When Ashley Covert traded her vegan lifestyle for the woods and wild game, her journey opened up a world of respect for nature, ethical hunting, and self-discovery. As we sit down with Ashley, she recounts the poignant transition sparked by a craving during pregnancy that led her from a plant-based diet to embracing the hunter's path. Her engaging story isn't just about changing eating habits; it's a profound exploration of the connections we make with our food sources and the conscious decisions that shape our consumption.
Ashley's Linktree
The Hunting Stories Linktree
When Ashley Covert traded her vegan lifestyle for the woods and wild game, her journey opened up a world of respect for nature, ethical hunting, and self-discovery. As we sit down with Ashley, she recounts the poignant transition sparked by a craving during pregnancy that led her from a plant-based diet to embracing the hunter's path. Her engaging story isn't just about changing eating habits; it's a profound exploration of the connections we make with our food sources and the conscious decisions that shape our consumption.
Ashley's Linktree
The Hunting Stories Linktree
Howdy folks and welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and as usual, we got a good one for you today. Today, we actually finally have another brave female hunter that is willing to come on the podcast and share some stories with you. Today we're hearing some stories from Ashley Kovar. Ashley is an adult onset hunter, like myself, but something unique about her is she started before being a hunter as a vegan. So super interesting story there. I'll let Ashley go ahead and tell it to you, but make sure you follow her on social media. It's another Ashley outdoors Instagram, facebook, tiktok, youtube, whatever. Give us a follow. While you're doing that as well, let's just jump into this thing and let Ashley tell you some of her stories. Thank you, alright, ashley, welcome to the Hunting Stories podcast. How you doing?
Speaker 2:Good, how are you?
Speaker 1:I am doing well. I want to say thank you so much for coming on. I really do appreciate it. I mentioned it to you just briefly before it's hard to get female hunters to come on and share some of their stories. I get really excited whenever a lady wants to come on and share, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Why don't we kick this thing off right? And just why don't you start by introducing yourself to the folks, so they know who they're going to hear some stories from tonight?
Speaker 2:So I'm Ashley and I run a page called Another Ashley Outdoors and it started out just as fun and then it's kind of flourished into much more than that. I've got people that follow me and it's been a fun time growing just in general from the page. I figure that you could have that much self growth just from putting yourself out there, but there's a lot of self growth that comes from it. I've been hunting for about six years. I want to say Six years.
Speaker 1:What got you into it?
Speaker 2:Actually my husband got me into it. He's been a lifelong hunter. Him and his dad hunted his whole life, and I was a vegetarian. No way, yeah.
Speaker 1:How'd that conversation go?
Speaker 2:It was interesting. I started wanting baconators one day, and that's how we found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 1:So as a vegetarian, you weren't necessarily an ethical vegetarian, maybe like a diet vegetarian, and so you were with him and he was a hunter and you're a vegetarian and you didn't think about dabbling in it before the baconators.
Speaker 2:Well, no, actually I didn't, so mine was basically it wasn't more so like it wasn't. It was that I didn't like the taste of meat and I had watched a documentary where they like fused the meat together and they were wearing these like hazmat suits and stuff and after I watched that I was like I don't want to eat, basically, gelatin molded together meat. And that was when I was like I don't want to eat meat, I don't think. I think I'm good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like McDonald's chicken nuggets or something, but yeah, okay. Okay. So then you wanted the baconator. You realized you were pregnant and then so like, what was the catalyst? They're like okay, now I should try hunting.
Speaker 2:So when my husband and I were friends, we had talked about hunting and because that's all he had ever talked about and I was like I think I would like turkey hunting because I eat chicken, I started becoming more pescetarian than anything, because you get sick if you don't eat certain things and I was like turkey hunting would be really fun and I would actually eat that.
