EP 564. Looking Back

“Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast where today we are looking back with today’s guest, Mr. Clint Ward, who wrote a really interesting book I read on a recent flight.”

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast where today we are looking back with today’s guest, Mr. Clint Ward, who wrote a really interesting book I read on a recent flight. Greatly enjoyed it. It reminded me a lot of my own experiences. I think that a lot of you guys are going to relate to Clint and to his stories. But it’s so interesting how in the world of books and storytelling so many people in literature reflect, they look back at themselves and that’s not at all what I picked up going through Clint’s book. Clint, how the heck are you today?

Clint Ward: I’m nervous. How about you?

Ramsey Russell: Oh, come on man. I’ve met you before, I don’t see nervous in you at all.

Clint Ward: I can promise you, I’m nervous. But I’m glad to be here and I appreciate you asking me to come on.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, sir. Where are you from and what do you do?

“So from Macon, Georgia. Lived here all my life, went to school at Georgia Southern University. I’m in the construction business here with my dad and married to my wife Krista. Got 3 kids, Dallas, Jarrett, and Stokes is my son. He’s a senior in high school. My 2 girls are in at UGA.”

Clint Ward: So from Macon, Georgia. Lived here all my life, went to school at Georgia Southern University. I’m in the construction business here with my dad and married to my wife Krista. Got 3 kids, Dallas, Jarrett, and Stokes is my son. He’s a senior in high school. My 2 girls are in at UGA.

Ramsey Russell: Born and raised in Macon, Georgia. What was it like growing up in Macon, Georgia?

Clint Ward: So it was actually pretty good. A lot of hunting and fishing. I mean, everybody else have their own thing, football, baseball and I did all that to love the sports and played all of them. But when it came to hunting and fishing, that was my passion, for sure.

Ramsey Russell: It’s so funny how so many people I have come on this podcast, virtually everybody, you hear that hunting is a dying sport, that it’s a little minority, it’s a small piece of the pie relative to 330 million Americans, there’s a lot of topics and issues around that going on, but at the same time, every single body I know hunted and fish growing up, or wanted to.

Clint Ward: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: What did you hunt and fish in Macon, Georgia?

Clint Ward: So a lot of birds – I remember opening day of dove season was like Christmas. And a pile of ducks and did a lot of deer hunting. My dad wasn’t a deer hunter, but guy named Mr. Reed kind of took me under his wing and he wanted to hunt my granddad’s land and my granddad, that was his stipulation was, hey, if my grandson wants to go, will you take him? And so I started hunting with him and killed my first deer with him, and it was all downhill from there. And probably just like a lot of hunters just reading Field and Stream, Georgia Sportsman, and getting into all those stories where you reading, basically stuff about elk hunting and going out west and wanting to see that country. And I read about it for so long that I felt like with fire had the means, that’s what I was going to try to do and I was lucky enough to do it.

“Yeah, absolutely, man. Talking about dove hunting, that was my earliest introductions to hunting. And somebody asked me just yesterday, if I had a last supper hunt to go on, where would it go and what would it be? And I think they were expecting something exotic, something crazy.”

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, absolutely, man. Talking about dove hunting, that was my earliest introductions to hunting. And somebody asked me just yesterday, if I had a last supper hunt to go on, where would it go and what would it be? And I think they were expecting something exotic, something crazy. I’d go to Argentina, melt a gun barrel, no man, I said, I’d probably go out to a dusty dove field and in the Mississippi Delta and with people I love and care about, go dove hunting again, because that’s how it all started, man. My fondest memories growing up were dove hunting with my people just one or two days a year.

Clint Ward: Yeah, I agree 100%.

Ramsey Russell: Talk about some of your earliest hunting experiences. Was dove hunting your first hunt? Would that been the first introduction to hunting too?

Clint Ward: I would say that I grew up, going with my dad dove hunting as young as having – I remember going and having a BB gun, Benjamin Pump and –

Ramsey Russell: Benjamin Pump, 177 or 22 caliber?

“I mean, I remember trying to kill a deer with a Benjamin pump and thinking if I could get close enough, I could kill him. But that’s how young and naive that I was. But I wanted to hunt everything pretty much.”

Clint Ward: No, I had the 77, but I had the 22, I had both of them, and I just remember taking care of that gun and cleaning it like I was in the military. And I remember, going on dove hunts with him and basically shooting anything, no matter whatever it was, a dove or not, if it lit in a tree or whatever. Me and a couple other kids would walk around and we’d kill anything we could. And then you got to where shooting a 410. And the 410 I had was a single shot with a full choke and you graduate on up to 20 gauge and then the 12. But yeah, no, I mean, I grew up basically hunting anything that would walk. I mean, I remember trying to kill a deer with a Benjamin pump and thinking if I could get close enough, I could kill him. But that’s how young and naive that I was. But I wanted to hunt everything pretty much.

Ramsey Russell: I think a Benjamin 22 caliber, when I graduated, when I went from, I think I would have those Crossman pellet rifles and BB guns, I had one that was interchangeable. You could kind of shake it up, put a BB in or you could hand feed a pellet.

Clint Ward: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: When I got up to the Benjamin, boy, when I get Benjamin, I wanted that 22 caliber. And I never was ambitious enough to go after deer, but woe be unto squirrels and rabbits and any kind of songbird or game bird. And there was a covey of quail not far from the house, I don’t know what they were doing there because right on the edge of a neighborhood, but man, I crawled through those thickets and never did close the deal. I knew I couldn’t hit one flying, but I knew I had to catch them walking. Again if I was sitting still or something like it, but I never closed the deal on a Bob White, but golly, green turtles and snakes both being to them. That’s all I can say, they were mine. You didn’t shoot no turtles growing up, did you?

Clint Ward: A pile of turtles and a pile of robins.

Ramsey Russell: When you start getting into the world of real hunting, what are some of your earliest memories going out like you told a story, I think, about your first deer hunt. What was your first deer hunt like? Tell that story, it was wonderful.

Clint Ward: So, I can’t remember. Yeah, my first deer hunt is in the book and I went with the guy, Mr. Reed, he came to my granddad and had some land up the road, and my granddad said, well, I’ll be glad to let you hunt up there if you take my grandson with me, he’s always hunting with birds and he shoots his 22 with iron sights pretty good. And he really good on squirrels, he’s killing every squirrel in the county. And so he took me deer hunting. So we went up there to – it’s actually on the piece of property where I live right now. And I remember we sat in the edge on a bucket and he was on a bucket, and I was on a bucket. And sure enough, we’re sitting there, we’re probably 10, 12 foot back in the woods. And he’s got a 30-30 lever action with a scope, and I got a 22 with iron sights. And we’re sitting there on the edge of that field, and I remember a doe runs out from the left into the cornfield and stops. And I remember thinking, all right, I’m fixing to kill this deer. And he’s putting the brakes on. He can tell that I’m getting ants and he’s putting the brakes on. He said, if you wait just a minute, I bet you a buck come out. And sure enough, buck ran out there after that doe and stopped, and I remember thinking that was a big buck, but it was probably a little 6 pointer basket rack, nothing to it. And he said, all right. And so I want you to ease that gun up and I want you to shoot that deer right in the head. I mean, 22 wasn’t legal, 22 wasn’t legal in Georgia, and he was trying to appease me and my granddad and it wouldn’t have been a problem because we had a permit to kill during – this was during deer season, but we had a permit during the off season to kill deer from eating all the crops and all that kind of stuff.

