Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Ep.17 Transforming a Side Gig into a Hunting Empire: Grayson's Journey with Central Florida Trophy Hunts
Ever wondered what it takes to transform a side gig into a thriving hunting business? Join us as we sit down with Grayson, the visionary behind Central Florida Trophy Hunts, to uncover his exhilarating journey. You'll hear firsthand how he expanded his operation to include both a state-of-the-art processing facility and guided hunting experiences. From public alligator hunts to free-range expeditions on sprawling properties, Grayson gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the services that have made his business a go-to for hunters across the nation.
Curious about the intricacies of alligator hunting? Grayson shares valuable insights into one of Florida's largest alligator processing facilities, discussing the challenges hunters face in tracking down trophy-sized gators. Learn about the environmental and genetic factors that influence alligator growth and the complexities of the tag system open to all U.S. residents. We delve into the fascinating world of alligator hunting equipment and techniques, comparing the durability of these ancient reptiles to dinosaurs and exploring the rising popularity of bow hunting and the use of suppressors on rifles.
But that's not all—our conversation spans a variety of thrilling hunting adventures. From the adrenaline-pumping experience of hog hunts with bay and catch dogs to the unique allure of chasing exotic species like axis deer and black buck antelope, this episode has it all. We touch on the excitement of turkey hunting, the fun of European tower shoots, and the growing trend of bow fishing. Grayson's expertise and captivating stories make this episode a must-listen for both seasoned hunters and those new to the sport.
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this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how-tos. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast and welcome to hunts on opening podcast, the only podcast brought to you by florida ironworks. We're proud of our erection. Hey guys, thanks for tuning into this week's podcast.
Speaker 1:If you have been listening to the past few weeks podcasts, you might notice that we have been doing a lot of variety in our stories and topics, and this week is no exception. We have a doing a lot of variety in our stories and topics and this week is no exception. We have a great chat with the founder and owner of Central Florida Trophy Hunts. This was a really cool podcast to do as we discuss all about their great operation. This podcast is one of our outfitter introduction ones. We have an outfitter come on and give us the overall view and history of their operation Really interesting. We try to do this about once a month or so. We're going to start doing some more with different outfitters all over North America and possibly beyond.
Speaker 1:If you like the podcast at all, the only thing we ask is if you could share us out with who you know and give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. Appreciate it. It really goes a long ways. Hope you enjoy the podcast. Yeah, so, grayson, uh, thanks again for reaching out to me to talk about the your, your guys' outfitting. Uh, yeah, really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Awesome, thank you, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Uh, I guess the first question would be uh, I guess the first question would be you hear a lot about Florida being kind of the place with crazy people and wild stories, kind of the stereotype. Are the guides and the outfitters an exception to that, or are you guys the ones behind the stereotype?
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know. I mean, what's funny is what is our norm. I think is what's a rarity for other people. You know, for us. You know we hog hunt with dogs, we we take people alligator hunting and hunt alligators. We do some live capture with alligators, we collect alligator eggs and uh, and then for fun, you know, we run a hundred miles offshore and go to the fishing.
Speaker 1:So you guys are just living the dream and to everyone else it just seems kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Pretty much exactly. Yeah, yeah, and to everyone else it just seems kind of crazy. Pretty much exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I just kind of want to jump right into it with you know sort of the 3,000-foot elevation view of your operation and where you guys are located and how you got started, sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, absolutely so. We own Central Florida Turkey Hunts and if you look kind of at our business and our, our business model, we have two branches of our business. We have the processing side, which handles all the processing of not only all of our clients, uh, hunts, uh, but then, as basically they're, we're processing animals from hunters all over the state of florida. Um, and as far as alligators, hogs, deer, um, you know, we've seen black tail buck brought in from California. You know, you name it, we've seen it from that aspect. Um, we also are a inspected facility for alligators, so we sell alligator meat. Um, you know, we we take hives to the tannery and tan for clients who make leather products. We do all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then the other side is the hunting side of the business. We have four guides that work for us, including myself, and we do hog hunts, we do alligator hunts, we have a high fence where we have black buck, we have axis deer, we have peer David, we have water buffalo and we have some white tails as well. We guide for the alligator hunt. On the public season, which is a I think it's gone now to 12 weeks, excuse me, and so that's a 12-week season for the public. That's where you hear, where everybody puts in for the lottery tags and that's what generates a lot of hype this time of year, because the tag draw is just happening. And then we go into the actual. That season beginsust 15th and runs now through november 8th. Used to be november 1st, it just bounced it out to november 8th, um. And then we also do, like I said, the high fence stuff where we have, uh, alligator hunts, and then we also have a very large piece of property, over 300,000 acres under contract, where we do free range hunts as well.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, so you guys have a lot going on. How did you get into all this? I guess I'm guessing it took some time to build up to the size that you guys are and offering what you guys are offering as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know. So, back in the early 2000s, just to kind of go back our story, yeah, started out as a side gig. I mean I've hunted my whole life. My dad got me into hunting and I've done it my whole life and we were. My wife got pregnant. I was actually co-opting at the Space Center my degree is actually in mechanical engineering and working out there and just started doing a few alligator hunts on the side so I could keep her home, and doing a few alligator hunts on the side so I could keep her home, and then a few turned into a few more.
Speaker 2:Then we started building alligator hunting equipment, got real big into equipment. Our equipment was carried in Gander Mountain a variety of different stores, excuse me and so we got into that, sold a lot of equipment. She actually traveled all around the US. She's been to Mississippi, south Carolina, doing the various seminars up there, selling equipment up there. I would travel to all the shows in the state of Florida that they did, and when I say shows, previously most states had a seminar where you had to attend or they suggested you attend it, depending upon what state it was, and, like in Florida, fwc would put it on and biologists would go over all the different methods of taking alligators, what's legal, what's not legal, and kind of go through the whole process. So we attended all those shows, sold equipment.