Speaker 2:So I talked to him about turkey hunting before we ever got married or got together or anything. And then when I started eating baconators I was like man, I think I would like to hunt deer. If that's like if I'm going to start eating red meat, I'd rather eat deer meat than I would red meat, because red meat hurts my stomach and so be out one year and I guess it was he calls it his test hunt and he knew I'd be able to shoot a doe. I shot a doe and he was like you did it Like he goes I didn't know what to expect from you.
Speaker 2:He goes I didn't know if you were going to cry, I didn't know. I shot her and I don't. Really I don't do the gutting and stuff. I can't handle the sound of it. It's anything else. It denies from it. There's something about it and I just so I make him do like the initial cutting stuff and I'll help clean up and I'll help cut the meat off.
Speaker 1:But, it's pretty cool that you were open minded to the entire process as a vegetarian, because a lot of vegetarians just are like nope, nope, nope. But that's cool. I mean, the baconator definitely helped you get there, but it's still pretty cool Definitely did.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, well, cool. That's a cool story. I think you're the first converted vegetarian that I've had on the podcast and I've said this a bunch of times. Yeah, I've said this a bunch of times on the podcast before, but I honestly feel like vegetarians and hunters you know, really ethical hunters, not the yee-ha shoot, whatever. Hunters have more in common than like the guy that just goes to the grocery store and just grabs, you know, cellophane wrapped, whatever. So I've talked to a lot of people that feel the same way.
Speaker 2:Well and working in hair. I get a lot of girls that question like why I hunt and stuff. And they're like why don't you just send him out if you don't like, if you don't like the killing part and I'm like, because I like the hunting part, like it's not just about the killing portion you appreciate where your food came from. When you actually do the killing part, though, like it, it doesn't go to waste nearly as much and you think twice before you throw leftovers away, because you're like man, I really don't want to waste this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, and you can't, you can't outsource portions of the entire process, otherwise you're just going to the grocery store, right? Yeah, so it's like, it's like being part of the kill, which I don't like killing stuff, but I do hunting, I love the, the work involved, I like the effort, I like everything about it.
Speaker 1:Then the kill comes and it's like, though, that's not what I like. There's a sense of joy because you work so hard for it. But yeah, you can't, you can't sort of outsource your killing, right? Oh yeah, well, we got off topic. We're not supposed to talk about that kind of stuff, right, ashley? Like let's, let's tell some stories. So why don't you, why don't you story?
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I mean, the vegetarian story is very interesting. But yeah, let's, let's set the stage. Well, the first story you got in there, you have a couple of paired forest. Tell us, you know, in the last six years, when was it? You know, and you know, dive into it.
Speaker 2:So I kind of got rid of one of my stories, which was my first year story, and I really I really wanted to start getting into archery because I've always thought archery was cool. So he also wanted to test me to make sure that I could shoot a deer with a rifle. And then the following year I ended up hunting with a butt and I think it was that following year that I ended up part-shotting my first deer, which was the coolest thing ever. I mean, obviously we aim and that's where we planned to hit, but I never thought that that's where I would have hit or that's where I did hit. I just have very little confidence in myself.
Speaker 1:Especially. I mean, how long have you been shooting? Right, you shot a rifle a year before. Did you immediately pick up a bow the next day, or was it like six months, three months, that you'd actually been shooting?
Speaker 2:So I went out and shot the rifle that year. It was 2018 and then 2019. I had to wait until I finished paying my bow off because we did payments. So by November of 2019, I think, is when I finally fully had my bow.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh yeah. It's like right in the middle of the season, so you just pick it up and went after it. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:But it was hard and it was really frustrating at first, because trying to shoot is weird when you're very, very new to it, and I didn't grow up around it, so I didn't know what I was supposed to fix or what I was supposed to contort or what I was supposed to change things.
Speaker 1:So when I, when I, heart shot that deer.
Speaker 2:That was like the most exciting moment of my life when I finally found her, because she ran for ever and she was in and out of stuff and she ended up dropping down and then going back up and dropping down again and I thought for sure she was just gone. I was like I had to have like maybe one lunged her and something happened and she just kept running.
