I’m not that good.

CLINT: I’m not that good at all. I want as much foot movement as I can get. Lure has the job of getting that coyote to where you want him to be. And it does have curiosity. But he will not stay there long.

CLINT: We’ve had coyotes working bait for up to an hour. Okay? That should really click with you. Up to an hour working bait. I’m not against lure. I use it all the time. But it has its job of getting the coyote where you want him. And then I want bait to get them feet really moving and keeping him there so that somebody like me can catch him. Okay? Any questions on that?

CLINT: I would have a lure here; a different lure here; and a bait right here. Bait on top of the ground, if it’s legal in your state, is fine. Okay?

UNKNOWN: What are you doing for personal scent control? Are you concerning yourself with that or?

CLINT: No. You should see me trapping in south Alabama in August. There is no personal scent control. (Laughter)

UNKNOWN: I know the scent. I just want to make sure.

CLINT: Now, if you’re in an area where there is no human traffic, hardly, and then you’re out there, it would be different. And I – let me get through here.

CLINT: Can y’all still see if I walk right out here in the road? You’d be amazed at how many coyotes are trotting down a road. And if the wind’s off just a little bit, he’s never gonna know that set’s there. Never gonna know it. One drop of lure – you’re not catching that coyote.

CLINT: All right. You make all this action out here. We see coyotes – they get to milling around. Okay? They get to… (Fades Out)

GRANT: Clint concluded this set by adding more bait out on the road. This will serve to stop the coyote; get his curiosity up; and bring him toward the trap.

GRANT: I was excited and shared the basic principles of the Buffalo Food Plot System.

GRANT: This is seven point some odd acres here called Crabapple. And it was rough as a cob when Tracy and I got it. And about eight-inch locust trees all over it. And it went from that to – if I had my soil probe out here, we’d probably go a good five, six inches deep here. We built a lot of matter here.

GRANT: So, the Buffalo System is like the Great Prairie. The Great Prairie has a variety – native prairie – of plants growing. Different plants extract different nutrients; bring them up; they would bring them up and either they’d be browsed and defecated, urinated back out; or buffalo would come through and crimp or trample everything down. Buffalo weren’t like whitetail – one here and three there. There’d be, you know, 100,000 here. And they come through, they’d wipe it out and it’d look like this field and they’d urinate and defecate a bunch and a few of ‘em would die and move on.

GRANT: And then we’d get – they’d churn the soil just a little bit and we’d get this new seed base coming up. And that happened for centuries.

GRANT: And it built about 20 feet of topsoil throughout much of the Great Prairie region. No fertilizer was added; no lime was added. Minimal soil disturbance.

GRANT: Rule #1 is soil health. An active root growing as many days out here as possible. If it warms up in January – grow.

GRANT: Rule #2: Diversity throughout the year. Different roots extracting different nutrients.

GRANT: Rule #3: Armor on the soil all year long. Never bare. Never bare.

GRANT: Rule #4: Never bare means never disc. Rule #4.

GRANT: Bean turned into livestock – buffalo, deer, cattle, humans. Reused, recycled – Rule #5.

GRANT: The five tenants that will unequivocally – this is a bold statement – anywhere on the planet – from two inches of moisture to 200 inches of moisture – build soil health. Absolutely stake my name on it.

GRANT: So, what we do here – Brenton over here and his crew cleared out a bunch of cedar trees; dodged the tombstone; and then we went in and planted our fall blend on a very dry fall. Planted the Buffalo Blend with a variety of stuff that we put in there. We will let it grow up this spring. We’ve added nothing, but we’re gonna add Plot Rock to it this spring, which is 60+ trace minerals. And we’re gonna put it down at about 100 pounds per acre.

GRANT: We’ll let the rye get as tall as it will because there’s no fertilizer being added. And we will drive right through that with the no-till drill before the seeds get to the dough stage.

GRANT: When you take the rye seed – always cereal rye, not rye grass – and squeeze it, moisture comes out. That’s the dough stage. We’ll drive through there while it’s standing. Which does many things. You can see exactly where you’re planting. You don’t have to have a GPS. It’s protecting that soil from drying out. That vegetation is shearing the wind up – just like I’ve got all of this ground cover here. And keeping it from blowing right across the soil. We’ll plant right through it; let those beans come up.

GRANT: Beans are always my summer crop. Always. Year after year after year. I may mix a little in with them, I may not, but the main component is gonna be soybeans. Deer love soybeans.