Speaker 2:Um 2008, when the market crashed, a lot of the alligator processors went out of business because the hide market got depressed up, was buying hides and we said, you know, you know what. We should jump in. We can do it just as good or better as a lot of these guys. And so we took all the issues that we didn't like in the various processors we have used and took those away and started processing and started offering what we wanted for our clients to everybody. And you know funny how a lot of other processors now kind of follow suit with what we do. But that worked out really well and that side of the house grew quite a bit and started the high fence in 2019 when we bought P4. Started out with just a raw piece of land. We have 246 acres under high fence. We added our first exotic last year. We have built all the roads, built all of the ponds, built all the canals name it out there. We've done all that. So that's been quite a project as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely sounds it, Wow. So you guys started how I thought, just kind of humble beginnings, and just started picking away and adding more things to it and built it to the enterprise that it is today. Yep, yep, exactly. So the alligator gear are you guys making I don't know a lot about it like treble hooks, things like that.
Speaker 2:So we build. I mean we've kind of backed out of a lot of it. The market's gotten a little saturated. The market's changed quite a bit. The margins have gone down quite a bit. But you know we do a variety of snatch hooks. We also manufacture bang sticks. We've been building bang sticks forever. You know we also do some harpoons. We do a lot, a lot of crossbow stuff. You know we've been sponsored by a variety of crossbow stuff. We've been sponsored by a variety of crossbow manufacturers. Today we're shooting Ravens.
Speaker 2:The Airbows are going to be the new thing. They don't really have anything really good. That's specifically for what we're doing yet. But I think some of that's going to come around. I know Humorex has got a bowfishing air bow and works and they're supposed to be released. They were going to be released in June. Now here January, I'm hoping we can adapt those a little bit, turn them up just a little bit, use it for alligators. But we do a lot of crossbow stuff. You know, just converting the reel on the bottom of it, adding the reel to it, building arrows for bows, building crossbow bolts. You know, adapting some of the various points that are manufactured already out there, and then we've built some of our own points that we used to use and just a whole variety of stuff and we've kind of, like I said, we got really into it and had a whole bunch of different products.
Speaker 2:We've narrowed that product line down just to the main stuff main stuff. Today, a lot of people now tend to bait alligators and um and use snatch hooks. That's the main method of take.
Speaker 1:We see a lot of people employing so that's legal in florida to do that. It's some. What was that? I'm sorry, that is that's legal in florida to do that.
Speaker 2:In some states I know you can't, but in others it's quite you can bait alligators, but it has to be on a baited wooden peg. You can't use a hook or anything like that like you see in Louisiana. Okay, so it's a baited wooden, you know it can't be any more inches in length, inches in diameter. Yeah, and you know like for me we sell a baited or a peg that already has a piece of beef lung already on it, tied up to the peg, and then with a piece of cable and a swivel, and so basically how that method works is you'll see an alligator out there, you float the bait to the alligator, watching meat and kind of go from there. It's a good way to do it if that's what you like. It's a good way to do it if that's what you like.
Speaker 2:We've been gator hunting for so long that baited pegs weren't allowed when we first started. So our methods are not based on that. My philosophy is if I want to let a bait and sit there and watch baits bob up and down, I go fish. We don't particularly use baits. I airboat hunt One of my other captains he airboat hunts and then my other two captains. They hunt One hunts out of our bow fishing boat and the other one hunts out of our duck boat and you know the airboat stuff is a little faster pace, it's a running gun. We can cover more ground. You know, roll up on them, hot them with the crossbow, throw a harpoon at them, whereas the bow fishing boat or the duck boat, you know it's, it's more slow. You put the trolling motor in your trolling motor, get close, cast on with snatch of snatch and kind of go okay, is it at you guys?
Speaker 1:are you guys able to do it at night? There?
Speaker 2:it's all during the day so actually, up until last year we had to do it at night or you could hunt, um. So. So again, the the whole gator program and the methods that you're able to use have changed throughout the years, just like I mentioned the baiting. Uh, long ago it started and you could hunt a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sun up and you literally would have to look at, you know, your cell phone, the newspaper, whatever, and see what time sunrise or sunset was, and then you could get a half hour before that today. And then, you know, two years ago it was 5 pm to 10 am. Last year that was the first year they changed 24 hour hunting so you could, literally you can hunt 24 hours a day, um. So, with that being said, we've always been kind of nighttime hunters for the public hunt.
Speaker 2:So, specifically for the public hunt, we'll start my average trip Personally. We're going to start at 9 pm. You know the airboat stuff again, and it's a little bit area specific. There are specific areas that I will start earlier and hunt a little bit in the afternoon, but a lot of the areas I like to hunt earlier and hunt a little bit in the afternoon, um, but a lot of the areas I like to hunt at night. I just had better success. I have that dialed in for those particular areas and, um, you know, I'm fortunate enough. We've built a clientele up where, generally speaking, I have a handful of areas that I like to hunt. I'm only going to hunt those areas. I'm not. I don't venture out. Um, we've got a good clientele base and um which you know I'll spend a lot of time on those. You're gonna find a hard press to find somebody who can hunt those areas better than I am, just because I've hunted so much there and I've killed some of the out here.
Speaker 1:So just so familiar with it. Yeah, uh, what I guess before we get going too much more. What area of florida are you guys specifically located in and hunting?
