(upbeat music) You know, when I think of the month of November, a number of things come to mind.

Cooler weather, fall colors, Thanksgiving and deer season.

I have so many memories as a kid growing up at deer camp, sitting around the campfire listening to hunting stories, and I found out later in life that some of those stories were even true.

Hey, my name is Steve Wildman Wilson.

I'm your host here on Naturally Wild.

I want to thank you so much for watching.

You know, I'll never forget those times at deer camp with my family and my friends.

I mean, dad took me to deer camp when I was a young kid.

In fact, I can't remember not ever going to deer camp.

He even let me skip school one year so I could be there on opening day.

Now that's back when opening day was on a Monday, and after I got home from college, my dad and I spent 34 years of opening days together in a row.

He passed away back in 2011 at the age of 95.

Those were some special times.

Well, it's that time of year again.

An estimated 400,000 folks will be headed to the woods pretty soon for opening day of opening day of gun deer season here in Arkansas, here this evening to tell us what we can expect this year is deer biologist for the Game and Fish, Ralph Meeker.

Hey, Ralph, you brought along also the guy to tell us what to do if you happen to kill a deer.

He's the director of the Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry program.

His name is Ronnie Ritter.

Ronnie.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining me today.

Sure.

It's a lot of fun going to talk deer hunting.

Did you guys grow up in a deer camp like I had?

I did.

You did?

I did.

What was yours?

Yeah, I so we, I can remember we first started camping on Whiterock.

In Northwest Arkansas.

Yeah.

And then, over the years, we moved to Muddy Creek and then into the Ouachitas.

But we've hunted public land my whole life.

Okay.

And you're a deer biologis now.

You grew up, how many were in your camp?

So I can probably remember, probably 40.

Oh, really?

That's a big camp.

Yeah.

So it was my grandpa, my grandpa's buddies, my dad, my uncles, my dad and uncles' buddies.

Then all my cousins, my brother.

I mean, so it was, I mean, it was a deer camp family.

It was beyond just blood family.

But it was it was everybody, our extended guy, all the extended guys.

And we just had a great time being together.

You got some memories there that from childhood that you don't forget.

Isn't it amazing how you remember details about things that happened back then?

I can remember the smells of, you know.

That could be dangerous.

Well, I know my grandpa.

He was a great cook, so, I mean, deer chili, Chocolate gravy.

Biscuits, bacon.

You know, we camped in tents back then.

Before.

Before that, we got an army mash tent, and then there was a school bus, and then we finally got a cabin.

But, you know, just waking up in your sleeping bag and smelling bacon, knowing that grandpa was getting breakfast ready, and everybody's fixing to go deer hunting.

That was, those were great memories.

It's real to you.

And yeah.

I tell you what, some, you know, all these memories we're talking about and I'm going to tell you some of my memories in a few minutes, have nothing to do with deer.

It's all about the camp and the atmosphere and stuff like that.

What about you?

You know, I didn't grow up in a deer camp.

My first deer hunting was actually my my uncle's property.

Okay.

Just behind the house.

Behind the house.

And then.

But my first deer kill.

I was with my dad and my brother, and I had, my dad had bought me a new Browning 12 gauge gold trigger.

Gold trigger.

Gold trigger Browning shotgun.

And so I killed a doe.

I thought that was my first deer.

Guess I was 16, so I loaned my gun, my brother had a single shot, 12 gauge, so I loaned my Browning Automatic to him and about 30 minutes later, he killed a nice little eight point.

And you killed a doe?

Yeah, and I killed a doe.

So he, I mean, he was five years younger.

He was, you know, 11 or 12 at the time.

So I thought I gave you my gun and you shot the bigger deer.

But it was all fun.

Yeah, it that was a long time ago.

Yeah.

So it really was.

Yeah.

And I think deer camps now with the new season structure and everything.

And I think some of y'all will agree with me.

There's still a lot of great deer camps like we're talking about.

But the long season structure made it a little bit different because back then you only had two one week seasons when I was growing up.

Yeah.

We had a week in November and a week in December, and I think there was a couple of times we had doe days where I hunted two days after Thanksgiving.

But some things I remember about my dear camp, obviously, is my dad and and I even was kind of historian for our camp.

Our camp was very old.

Grandpas, my grandpas and his grandpas were there.

And I got some old pictures of them around the campfire back then.