Ramsey Russell: Depredation permit.

Clint Ward: Yeah. So it wouldn’t have been a problem. So he was just trying to introduce me. So anyway, I raised the gun up, and I’m thinking that deer was probably 75 yards away, 80 yards away. And I put iron sights right on his head, pull the trigger. And when I pulled the trigger, I can’t believe that deer didn’t drop, but that deer didn’t – and both those deer took off running, and they ran straight towards. So when they ran straight toward us, they were like, you could tell that they were surprised, but they didn’t know where the shot came from and they ran straight towards us. When they ran straight toward us, I ran out of those woods with that gun on my hip like I was Rambo. And I’m just going, pow-pow. And those deer, by the time they realized that I had run out of the woods, they were probably like 25 yards away and then they just split and took off. And I never hit nothing like that. And I remember him having, now looking back, him having the patience to see just kind of tap me on the shoulder, he’s like, hey, man. Clint, if you would have just sat right here, those deer would have ran straight to us and stopped at the edge of the woods, basically, and they would have been 10 yards away. And he was right. But, heck, I didn’t know any better.

Ramsey Russell: How old were you, would you have been back then? How old were you then?

Clint Ward: 11 years old.

Ramsey Russell: How old do you think he was? He probably seemed 115. But how old was he really?

Clint Ward: Yeah, golly.

“I’m at that age now, Clint, I’m 58 years. And I think back to being a child 11 years old, my granddaddy wasn’t even 58 years old.”

Ramsey Russell: I’m at that age now, Clint, I’m 58 years. And I think back to being a child 11 years old, my granddaddy wasn’t even 58 years old.

Clint Ward: Yeah, he was always old to me. And I mean, I guess if I had to guess, I would say he was in his 70s.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Okay. Which maybe could have been his mid-50s.

Clint Ward: Yeah, I know he was retired, that’s right. I know he was retired and all that kind of stuff. But very safe and conscientious, and taught me a lot about deer hunt, a lot about deer, and listen, took me anytime I wanted to go.

Ramsey Russell: You don’t think you got buck fever, do you?

Clint Ward: Oh, I know I did.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. So how did, how did that buck fever manifest for more deer hunting? How did you progress up to your first deer?

Clint Ward: Yeah, so I stayed on it pretty hard.  I remember getting my first rifle, which was a 270 with a tasko scope on it and the see through sights for the iron sights, but up until then, I hunted with – after that I hunted with a 20 gauge shotgun with buckshot. And if you read the story, ‘Trophy’ which in opinion is probably one of my favorite stories, because that’s one of those things that I’ll never forget. And I don’t want to spoil that story –

Ramsey Russell: No, I want to hear it, because I want to hear this story, that’s what I was leading up to. I want you to hear this story because that to me was a monumental moment from this first hunt with that old man to just – go into the story, you first deer. Because it was a really good story.

Clint Ward: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And how old would you have been then 12, 13?

Clint Ward: I was 13. And so I had hunted with him for a couple of years without killing a deer, seeing deer, but just almost getting to the point of just being discouraged. He’d pick me up after school at my house, we’d go deer hunting, we’d go on the weekends, but I was getting to the point to where I just couldn’t close the deal. And now looking back, it was all my fault. I mean, I was probably moving like a crazy in the stand, I was hunting, he would drop me off to a ladder stand, wooden ladder stand, and I would get in, he’d come pick me up, and there was probably deer all around me I never saw. But anyway, so this one particular time, this is across the street from my granddad’s house, you got to walk out of my granddad’s house, cross a dirt road onto a track of land that my granddad basically was a caretaker of. And you walk through, around the edge of this field into the woods. And I had been hunting with him over there several times, like I said, and just never really even sealed the deal. Well, I was hunting over there with him and I was sitting in that stand, and I’ll never forget it, it’s all pine trees and it looks like a blanket of pine straw, looks like you could rake it. But trees tall enough that you can put a ladder stand on. And right at dark, I remember seeing this deer walking through, and I could see the outline of his antlers. I could see the rack. And I just remember thinking I’d give anything at that moment be able to kill that deer. But he was too far away and I knew I had a shotgun, knew I had a buckshot in it, and it just happened so quick, and he was just on the move that he was probably 75 yards away through that pine tree that he moved. So Mr. Reed came and got me out of the stand, and we’re walking back to my granddad’s house and my grandmother and granddad were always inside waiting on us when we got back. When we got out of the woods, we were talking about it. And I said, I want to come back tomorrow. I want to come back tomorrow. I want to kill that. I want to come back tomorrow. And for some reason, he could not come back. And he said, why don’t you get your mom to drop you off your granddad’s house, and he’ll walk you across the street and get up in the stand maybe you’ll kill that deer. So that’s exactly what I did. I got out of school, got my mom to drop me off at my granddad’s house, my granddad walked me across the road, across the dirt road, through the field, through the pines, made sure I was safe, getting up into the ladder stand, locked and loaded. And he said, I’ll meet you at the edge of the field at dark. And if you come out of these woods at the edge of this field, you can see the light on his house, which was always a relief to me because at that age, I didn’t like being in the woods by myself after dark. So I’m sitting in the ladder stand by myself, and it’s getting close to dark, and I just can’t believe I hadn’t seen a deer, and I just hear something right over my right shoulder, and I got 20 minutes before it’s time to get down for it’s dark in those pines, and I look over my right shoulder, and I can see the deer and the deer’s neck is pulled back, and he’s pruning, but the deer is literally 15 yards behind me. And I could just tell that it was a deer, and I could tell he’s right up on me and guns, laying across my lap and everything. And then the deer looks back towards me, and I could tell that it was buck. Now, I’d never killed a deer, and this was the first buck that I really had a chance, in my opinion now to kill.

Ramsey Russell: Did your heart come out of your chest and climb up in your pocket?

Clint Ward: Oh, yeah. I felt like I was shaking the pine needles out of that tree. And so I remember thinking, praying, God, please let me kill this deer, let me kill this deer, please let me kill this deer. And I remember that deer taking a three or four steps up. And now that deer is, right beside me, literally right beside me, probably 8 yards away. And that deer senses are going berserk.

Ramsey Russell: Probably all those pine needles falling out of the pine tree.