Speaker 2:so from as far as where our ranch and the private land that we hunt, that's all central florida, so like if you were flying in, for example, you'd fly into orlando international, um, and our main office is in coco, which is due east of orlando. We're probably 20 minutes from the beach, pretty conveniently located. We have a lot of hunters and clients who come in. They go to Disney. They've had all of Disney they can stand so they're going to run over and hunt with us for a day During the private land stuff to bounce over to that. We can do that 24 hours a day, basically 365 days a week, and most of those hunts we actually do during the day. So you know we get people coming over in the morning or for an afternoon, sliding away from a convention over in Orlando or Disney, whatever that happens to be, and they'll come over and we'll get a hunt in and go from there.
Speaker 1:Oh, so that's very cool, very convenient for people coming in and just getting tired of everybody at Walt Disney World or something Like you know, I'm going to pop over for a gator hunt, yep, sort of thing. So what is the gator population there like? Is it a fairly strong population? You guys know a shortage of them, sort of thing.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. You know, overall we definitely don't have a shortage. The biggest thing that we see and we see it hunting as well as we see it when we are processing as well we're fortunate. We're probably one of the bigger processors, if not the biggest processor, in the state. During the public season we'll run 125 hundred meters a week for our facilities. A week We've seen 1,400 alligators during the public season and you know the amount of and what I did. I'm going to say I'll cut numbers 13,000 to our facility for years. We'll see maybe last year six or eight, twelve like that, maybe five, but not a whole lot and you know you'll see more.
Speaker 2:Tens are kind of the trophic tens. Some of that is geographically where we are. Some places in the south have a little better gator population, lake Okeechobee, for example. You're going to see bigger alligators come from Lake Okeechobee. It's a giant lake that they've been there forever. Up here we have the St Johns River. That's where our main source of alligators and units that people hunt come from in the area specifically close to us. We just don't see as many big alligators from there. But you know I would say good strong population. You know it's just if you wanted to come in. For example, I have a standing list today of people who want to come in and kill a 13-foot alligator, and that's price upon request. You know, and it's a hey, call me, I will fly in the next day to be there. And you know I mean you just don't see a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know and Go ahead. I was just yeah. So that kind of brings me into the next thing what does make a trophy gator size-wise?
Speaker 2:And also I mean, how old are some of these gators? You know that's an interesting question. So I, um, I spend a lot of time with alligator biologists because not only do we do private land uh egg collection, where we're collecting eggs on some of the biggest produce ranches through the entire state, I've also personally done the public egg collection where we collect eggs with the biologists from actually two biologists from the state as well as a coordinator that that handles the whole public egg collection and we travel from. We did that. I was on the north crew so we would go from south of where I'm at in in coco uh by about another 70 miles and we would do all the way up to the panhandle of the state. Collecting alligator eggs uh took about 17 days, something of that nature.
Speaker 2:So we're on all kinds of waterways picking up eggs, doing all that kind of stuff and talked a lot about the biologists, about various locations, um, size of alligators, age of alligators, all that kind of stuff, and every biologist you talk to has a different opinion on how old the particular alligator is. You know, generally there was a paper written and the paper states that they grow a foot a year until they reach sexual maturity, excuse me, and that's between six and eight years old. And then they're going to grow a maximum of a year to their genetic length, and they're only going to grow, so they don't just grow infinitely long, okay, going to grow, so we don't just grow infinitely long, okay. And so, with that being said, you take in some food conditions, some some weather conditions, water conditions. You know my what, what I generally advertise to everybody is, you know, if alligators 10 foot he's probably a minimum of 14 to 16 years old and a 12 foot alligator is probably, you know, absolute best case scenario, 16 to 20 years old. You know, and the big thing is what you asked about trophies, what most people are considering a trophy, what most guides charge, you know where the big jump is is usually when you hit, get into that over nine foot range. So if that gator hits nine one, for example, now you're kind of getting into a trophy area. You know 10s, 11s, etc. You know for us, and with our price schedule, you know the 9s and the 10s are similar. That's a big jump from an 8, and then your next big jump is an 11. And what we're seeing is less and less of those alligators. You know, 10 years ago you saw more 12s. You know, 10 years ago you saw more 12s. You know, five years ago you saw more 11s. And you know, I really attribute that to more people are interested in the sport.
Speaker 2:The baiting has changed the difficulty level to kill one of those big alligators and it just takes them so long to get that big. I mean, if you look at that four-year time span between a 10 and a 12, for example, then you know that's four years. That alligator has to make it past 10 foot and most people hunting are not gonna, you know, ride past that 10 foot alligator on public land to go kill a 12. Yeah, yeah, because the next guy behind him won't. I mean me personally. If you're on my boat you say, hey, I want to kill a 12. Yeah, yeah, because the next guy behind him won't. I mean me personally. If you're on my boat and you say, hey, I want to go kill a big alligator, I'm not going to ride past a 10 foot gator to go kill a 12 foot gator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because you never know what's going to be up the river, what it's not going to be, sort of thing. Correct, yeah, the tag system there.