And I think one of their traditions, I always, we didn't do it this recently, but they had a tradition, you might have heard about it, anytime you shot at a deer and missed, you got your shirt tail cut off.

You heard that?

I've been a part of that tradition.

Which part?

So you had your shirt cut?

I had my shirt cut off.

Yeah.

We had a, we actually had a board in camp and you had to tack your shirt down to the board.

And then we had a black marker, and you had to write your name on the shirt tail itself.

That way, insult to injury.

Everybody can see which shirt tail it was.

Yeah, I remember dad told me about they would be in tents as well.

And they would heat rocks at night in the campfire and then wrap them in towels to sleep with them just to keep them warm.

They didn't have all the luxuries back then.

One of the things I remember a lot was a campfire.

I mean, I think that stuck with me.

We'd always have a huge campfire.

And of course, we had about 25 in our camp and we sat out there all night telling stories, like I was saying, some of them were even true.

Some of it didn't matter if they were true or not.

Boy something, just the smell of that smoke, and we had a family night where we'd have a church service around the campfire, my dad would lead the singing and just those big meals like you were talking about.

Yeah.

Listen to the Razorback game, you know, on the radio.

I mean, we all sit around and.

You probably listened to the fumble back in '97.

I don't bring that up.

Yeah, Yeah, but.

(laughter) I was at deer camp that now too.

We, you know, our everybody in our camp loved peanuts.

So we'd sit around the campfire eating peanuts and listen to the Razorback game.

And it was just.

Yeah, I mean, we we just loved being there.

It was a lot of fun.

I think two traditions I can remember in my camp.

And we're going to show you some pictures here.

For some reason, we got in the habit of every opening day of modern gun deer season.

We would take pictures of each other before we went out on deer stand.

There's no big deal.

Just had an orange on ready to go and I can still remember the feelings those but had me and my dad and my dad and my brother Charlie and my daughter Celeste and on down the line there.

But we did that.

And but probably the most special tradition we had, I called it first deer family photos.

And my dad got to look at this picture right here, I was 16 years old in this picture.

That's my very first deer killed over at Wattensaw.

I know I look about 12, but but I was 16 and it was with a sweet 16 shotgun.

Yeah.

And, it was a little spike buck, thank the Lord.

I think He put spikes on it after I shot it, because daddy was worried about it.

But you only have one first deer.

And this next shot is my daughter Celeste with her first deer, I got to watch her.

I was in the stand with her when she shot this with a muzzle loader, by the way, up in northeast Arkansas.

And then she got married to Nathan Mosby, who wasn't really a hunter, and he came and sat on my dad's stand when my dad wasn't able to go and he killed his first deer.

So we got to be with him then.

And then not too long ago, my grandson Luke, who is 16 now, but about four years ago, he, he killed his first deer with a crossbow.

And, so that's been, it's probably going to stop there.

But we've got those good memories too.

Well, a lot of things have changed, and I know deer season, like I said, everybody is headed to the woods here in the next few days.

Ralph, kind of give us an idea of of what it's looking like this year.

How's it going so far?

We've already had a lot of seasons going.

Yeah.

I mean, we've had the early archery buck hunt.

That happened last weekend in August.

We had the alternative firearm season.

Yep.

We also had the urban deer hunts that have been going on since September 1st.

So right now our harvest is tracking a little bit ahead of where we were last year.

So that's good.

But weather has been cooperating other than we need we need some more rain.

We'll talk about the drought.

You know, what, the last 2 or 3 months, we've had very little rain if any.

Yeah, temperatures have been nice, but we do need some rain for sure.

Temperatures finally got nice.

Finally got nice.

I can't imagine being out there in August.

Yeah.

And September this year hunting deer in over 100 degree weather.

But they did it.

I've seen some good photos come in and some good bucks being killed.

And it's amazing.

You know, we were anticipating that most of our marsh trees, our acorn trees were going to fail this year because of the drought.

But surprisingly, there have been some some pockets in our state that the trees are still loaded.

And persimmons hung on a lot longer than what I anticipated them to because of the drought.

But, you know, I, I encourage folks, get out there and read signs and find an acorn tree that still has acorns.

I mean, and that's that's where I'd be hunting.

You talking about going out there and hunting and looking, finding signs that brought back some old memories of us walking in the woods back then, looking for deer signs, scrapes and rubs.

And that's kind of changed a little bit now.

Most people just go sit in a box stand, look at a corn feeder, and I've done that too.

These things aren't right or wrong.