GRANT: Let them come up to two- or four-leaf; no more than four-leaf. Run the crimper. The crimper is my steel buffalo. It’s my buffalo herd. I can control when the buffalo herd comes through. It’s gonna mash it down. It breaks the stem about every six inches. We don’t want to cut it ‘cause what happens when you cut grass? It grows back – competes with my soybeans.

GRANT: We want to break the stem every six inches, every eight inches. Kill the circulatory system. It won’t grow back. Soybeans will pop up. All the weed seeds that are there, are now covered by four inches thick or six inches – depending on my rye crop – of rye, clover, radishes, brassicas, winter wheat. That mulch is laying there in this that’s decomposing slowly during the growing season. Slow release fertilizer.

GRANT: It’s a wind shear; it’s a thermal protector; it keeps the temperature from getting too cold; it insulates it and too warm. It protects that young bean from being browsed because when the bean is first coming up and super palatable and tender, it’s three or four feet or five feet deep of rye. Deer don’t want to stick their head down in that trying to find something that tall. Because they can’t see the booger bear coming up behind ‘em.

GRANT: Beans grow all summer. Feed the deer herd this year. In some of my bean fields – this one we will – the bigger field. We’ll have 10% – a 10% normal planting rate of buckwheat, which is really good at pulling phosphorous out of the soil. Our native Ozark soils are real low on phosphorous.

GRANT: I haven’t added any source of phosphorous to this field in five plus years. Does it look out of color to you? Does this wheat and rye look like it’s starving for a nutrient?

GRANT: And I also have 10% of a normal planting rate of sunflowers in with my beans. Why sunflowers? Deer like sunflower forage. Tracy loves seeing sunflower heads in the field. I score major brownie points for that. Major.

GRANT: But what do sunflowers do really well? Nobody? Attract pollinators. Name me a forage crop that grows without pollinators? I want as many pollinators in here as I can get. ‘Cause I’ll have more beans.

GRANT: It’s been shown you’ll get five to ten bushels per acre increase in beans if you increase the number of pollinators. That’s money in the bank.

GRANT: And that in a nutshell is the Buffalo System. We’re just replicating nature. Replicating something that the Creator did and, obviously, works perfectly.

GRANT: We can’t control when whitetail eat here unless we use the electric fence, but we can control when the buffalo comes through by using the crimper. And the crimper, if you’ve looked at it sitting up there – the reason the fins on it, if you will, are at an angle, ‘cause if you have them straight – you know, if they’re straight here and they’re rolling, it starts bouncing off the ground. So, if you look at that design there we have up there. Paul’s been so patient with me. Because I’m constantly tweaking and changing my mind.

GRANT: The design is such that as it rolls, there is always a fin on the ground every inch. As this one is leaving, the next one is touching because of the angle it’s at. It’s really cool. It looks pretty simple, but if you get into it, there’s a lot of science behind it.

GRANT: I mean, just grab that and pass it around, man. I mean just take a whiff. Yeah, it smells like rich, organic dirt. Because that’s what it is. And we didn’t even have to pay for it. That’s amazing. Tracy loves that.

GRANT: I need this producing food as many days out here as it can. So, corn doesn’t fit in my rotation.

GRANT: Here’s the cool thing we’re doing this year. Part of the Buffalo System. This is kind of secret, but I’ll let you in on it. I’m going up here to the hardware store and I’m buying a few pounds of every vegetable variety they have – squash, everything, spinach. Putting it in my Genesis and I’m gonna make one drill path right through the middle of the food plot up by the house. That’s gonna be our garden.

GRANT: ‘Cause if you notice my yard, it’s not all that good. I mean, I hate yard work. I’ll spend all day in the food plot. But, I don’t care much about the yard. And I don’t want to waste my time in a garden, but I love fresh vegetables.

GRANT: I’m gonna drill my garden right through the middle of the food plot and it’s gonna be a mix. I mean, it will be sweet corn here; pumpkin here; green bean here; squash here; spinach here; radish here. Carrots don’t grow in the ground – too rocky. They stick up here.

GRANT: And I, and I got this from a farmer in North Dakota. Because we tried to grow squash here in our garden every year, but squash bugs – about every seven; about every third day – spray. If you’re a gardener, you know what I’m talking about. And this guy has no problem with squash bugs because he’s using the Buffalo System in his garden. He’s got all these plants growing together and the way the chemicals are working together in the plants – not store bought chemicals – he has no squash bugs. None.

GRANT: I want 24 parts carbon to one part nitrogen in my soil. And I do that through my crop rotation. I’m gonna grow more rye and wheat and sorghum and milo and stuff like that than I am legumes because I want 24 parts carbon – that’s my corn stalk or my milo stalk or my rye stalk – to one part nitrogen. That’s ideal. That’s when plants grow the best.