Speaker 2:No, actually it's anybody in the US. Now I don't know about. I don't know how it works for Canadians or people from out of state, but anybody in the US can put in for it. Now, like most other places, the state does charge more if you are an out-of-state resident, but we actually get the list from the state of those who got drawn, those who didn't. You know, there's always a variety of conspiracy theories on what happened with the tags. All the out-of-staters got them. It's actually not the case. I mean, it's a very low percentage of people from out-of-state. The bottom line is just that the overall interest in the hunt has grown exponentially, probably since swamp people.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask if that had something to do with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I also believe you know covid. I mean we saw in florida after covid, it was the craziest times you've ever seen. I mean, and and it's not just for us every outfitter in the entire state of florida. 2021 was the year. I mean it was absolutely crazy. We probably hunted more in 2021 than we may hunt ever again in a particular year.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, I think in 2021, we had killed on private land over 100 alligators before March and starting in January, I mean it was just, yeah, everybody in the world was coming down here. They were getting away from whatever scenario they were without getting into politics. Come down here, you know, and we just saw a lot of people. We've been doing outdoor activities. It's fantastic. We love to see people on the floor. So you know that's changed it as well as people. So, speaking, you're seeing 18,000 applicants a year give out about seven permits. It's not. You know, they're not all for the same area, so it's not. You know it's hard to give a ratio, so to speak, but you know some of the better places. For example, they may only give out 22 permits. They may only give out 22 permits and what I think, there is less boat traffic, less number of permits given out, which usually in turn, means that your quantity of bigger alligators is your top.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yep, Well, that makes sense. What is the preferred weapons for the alligator? Because you guys, for killing them, you guys have the bang sticks and that's kind of with the treble hooks. Is it fishing?
Speaker 2:so yeah, so if you did so, if you hunt with us on private land and we're doing free range nine, I would say this year 85% of those hunts are going to be rifle hunts. You know we work very so we're shooting 308 Swarovski optics and we're shooting silencer code suppressors and big on the suppressors. All of our rifles that we shoot, any ranch rifle that we use or rent for our high fence ranch, they're all suppressed. Any of our stuff for gator hunts are suppressed, um, and, and we're running 308s for everything. We're very fortunate as well in the AR platform. Diamondback Firearms has sponsored us so we have a variety of AR-10s where we're shooting, 308s as well. Those are all suppressed. Those 308s we feel like work really really well on any of the game at the High Fence Ranch and they work really really well on the Alligator too. They give you a little bit of room for the shot.
Speaker 2:Placement on the alligator is crucial. So you know now that's uh, that's on the private land stuff. On the public hunt. You cannot use a firearm, so you have to use a bang stick, pocket knife, hatchet, something of that nature, whatever you want, but it can't be any kind of gun. So you know, obviously we manufacture bang sticks. We use bang sticks is what we use. And then we have had 15% of people.
Speaker 2:This year has been real popular for bow hunters. We've had a lot of bow hunters come in and do a lot of bow hunting with us. And you know, again, we're doing most of that on private land where they can actually shoot the alligator with the bow, without the reel. And you know it takes a very, very particular setup to make all of that happen. It's got to be a small pond, it can't be a big area where he can get away. There's a lot of logistics that go into that, a lot of work ahead of time to make sure we can put those clients on those alligators in that scenario. But we've made it happen this year more than we've ever done in the past because we've had that desire of people to come in and do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting. So two things about that. One, why the suppressors for the .308s? And the second question would be what kind of setup for the bows, like the draw weight? What are you guys using for broadheads?
Speaker 2:I'm assuming, not mechanical ones. So I'll go to the bows first and I'll come back to suppressors. Yeah, so, so well, I'll go to the bows first and I'll come back to suppressors. Yeah, um, so everybody who calls me and wants to do a bow hunt, they ask me the same question you know how big an arrow should I need? You know what should I do? Blah, blah, blah. Um, my answer is this bring whatever you have, bring however many errors you have.
Speaker 2:We're going to shoot every arrow in your quiver and when we're done, we're going to pull the alligator up there and cut his spine or shoot him. So you know they're just if you want to have a quick kill. I mean, I think out of and I would say we probably had 20 bow hunters this year, one hunter made that perfect shot where he shot him in the back of the head, spined him, killed him, you know, stone dead. The rest of them, you know they're shooting them. You can shoot them behind the shoulder, but then it takes a while. You know it's you really got to let that animal sit and, and normally everybody, all of my hunters and myself included patience is not our biggest thing. Uh, you know, once we've got an arrow in him. So we put a snatch hook out there, then get him snatched up, pull him up, shoot him a couple times again. Hopefully they get the right shotting, otherwise we'll we'll cut his spine. I'm very big on humane kills, so you want to put him out of his misery as quick as possible.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, though, with alligators, they don't really have feelings. It's not like you shoot them and you know they're. They don't. It's not like a white tail or something like that. You know, yeah, uh, they are truly probably one of the most, if not the most hardiest animals that I've ever been around. I haven't been to Africa or anything like that, yeah, but it's just. They're absolutely insane and the closest thing you will ever see to a dinosaur. You know, from their armor on their back to how we see them with legs bit off, feet bit off. You know, arms ripped off, tails cut off I mean you name it and perfectly healthy. They're insane. They really are an insane animal.
Speaker 1:What would be the draw weight for the bow? What would be the minimum I guess that you'd recommend?
Speaker 2:60 to 70 pounds. If a guy's going to come in and shoot the bow and just do a straight up bow hunt for a gator, I'm going to say 60 pounds. A guy's going to come in and shoot the bow and just do a straight up bow hunt for a gator, I'm going to say 60 pounds. If they're going to get into now, if we bounce back over to the public season and they're going to use a bow with a reel set up and all that, again 60 to 70 pounds. But I'm going to highly recommend to shoot our crossbow. It's set up. We've got a green laser Again. We're shooting ravens, you know, so they're lightning fast. We get about 17 yards, you know, and we've got it dialed in. I mean we're shooting probably a three to four-inch group with that crossbow, with our setup that we're running out of it.