Clint Ward: That’s right. And so at this time, I still hadn’t been able to get the gun up, I still hadn’t been able to take the safety off or anything, but I had shot doves enough that I knew that I could do it in one motion. And so I was just sitting here thinking, all right, what am I going to do? The deer’s right to my right, right under me, seven or eight yards away. So that deer turns to its right to prune, like a deer will, to prune something off his back leg or something like that. And when that deer turned his neck away from me, I raised my gun up real slow, took the safety off in one motion, and that deer turned back just like that, and bam, I shot it right in the neck, and it dropped right there. And I’ll just never forget that deer just laying there, just kicking all that straw. And I’m just like, that gun, I am trying to keep my gun on that deer, because I’m shaking so much because I thought I was going to shoot it again. I just didn’t know what was going to happen. And so I get down and I go over there and I kneel down by the deer. And now it’s real close to dark, and I’m just thankful, so thankful for that deer. And just no matter what was going on in the world that day, nothing mattered, I can promise you that. And that’s why it’s one of my favorite stories. So anyway, back to the story. I left the gun laying on the deer and I took off running through the pines to my granddad’s house. Came out. And now in the book, I switched to the story from my grandma to my granddad of how they tell it. So my grandma and granddad are sitting at the table and my grandmother says, I think I just heard Clint shoot. And my granddad said, I think I did too. And then, of course, minutes go by and what seems like a long time and my grandma is after my granddad, maybe you ought to go check on him, no just give him a minute. I mean, 13 year old in the wood by himself, gun goes off, there’s no telling what the thoughts are that’s going through their heads. Is he hurt? Did he fall from stand, whatever? Maybe you ought to go check on him. Well, then my grandmother tells a story, I can see her now telling it. She said, I looked out across the window and here comes this blur, camouflage streaking across the field and I see it coming across the field around the corner and jumps a dirt road and runs in the door. And he says, I got him. And everybody’s just going crazy. My grandma, my granddad, they’re just going crazy. And so my granddad gets his tractor, he had a hair on the back of the tractor and he said, I’ll take the tractor over there and we’ll just put him on the back of the hair and we’ll bring him home. I said, all right, I’ll meet you there. And I took off because I was scared that deer was going to be gone one way or another. So I took off back over there, no light, nothing and I’m going through the woods and I can’t find the deer. And I’m thinking, did this deer get up and whatever, as a kid, you just don’t know what to think. And I’m waiting, my granddad feels like he’s driving from 30 miles away and I finally found the deer and I’m just sitting there kneeling by the deer and I can’t believe it. And I’m just in awe. And my granddad comes and we load the deer up and call my dad, he comes, my mom and my dad, they come up to my grandparents house and like I said, it was a celebration. Now in the story, just like now, I have never mentioned the size of that deer.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you named that chapter Trophy and I’m wondering how big that deer was.

Clint Ward: Yeah. So that deer was a 4 pointer, and I still got the rack on a plaque that my granddad made for me where he wrote on the bottom of it, Clint’s First Deer with the date and all that. I still got it in my house. And the reason why I tell the story like I tell it is because to me, and still, to this day, that is still, when I think about the moment of kneeling beside that animal, that is my trophy of a lifetime.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Clint Ward: And size doesn’t matter. And listen, I’ve hunted in Alaska, British Columbia, mountain goats, sheep, elk, all that stuff, I’ve had some great moments, but I can’t go back to a moment that was greater than that.

Ramsey Russell: That’s a great story, Clint. You talk about the word trophy and I was pretty sure throughout the whole story that it probably wasn’t going to net into Boone and Crockett.

Clint Ward: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: But when I was 13 years old and finding my way as a hunter, especially in a deer stand, man, for a spiked buck, I’d have probably pushed you 30 foot out of a tree stand to get shot. I mean, seriously, that was a big freaking deal. And to where now, having raised my own kids all these years later, this whole trophy management, trophy concept, it’s taken a whole new meaning than trophy in the context of a first or a personal accomplishment. And I know it’s a very subjective word, but if you ever spend much time in social media, you ever seen some guy will post up a mainframe 10 that growth scores 150 inches and God, what a huge buck. And still there will be 10 or 15 or 30 comments about should let him go another year or, I don’t understand it. I don’t understand that. Where and when did humanity take that divergence that it’s got to score some amount or be something big or be so impressive or build an ego so much before it really qualifies as a trophy? I kind of missed the days of the good old days of just going out. And now that I have gone and done what I’ve done since those days, I wanted to be a deer biologist and shot a lot of deer and did all this and did all that, all these decades later, I’ve kind of started coming back. I mean, a lot of my clients, their vacation of a lifetime are these duck hunts we do. I do it all the time, more or less for a living. And my idea of fun is going back to a deer stand. And really and truly, I’ve started gravitating towards friends that have management bucks plenty, that trophy, you know what I’m saying? Where are you at right now, going from that first buck, I mean, you’ve been all over the world and done this stuff, but where are you now in terms of what constitutes a trophy and what doesn’t?

Clint Ward: Yeah. So for me, and I still deer hunt a lot and I’m getting to the age now to where I enjoy going probably more than I do actually killing the deer. I enjoy the process, I enjoy being alone. So for me, I don’t care what a deer scores. I really don’t care or elk or anything like that, I really don’t care. It makes no difference to me. If I see a deer that I want to put on the wall or I see a deer that I think needs to be shot, I’m going to shoot him. That’s it.

Ramsey Russell: I like the old deer.

Clint Ward: And I was kind of like that with my kids. I let my kids basically shoot whatever they wanted to. We owned our own land, we had stuff like that. So there wasn’t really necessarily any rules, but I wanted my kids to grow up like I did and have those same memories, instead of there’s so many things drawing kids attention away from wanting to sit in a deer stand. I wanted to draw it towards it. And if you take a kid long enough and say, no, he’s not big enough, sooner or later, that kid’s not going to get it.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Clint Ward: He got something better to do. And listen, I can’t blame them. So for my kids, I really made it a pretty big deal. Anything that we went and hunted, even when they killed it there, even if there was homework to be done, even though if there were problems that had to be taken care of, if they killed a deer in the afternoon, it was a big deal, everything stopped because that’s the way my parents were with me and my grandparents. That’s the way everything stopped. And now that I’m old enough to realize it, that’s what I really remember.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely. How old were you when you got over being in the woods in the dark? You ever had anything chase you in the dark?

Clint Ward: So, of course, in my book, there’s a chapter in there about a time that I was in college that I thought I was being chased in the dark. And I kind of want to leave it at that because I want the people listening to this to maybe go read the story because I think it’s better than I can probably say it off the cuff right now, but I can tell you this, I don’t know that I got comfortable being deep in the woods, dark until I was probably out of college.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Clint Ward: I don’t know that I got comfortable with that, but my son is the same way. And then, listen, he gets it honest. And I just remember being in the woods by myself, wanting to get down while I could still barely see with my eyes to be able to get out, but reminding myself these last 5, 10 minutes is when you kill a big one. And I just remember being young enough, battling with that.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. It just comes with experience, I guess, you know.

Clint Ward: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: But I will tell you this, I was a grown man, I was a daddy of high schoolers the last time I got scared in the wood and had long since outgrown it. But one day I took my oldest son and I was hunting one stand, he was hunting another, we were separated about, I don’t know, quarter mile, half mile and I’d climbed down at dark. And now with all this – going back to that word trophy now, but all this trophy management back in the day when I was young, I would sit out there till pitch black. I have killed ducks in pitch black, dark still sitting in the food plot with the moonlight coming up, and especially when we got these doe seasons right. And now with this trophy criteria, buck main beam got to be so long, so wide, so this, so that I may be able to look through my binoculars and tell it’s a buck, but I can’t score them after dark.