GRANT: And I never want to wipe out the earthworm. When you disc, you kill earthworms by the billions. Literally. I want them rascals working for me. They’re free. They’re working 24/7. They’re never late for work; they never steal from you; they never complain. Man, they’re like the perfect employee.

GRANT: I enjoy listening to and participating in good conversations about improving native habitat and food plots, but I was really excited for the next stop of our tour.

GRANT: And I’m just gonna tell you, and, and Richard would not want me saying this, Richard is probably the finest hunter I’ve ever hunted with. He’s the only guy in my life – one time Richard and I were hunting together – I felt I was kind of a halfway decent woodsman. And we were, saw some bucks off yonder and trying to stalk up to ‘em. And Richard doesn’t use tree stands or, or, or blinds or anything. He kills everything off the ground. And, and I nudged the cornstalk or something a little bit. And there may be a deer, like, you know six or 800 yards away. I didn’t even think about it. Richard’s like, “Do you make some noise back there?” Like, “Gosh, man. Chill out a little bit, buddy.” And Richard is just a wealth of knowledge.

GRANT: So, please really listen up here because Richard has taught me so much more about this particular part of deer than I ever dreamed of learning in college. This is a real – first year Richard has ever done this for us – and this is going to be a real treat.

RICHARD: Good morning. Thank you, Grant. I, I’m not sure I live up to all that, but I’ve, I’ve been looking at deer for a long time. I’ve been scoring ‘em a long time. I’ve been an official measurer for Boone and Crockett probably 30 years.

RICHARD: Now, I’m guessing that most of you guys – you’re avid deer guys – you’re looking at deer on bean plots. Is that right? I mean, is there anybody that isn’t looking at deer on bean plots?

RICHARD: Well, it’s a good place to look if you’re not looking. 40% is gonna be what your points are. So, that’s – you need to be looking. How many points have you got? If you see three points going up, you’re looking at a ten-point. If you see four points going up, it’s a 12-point. If you see two points going up, it’s an eight-point. So, you just know that right off. I mean, you ought to be getting that if you’re looking at nine bucks. You just, you know.

RICHARD: Okay. There’s a ten-point; there’s a six by six. You really need to look at that deer. You know, he’s got a lot of points. Um.

RICHARD: 30% of your score is gonna be beams. So, we’re all back to length. They’re 70% of your score. Which means there isn’t a lot else.

RICHARD: Now, everybody that I know, including myself, what do you like to see? You like to see a big, heavy deer. That’s nice. You’ll see deer with big fat points. Has nothing to do – you don’t even score that. It’s wonderful. It’s a great thing to, to also determine age, to determine nutritional status, what your soils are doing. It’s, it’s a good thing, but it’s not gonna affect the score.

RICHARD: That, that, that’s probably the most key things. Look at point length and beam length. Get that as quickly as you can.

RICHARD: The second thing I’d like to share with you is as you get closer to getting a deer on – a score on that deer, and you realize the priority of it, the next thing you want to look at as soon as you can is the brow tines. Does anybody know why, at least why I think, that’s important?

RICHARD: It affects the score. And it can be, it can vary a lot. In other words, you’ll see deer with brow tines up here. And you’ll see deer that don’t have brow tines. So, it can swing quite a bit. That’s the three things that most important I think a guy can pick up on pretty quickly is: figure out how many points he’s got; how much average point length he’s got – put your number on there. Look at your beams. The spread isn’t really gonna vary a lot. It doesn’t make a lot of difference.

RICHARD: And the heaviest deer you’re ever gonna shoot – I mean, unless it’s a freak – is, is gonna have 40 inches of mass – 20 inches per side. It’s just, you know, that’s the top of it.

GRANT: One of the things Richard really taught me is, “Why are you sitting here for three hours letting your scent go all over? Why don’t you arrive there ten minutes before the deer get there?” And that just flipped a big, ole light switch for me.

RICHARD: We hunt strictly from the ground. We hunt with every kind of equipment – muzzleloaders, archery. Uh, we hunt kids in the youth season. We hunt late rifle season. In, in Kansas where I hunt that’s in December, so you can get some really rough weather.

RICHARD: And I’ll tell you the reason I hunted – I started hunting deer in 1968. So, I’ve been doing it a little while and I don’t know if some of you guys that are older might remember those times, but it got cold back then. And there weren’t all the clothes out there that we have today. And that was the only time I hunted deer was in the rifle season. And, I simply didn’t have the clothing to sit still. If I – you know, I was a skinny little kid and if I was gonna be hunting, I was gonna have to move just to stay warm. And so that – you know, but I’d learned from squirrel hunting and things, you could move and kill these deer.