Speaker 2:And it just makes it nice because anybody can pick it up. You know you or you know your buddy or anybody can pick that up. You flip the safety off, point the green laser at it and shoot it, and buddy or anybody could pick that up. You flip the safety off, point the green lights right in the shooting, yeah, and then it's got a reel with line attached to it. Line feeds out of the reel. Uh, buoy pops out of the reel. Then we you know we follow that buoy and get him up there close and then bang stick.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, uh. And then I guess uh, yeah, the suppressors for 308s. Why, uh? I guess it doesn't matter if it's 308 or not, you guys just use suppressors in general for most of your rifles, do you?
Speaker 2:yeah. So, um, we got into the suppressor thing a couple years ago and, um, you know, even my one of my other guides that I hired, he was like, yeah, man, it's kind of a fad. I'm like just just shoot him a little bit. Once you start, you don't go back. Um, and a couple reasons. One, uh, is you know your ears, it's much more pleasant to shoot, um, it's, it's just I can't describe how much more pleasant it is, uh. The other thing is if we are shooting a, you don't see as much on the alligators, but you can definitely hear it but especially if we're, if we have clients who are shooting hogs or, you know, deer or axis or any of that kind of stuff, I can have them shoot and I can close my eyes and let them shoot and I can tell them whether they hit that or not, because you can hear the bullet hit so clearly with the suppressor.
Speaker 1:Oh, so that's a big benefit for the guides.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's huge, Huge, absolutely huge, yeah. The other thing and even we can be we have a ranch house that's on some acreage right in front of the ranch and you know, a lot of times we have hog hunters who are sitting in stands. We don't sit with them on the hog hunts, we're sitting out at the ranch house doing stuff outside, sharpening knives or whatever they can shoot, and I can. We can send them a text and be like, hey, that was a hit or yeah, it sounded like a miss. You know that kind of thing and I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 2:The third big thing is recoil. And you know we're shooting the majority of our bolt guns, our Remington 700s, with heavy barrels, and the Diamondbacks are heavy, they have heavy barrels, so they're heavy guns. As it is, we have rest in all of our stands on our side-by-sides off the big swamp buggy. We have rest in all of our stands on our side-by-sides off the big swamp buggy. And so you can take a 12-year-old little girl, for example, and you can let her shoot a youth 243, or you can let her shoot one of those 308s that's suppressed. She will pick the suppressed rifle every time One. She doesn't have to freehand it. So that's a big benefit.
Speaker 2:But the weight and the suppressor reduces that recoil so much and it's just a mental thing for a child, for the ears, that, um, they prefer to shoot it every time, you know. And um, so we're big proponents. Um, like I said, we've, um, we've got into it now, um, we've got a lot of them, every, every gun that we own, all my personal stuff. When I hunt, when I'm commercially hunting, I shoot a .22 Creedmoor as my personal gator gun that I shoot a lot. We're running that suppressed .22 Hornet. I've got one suppressed. We like our suppressed rifles now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see it's big benefits for the guide and the hunter. It just makes it much for a pleasant experience. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's that's a good answer. I can definitely see why you guys are big proponents of them. The um, yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, no, that's that's interesting with the gator thing. When somebody comes on a gator hunt with you guys I mean what should they, what would you recommend them bringing for clothing? And uh, I mean how it kind of they come in and I know there's different methods with the, with the boats and stuff but just on average, uh, when they start a gator hunt first time, what would you kind of tell them to bring?
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of it's going to depend on the time of year. You know, for example, uh, we hunted, we killed 36 alligators last week. Um, some of those were commercially, a good handful of them were on hunts. To put it in perspective, last Sunday I was at a place in South Florida. At 1046 AM it was 103 degrees.
Speaker 2:So, you know, you don't want to be in heavy hunting clothes because you would possibly die. You know, I mean, it's just, it's crazy hot right now. So you, you know, right now almost everybody is in shorts, dry, fit, you know, like a fishing shirt. Um, we wear a lot of grunden rubber boots or, you know, whatever your shorty rubber boots of your preferences, doesn't really matter the manufacturer, and um, and that kind of thing. On the flip side, if we're hunting at night out of the airboat, you know, I'm going to tell you some kind of pants, some kind of dark shirt. It doesn't have to be camouflaged, but just dark so the lights don't reflect back on them. Always bring rain gear, because there's a you know, certain times of year it's going to. It's just, we're going to get wet, we're going to get rained on. I just assume we're going to get wet, we're going to get rained on. I just assume we're going to get rained on.
Speaker 1:You know that's just how it goes. Yeah, Okay, yeah, I know that answers that. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of segue now into your guys' hog hunting and just a bit of the methods for that. And you know, is the population really out of control? You kind of hear about that in a lot of states. Is it like that there where you guys are at with the wild boar?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know there's I don't know if it's out of control there's more and more people now that are trapping, more and more ranchers that are doing a good job. You know, for us, you know we like to do a lot of hog hunts. We have a lot of people coming in to do hog hunts. It's a lot of fun. It's a great entry-level hog or a great entry-level hunt. You see a tremendous amount of first-time hunters, tremendous amount of kids. We do quite a few bachelor parties, that kind of thing, especially for the dog hunts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we um on our high fence. We have a couple different options. We have condos that we can hunt out of. You know big three-person box blinds. We can ride around and do some hunting as well, where we hunt off the swamp buggy and uh, and then we also do some dog hunts and then we do a little spot stalk as well. So, uh, dog hunts are probably my personal favorite. Yeah, but you know I just love watching the dogs work. I love the excitement of it. You know, having a hog caught by his ear and then, you know, by the dog and you're running there and leg him and the client comes in and he's, you know, dispatched him with a knife or a spear. It's pretty exciting and it keeps everybody together. So it's a great backstreet party type thing, group type thing. We did a Christmas party this year where I think the boss brought in 20 of his employees, you know, and we shot some and killed some with the dogs and just had a really good time. It's just a lot, a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a cool boss. So with the dogs, so the dogs you got your bay dogs right that bay them up and then your catch dogs that go in and grab them and then you lift up by the back legs and then there's kind of like a long knife or a sword that you plunge in. It's behind the shoulder, it's right into the heart, kind of thing. Is that how it works? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Pretty much. You know one thing we're running, we run co-dogs and all of our co-dogs are pretty catchy. You know most of our hogs know the game. So we don't run a lot of bay dogs and then have one big catch dog. Normally we just run. We like to run two dogs at the time.