Speaker 1:Because with the tree stand a blind where. Where did you take the shot, and was she just stolen by her?
Speaker 2:She was. She was a stolen by and I was sitting in the blind and I shot at her. She like kind of chilled for a minute because when Justin first started having me out he would have me on food plots or on feeders just to make sure we live. It's not. We don't see a whole big bunch of deer throughout the hunting season, so we have to feed in order to keep up with all the other public or private land around, all the public and all of us.
Speaker 2:So she was kind of hanging out, she was stolen by and then she stopped for a second to grace, and that's when I shot at her and she went barreling down the hillside and Justin, he was in I think she was in a tree stand that day and he heard her running and he said, oh gosh, because he heard her go all the way down to the bottom. So he towards the bottom and we go around and go around and we keep winding through the rocks and winding through the weeds and trying to figure out exactly where she went and we finally get there and I see her and Justin was like you put a good shot under and I was like did I.
Speaker 2:And he's like, yeah, come, look at, I'm looking. I was like, oh my gosh. So then we start going through all of the gutting portion and everything and he takes the heart out and just hands it to me and he's like it's your first heart shot. And I was like, no way.
Speaker 1:Like I could know how far did she run if you, if you had to guess or if you measured it.
Speaker 2:If I had to guess, it was probably about 100 120 yards. Well, that's not bad. Not bad when it is, though it's straight downhill.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it kind of sucked on that, because it was like downhill and then she went back up hill a little bit over this direction and then she dropped back down, but it's like as a crow flies. It's like about 120 yards that she ran.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, that's not. That's not too bad at all. I shot an elk this year and it ran about 130 yards and I didn't heart shot it and I was very happy it didn't go any farther than that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's hard when they run because, one, you don't know if they're going to draw and, two, you don't know where they're going to drop and where we. It's like it's all broken up so there's some public here and then it's surrounded by all this private. Or if you're hunting private, everybody else has sections that can join to where your private is. So it's it's very nerve wracking when you shoot a deer just wondering if it's going to so happen to land on your piece of land that you're allowed to be on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't ever thought about that. Huh, I mean, I guess, what do you do then? You call the warden and see if you can get on the property, or you call the landowner, just you call the landowner.
Speaker 2:So it's just, it's really that's. That's the hardest part about being a new hunter and not being as confident as I feel like I should in myself is just wondering where they're going to drop. When I do shoot them Like it's exciting, and then when they start running, my excitement kind of trails off for a little bit until I hear them drop. And once they drop I'm like yes, I got it, I did it, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So when you followed her 120 yards, was there good blood trailer or did she just like make an obvious path?
Speaker 2:I'm like my first one. My first one I shot. She was probably about 30 yards from me and I shot her and there was no blood trail whatsoever. I shot her with the 25 on six and there was nothing, which was weird. So with my bow shot there was actually a good blood trail and that was very positive for me.
Speaker 1:Use mechanical or fixed blade.
Speaker 2:That year I was using mechanicals.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, I've only shot two things with my bow, one being a turkey, and it ducked, which then meant that I hit it right in the neck and basically took its head off. So that was a quick, easy one. Yeah, with my, my bowl, I shot with a fixed blade and there was no blood. We were so lucky that we found it. We, we looked for an hour, couldn't find a drop, and then we did. It ended up going 120 130 yards, rearing up and then falling over backwards, and so we couldn't even find it's antlers, we just we're like that looks like a fuzzy rock.
Speaker 1:Let's go look at that and it.
Speaker 2:that's what it was basically oh, she does that, so lucky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fortunately he was in a big field. So like we were looking, I mean we couldn't, we couldn't tell it was him. But we're like something about that doesn't look right. We got close enough like oh, there is.
Speaker 2:That's wild. I'm happy you guys found him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. What's crazy is he filled up with blood? It was a good shot, but for whatever reason, it was in a complete pass through. But no, no blood trail at all. It was very unusual, in fact, when we found him, upside down, there was only about a foot and a half pool of blood and that's it, and it wasn't until we were guiding him, just like poured out. Yeah he's absolutely crazy. I've never experienced anything like it.