Clint Ward: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: I climbed on down and was sitting there waiting on the edge of the trail that he was going to come up on. And meanwhile during the afternoon he had been reading, I’ve got a buddy from Brandon, Mississippi, had written some really pretty good books about like, if you can imagine, alien werewolves or something and my kid had been reading it and he got down and heard something off to the side, it could have been, who knows, it could have been a rabbit hopping off or a deer bolting. And when I heard something running at me like he was there for a flint, I almost tried to get my gun off my shoulder, I mean it was unbelievable. I had this loud unknown noise that obviously wasn’t a deer or a dog or a rabbit running towards me down the trail. And as it came into focus, it was my son running for his life because something had scared him even and he was a grown kid. It scared the heck out of me, ain’t going to lie to you. But it’s funny how just experiences and being in the woods at some point in time, you began to get comfortable. I mean, because it’s your world all of a sudden. Don’t you think when you’re a child and you were out there on those hunts that it was a little scary? It’s just because you weren’t experienced enough that that world wasn’t really your world yet. You were almost like an outsider climbing into it.

Clint Ward: That’s right. And plus, you’re naive to everything else that’s going on. Watching scary stuff on TV, all that kind of stuff. I mean, you start imagining, your imagination is running wild when you’re younger. And that’s kind of how I was, that’s kind of how I was for sure.

Ramsey Russell: You talk about being a youngster going to the barbershop or reading magazines in school and getting an idea of hunting opportunities beyond your own backyard. What was your first hunt outside of your own backyard, and what did it entail?

Clint Ward: So you mean like my first kind of like, big game hunt out of Georgia?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I know we do a lot of hunting around home, but we begin to start traveling around our own state, our own commuting area, and going to camps an hour away or further, going home with friends a couple hours away. But what was your first big hunt outside of your normal stomping ground deer and turkeys and ducks and does in the state of Georgia? Was it that elk hunt you talk about?

Clint Ward: No, the first hunt that I went on was kind of spur of the moment. At the time, I just got out of school, and I was working with my dad, and a couple guys were going caribou hunting in Quebec and asked if I wanted to go. And I remember, reading stories and seeing that, and I don’t have a chapter in the book about that story, but that was the first animal that I kind of said, all right, I’m stepping out of my box, I’m going to start, I hope this is the start to a lot of animals and the caribou was the first one, and then the second was going to Argentina and shooting doves, that was a big deal, a huge deal.

Ramsey Russell: Talk a little bit about the elk hunt you went on. You all were up in a camp, there was other grown man, you were horseback riding. And I’ve always dreamed of doing that hunt and never done it myself, you did a pack in trip, and the snow would hit and elk were hard to come by, and you had saved and worked hard for that trip. You had saved a lot of money you probably didn’t have, and went on this trip of a lifetime and talk about that hunt a little bit. I mean, we travel hunters, we read these stories, we’re going somewhere on trip for lifetime for the first place, and we expect it to be like the story we read. But oftentimes, reality ain’t the same, it is hunting a wild bird, I mean, a wild animal.

Clint Ward: Reading all the magazines and all that stuff in high school and college, the two things that I wanted to do was go to Argentina and go elk hunting, that’s the two things I wanted to do when I got out of college, those were the two main things that I felt like that if I could do those two things and I died the next day, I’d be fine. Those were the two things. I went to Argentina and shot doves, loved it. And so I was dating, now my wife, and I’d been on a do it yourself archery, elk hunt in Colorado, which you can read about in the book too. But basically I had come to the realization then that if I was going to kill an elk, I really needed to put some time and some money into it, for sure. And Krista, we’ve been dating, and I basically told her, I said, I’m not getting married until I kill an elk. And she would laugh, my dad would laugh, my mom would have been like, why? And I said, well, it’s something I’ve dreamed about all my life. I want to make sure that – I was afraid that getting married and job, kids, whatever came after that would knock elk hunting down the line. And it was something that I dreamed about for a long time. And I said, well, I’m not getting married until I kill an elk. And the chapter in the book is called Elk and Marriage. So anyway, I booked a hunt in British Columbia that what I wanted to do. It was the real deal. You’re going to pack in, you’re going to hunt for 7 or 8 days and on horseback, no power, log cabin, tent, camps, all that kind of stuff. And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to experience that country that basically you read about all my life. And so I remember putting the deposit on a credit card, and I remember thinking that if I put this deposit on a credit card, there’s no turning back.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, you’re all in.

Clint Ward: And I booked it a year in advance, and I had a year to save the money. And I was working at our construction business, but I was doing stuff in the evenings, planting shrubs around houses, making extra money to pay for the hunt. So I ended up going to British Columbia and I got there, I just couldn’t wait. And you don’t know what to expect. And outfitter picks me up and get into camp, base camp and I meet my guide and my guide is younger than I am, it’s his first got time guide elk hunting. And I didn’t think nothing of it at the time, very excited, very gung ho. Absolutely ready to go. Great. So am I. Get up the first morning, it’s snowing, snowing pretty good. He’s out there, we’re getting the horses packed up and everything, there’s three other hunters in camp and all three of them are sitting there thinking, well it’s snowing, I don’t think I’m going to go, I don’t think I’m going to do this. Well, there was no way I was not going, there was no way. I mean I’ve dreamed about it all my life, read about it all my life, save the money, here we go. I’m getting every ounce I can. So we took off, hunted all day, nothing, come back to camp one day down, get up the next morning, same thing, other hunters are kind of dragging, we get up, we’re the first one out, we’re the last one in, I’m just telling you. And it’s two hour horseback ride everywhere we’re going basically. So wherever we’re hunting that afternoon and we stay there, dark is two hours back on horseback. So I mean we are just burning the candle at both ends. And we get to day three and I’m starting to question everything we doing now it has turned hot, there’s no snow on the ground, it is like 80 degrees –

Ramsey Russell: Hadn’t seen an elk. Had anybody in camp seen an elk?

Clint Ward: The other hunters and elk have not seen it.

Ramsey Russell: So it was kind of a debbie downer around dinner time.

Clint Ward: That’s right. And I’m now getting to the point that I’m thinking did, is this a scam? But I’m seeing tracks. We’re riding horses up into these meadows and sitting down and glassing and doing everything that we thought we were supposed to do and not doing anything. Well, day four comes around and we ride up to this place and when you go to British Columbia, I was hunting out, but I had a black bear tag and a mule deer tag also. And we ride up to this meadow and I see him look behind me and he says, and he’s pointing, he’s like, black bear. And so I see the bear and that bear is running straight to this rock wall.

Ramsey Russell: He’s seen you too.

Clint Ward: Yeah, he saw the horses and he’s running straight to this rock wall, straight to it. And I’m like, he ain’t got nowhere to go. He don’t have anywhere to go. I’m sitting there watching him. So I get down, I tie up the horse, I walk around, I get the gun out of the scabbard, the whole time I’m thinking that bear is fixing to hit that rock wall and he’s fixing to turn around, I’m fixing to kill him. So I get my gun out, chamber bullet, I’m getting laid up on a rock. And that bear is now at that rock wall and he is going up some switchbacks. And my guide is like, all right, you see him? I said, yeah, I’m going to wait for him to stop and I’m going to kill him. And I mean, I’m nonchalant about it. And that bear goes into a hole in that rock wall and he is gone. And it turns out that just like always, he knew more than we did.