RICHARD: I’ve learned that when you watch the cows, if the cows are up feeding, the deer are up feeding. If the cows are laying in the shade, the deer are laying in the shade.

RICHARD: I like to get into an area no sooner than I have to. I mean, I’m not out there to look at deer or, or you know. I do all that stuff, but that’s not what we do when we kill a deer. I mean, we plan on killing a deer when we go.

RICHARD: But, I like to get there very shortly before the deer arrive. And I mean if I could cut it down to five minutes, that’s what I’d do. Um. When the deer are moving, they’re not as sensitive to sound and scent as they are once they’re stationary and feeding.

RICHARD: Every time you go to the woods, the deer learn more about you than you do about them. There’s just no question. They’re just better at it by a whole lot.

RICHARD: If you want to know a lot about how to hunt deer, look at USMC sniper doctrine. That, that’s – well, you’re not gonna expose your position and you’re darn sure not gonna go back to the same spot every day. ‘Cause people are, you know, if you’re hunting deer, the deer are going to avoid you. You know? I mean, how many of you guys – if you hunt from stands, watch that deer come through there and look up in the stand as it goes by to see if you’re there? Those deer are gonna learn a lot.

RICHARD: So, you don’t want to expose your position and you want to keep ‘em confused. Don’t come up to that field from the same spot; the same area. I mean, come up – and especially, the longer range weapon you get – whatever you’re using – crossbows, muzzeloaders. You know, these muzzleloaders now.

RICHARD: You know, keep ‘em confused. Don’t let them figure you out and then that’s what it’s based on. Learn as much as you can from as far away as you can.

RICHARD: I’m really not going hunting to observe. I mean, I do all that at another time. When we decide to kill a deer, that deer isn’t alive very long. You know. Um. Because the system that we use to get in on it. We know the deer. I literally get – I want to observe it and everything. If I want to judge it, I’ve got a spotting scope. I can’t always see – I mean the furthest I can probably see on any of my property is half a mile. But if I can see that deer from a half a mile, that’s all the closer I want to be.

RICHARD: Plan to succeed. Don’t, don’t plan to go in there and hope. I mean, I mean, at anything you’re gonna do in life. Don’t, don’t plan on, on getting lucky, you know. Plan on making it work. That’s, that’s all I know.

GRANT: Well, he knows a whole lot more than that. I will share – the first time – I believe it was the first time I was ever blessed enough to hunt with Richard was muzzleloader season. And the mosquitoes were out. And, you know, muzzleloader season in Kansas is real early and he said, “We’re gonna walk up this little drain; we’re gonna walk up here and there’s gonna be some bucks bedded. You know we’re gonna find one.” “Yeah, right. That’s a good one.” And we go up through there and we’re in a pretty tight little drain. Do you remember this, Richard?

RICHARD: Umm, umm.

GRANT: We’re in a pretty tight little drain. I don’t know. 50, 70 yards wide. Not real much – right by the railroad tracks on the property. There’s a railroad bed over there.

RICHARD: Hmm. Hmm.

GRANT: And we’re walking up a drain. And I’m sure I was making more noise than he wanted. I used to have hair before I hunted with Richard.

GRANT: We’re walking up through there and I’ve got my muzzleloader. I’m kind of lollygagging. I’m like, “I ain’t walking up on no mature buck in here. It’s pretty thick stuff.”

GRANT: (Whispering) And he goes, “Right there.”

GRANT: I’m thinking he don’t want me to step on a stick right there, you know. I go, “All right.” And there were six bucks bedded up there in front of us. They weren’t any of ‘em he wanted killed. But, we walked into six bucks bedded. And that was a life changing hunt for me.

GRANT: By now, I was hungry and I figured everyone else was and I knew that my buddies at Redneck Blinds had lunch waiting for us back at the shop.

GRANT: After everyone had their fill of some great barbecue, it was time to learn some more, so we loaded up and headed back out on The Proving Grounds.

GRANT: With turkey season either open or starting in most states soon, I was thrilled that the boys from Hook’s Custom Calls – several world champion callers – were here to give us a demonstration.

SCOTT: Well, we’re here to help you guys that are interested in turkey hunting. I have four guys with me that between them, have 22 World and Grand National turkey calling, owl hooting and gobbling championships. Not only are they great champions; they’re great guys. I’m thankful for every one of ‘em every day. I’m not sure how they gravitated to Hook’s, but I’m very thankful for them.