Speaker 2:I wonder if the blades were just sharp enough that it like. I don't know. Maybe, my brains will.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you're familiar with Iron Will, but yeah, they are sharp.
Speaker 2:That's wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:Pretty buddy buddy or.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard a couple people with Iron Will and it might be because they're so sharp. They're not super wide broadheads and that might be why too, but I mean that my bull was. I mean, like I said, he reared up and flipped over within a minute. We waited two hours before we looked in form, but yeah, he was dead basically immediately, which is it's cool when you just kill these giant animals with a stick, basically right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A well-placed stick.
Speaker 2:That's always a fun thing yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, ashley, did we finish that story? I don't want to take you away from it. I kind of went on my own little tangent there.
Speaker 2:I think we finished that one.
Speaker 1:OK. Well then, give us the next one. Let's keep going.
Speaker 2:My next one. So there is this deer that I had dubbed Bruce, and we were walking through the summers, the shark from Nemo. Like Bruce Jenner.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:How does a?
Speaker 1:deer get the name Bruce Jenner.
Speaker 2:So we thought this fella was a doe with calcium deposits because it always had a little baby fawn with him. All through the summer he would be at the mineral sites and everything.
Speaker 2:We thought it was just this doe with mineral deposits. And so we found out later on in that summer that it was a boy. So I still have his head in the freezer and I still need to get it aged and I just keep forgetting about it. But all he had were these like they look like little baby tic-tacs that came up off the front of his head, Watched him and watched him, and then Justin finally got a look at him from a tree stand, because I still wasn't elevated at this point. I was still hunting from the blind or from the ground.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:We were having a bum day and Justin was like OK, well, I'm going to try and drive you some deer. So as soon as he starts walking, this doe pops out of nowhere. And I took the shot and I watched the doe drop right in front of me, which was the very first time that I'd ever watched an animal fall in front of me, and let me tell you that was a gut-wrenching experience. Like I think, I'm a Graham and I've never actually witnessed it happen, and so I was already torn.
Speaker 1:Did she hit the ground dead or did she hit? The ground and I'm like struggle a little bit and OK, well, that's not a piece.
Speaker 2:No, it dropped and so, but it was just a weird feeling like witnessing it and so like dealing with that. And then all of a sudden this little fawn comes out and starts meh, I was like no. So I'm like thinking that I just killed this poor baby fawn's mom and like I'm distraught. Justin ends up walking back towards me because he heard me shoot. And he comes to me and he goes babe, what's wrong? And I was like I just shot a doe. He's like you need to sit, your face goes to white. So he walks down to check out this doe that I shot. And when he gets down there he goes good news, it has nuts. And I was just like whew, whew, whew.
Speaker 1:Best news.
Speaker 2:I ever heard, and he's like you shot Bruce and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm about in tears and I find out that I shot Bruce and everything's golden. It was the strangest, weirdest turn of events, like it was the day that I learned the most about hunting, but also the day that I was so relieved to find out I didn't do something awful.
Speaker 1:That's the funniest deer name I've ever heard. I just want to say and it's got a great reason Everyone's usually like whatever names they have. But Bruce Jenner, that's great and I'm glad that you were able to relieve yourself of that. Like sorrow right that you just killed mama deer. You killed Bambi's mom because that's everyone's worst nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yep, and I find it weird that I find it as one of my favorite hunts. But it made me realize so much about myself just as a hunter and as a person that it just resonates with me as much as it was like there was so much turmoil. It was such a good hunt at the same time, and I mean it probably will happen one day. One day I might shoot Bambi's mom and it probably will happen one day, one day for that moment, which I needed evidently because whoo yeah right, I have a story for you.