Ramsey Russell: He knew where the rabbit hole was.

Clint Ward: That’s right. And we waited for hours, that bear didn’t come out. And I’m telling you, at this point, I am livid. And I remember getting on that horse and I remember thinking of hunting the rest of that day. And I specifically remember riding back in the dark and I think I could take you to the spot on the mountain because I could see my guides horseback through the moonlight in front of me about, he was probably 40 yards in front of me. I don’t think he wanted to talk, and I think he could tell that I didn’t want to talk with him. Well, at this time I was really upset. And if you want to know the truth, and this is in the book, and this is why I wrote the book, I’m blaming God for it. I mean, I really am. I’m blaming God. I am talking out loud on the side of this mountain, riding back, saying, God, why would you do this to me? Why would you let me save for a year, book a hunt, you know how passionate I am, dream about this all my life, read about it all my life, pray about it all my life and now I am basically on a 10 day, horseback ride, that’s what I’m paying for. Why would you do this to me? I don’t understand it. And it wasn’t necessarily that I was asking, I was telling God that. And that’s how I felt. And I look at those moments and I was really mad, I really was. And my mind had already kind of like chalked it up to, I’m done, I need to get back to Georgia, book another hunt, and maybe I’ll get married in the next 10 years, basically. So, I get back to camp and like I said, there’s no power in camp and we’re getting back like at 9 or 10 o’ clock at night and there’s no power and everybody’s already in bed and he and I kind of aren’t talking. And I think I’d probably said a couple of things to him that let him know that I was just frustrated and disgusted at the way things, not that it was his fault, but he and I basically needed some peace. And I just remember getting in bed and I was listening to, when you go on those hunts, and even though I’d been on Caribou and stuff like that, when you go on that stuff, my mind races when I lay down and there’s no power, there’s no light, there’s no sound, there’s no nothing and it just makes it work. So I brought a portable CD player and I was listening to a book on CD. Well, I was listening to the series Left Behind. And it just so happens that at that night I was, it got to a part in the book where that guy, there’s a guy in the book that basically was going through the same thing I was. He was blaming God, he was blaming everything around him that basically saying, I can’t believe you let this to happen to me. I’ve been Christian, I’ve been this, I’ve been that, I’ve been that, I’ve done this, I’ve done that, why would you let this happen to me? And I mean, it kind of resonated with me. And the guy in the story, in the book had a preacher that was kind of coaching him and said, it’s not up to you, maybe bottoms there for a reason, because that’s where you turn your faith and then you turn your eyesight towards somebody else, like the Lord instead of you. And I’ve gone back to look several times to try to find it. Specifically, in that book and haven’t been able to find it. But for me, that was the experience I had. And I woke up and I literally prayed and asked for forgiveness that night. And I said, you know what, whatever your will is, I’m going to sit here and I’m going to get up the next morning, I’m going to give it all I got. But at the end of the day, if I’m not supposed to kill an elk, well, hey, I’m going to chalk it up, you know better than me, just like proverbs, lean not on your own understanding, I’m going to chalk it up that you know better than me, and there’s a reason behind it, and I’m good with it, I’m good with it one way or another. So I got up the next day and I went to my guy and I said, I went up to him and I grabbed him by the arm before we saddled those horses that morning at daylight. And I said, hey, I just want you to know, man, I am living a dream, I have dreamed about this all my life. And the scenery is unbelievable and the experience is unbelievable, but I’m not going to let not killing this animal ruin it for me. And he looked at me and he’s like, man, I’m so glad you said that, I am trying my hardest, this is my first hunt, I got everything to prove to these other guys, they think I’m just some newbie and all this kind of stuff and I got it and he did have a lot to prove. And we were out hunting everybody, we were just getting skunked. And so I felt like that we kind of came to peace with the situation and we took off. Well, we ended up going back up to the same mountain, see if that bear was there and we did. And we pulled up to that meadow, and he looked behind me and he said, there’s that bear. And I’m telling you, I jumped off the wrong side of the horse, grabbing my rifle out of the scabbard at the same time, never tied up the horse ran down in front of me, sat down on a rock, and when that bear gave me the first shot, boom, I killed him before the guide even got off the horse. And I did. And the guide was like, whoa, horse is going crazy, my horse didn’t even tie up. And I killed that bear before he – because I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I did the day before. And I killed that bear and I got a picture of a black bear and everything and it was great to have some proof that I was there, basically.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Clint Ward: And so, we’re all high fiving and getting back to camp with the bear and that took all day and everything. So we’re coming into the last couple of days of the hunt and at least I’m not going home empty handed, and the outfitter just seemed like he didn’t care at all. My guide was great, but the outfitter was like when I expressed some concern early in the week, I’m on an elk hunting and not only have I not seen an elk, but the other three hunters have not seen an elk, not one.

Ramsey Russell: That’s why they call it hunting, not killing.