SCOTT: I’ve been asked one question often – Messenger Grunt Call. We ran out a couple of weeks ago. Have no fear – about mid-July, they will be in stock on the Hook’s Calls website. We ship quick. I promise you. If you order today, they ship tomorrow. I even work Saturdays and Sundays packaging stuff.

SCOTT: So, the best way to tell you how fortunate we are with the gentlemen that we have on our Pro Staff is just to let you see what they can do in the woods.

SCOTT: So, just so you guys know. We had a friction caller on the right. James was here in the middle. They did the owl hooting. We had young Carter was right here on the left side of the road up there. He did some box calling and owl hooting and Stephen was doing some hen talk and some gobbling.

SCOTT: I don’t know what else to say. Except if we can be of any help to any of you – help you improve your calling – direct you into which call to get, we’d absolutely love to do it.

GRANT: I gotta tell you. The crowd was never more quiet all weekend than when those boys from Hook’s were up there sounding like a flock of turkeys.

GRANT: We returned to the shop, regrouped and headed to the Keeter Center at the College of the Ozarks for our banquet.

GRANT: After a great dinner, we announced the winners of the bow shoot.

LINDSEY: Gary, come down. Congratulations.

GRANT: Congratulations.

GRANT: First place won a certificate for a brand new pair of LaCrosse boots.

LINDSEY: And that goes to Tyler Gentry. Tyler, where are ya? (Inaudible)

GRANT: Nice shooting. Hey. And y’all – you know that Tyler was one of our past interns and we worked out together a lot. You see that?

LINDSEY: And the winner of a Code Blue package is going to Ms. Deb Townsend. Deb, where are you? (Inaudible)

GRANT: Redneck chair, 496.

GRANT: We also had a drawing for many, many great prizes.

GRANT: Man, I want that one.

GRANT: ScentCrusher roller bag. 5-1-8. Going once. Right there. Here we go. Right. All right. Man, give me five. All right.

GRANT: And I just tell you – we are blessed to have one of the finest Pro Staff teams, literally in all the industry. Would my Pro Staff please stand up?

GRANT: It was a special opportunity for me, personally, to take time to thank and appreciate the GrowingDeer Pro Staff.

GRANT: I don’t think in nine years, GrowingDeer has ever been more solid, more congealed, more team-like, more everybody wanting everybody to win than we are right now. And, and we do give some awards for certain things. And so, the first one I’m going to give tonight – and I’m not going to go into all the details – is to Daniel Stefanoff.

GRANT: Daniel self-filmed a real – which is tough to do – if you’ve never tried it, it’s really tough to self-film. And made a shot and did a really cool hunt for us this year on his land that he had bought and implemented the management plan on. And I’m so proud of you, Daniel. Thank you so much.

DANIEL: Thank you.

GRANT: Thank you for your friendship.

GRANT: And I tease all the time that anybody can kill a deer in Kansas. But can you kill a big deer on nine acres? That you’ve managed and hunted and played to win and did all that and self-filmed and made a tremendous episode that was well, well received by the public? And that’s Jeff Therrell. Jeff, thank you so much.

GRANT: If you’re a producer of the year, your, you’ve got something going on. And this year, unequivocally – I’m sure the whole Pro Staff knows right now who it is because they were phenomenal this year. And that’s Heath and Lindsey Martin. And they did a, like, a really phenomenal job this year.

GRANT: I’m gonna let them hold it, I guess. That felt pretty good. I didn’t even win one.

GRANT: One of my friends from the Nashville, Tennessee area had tagged a nice buck last fall. So, we had a little contest; I talked him into bringing it over. It was a cool non-typical and we had everyone estimate the net non-typical score.

GRANT: I was surprised. I really didn’t think that many of ya would be that close. But, if you were north of 165 and south of 180, you’re in the running.

GRANT: We had promised to give away several Bass Pro gift cards, but I was shocked that the winner estimated the exact score of 174-2/8 inches. It’s tough to be to the exact 1/8 of an inch on a rack that big.

GRANT: Congratulations.

GRANT: I think that’s outstanding. Awesome job. It’s not easy to do to the exact 1/8 of an inch. Not off an 1/8, exact 1/8 of an inch. That’s incredible. There’s a big ticket in there for you to go to Bass Pro and have some shopping fun.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.

GRANT: Thank you for coming today.

GRANT: If you weren’t able to join us this year, don’t worry. Because we’re sharing new information every week right here at GrowingDeer.

GRANT: It’s always fun to enjoy Creation with other folks. But what’s most important is to find time every day to be quiet and listen to what the Creator is saying to you.

GRANT: Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.