Speaker 1:This is not my story. It's actually a former, my former boss, um, and it's kind of like the inverse of your story, if that doesn't give too much away. But he's mule deer hunting, um in Utah with his son and they go out and they both have tags and uh, there's, there's two mule deer on this hillside and and I don't know all of the details, I just know the the main point but basically him and his son go and he gives his son the bigger mule deer. So his son shoots the mule deer and at the exact same time he shoots the other one and they're both fork and horn like big, like his son probably shot like 160 inch mule deer and he shoots like 140 inch mule deer and so they go over and they drop them right in their spot.
Speaker 1:They shoot with muzzle loader, so 50 caliber, like big, big rounds, and they go over there and uh, his sons finds his, his deer and he's like okay, great, now let's go find yours. They're, they're looking for his mule deer. And he goes over and his son finds it, like over of ledges, like hey dad, here he is. So yeah, hey dad, where is his nuts, no. So it's like the exact opposite of yours. Hey, he's got nuts and this one's like where's his nuts? It turns out it was like I don't know what the odds are, but it was a female, 140 inch, antlered mule, deer doe that is wild isn't that crazy, not big
Speaker 1:huge. I saw he sent me the photo first and I'm like, man, that is a nice buck. And he's like that's a doe. And I'm like, what do you mean as a doe? What do you mean like, what are you talking about? And so he's like, yeah, they gutted it and took it all apart and they're like yeah, there were no male like body parts at all. That is just. And apparently it happens. But yeah, he shot the. The, what I would have to say is the biggest doe probably anyone ever just shot. Because it. I was like I would be happy to shoot that buck and yeah, doe.
Speaker 2:I've heard of doves with antlers and stuff, but I've never heard of them being that big, just like I've heard of hens with beards.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've ever heard of a doe with 140 inch spread right, yeah, I'll, I'll say I'll try and find the photo.
Speaker 1:He sent it to me. I'll have to ask him if I can actually like share it on my Instagram. But huge, huge deer, like awesome deer, and then it ends up being a doe, like one in a you know 10 million chance of getting that particular animal so and in your story been like hey, it's got nuts, reminded me because his son's quote was where it's nuts. So yeah, the inverse of your story, so yeah, that's funny words, one to mine yeah right.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, ashley. Well, this is fun. What else? What else do you got for us?
Speaker 2:we'll just keep them coming rapid fire well, I can talk about my turkey hunt because that one.
Speaker 1:I love turkey hunt, let's do it.
Speaker 2:I. That is my absolute favorite, so so I love getting on the ground and crawling and stuff and this, this, my, my successful turkey hunt was, um, a little bit before I was crawling through the grams, but, um, justin and I we went out opening morning that year and it was. It was pretty noisy, there was a bunch of calling and we just weren't successful the very first day and he went out probably one or two times in between he wasn't successful. So then I got out the second time. I don't remember how far into turkey season we were, but it was another live morning and there's always one that I changed and it was over across the hollow. He was an old one and his, like his feathers were graying. I don't know how old he is, I'm still never.
Speaker 2:I haven't. I haven't heard in the last couple of years, so I'm assuming he died or somebody got him, but do you have like a unique gobble or something that you could pinpoint him oh yeah, it was like raspier than any of the other gobbles and he would stay directly across the hollow.
Speaker 2:He wouldn't drop down, like past a certain point. You could see him, like you could get him in your binoculars and you could see him going back and forth, but he would not cross, only gave up on going after him. And there was another one down in the the hollow to the I guess it would have been to the left of us, so it's just going off and we ended up running and gunning for a little bit, or whatever you want to call it, and we ended up sitting down and he started getting closer. So we were like, oh shoot, he's not gonna come up through this way because there's a bunch of down trees. So we go back up to the field, we're sitting in the field and we wait forever and he finally makes his way up and he starts coming through. He comes in the view site and Justin is just amped. He's on my right hand. As soon as this bird comes into sight, he's like shoot.
Speaker 1:Are you with your bow or you get shotguns for this.