Clint Ward: That’s right. Not one. And I mean we had covered some ground with those horses. And he said, Clint, they’ll just appear. And I’m like, this guy is killing me. There’s no way it can be right. And I’m looking at all these plaques on the wall in this cabin, so and so from New Jersey, so and so from South Carolina, 6 by 6 elk, 4 by 4 mule deer, all these plaques. So there’s like proof on the walls of these cabins that all these people had killed, and here we are not seeing anything when I killed the black bear, but I hadn’t seen an elk, nobody in camp. And so I was just kind of at a loss. But at the same time I stuck with my guns and it wasn’t up to me is what I’m getting at. So we kept hunting and we get down to, I think the next day we go and don’t see anything, I can’t remember. And then the day after that we’re getting close to the end of the hunt, if not the last day. And I remember us saddling the horses that morning and the guy looking at me said, where you want to go? Because we’ve been everywhere, pick a spot. And I remember saying we were going to go to, I think it was Moose Lake. And so we’re riding through, basically we get to about two hours away and then you start these switchbacks up the mountain where they had kind of, they cut a pile of timber and it looked Like a thousand acres of clear cut. And when I say clear cut, it was just the nastiest brush you could ever see because it was about head high. But we’re doing these switchbacks going up to this mountain where there’s a lake on top of this mountain with a big old meadow that looks like there ought to be a thousand elk there. But so we’re going up this switchback and the horses are sweating pretty good. And he gets there, we get about halfway up, he says, hey, let’s stop here and maybe eat something and let these horses rest for a minute. So we’re about halfway up the mountain going through these switchbacks. So we’re sitting there, we got the horses tied up and we sit down and I’m eating Snickers, he’s eating something, horses tied up, my gun’s on the horse. We’re just sitting there on the side overlooking this basically this thousand acre clear cut. We’re just sitting there talking and all of a sudden we hear this bugle that doesn’t sound like a bugle, it sounds like somebody is trying to bugle. Well, this is where looking back, inexperience comes in. My guide looks at me and this is his first time guiding too. My guy looks at me and he said, that ain’t an elk. And I’m just remember sitting there on side of that and here comes this bugle again. And it doesn’t sound like, it’s a bugle, but it doesn’t sound like what you would see on TV or hunting video or anything like that is just all messed up. And he said, that’s one of those guides, they’re messing with me, they’re doing this. Well, I went and got my rifle anyway, I took my rifle off the horse, I brought it over there with me and I sat down and he said, I’m telling you, this one of those guides messing with it. They’re messing with us. And he said, I’m going to bugle back, and I want you to see if you can look through your binoculars, let’s see if we can pick up the glare through their binoculars because they’re probably looking at us. I said, okay, I mean, he’s right, it doesn’t sound like a bugle. And I understand where he’s going with it, but at the same time I don’t know either. And so he gets his bugle and he bugles this long bugle and a few seconds later, here comes this bugle back. And it doesn’t sound like an elk, but it is a bugle. And he’s glassing, and I’m glassing, he said, man, I’m telling you, they are laughing at us right now. They are sitting there watching us through their binoculars, laughing, that ain’t an elk. And he bugles back, he bugles back again, and he is just fit to be tired. He is really mad because he’s taking it personal that one of these other guides is messing with him. And I’m just like, whatever. Well, all of a sudden this bugle comes back that is just picture perfect, like you would see in a TV show. And we look at each other like, holy cow, did we just hear that? And all of a sudden we look right down below us, and when I say right down below us is in this clear cut that elk was probably 170 yards away, something like that. But all you could see was that elk bugle and those antlers just coming up over those. But that elk had been bedded down the whole time and just stood up. Now, in British Columbia, the law is it’s got to have 6 on one side to shoot him. Well, I can tell you that scope and that crosshairs was on that bull before we even thought about counting the points even my guide. And I remember having the crosshairs on that and really not believing what I’m seeing. And that guy saying, shoot him. Oh, my gosh, he’s huge. Boom, pull the trigger. That elk just takes that bullet, it’s like you don’t even budge. I mean, he don’t even move. I shut that shell out, chamber another one, put the scope right back on him, and that elk is still standing there and all of a sudden, boom, he just falls over. And I mean, we go crazy. We were high fiving, yelling at the top of our lungs, just going crazy on top of his mouth. And then I’ll just never forget he looked at me, he said, you count the points? I said, I didn’t kill nothing. He said, oh, I’m sure he’s got 6. And so I can see the wheels turning, and I’m like, to me, it don’t matter. I mean, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. And so I can tell that he now is very worried, but he is talking himself out of, oh, I know he’s got 6, I got a good look at him. I don’t know. You sure you didn’t count? So anyway, I sit there, and we got these Motorola radios, and he says, all right, look, do this, I’m going to stay here because I can see exactly where he went down, because he is in that clear cut, and you ain’t going to be able to find him, it’s like an ocean. He said, I’m going to stay here, you take the horse down, take the gun, and when you get down to where you got to get off the horse, I’m going to radio on you whether to go right or left, blah, blah. I said, okay, all right. So I take the horse down there, and again now I’m like, holy cow. I’m excited because I’ve killed an elk, it may be confiscated tomorrow, but I’ve killed an elk. And so I get down there, and he’s on the radio, he’s on the radio going, all right, go in, keep walking. And I mean, like, I am literally using the gun as a paddle to get through this brush. He’s like, all right, go to the right, and all this blood and I say, start seeing blood. And I said, I got him, he said, count the points. And I dropped the radio, and I start counting the points. And he’s come through. How many points? And I said, 7. He said, 7 on one side? I said, 7 on one side. He starts going crazy. How many points on the other side? I said, 7. And so now, that was in the book, and so we go from basically full range of emotions of not doing anything, not killing anything, not seeing an elk, blaming God, blaming everything else, to basically, I killed the number either 7 or 9 elk that year in British Columbia. My God, not a grizzly bear, black bear. And nobody else in camp killed an elk or bear or anything, and I came back with both. And in the cabin, I got my picture of the plaque, it says, Clint Ward, Macon, Georgia, 7×7 Elk, Wow. Black Bear, New Wife?

Ramsey Russell: How long after that elk did you propose?

Clint Ward: That was in September, and I think that I proposed that next month.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, yeah.

Clint Ward: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Clint, throughout this conversation, you’ve mentioned faith several times, in the deer stand with your first trophy with, on your elk hunt, and throughout the story, you mentioned faith. Where did you get your faith? Who imparted to you your religion?

Clint Ward: So, grew up going to church, going to youth, I wouldn’t say it was a top priority in our family, but it was something that I liked and I did. And then I had a couple of people that were older than I am that were answered questions like Judy Rocker, that answered questions that a young kid would have and got baptized when I was 13 years old, and I would tell you that that is the reason why I wrote the book. The reason why I wrote the book is because out of all the stories, God has put his fingertips on it somehow. Now this is the problem. When you and I are sitting around a table, maybe drinking a beer or riding in the truck or whatever, and we’re telling a hunting story, a lot of times we leave out those parts. We leave out those parts that maybe yank on your heartstrings a little bit or maybe made the difference in your life. And so for me, I started thinking about what kind of man am I if I can’t tell my kids the whole story? The difference that God made in certain moments of my life. And so that’s why I really decided to write the book, is because I really wanted my kids to have something that really told the whole story. And then to go a little bit deeper, if you want to know the truth, to go a little bit deeper, I wrestled with it for years of, why would anybody care about what I got to say? Why would anybody care about that? What’s so special about me that I think I need to write a book? And I wrestled with that for a long time because I understand that thought process, and I just didn’t think it was worthy. And finally one day I just decided, after being, literally, I felt like led for a year or so to do it, I finally decided that I’m going to do it for my kids. And if one other person reads it and it makes a difference in their life, how can you argue with that?

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

“And I can tell you this, I’m not a writer. I’m not a writer. I can tell the stories a whole lot better than I can do it right.”

Clint Ward: How can you argue with that? And so once I decided to do that, every door open and I got it done. Because I can tell you this, I’m not a writer. I’m not a writer. I can tell the stories a whole lot better than I can do it right.

Ramsey Russell: How has hunting brought you closer to your family? And I asked that question because a lot of the stories I looked at are about you raising children as hunters and about some of you all experiences in the deer standing abroad. How has hunting brought you closer to your family and what role did your faith have in that?

Clint Ward: Yeah, so with my kids growing up, of course I wanted them to be involved in the outdoors as much as possible if they wanted to. And all of them did. My middle girl, Jarrett, even though she’s named after a rifle, she loved to go but she didn’t care that much about the killing part. You know where my oldest daughter Dallas, deer hunter, dove hunter, shot shotguns competitively all through high school. And my son, we all went and we all went together and for us it was more about the experience because if I could give them a good experience, the memories would come, the deer would come, the turkeys would come, the doves would come, if I could give them the experience, everything else would take care of itself. So I mean from early ages of my kids going, I just don’t think there was a time that we sat in a deer stand together that my kids didn’t say, hey, let’s pray. When we get up there and we get settled, let’s pray. And now that my two oldest girls are in college and my son’s fixing to go to college, I still believe that they get in a deer stand by themselves and still pray. I still believe it.