They're just different from when we grew up there.

But a lot of cameras out there.

Well, game cameras, that's got a lot of, electronics has taken over in all our sports as far as that goes.

But population looking pretty good you feel like?

Yep.

Yep.

I mean.

Lot of fawns.

I've been seeing a lot of fawns.

A lot of fawns.

I mean, so our our population is still very strong across the state.

You know, like I said, we're ahead of where we were last year, so that's a good sign.

So I'm, I'm anticipating a good harvest this year.

You know, a lot of our viewers may not have any idea how many deer we have, and I know we don't, we don't know exactly.

But when you tell them we have somewhere around 850,000 to 1 million deer here in Arkansas, it's just hard to imagine because back when I was growing up, especially not so much for you guys, I'm not sure.

Yeah, we're about the same age.

Dad telling me even when he was a kid, they go hunting and if somebody found a deer track, they would go back to the camp and get all the camp members just to go look at the track.

And so back then, we very limited.

Now it's turned around.

I mean, when, when did it really kind of break loose for Arkansas's deer population?

Yeah.

So you think about this.

I mean, in the early 70s we were harvesting around on average about 20,000 deer.

State farm estimates that we run over 20,000 now with vehicle collisions.

Wow.

And so, you know, we had counties here in Arkansas that still had closed deer season in the 70s.

So, you know, between the 70s and then the 90s, when we really started liberalizing bag limits and allowing people to harvest more does really in span of 20, 25 years, deer populations really took off.

And so, you know, in the mid to late 90s, we really kind of changed our focus from growing our herd to managing herd, you know, tweaking it to where we have balanced buck and doe ratios.

And they were maintaining deer populations below the carrying capacity of the habitat.

Getting those bucks in the older age.

That's right.

So we just, I mean we our whole mindset changed on how we're managing our herd.

You know and it worked.

Yes.

Because believe it or not, and if you're my age older, I know you're going to have trouble believing that we got too many deer in some areas.

And in fact, there's some camps out there that have property and they really have way too many deer.

They need to get the deer off their for the balance of the herd.

It's called, and Game and Fish has a program called Deer Management Assistance Program.

And right now let's listen to Jeremy Brown who heads that up, and we'll be back in studio in a second.

I'm Jeremy Brown and DMAP is what I do here with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

DMAP stands for Deer Management Assistance Program.

And what that does is we work with landowners and deer clubs to assist them in managing their deer herds and habitat on their property.

And oftentimes what that means is taking a few extra deer off these properties just to ensure that the the herd is healthy and is in balance.

Now, with our partnership with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, we can utilize these extra deer to help fight food insecurity.

And so DMAP is free.

Donating that deer is free.

Helping someone that's less fortunate, now that's priceless.

So if you're interested in taking deer management to the next level on your property, please reach out to me by going to our website at agfc.com/DMAP and helping me help you and helping Hunters Feeding the Hungry.

We can all work together and fight food insecurity in Arkansas.

Once again.

That's agfc.com.

If you have a deer camp, you need some help managing your deer.

They're available.

That's working really well.

I know Ralph works real closely with them.

You heard him talk about Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, and the program's been around.

Give us a little idea of what that means.

What is Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry?

Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry is just that, Arkansas hunters, and really, the hunters are kind of behind the program.

If we didn't get hunters donating, we wouldn't have a program.

So it's hard to believe we're in our 26th year.

So if you're out there and you harvest an extra deer or 2 or 3, you just donate them.

We got about 70 deer processors all across the state, so, field dress that deer, in most cases need to check with your processor.

But some cases you might need it quartered up in an ice chest.

But donate that, doesn't cost you anything.

And then we have a network of food pantries, homeless shelters, rehab centers set up to be able to take that deer burger.

So a deer hunter goes out there and let me just congratulate our deer hunters.

And you know this.

We have some great deer hunters.

They're very good conservationists.

Oftentimes they go out, they kill the deer they want for their family, or maybe two.

And that's fine.

We have a very liberal bag limit.

Well, the good news is you don't have to stop hunting now.

You don't have to go home.

You can stay at camp and hunt and donate the next deer or two to Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry.

And so it's a win for the hunter, if you will.

It's also a win for the people that get fed.

For the food insecurity.

And oftentimes, Ralph, I know biologically they need to.

It's a win for Game and Fish because you're trying to balance that deer herd.

Win for everybody.

So you know unfortunately Arkansas is way up towards the top in food insecurity.