Speaker 2:The first bird that I have ever had like this close to me and he's walking and all swollen. He's not like going super crazy or anything, since he's come in, but he is so swollen and then he's letting off a couple gobbles here and there and Justin's like shoot he. I end up shooting him. He's not like 12 yards from me and Like.
Speaker 2:I was just in like freak out and fly, before you ever shot him and I was like I was so Shaky I could not get that bead anywhere near that bird's head. The whole. I'm sitting there and my arm is like spinning circles. I might as well be rowing a boat, because it's not Solidifying anywhere and I can hear him and I'm like I would love to shoot, but I can't find this bird's head right now.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:I've never like. I swear that shotgun was just spinning circles trying to land on the bird's head and I could not, for the life of me, get myself there.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So you did call. Did you calm down or did you just like try and catch it as it went by?
Speaker 2:I ended up calming down because he was moving slow. He was just, he was like side, stepping sideways a little bit and then he Down and then step forward some more and he was getting ready to attack our decoy, I think. But I just I was trying so hard and I was like, all right, take deep breath, deep breath, deep breath. And I finally take one big deep breath in and boom, and it's the funniest thing, because in my turkey video you can see it just send me back into the tree and Justin's like I honestly think, and I was like I could have, but I don't know, I was like I couldn't tell you now either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's funny. I uh, you can see the turkey behind me. I went this way. That was my first turkey is a myriam turkeys and I've told the story before and I could, I could tell. But the your story actually reminded me Of the people that I was with.
Speaker 1:I was hunting with this gentleman. He was he's a mentor. I like I met him on facebook of all things. I was like, hey, my wife wants me to like not go alone. Someone want to teach me the ropes.
Speaker 1:And I go out with this guy and he's like, at the time his son had to be eight. Um, but we, we, I got my bird. And then we continue hunting with his son and we're driving around and his son's like all right, we're not gonna find any birds, I just want to shoot my shotgun. And so his son gets down, we set up some sticks and we're shooting at a can and the kid fires the gun and it's like, it's like in the movies when people fire a gun and they shoot backwards. This little eight-year-old boy with his 20 gauge just like flies back and we're like, oh shit, are you okay, buddy? Um, he had a couple tears, but it just your story reminded me of that, um, he did hit his target, um, but I think the the the excitement of being in the process, because he's shot a bird before the year before, when he was seven. Um, but, something about.
Speaker 1:Something about like not chasing a bird and just firing it. The that gun happened to be the too much for him that year. So I believe that, uh, you know, if you're not ready for it, those shotguns they kick pretty hard they do.
Speaker 2:Behind it, you're, you're about to get rocked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, was that a? Uh eastern. You have eastern turkeys in west virginia, I assume.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is my bird, I know we're not recording, but that's the one that I got.
Speaker 1:That's a good-looking bird. He looks like you shot him at 12 yards a little bit.
Speaker 2:He was, he was pretty one.
Speaker 1:I got another bird behind me too and I shot that one with a 270 if you believe that that's yeah with my rifle for like 50 yards I was. And what's funny is I pulled my rifle up and it was like I was access to your hunting in texas and the turkey happened to come up and it was turkey season and you can in texas, you can use whatever you want. So I was like all right. So I pulled my rifle up and it's like times 10 scope. I couldn't find, I couldn't find the bird to save my life, ramp it down, ramp it down to like times four. And then I was like, well, I hit my bow in my 270 and that was it. So I was like I'm gonna take some meat home. So I was like let's see what happens if you shoot a bird with a 270.
Speaker 2:Uh I blasted it.
Speaker 1:What was that?
Speaker 2:where do you end up shooting them? You know?
Speaker 1:high back, uh, which is good. So it it. Both of the breasts were totally fine and both the legs are fine. It's like all the meat was good to go, uh, but the back side of that bird didn't look very pretty, um yeah, let's say yeah, either way, I was eating good, I made a kfc bowls with that guy, so yeah. Kentucky fried turkey and mashed potatoes and corn. Oh man, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got the recipe from, uh, jeremiah Dottie. I don't know if you know who that is. He's, uh, from field to plate. He's a wild game chef crazy story. He was like a a restaurant chef and he developed an allergy to red meat and he just couldn't eat it anymore. So he started becoming a wild game connoisseur and he's just rolling with it. He's an awesome guy, amazing recipes.