Ramsey Russell: And why is it important for you to raise your children as hunters?

Clint Ward: What’s that now?

Ramsey Russell: Why was it important for you to raise your children as hunters and to have a faith, apparently.

Clint Ward: Yeah. I definitely wanted them to be part of the outdoors, I felt like the outdoors to me really, growing up deer hunting, it gave me a time to sit back and reflect on, especially as I got older, the person that I wanted to be, not necessarily the person that I was, but the person that I wanted to be. And things I wanted to accomplish, things I wanted to do better, things that I wanted to give up. And for me, I just felt that a teenager having that time to be able to decompress and reflect, I thought it’d be a good thing to them in their life, and I think it has been. And I think if you asked them now, they would tell you, even though we told them that social media and phones and all this going to be – I think they would agree with you that, and I wish we didn’t have it. They’re old enough to know that now. And they’ve even said it to me. They’re like, I wish we could go back to those days. They see pictures of me laying on the floor talking on a phone, it’s got a long rope connected to the wall. And they’re like, what is that? And I think they envy a little bit of that. As far as the faith –

Ramsey Russell: I wish we could go back. I’ll agree with you on that.

Clint Ward: Yeah. As far as the faith, I think that for me, I think it was important for them to kind of stop and smell the roses, to see what God has created. They got to make their own decisions down the road. They got to make their own decisions how strong their faith is going to be or not. For me, I felt like mine has peaks and valleys and stuff like that. And as I’ve gotten older, mine has gotten stronger, they will go through the same peaks and valleys and I hope that sitting in a deer stand one day when things aren’t going right will clear their head. And they still do that, we still hunt together, even though we don’t hunt together, when they come on breaks and stuff like that, we still go deer hunting and stuff like that.

Ramsey Russell: You hear this a lot, that there’s so much distraction pulling children away from hunting, whether it’s team sports or gasoline and perfume, there’s so many distractions pulling children out of the deer stands away from duck camp, it’s kind of hard to get them back in there. But at the same time, not all those things are good. I mean, idle hands do devil work.

Clint Ward: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You know what I’m saying? You hear this saying all the time about get your kids in the hunt, you don’t have to hunt for your kids. There’s so much evil incarnated in this world. I’m very thankful that I grew up when I did and how I did then now differently. You’re talking about spending time with your kids and sharing those times to the blind and praying. I mean, your daughter Jarrett, we’re just out there to be with dad, not so much to hunt. But at the same time, I’ve long since believed that children spell love TIME, spending time with parents. And I think in the context of those distractions, good and bad, that children increasingly need, especially daughters, need parental influence, dad influence. They need that influence in their lives. And I never found a better way to communicate with my kids, even though We don’t just have long conversations, but I’ve never found a better way to get to the heart of the matter with my own kids than in a deer stand or on the 4 wheelers going back and forth to the walks ends of house or just sitting in a duck blind, that’s about the only time dad gives, except for a text message here and there.

Clint Ward: Yeah. It’s just always been a part of our life. It was mine growing up, and it’s just always been a part of ours and my wife, God bless her, there was several times where she just didn’t understand it, and I get it. But I think she sees the importance now, especially through the kids, of the times and the memories that we’ve made, especially when you look back at the pictures and how time really flies by, and time is our most precious commodity for sure. She looks back on it and wouldn’t have it anyway, I don’t think. Now there was several times I was gone, like Alaska and stuff like that, my wife was fit to be tied with young kids at home and stuff like that.

Ramsey Russell: When you look back at spending time out in the field with your kids, of course there’s first and a lot of memorable moments, but can you think back to any memorable teaching moments? Times that you taught them something or really times that being in the blind with a younger person that wasn’t experienced you taught you something? And I say this because by the time my oldest son was 2 or 3 years old, we went brim fishing out of the farm pond, and he was a child, I mean, a baby is what he was. And man, I had skipped so much school and fished so much in high school and especially college. Now I had a job, I had a career, I had bills to pay, I had obligations, and it wasn’t as important to me, or let me say I did not prioritize it like I had when I was younger and more free. But I never will forget the time I baited that little brim pole and laid the cork in the water and handed it to him and I said, I told him to watch the cork, he had to watch the cork. And I just never will forget the time that first fish brought that cork underwater and when he lifted with both hands on that cane pole, there was nature on the other side of that monofilament line. And it kind of sort of got me back into fishing just to take them fishing, just to see so much of what I had done and taken for granted again through young naive eyes. Watching those young kids put together the duck hunting and become hunters themselves was in and of itself a very rewarding part of hunting with kids. It was a lot of teachable moments by taking my kids hunting, not for them, but for me.

Clint Ward: Oh yeah, for both of. Same with us. And I think same for any family. For me, there were several times we were in a blind that there was me and two of my kids, or maybe even all three of us sometimes, and I just remember thinking, there’s no way we’re killing a deer, it’s impossible with the amount of noise that we’re making with the sippy cups we got and the snacks and all this kind of stuff. But now I look back on it, and I’m like, I wouldn’t trade those moments, and we still laugh about it now. I mean, we were talking about it over Christmas break when my girls were home. I remember this one time, we took all three of them hunting, and I remember, we get there and my middle daughter Jarrett, who’s the one that’s not the hunter, the other two are pretty serious. And they’re all small, but my son and my oldest daughter are looking out the blind windows looking for a deer. And my other daughter’s like, can I have some crackers? Can I have this? And I was like, you all, if we’re going to see a deer, we got to be careful. We got to be quiet. We got to stop talking all this kind of stuff. And I just remember my middle daughter looking up at me, holding the sippy cup, sippy cup? And I just remember her face was just great. And even though I didn’t have the patience for it at the time, that’s what it taught me is the patience. And listen, the patience in the deer stand with you kids translates into patients in other areas with the kids.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Clint Ward: But some great times. Great times for sure.

Ramsey Russell: How has hunting brought you closer to your faith? Hunting in and of itself or hunting with your family? How did it connect you to a deeper level with your faith?

Clint Ward: Yeah, well, I don’t want to sit here and tell you that I’m some holier than thou, that’s not me at all.

Ramsey Russell: Clint, we’re all sinners.

Clint Ward: I’m a sinner just like everybody else. Listen, I’m a normal person, I’m a normal, everyday person and I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve, and it takes a lot to get it out of me. And this book was probably the biggest step of getting it out. But for me, it’s so easy to get up every day and focus on what you got to do and what your world’s going to look like and what you are going to accomplish and what things are going to happen in the end that will affect your life. To me, hunting has always been, and church has always been – help me with my faith because it has made me realize that it’s not about me, it’s really not about me. And my dad and I, we sit here and we talk about how time is flying by and you know what they say, and I don’t know if it’s in the Bible or not about your life is like striking a match and watching it, and that’s how long it is. For me, the hunting has slowed me down, and it’s something that I wanted to do, but I always made it a priority, too, that while I’m there to read something to think about something to pray about something to reevaluate something in my life that I thought maybe I could do better or that I needed to give up or how I could be a better father or husband or friend or how I could do better in my business, how I could be a better Christian. For me, it has given me the time to be able to do that. And in most cases, it gives me proof that there is a God because of where I’m sitting. No matter whether it is duck hunting, no matter it’s on top of a mountain in Alaska or it’s fishing on a pond, it gives me a chance to smell the roses and it proves to me that, man, I just need to be thankful for what I got and what God has given me instead of what I’m trying to accomplish or what I’m trying to make happen.