Speaker 2:I don't like to run and everybody has their own thing. I just like to run a couple dogs but they're real mouthy. So you know most of our all, most to all of our dogs will catch on their own. So you know if, if you've got two dogs that are baying, it's, it's something really, really big and um, and we have them separated. We do meet hogs and we do trophy hogs. Try not to run the dogs on trophies, cause my personal opinion is you're just asking to go get your dog wrecked. With that being said, you know probably some of the what I would call the baddest or the rankest hogs walking is that 200-pound hog with, you know inch and a quarter teeth that are wedded to the gums. You know hogs have a cutter and a wetter. Wetter's up top, cutter's down below.
Speaker 1:When they refer to teeth, you're seeing that's the cutter, but you know a hog just sits there and then when he's opening and closing his mouth, you know popping his teeth, he's just sharpening and they're razor sharp and that's how those dogs get cut. So is that what would make a trophy boar? Would be that 200-plus pound size kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Really, what's the trophy for a hog? Is his teeth, so, like, our differential is inch and a half teeth. Anything with inch and a half teeth or better is a trophy. Anything with under inch and a half teeth is a meat hog, and it's not really necessarily his size, but generally the two go hand in hand. I mean, last week I think, we killed a handful of trophies. Most of those hogs were 240 to 270 and running two and a half to three and a half inches of teeth 240 to 270 and running two and a half to three and a half inches of teeth.
Speaker 1:What would uh are you guys usually?
Speaker 2:mainly 308s for those hunts as well, for the rifles. So you know, we, yeah, we have ranch reynolds, um, those are all 308s again, diamondbacks or our bolt guns, um, but then we have people who bring in guns as well. I can tell you the only two guns that I have said hey, we will no longer allow people to bring in, that's a 556, uh, 223 or 300, blackout, um, and don't get me wrong, like I let me go back to, I shoot a 23 more and that gun works really, really well, but it's very much about the person behind the gun pulling the trigger where they're shooting at all that. And and if I go back to the entry level, where you've got a lot of people who just don't shoot a lot, you know they're bringing in low quality ammo. I've had guys come in with with AR-15s and tracers and stuff like that. I'm like man, that's not. You know, it's just not applicable, and so it was easier for us to ban them.
Speaker 2:My favorite gun when somebody brings in and today and we're into guns, you know I read a lot about them, I have some really good friends who are very into them as far as the new hot rounds and stuff like that, some of the bigger stuff. But, man, it's hard to be a good old. 270 or 30-06, something like that, that's a great round for. Shooting hogs with 308 works really well. Not shooting hogs with 308 works really well. Um, not as big of a fan as the 6.5 creed more, or as I like to call it, the 6.5 need more. But, um, you know, I'm sure we could do a whole nother podcast on uh, on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they do. I mean, for someone that's a little less experienced, or even experienced, I guess they do take. You find quite a bit of knockdown power, those, the bigger hogs do take.
Speaker 2:You find quite a bit of knockdown power. The bigger hogs, yeah. So you know we go over. We actually have a full-body mounted hog at our ranch house and as part of our beginning process we go through, you know, using dogs, gun safety, just everything you can imagine. We, all our guides, spend about 10, 15 minutes, you know, and one of the big things we go over is shot placement and um.
Speaker 2:You know the thing with the hog and especially if you have somebody who's hunted before, they want to shoot them like they shoot, want to shoot a deer, which is they're going to shoot a little bit higher and behind the shoulder and it just doesn't have the same effect. That you see, what we found is really you need to go really low behind the shoulder and um, that way you get a good blood trail or right in the shoulder. Most of our trophies we actually tell people shoot them right in the shoulder, try to break both their shoulders and um. You know that that seems to work the best. Obviously, if, if it's somebody who shoots a lot and shoots well, they can shoot them, you know, dead in the ear, or they can shoot them right between the eyes. But you know we?
Speaker 2:Um hogs, you know, with the exception of maybe the alligators, hogs might be one of the more tough animals that are out there. You know, you'd be amazing. I've seen hogs get shot multiple times and eat it and keep going, and especially with those big boar hogs, uh, where they have the big thick shields and stuff like that. You know what really happens is you're doing damage but that hog may run 200 yards and the fat or the shield just closes up and you just can't see where he's gone or where the blood trail's at, or you don't, because you're really not getting any blood. They're not big. You may get a short blood. Yeah, you may get a blood trail for 10 yards and then it's gone. And you know we've been fortunate, we've seen that happen. We found the whole 100 yards away with zero blood, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just tough and the will to live, sort of thing. And with them too, I'm guessing, fight or flight. Most times they're going to fight.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1:With the dog hunts too. I mean, what skill level could anybody that's never done it before do it?
Speaker 2:Or would you say, you know you have to be somewhat in shape or, you know, have just a lot of? No, I mean, my answer is skill level is no, I mean we're going to go over. You know the guides are going to. We encourage everybody to do as much as they feel comfortable with and you know from, especially when we have a group, we tell everybody, hey, look, we're gonna catch the first one, but we want them to be they, we want it to be their hunt. So we kind of take each group and each hunter and you know, kind of evaluate them as we go and and see what they're comfortable with and kind of go from there.