Speaker 2:I'll have to check him out because I'm always looking for these, especially being new to me.
Speaker 1:Right. I don't know if he's got any baconator recipes, but you never know.
Speaker 2:Uh, listen, if you give me a really good deer burger recipe like I'm down for that because we haven't pulled that yet.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he can. I am absolutely and he's super responsive to for all the listeners out there too. If you hit Jeremiah up, he gets back to you on anything. I remember I was antelope hunting and just sending him messages because we I interviewed him for the podcast and he told a bunch of antelope stories. I started asking him questions and I'm literally stalking antelope texting him and he's just replying right back to me.
Speaker 1:He's like no no, don't do that. I'm like all right, all right, hold on Phone away. Then I lost my release and the antelope got away because I couldn't shoot my bow.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awful, that's terrible life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but I did have a second release. I just that particular stock was blown, so you can't win them all, right, ashley?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't. That's like when I finally got drawn back on a bug. I was so pumped and I thought for sure I was going to get him. But from my anxiety I don't rattle where I have a gear head bone. It's got the two risers and so I was shaking. When I drew back and it done rattled my arrow in between the two Right and I think, think, think, think so he just sat there and would not come into a spot where I could actually shoot him. He just stayed on the brush and then when he took off it was like right out of my way of shots and I was like, oh my gosh, that would have been my first.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, yeah, no, I've. I've got just like the. It's a ham ski, rest right, but it's got the like fork that you put your arrow in, and I have occasionally with my arrow on those as well. I've never done it to an animal, but I've definitely like pulling back just at the three range or whatever, and I've been like, ah wonder how I stopped doing that.
Speaker 2:This last year, that was, I was the worst with it. We went to Wisconsin too and I basically had the same kind of thing happen. But I kind of like I got really excited because it just got done raining and we were in Wisconsin and I hadn't really seen very many bucks, and two bucks were playing in the rain and they came darting from behind the blind that I was in and I kept the back window closed because they were like keep the back window closed on me, open these front ones. And I was like, ok, perfect. And so I did what I was told, and if I would have opened that back window I probably would have had a buck, but that came booming by too fast. So then I was trying to draw back, and when I was trying to draw back, when they came back through, it rattled again and I like bumped my arrow off my knock. And when I was trying to knock my release on and it just, I don't know I had. I fumbled the whole entire season last year two times.
Speaker 1:So so the arrow and the knock separated, or the knock came off of your string.
Speaker 2:The arrow and the knock separated Like well, the arrow came off the string. Yeah, my brain.
Speaker 1:OK, the arrow. I've done that before.
Speaker 2:Popped it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the, this was it, this turkey? No, this is a different turkey, a different turkey that I actually didn't save the fan for. But I was hunting again in Texas. It was Eastern's. It's a long story, but the, the the culmination of this turkey story, with us basically the same thing happening.
Speaker 1:This turkey comes in at like a hundred yards and I'm calling and it's coming right in and I've got a slate call because I can't for I can elk call with mouth calls, but I can't turkey call with mouth calls and I don't know why. But I give it to my buddy and I'm like, hey, keep doing this, I taught you how to do it. So he's right next to me and he's and this gobbler is coming right into my decoys and he's fired up and I go, and I go full draw and the knock falls off the string and so I'm at full draw with no arrow and my buddy and it's like right when COVID started, so I didn't really know how close we could be. There's all that weirdness, you know, and I was, it's always like six feet away and I'm like like trying to get his attention because I'm like things that don't move and we've got, we've got one of those blinds. It's like a eight feet of two foot tall cloth, right, so like he can crawl around, but we can't really. We're not in the building, we just have this cloth in front of us. So I'm just, and he finally gets his attention and he, he's like oh shit.