Ramsey Russell: Yes. Clint, I’ve always felt that I am the most perfectly imperfect human example God ever put on earth. I don’t wear my faith and keep it deep in my heart. And I asked that question of you because just being a dad put me in touch with my own faith, you pray that the children are going to come out healthy. You pray that they’re going to have a good life. You pray that they’re not going to get in trouble. You pray that they’re going to be safe as they get older and start to drive. You pray that they’re going to be successful. You pray that in your heart, you just pray that their mistakes and part of the human experience is making mistakes. You pray that their mistakes are not going to be irreparable, that it’s going to make them better people, life is hard, man. Life is hard. And boy, it really humbles me to have children and see them go through a lot of their own personal struggles that all humans have to go through. But we all could think of examples where struggles destroyed the man instead of made him better. You know what I’m saying?

Clint Ward: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s why I asked that question. My wife and I say all the time that we got older children, they’re in their 20s now, but I was 31 when my first kid was born, and I really don’t know what I did. Because the times I’ve spent as a dad and as a husband have best and most defined the happiest days of my life.

Clint Ward: Yeah. And still do for me. And I think probably for you too. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book is I wanted everybody to kind of see how I was thinking, not that everybody know would maybe agree with it, but I kind of wanted, I felt led that I needed to share that story not only with my kids but to the one person that maybe bought it. You know what I’m saying? I just felt like that my kids needed to hear exactly the way I felt and have something they would have with them later on in life. But also at the same time I needed to give God the credit that he deserved that I hadn’t given.

Ramsey Russell: Amen. Looking back, is there one single salient moment with any or all of your children you’ll never forget?

Clint Ward: I don’t know about one, because my kids were staggered in age, so I had great memories with all my kids and I don’t know that there’s one together, but I had great hunting memories with all my kids. And I put some of those in the book, of course, but I can’t tell you of one memory where all of us were together, right off the bat, I’m sure there’s something. But I would say, we had a place in Twist county off Richland Church Road that we went to when my kids were young, that we hunted and hog hunted and all that kind of stuff. And us being together and we talk about it all the time, having a campfire, a little cabin, us being together then I think was just as important memories as anything that we did vacation wise or hunting, us being in that camp together. I got a picture of my three kids and this camp was nothing. I’m talking about my wife never stayed in. And my kids today say we just didn’t know better. That’s how rough it was. But I got a picture on the front porch of that little cabin that was made of my kit where we had spent the night there over the weekend, and they were dressed and we were fixing to – they had brought their church clothes and we were leaving there fishing, go to church. And I got it framed and got it in my game room and that’s a great picture that we always look back on.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Clint, I sure appreciate you coming on today and sharing your stories. How can people connect with you or where can they find the book? Looking Back, Memories of Hunting, Fishing, Family and Faith. Where’s that book available?

Clint Ward: So it’s on Amazon and all you got to do is search it in on Amazon but you can preview it there. Amazon’s done a great job of promoting it for me and everything, but that is the best place and pretty much the only place to get it. I’ve had it in bookstores locally and stuff like that and I still do a little bit of that. But Amazon is the best place because in my opinion, it can get it sent to you overnight. And plus, if you write a review or anything like that, that helps me out a bunch too. I mean, I tell this story a lot. I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary but when it first came out, let me back up. When I wrote the book, I was so worried about the process that I wouldn’t get done, that I didn’t tell anybody. I recorded all the stories I had. I was 6 months in before I told my wife and I did not tell anybody except for a couple people like Mike Smith and Martin Willingham and Kevin Mills and Todd Murphy who guys that helped edit it was a complete secret because I didn’t want anybody asking me how’s the book coming? How’s this? Because I didn’t know if I’d get it done, I’m not a writer. And I just felt like that I wouldn’t complete it. I just felt like I wouldn’t complete it. And so when I went through the process, I didn’t know how to sell it or how to get it out there, but I really thought about trying to get it out there without anybody knowing it. I know that sounds crazy, but I didn’t tell anybody. So Amazon, I felt like, was the best way to go. And that’s what I did. And the reviews and all that kind of stuff kind of helped me and I kind of got off track, track of where I was going there. But anyway, I just feel that’s the best place you can get it is Amazon. And it shows the cover, it shows a couple of chapters and all that kind of stuff. And heck, if you get it and you’re local, I’ll be glad to sign it for you.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Clint, you talked about duck hunt growing up in Georgia. Georgia’s not the beacon of, it’s not the epicenter of North American duck hunting. But in your book you told a story about mallard hunting and I don’t want you to tell that story now. It was a great story, I felt like I knew every single personality in the whole, I’ve met them, it’s like I know them, I could point to a guy and name him by name, everybody in that book, it was a wonderful story and I’m just going to leave it at that because anybody gets a book, I think they ought to look it up and read that story first is a duck hunter, it was a really good story.

Clint Ward: So I get a lot of comments from people and I’ve been lucky enough to have people in different countries send me text letters, whatever, Texas, California, Montana read the book, and there are several stories they point out. And that one is one of them and it’s called Miss Me. And especially people around here that know me, they just smile at that story and they just laugh. But I don’t want to tell it anyway because I want to read it. And then another story that a lot of people mentioned to me is called Second Chance and is strategically placed in the book. But that story was one of the difference makers. I was mountain goat hunting in British Columbia, killed my mountain goat trying to get down to him and I fell and I broke both bones below my knee. And laid there on the mountain from 3 o’ clock in the afternoon to 9 o’ clock the next morning, basically no way out and nothing but a water and an Advil and an apple and broke both bones below my knee. And man, it’s a great story. We had to get medevacked out surgery. Some people think, I walk with a limp all my life, all this kind of stuff. None of that, went elk hunt the next year. A lot of people mentioned that story along with Miss Me, I would say, Toughen Up is a story that me and my son, really good father son story. Martha, matter of fact texted me after she read it, read that story and said this story makes me just melt almost. But yeah, Miss Me is very high up on the list for sure.

Ramsey Russell: You speak of Martha, you met Martha phony down at La Paz. I’m proud that one of the hunts you added to your world list. That’s how we came into each other’s orbit. That’s a La Paz, Argentina combo. Clint, thank you very much for coming on board and sharing your stories today. I really appreciate you and really appreciate you sharing this. Encourage everybody to find this book Looking Back on Amazon.

Clint Ward: Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it and I’m not as nervous as I was.

Ramsey Russell: Good. Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast where we’ve been Looking Back Memories of Hunting, Fishing, Family and Faith with Clint Ward from Macon, Georgia. Check it out. See you next time.

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