Speaker 2:I mean we've, we've gone from helping them, spear them to, you know, young girls to. I mean I've had nine year old, uh, boys who have never hunted before. That's their first animal in there. They're, you know, taking a hog with a knife, with the dogs and just eating it up. You know to um, you know to women to, you know, I mean, and everything in between. So yeah, it just kind of depends. I mean I've had guys who they're super amped and they're running, you know, trying to beat the dog. They're like, hey guys, we're going to let the dogs get there first, you know, but yeah, they'll after the first one. We'll show you kind of what the deal is and how it works, and then, if you want to catch him by his hind legs and pick him up, and we're all about. Uh, you know my thing, and what I tell everybody is hey, it's number one is client safety, number two is dog safety. So we'll let you do as much as you want to until we think you might get hurt?
Speaker 1:Yes, would you recommend having nerves of steel to pack along for that hunt? Or?
Speaker 2:Um, you know. Again, this goes back to the Florida man thing. I guess you know, um would I say nerves of steel, no, um, but you know thing. I guess you know, um would I say nerves of steel, no, um, but you know. Again saying this is you know, we get dropped out of helicopters on alligator nests with a stick, yeah, you know. So I mean it's um, you know, no, I mean that to me it's, it's a really, really fun time. You know, I guess, everybody's definition of fun, so to speak right, uh.
Speaker 1:And then I guess clothing, I mean imagine that really uh, differs on the type of hunting that you're doing and stuff. But I mean you're going through a lot of bushes and things like that we say with the dogs on the board.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, so. So my, uh, I'm a firm believer. Uh, straightest point between, uh, or too long, quickest point when you get between two places is a straight line. So, um, anyways, what I'm going with that is, we're going to go through whatever it takes to get there, um, and that can be palmetto bushes, that can be in a pond. I mean, I've got hogs in canals, ditches, ponds, you know, you name it.
Speaker 2:And again, it depends on the time of the year. You know, right now it's really hard to hunt, not in shorts. With that being said, um, having a pair of jeans on can protect your legs quite a bit from saw palmetto, or if the hog gets close to you and hits you accidentally, you know. So, um, um, you know, generally, again, I'm going to, and I like tennis shoes over boots, just because I assume, when we're wet as in overall our property's wet that the hog is going to be in a wet spot, you know. So I assume that we're going to catch them, you know where, tennis shoes just dry faster and they hold, they're not as heavy when they get wet, whereas boots are much heavier. So, um, you know, and I mean, I, I can, I can go on and on and on about stories with hogs and things we've seen and craziness.
Speaker 2:And you know I mean from you know the only person I can say who's ever been hog caught on a hunt is me. Um and um, you know it was in the middle of a pond that was you, my waist, trying to catch a hog and the dog just got him off of the water. But we end up in those places sometimes, and sometimes the hunters think that's the coolest thing they've ever done in their entire life and other times they're wishing they had bought some more dry fruits. Being in the water is not too bad this time of year, being in the water. It doesn't get as cold here, obviously. But when it's in the 40s and you've got to get in that pond, it's a whole different ballgame. You're not near as excited about it.
Speaker 1:Well, I imagine the adrenaline is going pretty bit and that can keep you a little warm.
Speaker 2:Yep, at least for a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, until after. Yeah, that's really interesting. Then, uh, if you want to touch too a little bit on some of the exotic hunts and all that, um, that's it. You guys can do the exotic hunting 365 days a year as well. There's no season on them, or is there tags?
Speaker 2:correct. Yep, yep, that's correct. Yes, yeah, so so we have currently, you know, we're like I said, we're just kind of getting into that world. We've been to that a little over a year now. We have black buck, we have actress deer, we have water buffalo, we have pure David. Pure David is a you know, that's a Chinese animal. It looks like a cross, almost like between a horse and an elk. Pretty cool animal. Lives in the swamp. Water buffalo looks just like a Cape buffalo, only he's Asian and not as mean. Until you get cornered or get him shot, then he turns into a Cape Buffalo. Um, you know, black buck. We've got some really, really quality black bucks today. Um, you know they're black buck is a black buck antelope. They're originally from India, pakistan. Um, they're called black bucks basically because the dominant male turns very black and you know you'll see similar quality bucks that they won't be as dark if they're not as dominant.
Speaker 2:And then you know axis deer, again from India. Of the animals that we have, axis deer hands down the tastiest. You know they eat really really well. You know there's some good arguments out there about they're way better than elk. Some guys who are diehard elk guys will tell you no. A lot of other people will tell you yes. And then there's some other exotics that they say may eat as good or better, but that's an argument for a variety of people that they have Pretty animal cool horns. We've got some great axis bucks. Axis bucks are probably our most popular. We don't. We seem to. As soon as they grow and rub out if they're good, somebody's pulling the trigger on one.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have fallow deer there as well?
Speaker 2:We do not have any fallow deer.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sure they're not native to Florida. Whitetail deer are right.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. So I mean, you know, a lot of our dogs are not native. You know, the biggest thing in Florida is because of chronic wasting. Any serve a day must come from the state of Florida. So anything in the deer species and survey species has got to come from florida. Any of your elk, your whitetails, um anything like that that we put on the high fence, it's all going to come from here. So we have some native uh, whitetails and, um, you know, then we'll bring in a few bucks uh every year for people to shoot. Um, surprisingly, I did not believe that that whitetail hunting in flor, florida would be really popular on the high fence. We had all of our kids shot last year and had people wanting more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you guys do turkey as well.