And if you recall, when we did this 26 years ago, we had a meeting at the Game and Fish office, and we invited several food pantries, and we talked about what we were going to try to do.

And you remember the reaction of some of those.

Some of them had tears in their eyes.

Yeah.

Because it's easy to get canned good foods, cereal, maybe cereal drives.

It's all, you know, canned foods is easy to get, but meat protein is the most difficult thing.

If you ask any food pantry, their number one need protein, protein, protein.

And what better protein meat than deer meat?

Because it's low fat and high protein.

In fact, there are some people that that can't eat beef.

Yeah.

So they they need this.

So yeah food pantries all across the state, they need help.

Since it started about how many people does this program feed every year you think?

This previous year we did about 80,000 pounds total statewide.

So if you figure a quarter pound serving, that's over 300,000 people.

And that's from deer hunters donating their deer to the program.

And then that's processed and distributed through food banks and churches and feeding agencies like that.

So really the thanks goes to the deer hunter.

Well, all of it goes to the deer hunter.

And we just kind of facilitate the process.

Now, another thing we talked about the Deer Management Assistance Program.

Jeremy's got a bunch of deer camps with way too many deer, and they do some concentrated hunts as well.

And most of those things go to a thing called, you saw them on there, it's called a snack stick.

Talk about this snack stick program.

You know, we kind of stumbled on this.

Don't tell everybody that.

You know.

Yeah.

It was a well thought out five year plan.

No it really wasn't.

We'd done the burger for 17 or 18 years and we thought what else can we do out there that there's a great need that we can help?

So we thought about hungry children and we started looking to statistics.

And it's like just a lot of child food insecurity.

So we did a little rollout at Arkansas State University, the basketball arena.

So we started to hand them out to a few kids.

We made a few thousand packages the first year, and the kids kept coming back.

And I thought, well, they must like these things.

Free food in college.

Yeah.

And these were younger kids.

And so we thought, well, maybe.

So I contacted a couple of schools and I said, we've got this, what I call a snack stick.

Y'all need some kind of protein in your weekend backpack program.

And they said, oh my gosh, yes.

What they lack often in the backpack program or the backpacks for the kids they sent home is is protein or meat.

And this is a shelf stable or vacuum sealed great product.

No refrigerated needed.

No refrigerator needed.

Sort of like a Slim Jim.

Kind of like a Slim Jim.

A lot of kids call it beef sticks, beef jerky.

They call it all sort of things, but we call it good.

And yeah, we call it good.

Ronnie, you know what shocked me when you told me about this is we're so blessed.

We are.

So many of us.

And I didn't even realize there was a backpack program across the state.

But I've learned since then just about every school in the whole state.

Elementary.

I don't care where the located, has a few kids that go home on weekends and will not be provided for the way they should be.

And so the schools and churches provide backpacks, and they put some of these, along with cereals and things like that in them.

So they'll have something to eat on weekends.

And, you know, let me tell you what, the demand is great.

And the need is great.

Talk about funding.

How do we, we need some help, do we not?

We do.

Real quick story.

There's a counselor in a school in central Arkansas that she said if she set out a table here, and she set out ten items that they put in the backpack, and this was one of them.

She said, every almost every time they would choose that one.

So that, I mean, we did kind of a proof of concept there, but with, you know, the the results were just schools just keep calling.

We got schools in need.

We got schools calling every day right now.

How are we funded?

I say we, I'm on the board, but Ronnie heads it up.

You know, one of our big fundings is again by the hunter.

The hunter donates the deer, but they also have an opportunity to donate to help us do this and some of our other, other programs.

So when you buy your hunting or fishing license, you can donate $5, $10 or other.

It's a check off right before you hit check out.

You buy your license.

So there's some options there that they can choose the amount.

And we like that other amount.

They can put $100 or 1,000, whatever.

But that helps us fund the program.

That's through the Game and Fish website.

Or they go on our website and do the same thing.

It'll collect them or connect them to the Game and Fish website where they can purchase the license.

And we have local communities help, banks and insurance companies, foundations.

We've got a lot of grants.

We've just been really blessed.

And like you said earlier, we didn't realize the extent of the issue out there because with food costs, especially the last few years, have gone up, families are struggling.

Tell folks how many snack sticks we donated last year.

Are you ready for this number?

I'm ready.

Oh, last year alone?

No, since it started.

Since it started, 812,400.

And I think.