Speaker 1:So he crawls over to me, belly crawling behind the cloth, gets over, grabs my, grabs my arrow, puts it on my string and then looks at the bird. But he never lets go of my arrow and I'm like, I'm like let go, like holding this back at this point, I'm holding back for like 30 seconds and he's like, oh shit. And so then he lets go finally of the arrow and I'm like, all right, and then I take my shot, and I won't say it was a good shot by any means. In fact, at the time I was under spined in my arrows, so my arrows were all over the place and I didn't really know why. Brand new hunter, either way. That's the bird that it dropped and its head went up and then just took its head off. Like I got really lucky, because I didn't, I was using a mechanical, but it wasn't a wide blade or anything, I just got lucky. And my first archery kill is a complete chit-chill.
Speaker 2:I don't like that though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, so all right. Well, yeah, I keep stealing the stories here, ashley, but you're telling some ones that like ring true to me. I understand exactly where you're coming from is we're both new hunters and we've both had some of the same kind of funny things happen, but I don't know. Do you have any? Do you have any more for us?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm trying to rack my brain. I try to remember everything, but I'm terrible at that.
Speaker 1:That's totally fine. That's totally fine. Well then, in that case we can wrap it up. Not a big deal, but why don't we tell the people where they can find you? I know that you've been doing the another Ashley Outdoors stuff. Is it that across the board, instagram, tiktok, youtube?
Speaker 2:All of the things are another Ashley Outdoors.
Speaker 1:Yep, oh, thanks, perfect. Well, I'll make sure to put links to all of that in the show notes so people can find you real easy. Is there anything else you want to mention? I know you were doing a big giveaway. Is that already wrapped up?
Speaker 2:No. So that one's going to start in April, the first one. It starts, and then it's a weekly. So there'll be four weeks of prizes and it's just going out shooting your bow, sending me a picture and liking the sponsors. So that's all that, pretty simple. And the prize back are pretty, pretty large now. So I'm stoked about that. Whoever wins, Very cool.
Speaker 1:All right, Ashley. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It was fun hearing your stories, especially like someone who's been hunting as long as me, and then again, you know, hearing all of the same little follies, because it's, it's funny was your new hunter, the. The. The stories are not necessarily this grand kill that you had. It's like oh, here's the stupid thing that I did.
Speaker 2:You know, that's.
Speaker 1:That's how most of my stories are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's all our faults and what we learned from them. And then, once we get armed, then we'll have our kill stories. We'll get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will. We will Sooner and later you'll be twice the hunter. Your husband's name is Justin, right, you'll be twice the hunter of Justin and you'll be dropping all the big bucks and he'll be like, oh, I can get his Bruce Jenner's these days.
Speaker 2:So hope so. I hope so. No, I do. I love when he gets a good harvest. Kill, whatever you want to call it. Everybody's so picky on words anymore. Yeah, you guys share a freezer, so that that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:So all right, ashley. Well, thanks again. I appreciate you. Thank you, all right guys. That's it.
Speaker 2:Another couple of stories in the books.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Ashley, of course, for coming on the podcast. I'm going to go ahead and share a couple of stories. I'm going to go ahead and share a couple of stories. I want to thank Ashley, of course, for coming on the podcast. Like I always say, we couldn't do it without our storyteller. So thank you, ashley. It was really nice to meet you and it was fun to hear your stories and how they kind of overlap with my journey as well.
Speaker 1:Two listeners, thank you guys for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. Like I mentioned at the during the intro, please go out there and follow Ashley. I've got links to everything in the show notes, but beyond that, follow us on Instagram, facebook, wherever, and then, whatever you're listening to today, make sure you give us a follow or a subscription there on your favorite podcast platform and, beyond that, make sure you give us a quick review so that more people find us when they search Hunting Podcasts. But that's it, guys. Thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it. Now get out there and make some stories as your own, thank you.