Speaker 2:Correct. You know turkey hunting is probably the thing I'm least passionate about personally. We have a turkey guide. We do a handful of turkey hunts every year. We could disguise the limit, but we have good property but we really manage it. We only do a handful of bird hunts. We'll do about five to ten a year, something like that on our couple properties that we have. We have the Osceola down here, so they're very, very popular. If you want to kill one, you've got to come down here and do it. So if you're trying to fill your slam, but yep, we do turkey hunts. You know we also do European tower shoots, which is something that's a lot of fun. You know it's like clay pigeons, only with live birds, if you've never been to one.
Speaker 2:Oh that's cool. Yeah, you literally throw the birds out of a tower one at a time and you have a ring around the tower. That's 100 yards away and you have 28 shooters and it's a lot of fun. We do a full catered lunch afterwards, clean all the birds for everybody. So a good corporate event we do probably.
Speaker 1:I think we do seven a year and 50% of the rings usually taken out by corporate groups you know entertaining, so yeah, and then you guys do, uh, like the pheasant hunt as well. Yep, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, all right, yeah, that's what's right yeah yeah, and I will tell you.
Speaker 2:You know, I've had a lot of people say well, that's not a hunt and it's. They are 100% accurate it's not a hunt, it is a shoot.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't make it any less fun you know it's a damn good time yeah, and then, uh, and then you guys also I don't know how popular it is with your other stuff, but you guys do bow fishing there also yep, yep.
Speaker 2:So we, uh, we started bow fishing actually before we had had the ranch and before we started doing a lot of holocaust and stuff. My oldest son, josh, he got into the bow fishing and became really passionate about it. He runs all our bow fishing trips. We have started with a 2072 tracker that was, you know, with their standard bow fishing deal, fished it for about two years, took it apart, took the boat over, dime back. Uh, he worked with him for about six months and had the boat kind of rigged and built to really what he felt like would work best for him and for our clients.
Speaker 2:And, um, yeah, we, uh, we do quite a few bow fishing trips. We do freshwater and saltwater and, depending upon what the client wants to do and really what the weather you know, unfortunately we do, our most popular time is probably march, april, and probably a good 20 30 percent of those trips we have to postpone or cancel because it gets too windy or the weather's bad at that time. Here that's really wind driven, unfortunately in our area that we, we can bowfish.
Speaker 1:I suppose you'd want pretty calm waters for that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, like now's a great time. I mean the water's pretty clean. This week, for example, we've got probably five to eight mile an hour winds for about half the week and then I think it picks up at the end of the week. But yeah, especially if you're trying to do those saltwater trips I mean you can. You know those are the ones that he's the most passionate about that's where you can really shoot some really cool stuff. That's uh, you know you can also eat as well. We've got sheephead, big black drum flounder, you know, just a variety of different saltwater fish to shoot that you can't eat. And then, of course, we get the other stuff about. It's big stingrays. You know a lot of people like to come in. If they bow fish and they're in another state, they want to come in and just shoot a stingray. So we can do some of those tricks as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting. And then uh yeah we could get into so much detail on any one of these subjects here. Uh, I just wanted to go to I mean, you guys are a one-stop shop. When somebody shoots a gator there. Uh, you said you guys do the processing for all the animals that you have there, but also you guys you do the leather work as well yep, so we have a leather guy.
Speaker 2:So you know, what we found when we first got into the processing was that our clients, you know they would come in and they would shoot something and and a gator, and say, hey, we want to get a tan. So we're gonna tan. They're like, well, we'd like to get, you know, some boots made in belts and wallets and. And we're like, well, good luck. And um, we had enough people start asking for that. We're like, you know what we're gonna? We're gonna get this locked down and and now we offer it to anybody who processes with us or doesn't for that. But, yep, we have. Uh, so if you go do a gator hunt and gator hunts over, you want to get your head sent off and mounted. We've got a tax office who picks up directly from us, so you don't have to do anything.
Speaker 2:We take your hide, we'll take it to one of the professional tanneries. There's only three or four in the entire us. We use the one in florida. They get it tanned. It takes about a year. Um, you know, you'll have to pick a color and it's shaved down, ready to go in and make a leather product, and then we can make belts, we can make wallets. We have a whole variety of purses, luggage, like I said, cowboy boots, you name it. We can do it for you, and so it works out really nice. You can come in and spend a weekend, come down here, shoot an alligator or go do an alligator hunt, fly back out and not have to worry about anything, and in six months to a year and a half your products and heads start coming in and everything works out great.
Speaker 1:It's just, yeah, really handy, convenient. You guys just kind of make it so you just sit back, relax and worry about the hunt and you guys take care of the rest.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, that's good. Yep, that's what we like to do. We like for everybody to come in and have a great time and not have to worry about it. We'll handle it for you. And we've got a great office staff Mindy, who's my wife, she runs the office and then she's got the staff in there.
Speaker 1:We've got a great processing crew and you know they do a good job of getting all the meat prepared and ready to go and you know all that kind of stuff. Yeah, grayson, I want to really thank you for coming on the podcast here. It's been interesting and I'd like to have you on again to get more detail into some of the stuff you guys do. What's the best way to contact you and look you guys up for people that are looking to get a hunt or fish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, absolutely. So. We have a couple things. Uh, obviously, central florida trophy hunts. You can find us on facebook or instagram. Uh, you can also go to our website, wwwcentralfloridatrophyhuntscom, or you can call the office. Office number is area code 321-632-8995. And that'll put you in touch with either Mindy or Madison and they'll get you all squared away, get you booked up and you can get down here and go do something fun.
Speaker 1:Sounds like everything there is fun. Yeah, again, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, man. Thank you for having me and you know if you ever want to get down and do some gator hunting, man.