I think he's only.

Yeah.

I don't remember the 450.

Over 800,000 snack sticks already, about 200 schools.

200 schools.

Receiving and growing.

It's, and that doesn't include some of the bigger schools have multiple food pantries, some in northwest Arkansas have 12, 15 elementary schools.

Elementary schools.

I know even in your area, you've got 4 or 5 or 3 or 4 or.

You know, that one in West Arkansas.

Yeah.

Now about how many deer are donated each year from the hunters out there just taking them to their local?

We got close to 3,000 this year, which was a little bit of an increase over the last couple of years.

We got 3000 donated.

How many deer were harvested last year in the state?

186,000.

Okay, let's.

Small percentage.

Small percentage.

We need some help.

We need some help.

186,000 deer killed and we only got 3000 donated.

And so we need deer.

We need deer.

And what are some other ways some other people might could help us fund some of this?

Well.

I have a list of schools that have called and we don't have funding for that particular area.

All across the state?

All across the state, from every corner of the state.

I get them almost every day this time of year.

They found out about the program or another school will tell them and they say, can you help us?

And so I have to go back to them and I say, okay, we'd love to.

I'd love to give them all away.

And we can't sell them.

Of course we can't sell them.

You can't sell wild game.

So I have to say, can you help me find local funding?

Because every time we fund a school, it's from a local funding, whether it's church or or a business or whatever.

So if you send us money and sponsor a school, that's going to go back into that particular school.

So for instance, somebody listening tonight could say, hey, I live in Hampton, Arkansas, and they can contact us.

And then we'll say, Hampton School needs 2000 of them a year.

So they either they fund it or they find a company locally.

Everything's local.

And that's a good thing about this program too, all the deer that are donated stay in the county where they're harvested.

We do the best we can, when we say in the area it might, you know, might be the one on the county line.

So it might go to the next county, but it all stays local.

So we try to do the best we can with that.

So yeah huge need out there.

And you mentioned Hampton, we've never gotten snack sticks in the Hampton area.

I know that's where you used to hunt.

I never kill any deer to donate.

So but we do have a series of processors all across the state.

Arkansashunters.org that they can go on there, they can, it's listed by county.

Click on the processor link and they can find a processor close to them.

I've heard you often say all we need is meat and money.

Or deer and dollars.

Deer and dollars.

Meat and money makes the program.

The more we have donated, the more kids we can feed.

Let's put some things on the screen right now.

We have a QR code.

We're getting fancy.

We're old folks.

We don't know much about QR codes.

Did you create that QR code?

No, I can't spell QR code, but but we'll put the QR code on the screen for you and that will send you automatically to our website.

If you don't want to do that, you can go to the website Arkansashunters.org, Arkansashunters.org, real simple.

And then it shows you the different ways you can as well as donate and get involved.

We need volunteers obviously.

Delivering these snacks to school, which is a fun thing.

I know, Ralph, you've done it.

It's the best part.

That's the best part.

And it's really a blessing to see, you know, the counselors talk about, you know, how great the need is.

And so yeah, I consider it a ministry.

I think that's the best way to explain it.

And you mentioned it while ago just briefly before we run out of time.

Arkansas is number one in food insecurity.

I mean the need is great.

It's huge.

And it's not going away.

It's not.

Not getting better.

It's not getting better.

Well, you guys are doing a good job of raising deer and you're doing your job.

And hunters got to do their job.

So Ronnie can do his job.

That's right.

Yeah it takes a collaborative effort, everybody.

And we can do more.

3000 deer out of 180,000.

Yeah.

About a percent and a half.

That's the great thing about this program.

And it's a win win win for everybody involved.

It really.

It is.

That's big.

Yeah it is.

Before we leave, I want a prediction.

You think we'll break 185,000 this year on deer harvest?

I believe so.

The way things are trending, the way weather is, I think we're going to we're going to surpass 100, 186.

Oh, yeah.

You got odds on that or?

No.

Let me, I'm writing it down right now.

Write it down.

I suspect anywhere from 196 to 200,000.

There you go.

Thanks, guys.

It's been a lot of fun.

Yeah.

Thank you all for tuning in.

Be sure and get out there and get you a deer, extra deer or two and donate them to Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry.

And I'll see you next week right here on Naturally Wild.

This program was made possible by Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, East Harding Construction Company, David's Burgers, Greenway Equipment, Arkansas Farm Bureau, and the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas.

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